In The Billionaire's Bed
SARA WOOD
He's bedded her…but will he wed her?Catherine can't believe her late landlady has left the manor to workaholic Zach Talent! He may be handsome, but he makes it perfectly clear that he was Catherine off his new property. However, their stormy encounter arouses passion of another kind–and soon she's sharing his bed!But despite the explosive desire between them, Zach insists that this must be a no-strings affair. Catherine knows that she's in love with the man who exists beneath Zach's tough exterior…and to be his mistress is better than to be nothing to him at all….
“Let’s make a deal. You must be used to those. You must understand, Zach—there must be something in this for me. Otherwise, I’m off.”
He looked down at her, reluctant to grant any favors. But she knew that his love for his son would win the day.
“Done!” he said decisively. “But let’s get this clear. It’s just for a month.”
“Agreed.”
“No riotous parties.”
“No.”
Had he come a step closer? It seemed the gap between them had filled with a thick and electrifying heat.
“Next weekend, as part of your duties…I thought…maybe a boat trip.”
She closed her eyes and nodded dumbly. And then she felt something brush her lips. Something warm. Soft yet firm. Every fiber of her being was crying out for Zach to touch her, hold her and make passionate love to her….
She’s his in the bedroom, but he can’t buy her love…
The ultimate fantasy becomes a reality.
Live the dream with more MISTRESS TO A MILLIONAIRE titles by some of your favorite Harlequin Presents
authors.
In the Billionaire’s Bed
Sara Wood
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
‘HI, EVERYONE.’
Catherine tried to sound bright but failed. As she eased her narrow boat alongside Tom’s massive Dutch barge she could see from her friends’ faces that the rumours she’d heard in Saxonbury town were probably true.
Tom, Steve, Nick and Dudley rose from the spacious well of the foredeck, looking alarmingly sympathetic. That made things worse. Her stomach did an impromptu roll of its own accord.
Now she had to face the fact that if Tresanton Island had been sold then her immediate future lay in the hands of the new owner.
Turning her head, she looked back longingly at the beautiful island further up river. She’d had no legal right to be there, even though she’d had the mooring for the past three years. That hadn’t mattered with the tolerant and genial Edith Tresanton as her landlady. But ever since Edith’s death there had been an air of uncertainty about her situation.
Willing hands caught the ropes she tossed. Hitching up her long skirt, she let The Boys—as she called them—haul her on board. Her gypsy-black pre-Raphaelite hair escaped from its binding and she deftly fastened it again, her sweet, fragile-boned face an unusual pallor.
‘Been talking about you,’ Tom said in greeting. ‘Cuppa?’
She shook her head and perched apprehensively on the deck lid. Steve gave her a friendly kiss and wasted no time getting to the point.
‘You know the island’s got a new owner?’ he asked anxiously.
Her heart sank. ‘I suspected it. That means I could be in trouble,’ she said, her hopes disappearing into her tiny size three’s. She rubbed suddenly damp palms on the thin cotton of her flowing skirt. ‘What do you know?’ she asked. ‘Have the people moved in? I didn’t see a car on the bank when I came past.’
‘Removal van’s been and gone. Local traders say a bossy, yuppie London woman’s taken it over,’ Tom answered, spiralling Catherine’s spirits down still further. ‘Fancy yuk-yellow sports car, all chrome and turbo thrust and so’s she. City suit, egg-whisk hair, killer heels and an elaborately painted face.’
‘Not exactly a kindred spirit,’ she muttered.
She’d hoped that a nature lover would buy Tresanton Island. Who else would want somewhere so isolated, so rural? A nature lover would have liked having narrow boats around. Would have considered it romantic. The new owner didn’t sound as if she’d be too empathetic.
‘Yeah. Not our sort—or Edith’s,’ he grunted. ‘A really bossy type. She’s moved her stuff in and cleaned everyone out of expensive gourmet provisions—after screeching with shock-horror because Saxonbury doesn’t stock wheat grass.’ He grinned. ‘Some bright spark directed her to a field for the grass and she went ballistic, calling him an ignorant peasant! That’s all we know.’
Catherine managed a smile then released a huge breath of resignation. It sounded as though there would definitely be changes to the island—and to Edith’s house. The manor’s charming, countrified air would probably be transformed with the addition of a stainless steel kitchen and futuristic technology. And the island laid to lawn.
But what of her? Her wistful gaze lingered on her boat’s scarlet cabin roof cluttered with flower boxes, assorted chimneys and narrow boat paraphernalia. Traditional in style and wonderfully cosy, the narrow boat had been the ideal solution for somewhere cheap to live and work in an expensive area. In all her twenty-six years she’d never felt so insecure.
‘Yellow car’s coming along the lane,’ warned Steve, making everyone sit up sharply.
The colour screamed its yellowness so successfully that it was visible half a mile away. They watched it bumping slowly along. Catherine’s heart bumped too. By the time she motored back to the island and moored her boat the new owner would be in residence.
She stood up shakily, her mouth set. Perhaps she’d be allowed to stay. Edith had let her have a small patch of ground for growing vegetables. And she’d liked to see Catherine’s chickens roaming freely. Maybe this yuppie owner would be equally charmed.
‘Thanks for the information,’ she said, determined to fight her corner. ‘I’d better introduce myself and see where I stand. There’s no point in hanging around and imagining what’s going to happen to me.’
‘Want us to come as your “heavies”?’ suggested Steve, flexing his muscles and adopting a mock-belligerent pose.
She smiled gratefully. Each one of them had helped her enormously in the early days, when the workings of a narrow boat were a mystery to her. All The Boys were poor, but they had good hearts and would do anything for her.
Dwarfed by Steve, she rested her small hand on the thin sleeve of his hole-ridden jumper and made a mental note to knit him another before winter came. If she was still there…
‘I’ll let you know,’ she replied. ‘First I’ll appeal to her better nature. But keep the knuckle-dusters handy in case she hasn’t got one,’ she joked feebly.
‘Get into her good books. Find her some wheat grass,’ suggested Tom drily.
She gave a shaky little laugh. ‘Fat chance!’
‘And if she says your clients can’t use the bridge, or tells you to go?’ Steve asked.
She sucked in a wobbly breath. They all knew that moorings were like rocking horse droppings. Nonexistent.
The thought hit her like a punch in the stomach. It would be the end of her idyllic life. Hello grotty flat in some crime-ridden ghetto. And she felt panic setting in because it would take years to build up her client-base again.
‘I’d have no choice but to leave,’ she answered.
‘Good luck,’ the men chorused with sympathy as she clambered back on board and cast off.
‘Thanks,’ she managed to choke out.
Remarkably, she focused her mind on the tricky task of doing the watery equivalent of a three-point-turn where the river widened. With her stomach apparently full of jitterbugging butterflies competing for the World Title, she straightened the boat up and headed for home on the far side of the island.
Luck? She let out a low groan. Judging from the information about the new owner she’d need something nearer to a miracle.
CHAPTER TWO
ZACHARIAH TALENT didn’t notice the sheet of bluebells which were generously trying to obliterate the woodland floor. In fact, he didn’t even register the existence of the wood itself.
Similarly, hedgerows passed by in a blur of white May blossom, while the verges quite fruitlessly boasted stately pink foxgloves, rising like rockets above the masses of buttery primulas.
