ART GAZED AT the vast swathes of empty land around him. Open fields. The very same open fields that had confronted him on day one when he had arrived with a plan and a deadline.
Slight difference now. The plan and the deadline had both taken a battering. He’d slept with Rose over a week and a half ago and even as his head had urged him to turn his back and walk away, his body had argued against that course of action and had won.
They’d shared a bed every night since then. He couldn’t see her without wanting her. It was insane but whatever attraction kept pulling him towards her, it was bigger than all the reserves of willpower at his disposal.
And the land...
Art strolled to the very spot where the protesters had set up camp. There were some stragglers but most had left. He’d been busy arguing his corner whilst making sure not to stand on any soapboxes bellowing his opinions. He’d listened to everything that had been said and had quickly sussed that, however fervent they were about the abstract notion of the land being developed, when it came down to basics, the offer of those very same heartless developers doing some good for their community had won the day.
Financial assistance for the primary school; a fund towards the local library, which also served as a meeting place for most of the senior citizens; playing fields to be included on some of his land which, as it happened, suited Art very well indeed, bearing in mind his future plans for the site.
Art had advised them to contact the team of lawyers working for DC Logistics.
‘There’s always a solution when it comes to sorting problems,’ he had asserted, safe in the knowledge that they would find no hindrance to their requests. Not only was he happy to ease the situation but he was positively pleased to be able to do so because he had grown fond of all of them, had seen for himself, first-hand, how strongly they felt about the land.
In London, community spirit of that kind was noticeably absent and he’d been impressed by what he’d seen.
And, crucially, Rose had more or less conceded that it was the best solution because, like it or not, those tractors and cranes would move in sooner or later.
His job here was done and satisfactorily so.
He could be pleased with himself. He could start thinking about step two. He knew in his gut that there would be no obstacles in his way and step two had always been top of the agenda. Art might have been cynical when it came to the romantic notion of love, but familial love, discovered in the most unexpected of places, had settled in his heart and filled the space there.
He’d thought outside the box and it had paid off. Now, as he looked at his land, he realised that thinking outside the box and getting what he’d wanted had come at an unexpected cost.
Rose.
He abruptly turned away, headed for the battered Land Rover which couldn’t have been more different from his own fleet of super-charged, high-performance cars.
She’d temporarily loaned him her car.
‘I’ll be buried in case files for the next week or so.’ She had laughed, her arms wound around his neck, her eyes sparkling, her half-clad body pressed against his. ‘You’ll want to be out and about. Lord knows you’ve become some kind of mentor to half the protesters...with that promise of yours that the developers are going to meet their extravagant demands! Mind you, I’ll be pleased to have my kitchen table back.’
Art would have to come clean. There was no way around it. He couldn’t believe that he had been disingenuous enough, when thoughts had entered his head about sleeping with her, to believe that he could have a fling and walk away.
Two adults, he had argued to himself. Two consenting adults who fancied one another. What was the problem? All he had to do was make it clear to her from the very start that he wasn’t going to be hanging around and his conscience would be clear.
He’d approached all his relationships with the opposite sex like that. With honesty and no promises. If some of them had become distraught when he’d walked away because they’d been pointlessly looking for more than he had in him to give, then so be it. Not his fault. How could it have been when he’d done nothing but warned them off going down that road?
But the situation with Rose was different and that was something he had failed to factor in.
He’d conveniently whitewashed the whole business of why he had turned up, unannounced, on her doorstep into something that wasn’t really relevant—he wasn’t going to be sticking around so she would never actually discover his true identity. Therefore, why did it matter who he was?
Except it did.
And now he would have to pay the price for his not-so-innocent deception.
It was not quite six in the evening. He had spent the day partly in the library, where he had worked in pleasurable peace, and partly in a five-star hotel near Oxford, where a high-level meeting had been arranged with the CEO of a company he intended to buy.
He wondered whether his attack of conscience had been kick-started by that return to the reality of his high-powered city life. Sitting at that table, back in his comfort zone of work, business and making money...had it brought him back down to earth with a bump? Reminded him of the single tenet he had always lived by—work was the only thing upon which a person could rely?
Art didn’t know. He just knew that he owed Rose more than a disappearing act.
He made it back to her house within fifteen minutes, to find her still in her office alone, Phil having gone for the day.
Rose looked up and smiled.
He’d told her that he didn’t do commitment and he didn’t do domesticity and yet they’d cooked together and discussed everything under the sun from world politics to village gossip.
‘You’re just in time,’ she said, standing up and stretching. ‘If I read any more of this file I’m going to end up banging my head on the desk in frustration. You wouldn’t believe the spurious arguments this company is using to get rid of one of their longest-serving employees just because it would be cheaper for them to get a young person on board.’
‘The world of the underdog would be nothing without you...’ Art framed that light-hearted rejoinder in a voice that lacked his customary self-assurance.
He clenched his fists, walked towards the double-fronted bay window, sat down on the ledge and stared out for a few silent seconds.
‘Are you disappointed in the outcome of the protest?’ he asked abruptly, swinging around to look at her but remaining where he was by the window, perched on the broad ledge, his legs loosely crossed.
He had no idea how to begin this conversation and even less idea as to where it was going to end. For once in his life he was freefalling without a safety net and he loathed the sensation.
For a man to whom control was vitally important, this lack of control was his worst nightmare.
* * *
Rose tilted her head to one side. The smile with which she had greeted him had faded because she was sensing that something was out of kilter, although she wasn’t sure what.
‘Not disappointed, no...’ She gave his question consideration. ‘I always knew it was going to be a token protest because the land had been bought and all the channels had been navigated with planning permission, but I do think it’s a result if the developers consent to all the things they’ve made