City man from the top of his expensively cut dark hair to his polished black shoes, Zach remained oblivious to any of these rural delights.
‘Pretty countryside. Shame about the yokels. They’re dire, I can tell you. Look at that idiot,’ his PA remarked sarcastically, swerving to avoid a lone walker.
‘Uh,’ Zach grunted.
Without looking up from the laptop computer balanced on his knees, he continued to read off a succession of figures into his mobile phone, his trade-mark frown drawing his hard dark brows together.
‘Nearly there, Zach,’ the soignée Jane cooed breathily. ‘Isn’t it exciting?’
Sharply he put Hong Kong on hold and glanced at his PA. She flashed him a smile that seemed worryingly warm. Never one to mix business with pleasure, he met it with his habitual, emotionless stare, his grey eyes cold and forbidding.
Was it happening again? he thought bleakly. And, if so, why did the women he worked with always imagine themselves in love with him? It wasn’t as if he gave them any encouragement. Far from it. He couldn’t be more distant if he tried.
‘It’s just a house. Bricks and mortar. An investment,’ he said curtly.
‘Oh, it’s more than that!’ she declared, alarming him even further with the mingled look of rapture and slyness on her face. ‘It has real character. A home for a family.’ There was a significant pause during which his irritation level increased several notches and then, in the absence of any comment from him, Jane hurried on. ‘It needs modernising, of course. Better facilities all round. But the potential’s there. Huge, airy rooms to set off your elegant antiques and furnishings—and its grounds run down to the River Saxe—’
‘So you said,’ he interrupted, cutting off her estate agent eulogy in mid-flow.
Mentally noting that he might soon have to advertise for a new PA, Zach dealt with his ringing phone, bought a tranche of well-priced bonds on the Hong Kong market and closed a profitable deal on some utilities shares.
‘Have you any idea why Mrs Tresanton left you the house in her will?’ Jane ventured curiously when he’d wrapped the call.
‘No relatives. No one close,’ he replied in his usual curt manner.
But it had been a surprise and he still had no idea why Edith had favoured him. He wasn’t exactly the country type.
To avoid Jane’s unsettling dreamy expression, he looked out of the window and scowled because his headache was getting worse.
The scenery seemed to leap at him, demanding his attention. He had an impression of an explosion of greenery that was almost unnerving.
They were driving along a pot-holed lane beside the river which looked utterly still and so smooth that it could have been enamelled the same blue as the sky. Saxe blue perhaps, he thought idly. He remembered that Edith had often talked of its beauty and had nagged him to call. There’d never been the time, of course.
She had been a good client of his. Almost a mother to him. His mouth tightened in an effort to control the bitter memory of his own mother’s death seventeen years ago, a few months after his father had suffered a fatal stroke.
Odd, how overpowering his grief had been. He’d been eighteen then, but had barely known his parents. They’d both worked so hard for his betterment that he’d been a latch-key kid from the age of five and used to looking after himself. But when they’d died he’d suddenly become truly alone in the world.
Perhaps that was why he had become fond of Edith. Normally he didn’t get close to his clients, preferring to devote himself to managing their financial affairs as creatively and as securely as possible.
But Edith had been different. Although she’d mothered him with constant reprimands about his hectic work schedules, she’d also made him laugh with her odd, eccentric ways during their monthly meetings in London. And laughter was in short supply in his busy life.
‘I hope you like the house,’ Jane said a little nervously, parking her banana yellow Aston Martin on a small tarmac area beside the river. And more petulantly, ‘I just wish you’d checked it over first, before asking me to arrange for all your stuff to be moved in.’
‘No time free. Not with those back-to-back meetings in the States. I’m sure you’ve settled me in very well,’ he retorted crisply, leaping out and looking around for Tresanton Manor.
To his surprise, there was nothing to be seen but the placid river, some black duck things with white blobs on their foreheads, clumps of trees and bushes on a nearby island and stretches of unkempt fields. Apart from the rather piercing trill of birdsong the place seemed eerily quiet. The lack of traffic bothered him. It had implications.
‘So where is it?’ he demanded, feeling decidedly out of place in his sharply tailored business suit and fashionable purple shirt.
Jane teetered a little on her spindly heels, equally incongruous in her formal jacket and tight skirt. Tighter than usual, he suddenly realised. And…had she ever shown cleavage before? Help, he thought. Trouble ahead.
‘Er…the house is over the bridge.’ Meekly she indicated the narrow plank affair that led from the bank to the island.
Zach’s mouth fell open. He put a hand to his throbbing temple.
‘Over…?’ With difficulty he mastered his shock. ‘You’re not telling me that the house is on…an…island?’ he asked with cold incredulity.
Jane looked at him in panic. ‘Zach! You must have read the deeds! Tresanton Manor and Tresanton Island—’
‘No!’ He glared. How could she have ever thought this place was suitable? ‘That’s what I employ you for. To summarise everything. To identify the crucial points. And I think I’d call an island a crucial point, wouldn’t you? Where’s the road across?’ he rapped out.
‘There isn’t one,’ Jane replied in a small voice. ‘We have to walk from here—’
‘We what…? I don’t believe this!’ he muttered. ‘You expect me to park my Maserati here in the open—when I eventually get it back from the garage—to be vandalised by any idle yob who passes?’
‘I don’t think it’s that kind of area…’ Jane began nervously.
‘Every area is that kind!’ Zach muttered, thoroughly disenchanted with Edith’s house already. He could imagine what it would be like, stuck here on a wet wintry day with his bored son, unable to walk straight from an integral garage into the warmth of a welcoming house. Hell. Now what? He’d promised Sam a house with a garden. ‘I can’t stay here. I’ll have to hunt for something else,’ he added.
‘But you can’t do that, remember?’
Zach groaned. He recalled Edith’s peculiar requirement, which had seemed typically nutty but acceptable at the time:
…bequeath Zachariah Talent my house and all its contents, to live in for at least a year, otherwise the house is to be given to the first person he sees when he sets foot on the island.
Unbelievable. The milkman could end up owning two million’s worth of real estate! If there was a milkman in this uninhabited outback, he thought sourly.
‘OK. So I’ll come just on weekends and camp out,’ he growled.
He couldn’t disappoint Sam. But this wasn’t what he’d had in mind at all. He wanted proximity to burger bars, cinemas and zoos. How else did you entertain an eight-year-old?
‘Jane!’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘What the devil are those scruffy boats doing there?’ he demanded, an extraordinary depth of disappointment making him want to lash out at anyone and anything.
She followed his scowl which directed her to the huddled boats, further down-river.
‘Canal boats. Or are they called narrow boats? I believe Inland Waterways allows them to tie up there,’ she replied helpfully.
Zach’s mouth hardened like a trap. They’d be a security risk. Slowly he scanned the area, his expression becoming grimmer as he realised that Jane had also conveniently omitted to tell him that the house was in the middle of nowhere. The jagged pains in his head increased.
This was an unbelievable mess! He’d made a terrible mistake in delegating something this important!
Cursing himself for letting Jane handle everything, he was pragmatic enough to know that there wasn’t much he could do for now.
All right. He’d grit his teeth and use the house on weekends for the required year, but no way was he going to rest until there were decent paths and safety rails to stop his son from falling into the river.
Nor was he going to live permanently on an island where goodness knew who could easily leap from a boat and merrily rob him of his entire art collection.
‘Get on to the garage and have my car delivered here as soon as possible,’ he rapped out. ‘I’m dealing with this mess personally, so cancel any engagements till further notice. I’ll e-mail you with the improvements that I decide will be necessary before the house goes on the market. And find me something more suitable in the meantime where I can live and secure my valuables. In a city. Near restaurants. A gym. Theatres. Understand? Keys!’ Peremptorily he held out his hand, knowing he was being unreasonably curt. ‘Please,’ he growled as the flustered Jane fumbled anxiously in her bag.
She was a good PA. But ever since she’d viewed Tresanton Manor there had been a light in her eye that had boded ill. She was ready to nest and he was in her sights. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to choose sofas and curtains with anyone ever again.
Choking back an urge to rant and rail that his plans had gone awry and his son was unlikely to bond with him in this rural hell, he grabbed his laptop, bade Jane a curt goodbye and strode over the bridge, wondering with some desperation if he would ever win his son’s love.
He’d been banking on this house to help achieve that goal. And only now did he realise how important it was to him that he was loved by his child. Of course, he’d talked about his son’s indifference to Edith, but he’d never let her know how deeply he was hurt. Or even admitted it to himself.
He felt a heavy ache in his heart. Pain tightened his mouth and burned in his charcoal eyes. One day his son would hug him, he vowed, instead of treating him with cool reserve.
Women he could do without in his life. All the ones he’d met socially had rung up pound signs in their eyes when they knew who he was.
And none of the women he’d dated had been able to cope with the realities of his hectic work-load. Nor had his ex-wife. But he wanted to give his son financial security, and you didn’t get rich—or stay rich—dancing attendance on females and taking them out shopping.
In a thoroughly bad mood at the collapse of his dreams, he stomped along the muddy path, occasionally ducking his head to avoid being attacked by the boughs of apple trees. You didn’t have such problems with pavements.
He couldn’t understand why Edith had thought she was doing him a favour by forcing him to live here for a year. How could she call this place a paradise? he wondered grumpily.
And then he noticed the woman.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE was walking ahead of him through the orchard. No, drifting. He stopped dead in his tracks, brought up short by what he saw.
She must have heard his approach because, slender as a flexing wand, she slowly turned to face him, her small face so delicate and fey that he wondered if he was hallucinating. Tiny and graceful, she stood up to her ankles in a sea of buttercups and she looked as though she had just stepped out of a medieval illustration.
Not normally fanciful, he tried to understand why he’d had this impression. It could have been her long, close-fitting skirt flaring out from below the knee, or the long-sleeved soft cream top that hugged her slim figure like a second skin.
Or perhaps it was the hair that made her look like a modern day Guinevere. It was black and cascaded in thick waves down her lissom back from an imprisoning twist of…
He narrowed his eyes in surprise. She’d caught up her hair at the nape of her long neck with a rope of living greenery. Ivy, or something. Entwined with real flowers. Weird.
A hippie flower child, he decided, and scowled. Maybe from one of those boats. Spying out the land. Instinctively he fingered the scar on his forehead.
After the unpleasant experience of a burglary and two muggings—one of which had involved a woman who’d diverted his attention with a plausible sob story—he’d learnt to be suspicious where itinerant strangers were concerned. Even medieval hippies as tiny as this one.
In London you didn’t look strangers in the eye. Never wore an expensive watch. Walked quickly everywhere, locked your car while driving, kept the car revved at traffic lights and stayed alert at all times. That’s how you survived in the City.
‘You’re on my land!’ he growled, deliberately projecting menace.
Her placid expression didn’t alter. She remained very still and calm, as if waiting for him to approach. Much to his surprise, he did. Usually people came to him.
As he glowered his way towards her a small hand came out in a meek greeting.
‘I’m Catherine Leigh. How do you do?’
It was a sweet, gentle voice and before he knew it he had taken the dainty, fluttering fingers in his and was muttering less irritably, ‘Zach Talent.’
Had he noticed how nervous she was? Hastily she retracted her fingers from the firm, decisive grip and clasped them behind her back so that he didn’t see how badly they were shaking.
‘You…said this was your island,’ she began huskily, her face puzzled.
‘Apparently it is,’ he replied, his mouth clamping shut into a hard, exasperated line as if that fact didn’t please him one bit. His intimidating frown deepened and it seemed that his eyes glinted with shards of icy anger.
‘Oh!’
She considered this, deciding that she’d rather deal with the woman with egg-whisk hair and killer heels than this elegantly clad grouch. Then she brightened. The woman must be his wife. Better to wait and talk to her. ‘Are you on your own?’ asked the owner of the frown.
He turned to scan the undergrowth as if marauding bandits might leap out at any minute.
‘Yes. Just me,’ she replied quietly.
‘Hmm.’ He relaxed his guard a fraction. ‘So what are you doing here?’ he shot out.
‘I came to speak to your wife,’ Catherine told him with absolute truth.
‘Did you?’ He sounded unconvinced for some inexplicable reason.
She continued to gaze at him with a pleasant, noncommittal expression on her face and was relieved to see the deep line between his brows easing a little. She noticed a long scar on his forehead and wondered apprehensively how he’d acquired it.
‘Can I see her? Is she in?’
‘No.’
How to win friends and influence people, she thought drily. He really was the most surly of men!
‘Then I think I’ll come back later when she’s at home,’ she suggested gravely.
‘No, you don’t. Wait!’ The command was barked out just as she turned to go.
Caught off-guard as she whirled around, her wide-eyed look of utter surprise seemed to take him unawares too. For a split second she thought his steely eyes had softened to a misty grey.
Then she realised it must have been a trick of the light. When she looked again they were hard and shuttered with no hint of his feelings at all.
‘You’ll talk to me,’ he said sharply. ‘Let’s see if you can come up with a convincing excuse for being here.’
‘Of course I can!’ she replied in surprise, not allowing herself to be riled by his rudeness.
‘In that case, I’m not standing here knee-deep in muck,’ he exaggerated. ‘Come to the house.’
Without waiting for her response to this arrogant order, Zach Talent strode off down the path, his shiny leather shoes squelching in the mud.
Catherine hesitated and then, before she knew it, she was following. She felt almost as if she had been drawn by a magnet. And as she walked and marvelled at the man’s compelling authority she ruefully prepared to tug her forelock. A lot.
She heaved a sigh. Somehow she felt it wouldn’t help even if she tugged out handfuls of hair in the process.
Zach was clearly one of those suspicious types who imagined everyone was trying to pull a fast one. He’d looked at her as if she might be planning something evil.
From his manner, she reckoned that he also liked to be in control. He wasn’t the kind of man to do anyone a favour. For him, she suspected that it would be a matter of honour not to show any sign of weakness by granting concessions to any passing peasant.
Anxiously she studied his taut body as he strode rapidly along, rocketing out staccato orders to someone on his mobile phone as if every second and every word was precious and not to be wasted by adding pleasantries.
With gloom in her heart, she hurried after him through Edith’s—Zach’s!—beautiful wild-life garden. And she wondered how long it would be before Killer Heels and The Frown strimmed every blade of grass within an inch of its life and installed soulless carpet bedding. Perhaps even artificial turf and security lights. With a helipad.
She mourned for the island’s bleak future. Lifting her bowed head, she listened to the insistent warble of a blackcap, high on its perch in a lemon-scented azalea. It was joined by the unmistakable trill of a robin, singing its heart out from an oak tree.
Ring doves were cooing lovingly from the gnarled old mulberry tree and occasionally she heard a watery scuffle as a mallard drake enthusiastically courted a lady friend.
She and Zach were making their way through the rhododendron walk. Here, the peeling trunks arched over their heads like arms reaching out to embrace one another. In a few weeks the walk would be a blaze of colour.
The perfume of the lilies of the valley beneath made her catch her breath in wonder and she believed that, although Zach’s ear was still attached to his phone, even he had slowed his relentlessly brisk stride to savour the beauty of the garden.
Still holding her breath, she waited till he reached the glade. And was pleased to see that he had stopped, briefly looking around. But her pleasure was short-lived. When she quietly came to stand beside him, she realised that the man was a heathen after all.
‘Sell,’ he was curtly instructing some hapless minion, his hand massaging the back of his neck abstractedly. ‘And let’s have your investment strategy for the Far East by the end of the day…’
Barbarian! Infuriated by his insensitivity, she firmly shut him out. They were on different planets. This could be the last time she enjoyed the poignantly familiar sight that met her eyes, and she wanted to savour it to the full.
Bluebells had colonised the grassy glade, creating a sea of sapphire waves as the breeze stirred the nodding bells. The blossom-laden branches of ancient apple and pear trees bowed down almost to the shifting patches of blue, but where the path ran, ornamental Japanese cherry trees formed a vista to the house.
Framed dramatically, and with the shedding cherry blossom fluttering to the ground like confetti before it, the lovely Georgian manor house basked in the sun, its honey stone walls glowing as if they’d been dipped in liquid gold.
Entranced, she looked up at Zach for his reaction, hoping that he’d been stirred by the glory of it all. But with his frown resolutely in place he was intently tapping in a new number on his wretched mobile.
‘Tim? About those Hedge Funds,’ he growled, giving his mud-spattered shoes a basilisk stare.
She despaired, doubting that the funds were a charitable donation to the preservation of England’s beautiful country hedges.
He’d seen nothing. Not the rich dark throats of the dazzling white azaleas brushing his jacket, or the ladies fingers, violets, forget-me-nots and scarlet pimpernel which were shyly peeping from the undergrowth beside the path.
Deaf to everything but the grinding machine of business, he’d heard nothing of the jubilant birds filling the island with sweet song. And he was too busy sniffing out a deal to register the mingled fragrances that drifted on the slight breeze, or the musty, warm aroma that arose from the leaf litter in the surrounding woodland.
Edith’s heaven was totally lost on him. Catherine watched sadly as he strode on, discussing High Fidelity Bonds instead of being alive to the wonders of the natural world around him. She felt a wave of sadness jerk at her chest. He would never love this place as she did.
It was small consolation that he hadn’t ploughed straight through the bluebells, but had skirted the edge. He wasn’t a total heathen then. But she could see that he would have no empathy for Edith’s carefully rampant style of gardening.
Zach and his wife were obviously people with different values and priorities. Sophisticates, who lived the fast life of the City.
Catherine knew instinctively that they would definitely not approve of the way she earned her living. Nor would they be sympathetic towards a woman who chose to live on a boat like a water gypsy.
Her face fell. She might as well accept now that she’d probably be hurled out on her ear. She’d be obliged to wander the rivers and canals of England until she found a vacant mooring that she could afford. And then she’d have to start building up her clientele all over again.
She bit her lip, trying to stop herself from crying with frustrated anger. And she wondered crossly why this man had taken on Tresanton Manor when it was so patently wrong for him.
With her ears assailed by a barrage of fast-paced business deals which broke the gentle, monastic peace of the magical garden, she trudged silently towards the house she loved, aching to think that not only would she be leaving the island and all her friends, but that a Philistine and his wife would be ignorant of its joys.
She had to try to persuade him that there were benefits in having someone around to keep an eye on things. But in her heart she knew that she didn’t stand a chance.
Oh, Edith! she sighed. If you only knew who was about to desecrate your lovely island!
CHAPTER FOUR
‘ALL these keys!’ Grumbling, Zach was turning the huge bunch in his hand, trying to find the one that opened the main door.
‘It’s like this one,’ Catherine said with commendable patience.
Tiredly she lifted the rope line at her waist and selected Edith’s key from the others for comparison.
Zach stiffened. ‘You have a key?’ he barked in staccato consternation, as if she’d committed a crime. Or was about to.
‘I often came to see the previous owner,’ she explained, her spirits at an all-time low. ‘She gave me one to let myself in.’
Zach’s eyes narrowed and fixed on her like heat-seeking missiles.
‘Have you been in the house since she died?’ he shot out suspiciously.
Bristling, she regarded him with the level and reproving gaze of a Victorian schoolmistress confiscating jelly beans from a naughty child.
‘You mean have I nipped in to steal anything?’ she flung back haughtily. ‘Brass fittings? A marble fireplace or two? A staircase, maybe?’
‘It happens.’ He didn’t seem embarrassed by her bluntness. ‘Though I suppose you’re not likely to admit to theft.’
His audacity was breathtaking. Catherine inhaled deeply. It was that or hit him and she didn’t believe in violence.
‘I haven’t stolen anything. In fact, I haven’t set foot in the house since I found Edith in her bed,’ she informed him, the faint tremor in her voice betraying how painful that discovery had been.
‘You found her?’ He seemed to be on the verge of saying something—his sympathies, perhaps—but, thought Catherine darkly, he managed to stop himself in time from doing anything so remotely human. Instead, he grunted. ‘Hmm. I’ll have to take your word for it, then,’ he muttered, but his eyes lingered on her tremulous mouth thoughtfully.
‘Or you could ask around,’ she said, tightening her lips in a rare display of anger, ‘and then you’d learn that I don’t have a dishonest bone in my body!’
To her discomfort, he examined her with clinical detail, as if to check how honest her bones might be. His intense scrutiny brought a flush to her face and she lowered her startled nut-brown eyes to avoid his road-driller stare.
‘Don’t think I won’t do that,’ he snapped.
Her mutinous gaze flashed up to his again. ‘Can’t you read faces? Don’t you realise the kind of person I am?’
He seemed to flinch and withdraw into himself. The hard and impenetrable coldness he was projecting made her shiver, as if she’d stepped into cold storage.
‘I make it a habit never to trust anyone until I have overwhelming proof of their integrity.’
‘You must find it hard to make friends,’ she observed drily.
His gaze burned angrily into her. ‘I’d like that key,’ he growled.
With her own dark eyes conveying her scorn, she eased it off the cork float that had twice saved her boat keys from sinking to the bottom of the river.
OK. She’d blown it. But she wouldn’t be bullied. If standing up to this monster meant that she’d have to leave, then that would have to be her fate.
She had never disliked anyone before, always finding good in everyone she met. But this guy was without any decent characteristics at all.
And he owned Edith’s island! Conquering her misery, she tipped up her small chin in a direct challenge.
‘Take it.’ She thrust the key at him. ‘I won’t be needing it any more,’ she bit out, stiff with indignation.
‘Darn right you won’t,’ he muttered, taking it from her.
Tossing back her tumbling hair and with protesting cherry blossom falling from the ivy tie, she took an angry intake of breath. She felt close to breathing out fire and brimstone and melting Zach Talent where he stood!
‘No. You’re no Edith, breathing sweetness and light. So I doubt that I’ll be popping in to play gin rummy with you,’ she snapped, ‘or to help you patch your sheets or paint rainbows in the bathroom!’
Clearly astonished by her outburst, he hooked up an eyebrow and stared deeply into her defiant eyes—which rounded in confusion when she felt something go bump somewhere in the region of her heart. Shocked, she pressed a fluttering hand to her breast in bewilderment.
An expression of liquid warmth eased the tautness of his face and then was gone. But in that brief flash, when vibrant life lit smoky fires in his grey eyes and the corners of his firm mouth lifted with hungry desire, she felt as though she’d been felled by a thunderbolt.
After a breathless second, while something hot and visceral seemed to link them both in its fatal flames, he spun furiously on his heel to plunge the key into the keyhole with brute force.
Quivering, she stood gazing in horror at his broad and powerful back while he struggled irritably with the tricky lock. What had all that been about?
Sex, she thought—the answer nipping with alarming boldness into her head. She cringed with mortification. Quite unexpectedly, she had discovered that fierce passions lurked beneath Zach Talent’s granite exterior.
And, more shocking, within her, too. He was married! How could she?
The surging fizz of her blood, and the sense of danger and excitement which had electrified the air between them, was something she’d never known before. She had never believed such a force could exist—or that it might one day seek her out.
Love, she’d fondly imagined, would be a gentle, warm sensation. Like sinking into a deep bath. With love, would come the joy of eventually uniting with the person you trusted and adored above all other people. The union would be sweet and beautiful, a meeting of mind and body and soul. Two people expressing the totality of their love.
But she had been taken unawares by the effect of Zach’s raw, sexual attraction. Never had she expected to feel this harsh, primeval urge of nature that owed nothing to love and everything to pure, animal instinct. It was humiliating that she should. And, given the fact that she knew his marital state, it demeaned her.
It only showed her innocence, she thought wryly, that she could be so easily zapped into a quivering mess by a rogue City trader—who was also her unwitting landlord!
How silly to be affected. He certainly hadn’t known what he’d been doing, or that one unguarded and casual look from him could turn her insides out!
Men were supposed to think about sex every six seconds, she’d read. She supposed that she’d been in his eyeline at the time.
She made a face. How she pitied his wife! He’d be a terrible lover. He’d probably fit in his embraces between calls to New York and the London Stock Exchange!
Would he take his mobile to bed? she wondered, warming to her theme. Very likely, she conceded and her face relaxed into a broad grin at the thought of his wife’s fury at being interrupted by a discussion on High Fidelity bonds at a crucial moment.
Stifling a giggle, she was relieved to find that her pulses had stopped careering about in hysteria and that her body had calmed down after its peculiar insurrection.
It had been a blip in her hormonal activity. The result of Zach’s overwhelming good looks and perfect physique. Plus the frisson of being in close proximity with an Alpha male.
She was susceptible to superficial looks, it seemed. Well. If a man could ogle with impunity, so could she.
‘You’re smiling,’ he accused gruffly.
He had pushed the door open and was standing back, waiting for her to enter. With understandable caution she flicked her amused eyes up to his and was horrified to find herself immediately swimming for her life.
‘Isn’t it allowed?’ she retorted.
But her defiance was spoiled by a dismaying huskiness.
He shrugged. ‘Be my guest. But share the joke. Or is it on me?’ he asked suspiciously. And he searched around for bandits again.
She waved a deprecating hand.
‘Forget it. You wouldn’t understand!’
‘Try me,’ he said with underlying menace.
She read too much into that and found herself stupidly blushing.
‘Absolutely not!’
What did he mean by saying the joke might be on him? Why was he so wary of her motives? Desperate to hide her flushed face, she hastily bent to remove her shoes before heading for the farmhouse kitchen, glad to sit down and give her jellied legs some relief.
‘You do know your way around,’ he drawled speculatively, appearing in his stockinged feet.
Nice feet, she noticed. High arches. Crossing one leg over the other, he leant, dark and brooding, in the doorway. And a curl of excitement quickened her breath.
So she gritted her teeth and said nothing. All her energies were concentrated on controlling her wilful hormones in case their eyes met while his brain was connecting with his loins again.
‘Glad you made yourself at home,’ he added with dry sarcasm.
Catherine jumped up. ‘Oh! You must think I’m so rude. I’m sorry,’ she said hastily, remembering her manners. This was his home now. She fixed him with her dark chocolate eyes, suitably apologetic. ‘Forgive me,’ she murmured contritely. ‘It was force of habit.’
His intently focused stare was disconcerting. Something had happened to his mouth. It seemed to be fuller. Beautifully shaped. The tip of her tongue tasted her own lips as if in anticipation.
Wicked, wanton ideas flashed through her mind before she could stop them. Like putting her hands on his warm chest, standing on tiptoe and kissing those classically curved lips till he melted. Appalled beyond belief, she clamped down on the impulse ruthlessly.
Somehow she dragged her gaze away and lowered her thick lashes, sick to the stomach by her runaway feelings. She felt bewildered by what was happening to her strong sense of morality.
‘Habit? Does that mean you lived here at one time?’ he asked in a slow kind of slur, quite different to his earlier speech. And so sexy as to set her nerves jangling. ‘Or did you merely come to stay in the house?’
‘No.’ Hot and bothered, she struggled to regain the clarity of her voice. ‘I’ve never lived here. Though Edith asked me to, a few months after we first met.’
Zach looked puzzled. ‘And you refused?’
‘I like my independence,’ Catherine replied. ‘I’ve lived alone for ten years, ever since I was sixteen. Edith understood, once I’d explained. Our friendship wasn’t affected.’
‘Did you know she had an extensive portfolio?’ he shot out.
‘Not unless you translate that for me,’ she countered, annoyed by his City-speak. ‘I only learnt English and French at school,’ she added with rare sarcasm.
‘She was very wealthy,’ he drawled.
‘Really? Are you sure?’ she said in surprise. ‘She lived very simply.’
‘But she also owned this house and island,’ he pointed out.
‘Plenty of people live in big houses they’ve inherited—yet they’re as poor as church mice. Places like this cost a great deal to keep maintained. If you see someone like Edith making economies, turning worn sheets sides to middle and rarely buying any clothes, you assume they’re hard up,’ Catherine retorted.
His sardonic eyes narrowed. ‘Did she ever help you out financially?’
‘Certainly not!’ Catherine looked at him askance. ‘She wouldn’t ever have been so crass! I stand on my own feet. I’d never respect myself otherwise!’
‘But you were a frequent visitor and made yourself at home,’ he probed.
‘Yes. As a friend. When I called, I’d let myself in. Edith would be sitting there,’ she explained, indicating the comfortable pine armchair on the opposite side of the big table. ‘And I’d sit here.’
Her eyes were misty with memories when they looked up into his and met a blaze of answering fire.
There was a hushed pause while the air seemed to thicken and enfold them both. Catherine floundered. Some kind of powerful force was trying to draw her to him. She could hear the thudding of her heart booming in her ears.
Panicking, she lifted a fluttering hand to fiddle with her hair. The caress of his eyes, as she curled a strand around her ear, made her stomach turn to water.
At last he spoke, quietly and yet with a grating tone, as if something was blocking his throat.
‘If you knew her well, then you might be able to help me.’
‘Help you?’ she repeated stupidly, playing for time while her brain unscrambled itself and began to rule her body again.
Almost vaguely, he glared at his trilling phone, immobilised it and clipped it on to his belt. Then he took a deep breath.
‘Yes. But first I need a coffee,’ he announced, brisk and curt once more. ‘So, for a start, any idea where the kettle might be?’
‘On the Aga.’ Relieved to be involved in something practical, she pointed to the scarlet enamelled stove, one of Edith’s few extravagances. ‘I didn’t turn it off. I thought it would be best if it was cosy and welcoming in here, for whoever came to view the house.’
He looked at the kettle uncertainly, as if he didn’t know what to do with a piece of equipment that didn’t hitch up to an electric socket. She took pity on him, deftly filling the kettle with water and carrying it to the hob.
Her skin prickled. He had come very close and was watching what she did. Slightly flustered by the invading infusion of heat in her body, she lifted the hob lid, put the kettle on the boiling plate then hurried over to the dresser.
As she lifted down the mugs her hand faltered and she stared blindly into space, thinking of the countless times she and Edith had chatted together at this very table.
‘I’ve had groceries delivered,’ Zach announced crisply, rummaging in the cupboards. ‘It’s a matter of finding them. Coffee do you as well?’ He waved an expensive pack of ground coffee at her, only then noticing her mournful face. ‘What’s the matter?’
Catherine bit her lip and unearthed Edith’s cafetière, selecting an herb tea for herself.
‘I miss her,’ she said softly, her eyes misting over again. It was odd. She rarely cried. But her emotions had been tested to the limit over the past ten days. And especially during the past hour. ‘I miss her more than I could ever have imagined,’ she blurted out.
‘Hmm. You were very close, then?’
The low vibration of his voice seemed to rumble through her body. She shuddered, thinking that if this man ever turned his attention to a woman and opened up his emotions, she wouldn’t have a chance.
‘We were like mother and daughter. I was devastated to—to find her,’ she whispered, making a hash of spooning the aromatic coffee into the pot.
The spoon was taken from her hand. For a moment their fingers were linked: warm, strangely comforting. Horrible flashes of fire attacked her loins and she snatched her hand away in appalled fury, turning her back on him and feeling stupidly like bursting into tears of utter shame.
‘Mother and daughter,’ Zach repeated in a voice rolling with gravel. She heard him suck in a huge breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said flatly. ‘It’s obvious that her death has touched you deeply.’
She hunched her slight shoulders and could only nod. She didn’t want to break down in front of this hard-hearted stranger. But losing her beloved Edith, with all her merry, wacky ways, plus the prospect of never seeing the island again, just made her want to wail.
‘I—I came to check on her every day. We’d have breakfast together,’ Catherine mumbled painfully. She was torturing herself and she didn’t know why she was confiding in someone she disliked so much, only that she had to do so. ‘She made wonderful bread. We’d lather it with butter and home-made jam or marmalade and watch the birds demolishing our fat balls.’
Zach looked puzzled. ‘Your what?’
‘Fat. Impregnated with nuts and seeds,’ she said listlessly. ‘We melt the fat, stir in the nuts and so on and pour the mixture into pots till it sets. We—I—’ she stumbled, ‘—only provide seed now.’
‘Really?’
Feeling forlorn, Catherine gazed at the trees outside the window, adorned with bird feeders. Two long-tailed tits were currently availing themselves of the facility.
‘Yes. You need to vary the food, depending on the time of year and whether the birds are nesting,’ she advised absently.
‘And you’ve been coming over here and doing this ever since Edith died,’ he remarked with disapproval.
Dumbly, she nodded. ‘Someone had to,’ she mumbled, sensing that the birds would have to fend for themselves through the winter in future.
‘You won’t, of course, be doing that again,’ said Zach sternly, confirming her worst fears. ‘I value my privacy and I don’t want people wandering about my land, particularly when I’m not here.’
She looked up, her eyes wide and watchful.
‘Won’t you be living here all the time, then?’
He grimaced as if he’d rather find a convenient cave in the Himalayas.
‘No.’
‘You don’t like it, do you?’
‘Not much.’
Presumably the wife had bought the house without his knowledge. What an odd thing to do. Unless his wife was the one with the money.
‘Poor Edith,’ she said quietly. ‘She often said she had great plans for this place when she’d gone. But she’d never tell me what she meant. I didn’t even know it was on the market.’
‘It wasn’t. She left it to me in her will.’
Catherine’s mouth fell open in amazement. ‘You?’ she gasped. ‘I don’t believe it! You weren’t even at her funeral—’
‘I don’t go to them,’ he said, with an odd tightening of his mouth.
There had been an ostentatious wreath, Catherine remembered, a sharp contrast to the country flowers she and her boating friends had placed on the coffin. The florist’s card bore just one word. ‘Farewell.’ Not the most heartfelt message she’d ever seen, but typical of someone like Zach. And now she was intrigued.
‘You were the lilies,’ she said.
‘I was the lilies,’ he confirmed.
Catherine’s eyes widened. Knowing Edith as she did, it seemed inconceivable that Zach and the old lady could have any point of contact!
‘How would Edith ever know someone like you?’ she wondered aloud.
‘I run an investment company. I was her financial adviser and I managed her money.’
She nodded. That made sense. But Edith wouldn’t have liked him enough to entrust her precious island to his smooth, City hands!
‘Why would she give the island to you?’ she asked in confusion. ‘You’re the last person on earth—’
She clamped her lips together. She’d said too much.
‘You’re right,’ he said, his mouth curling in wry amusement. ‘I don’t understand either. For some wacky reason known only to Edith, she wanted me to live here.’
‘But you must already have a house!’ she declared, visualising an opulent mansion with four swimming pools and obsequious servants tugging their forelocks like crazy.
‘No. A flat in London.’
And that, she thought, would suit him perfectly. Something in stainless steel with furniture that looked stylish but was hell to use, something in a smart and expensive district.
‘Well, you can’t want this island!’ she argued.
‘You’re right. I don’t.’
For a moment, Catherine felt a glimmer of hope. He’d off-load it on to someone else—someone more empathetic—and she’d have a better chance of persuading the next owner to let her stay.
‘I see,’ she said, perking up considerably. ‘You’ll put it on the market, then.’
‘I don’t discuss my business,’ he replied cuttingly.
Suitably rebuked, Catherine nodded, still delighted that their acquaintance would probably be short and sour.
‘I don’t blame you,’ she confided. ‘The path gets horribly muddy in the winter. You can see what it’s like now, even with the few showers we’ve had recently. And of course you’re very isolated here.’ She remembered the wheat grass. ‘No city amenities. A distinct lack of exotic food.’
He gave her a thoughtful and searing look which suggested he knew exactly what she was up to.
‘But despite all these problems, you…love it all,’ he observed in a low tone.
Her eyes rounded. ‘How do you know that?’
There was a pause, during which she noticed the increased rise and fall of his chest.
‘The way you looked at the bluebells.’ Apparently about to say something else, he cleared his throat instead.
‘You noticed them, then?’ she said drily.
‘In passing.’ Zach tilted his head to one side and gave her another speculative look. ‘If you were as close to Edith as you claim,’ he mused, ‘why didn’t she leave you the house and land?’
Catherine smiled, thinking of her conversation with the old lady.
‘Oh, she said she was planning to do that. But I told her I didn’t want it,’ she answered solemnly.
He gave a snort of disbelief. ‘I find that hard to accept,’ he said scathingly.
‘It was a practical decision. How would I afford to run it?’ she argued.
‘With her money, of course.’
‘But I didn’t know she had any!’ Catherine protested.
‘Odd that she didn’t tell you,’ he mused.
‘I didn’t give her a chance. I told her that I’d rattle around in Tresanton Manor on my own and feel lonely. And my friends might not come and visit me any more.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because they’re ordinary people and they’d feel intimidated,’ she said simply.
‘You could have sold it.’
She stared, uncomprehending. ‘What would be the point in being given a house and then immediately offloading it?’
‘Are you deliberately being provocative, or are you financially naïve?’ he marvelled sarcastically. ‘The point is that you would have made a lot of money.’
Money. It obviously ruled his life. Acquisitions, material possessions, they were all he saw, all he knew. Odd that she was so attracted to him. Perhaps it was the magnetism of opposites. Even now, alienated by his cold obsession with wealth, she felt an undeniable feral thrill from his extreme masculinity.
But where to start, to explain her philosophy of life? He wouldn’t understand it for a moment. His eyebrow hooked up cynically as though she must be lying because she hadn’t come up with an explanation. That galvanised her to give him one.
‘Edith knew my views on living simply,’ she said with quiet passion. ‘I wouldn’t want more money than I knew what to do with. Besides, I’d worry like mad if I had money invested in the stock market.’
‘Think of all the new clothes you could have had,’ he suggested.
‘I have all I need! If I want something like a winter coat, I work extra hours. I already have a home that means a great deal to me. I truly have everything I want. Why should I rock the boat by changing my circumstances? I could end up very unhappy and out of my depth. Edith knew me well enough to know that quality of life is more important to me than material possessions. She accepted that because it was her philosophy too.’ Catherine smiled fondly.
Clearly baffled, he shook his head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘No,’ she said with a gentle sorrow. ‘I don’t suppose you do. But… Supposing I had accepted her offer. It would have changed the way people regard me, especially if she’d left me all her money too. As I said, my friends would have been ill at ease in the manor and very conscious of the differences in our situations. If I bought them a round of drinks in the pub, they might think I was being patronising. If I didn’t, they’d think I was mean. You can’t win. When someone’s financial circumstances change, the attitude of people around them changes too. I have good friends, people I am very fond of,’ she said, gazing up at him earnestly. ‘I don’t want to lose their unquestioning friendship. It means everything to me.’
‘Living in an expensive house you’d soon make new friends,’ he remarked cynically.
‘Exactly! They would be drawn by my apparent wealth,’ she cried with heartfelt passion. ‘That’s the last thing I want! My friendships are genuine. People like me for who I am, not what I am or how much money I’ve got. We do one another favours, which makes for a wonderful sense of community and protection. I am very happy and I’d be a fool to jeopardise that happiness. I explained all this to Edith and she realised that I already had…my…paradise.’
Her voice had faltered towards the end of the sentence. Any moment now and it could be Paradise Lost.
The kettle began to sing. Just in time, she managed to stop him from lifting it and burning his hand. Unfortunately her dash to the stove meant that they ended up body to body, his arms wrapping around her protectively when she cannoned into him.
‘Hot,’ she babbled breathily, her flapping hand indicating the kettle. But all she could feel was the fiery furnace of his chest. The frantic beating of her imprisoned heart. She was too shocked to move.
‘Hot. I see,’ he murmured, his mouth a sinful curve as his head seemed to bend low to hers.
Scorn laced her eyes. Another married man on the make, ready for any opportunity. Buster, she thought, your six seconds are up.
‘I’ll make the drinks,’ she snapped, glaring at him.
The grey eyes chilled. The sinful curve disappeared and she was abruptly released.
‘You do that.’
With elaborate care she filled the cafetière and placed it on the table. Then she added hot water to the herbal tea bag and slid, subdued, into her chair again.
Her pulses were galloping like a herd of wild horses. The man was so packed with rampant male hormones that he was a danger to her self-respect. She had to get away.
Her heart sank. That meant she must broach the subject of her mooring without any further beating about the bush.
She’d hoped to prepare the ground by chatting in a companionable way so that he felt at ease with her, and therefore more inclined to let her stay. But, she thought gloomily, a leisurely approach was out of the question now.
‘Have you thought of a reason for wandering about my island?’ he asked sardonically before she could come up with her opening line.
Her shoulders slumped. Not the most promising of starts.
‘Edith let me moor my boat on the far side,’ she began, deciding on a full frontal attack.
‘What kind of a boat?’ The frown was working hard as he pulled a pack of painkillers from inside his jacket and popped out two pills. ‘Do you row over here from the village or something?’
Catherine wondered if his bad temper was due to his headache. He’d been rubbing his head a lot, she recalled.
‘It’s a narrow boat,’ she explained. ‘I live on it.’
His face was a picture. Hastily she took advantage of his astonishment.
‘I was wondering, if temporarily—’
‘No.’
She blinked. ‘You haven’t heard what I was about to say!’
‘I’m not stupid. I make my living by putting two and two together. You want to continue the arrangement. The answer’s no.’
‘Surely, if you’re going to sell—?’
‘All the more reason to get rid of any illicit vagrants who call in whenever the fancy takes them.’
Her face flamed at the description. ‘But it’s—!’
‘No.’
Her mutinous gene seemed to assert itself. ‘Why?’ she demanded, her eyes blazing with anger.
Zach’s gaze dropped, his thick black lashes a heart-stopping crescent on his cheeks as he pushed down the cafetière plunger slowly then poured out the coffee, filling the kitchen with its rich aroma.
‘Nobody would buy this place with itinerants tied up to its banks. And while I’m still here I want privacy and security. I’m not likely to get that with you camping out in the reeds and thinking you can treat my island like your own garden, to visit whenever you feel like it,’ he replied irascibly.
Catherine thought gloomily that it was just as well she hadn’t mentioned the chickens or the vegetable plot.
‘You wouldn’t know I was there,’ she persisted.
He looked her up and down. There was almost a dry amusement in his expression, although she doubted that his mouth cracked into a smile more than once a year.
‘Don’t you believe it,’ he said, as cold as the Arctic. ‘The answer’s no. Get used to it.’
The cracked ice eyes tried to freeze her resolve over the rim of the mug. She’d never heard such a definite refusal in her life. But what did she have to lose?
‘I can understand your reservations, but think of the advantages,’ she coaxed, all soft sugar and reason. ‘I could keep an eye on things while you’re away—’
‘Forget it,’ he snapped, swallowing both pills with a gulp of coffee. ‘I’ll install an alarm system.’
She winced, imagining sirens wailing across the peaceful countryside and emptying it of animal life for ever.
‘OK.’ She sighed. ‘Your position is clear. Nevertheless, I think I’ll wait and see what your wife has to say,’ she told him, playing her last, desperate card.
‘You’ll have a long wait,’ he muttered.
She frowned. ‘I don’t see why. She’s been here several times already. Everyone’s seen her. She drives a yellow car and she supervised the men in the removal van—’
‘Word does get about,’ he drawled.
‘That’s because the removal men didn’t get a tip,’ she said tightly. ‘They went into the local pub for a much-needed drink and complained that your wife was tight-fisted—considering they had to trudge across the bridge and through the orchard with everything you own!’
‘I’ll rectify that. But your gossips shouldn’t jump to conclusions,’ he shot back. ‘She’s my PA, not my wife. I’m divorced.’
Somehow she managed to stop herself from declaring that she wasn’t surprised. Her fingers played with the handle on her mug. The woman with egg-whisk hair had been a long shot, but a possible ally, nevertheless. Now her last hope was gone. Her body slumped a little in the chair.
‘There’s no way I can persuade you to let me live here till the new owner takes over?’ she begged in a small voice. ‘You see, I’ll lose my business if I can’t work from my boat—’
‘Wait a minute!’ His frown was ferocious. ‘I had the impression that you were asking to moor here occasionally. You’re talking about a permanent arrangement?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted meekly. ‘I’ve been here three years, you see. It would mean nothing to you, to let me tie up, but it would be everything to me. My whole livelihood would go if I have to leave. I have people who rely on me for regular—’
‘That’s your problem, not mine. I want you gone. See to it.’
Catherine rose to her feet, wondering what he would look like with half a pint of blackcurrant tea poured over his head. But dignity stayed her hand.
‘Very well. I’ll go,’ she said coolly. ‘But when it’s known how you’ve treated me, it will be your problem, too.’
‘Is that a threat?’ he growled.
She shrugged. ‘I just know what the local people are like. Treat them with courtesy and respect and they’ll go to the ends of the earth for you. Treat them or their friends badly…’ She shook her head as if he was making a huge mistake. ‘I just hope your plumbing doesn’t fail, or that you ever need help in the garden.’
And she stalked out before he could reply. Despite her bravado, she was shaking from the confrontation. And miserably she faced up to the fact that she was on the brink of leaving her beloved Tresanton Island for ever.
CHAPTER FIVE
EVEN as he followed her he knew he’d regret it. It would be far wiser to leave her to fly off in a huff and never see her again.
But of course, he argued, craning his neck to see where she’d gone, he had that bequest in the will to fulfil. And Catherine was the only person he knew who might tell him the whereabouts of the mysterious Perdita that Edith had mentioned.
Otherwise he wouldn’t be ruining a perfectly good pair of shoes by plunging through dense undergrowth in the search for a tiny scrap of a woman who seemed to have got so thoroughly under his skin that he was still tingling from head to toe in places he didn’t even know could tingle.
Wretched female! Irritably he pulled away a ferocious bramble which was trying to capture his jacket. He swore under his breath when it ripped the expensive cloth.
That was it. He’d had it up to here. She could take herself off and Perdita would have to do without the fifteen thousand pounds that Edith had left her—unless she read his advert, which he was honour bound to publish in the broadsheets.
He had work to do. Calls to make. This house was going to take up enough of his precious time, without him adding a stroppy flower child to his action list.
Fine. He’d made his decision.
And yet…he couldn’t carry it out. He, Mr Decisive himself. Something was holding him back. Curiosity, perhaps.
He grunted. Who was he kidding? Catherine was stopping him. A woman of extreme contradictions. Delicate and yet strong, sometimes laser-sharp with her eyes and tongue but with a voice so soft that it soothed his churning brain. A stubborn mouth. A smile that could melt diamonds.
Even more oddly, she was an old-fashioned sort of woman he wouldn’t have looked at twice if she’d walked past him in London. He went for the elegant type, well-groomed, high maintenance. They looked good and knew how to work a room. Catherine wouldn’t even know what that meant.
And yet his body had danced the moment he’d really looked at her. Flashes of intelligence and fire from those chocolate drop eyes had intrigued him. So had her face, seemingly fragile enough for the bones to be crushed if his hands ever cradled it. Not that they would, of course.
His mind skittered into thinking of her body. Lithe and flexible. Incredibly sensual despite its slimness…
No. This overwhelming urge to see her again was too ridiculous. He’d return to the house and…
He jumped as a chicken scuttled out of the bushes. Not an ordinary one—this was the size of a turkey and a kind of pinky buff. With a black beard, for heaven’s sake. It saw him, stopped in surprise and came up to him with an almost hopeful look on its intelligent face.
Well, OK, he amended, feeling stupid. That bright-eyed, head on one side look could have been interpreted as intelligent.
‘I suppose you’re Edith’s, too, are you?’ he muttered, and looked around furtively, suddenly embarrassed at talking to a chicken.
He sighed. The poor thing must have been living on air. Unless Catherine had been feeding it. He wouldn’t put it past her.
The chicken began to unpick his shoelace and he hurriedly moved on, heading back to the house. His steps were annoyingly reluctant, but he had far too much to do to chase after Catherine.
She’d soon go. And if she didn’t, he’d get the lawyers on to her. Any chickens would have to be sold or killed for the nearest market. Problem solved. He’d put Jane on to that one and keep her out of mischief, he thought with relief.
Once indoors, he went upstairs to find the master bedroom. He wasn’t interested in anywhere else, only where he’d sleep. There wasn’t time for aimless wandering.
Jane had hung up his suits and stored the rest of his clothes with unnerving care. He checked that he had everything he needed and settled down at the desk in the window, where she’d placed his computer.
Waiting for it to power up, he wriggled out of his jacket, slipped it over the back of the chair and happened to glance idly at the view of the garden.
He was high enough to see to the end of the island. A branch of the path ran from the bridge to the far side, though its destination was concealed by huge rhododendrons, their buds fat and ready to burst.
He froze. A man in a red T-shirt and jeans was walking along the path towards the rhododendrons. Zach’s scowl deepened. One of Catherine’s friends, no doubt.
Hopefully he’d find she’d gone and wouldn’t trespass on his land again. If he had any trouble, he’d have to put a locked gate on the bridge. This was his land, not a public park!
Angrily he punched in his password and concentrated on the day’s prices. Or tried to. Over the next hour he kept looking up, drawn by the view. Extraordinarily, the more he did, the more he felt his muscles relax.
The tension had eased from his shoulders. His muscles felt liquid instead of rock hard. And his almost permanent headache had cleared.
There must be something restful about the garden. He pursed his lips and tried to work out what it might be. Those soft, harmonising colours, perhaps? The variety of shapes—tall, conical trees and shrubs, weeping ones, fat, exuberant ones and some with feathery leaves? It was really rather attractive, he had to admit—
He held his breath, his smug serenity suddenly shattered. The intruder was on his way back, making for the bridge. On his way he passed a second man, who nodded as if they were both strangers to one another. This new arrival walked on steadily towards the rhododendrons. And, presumably, Catherine.
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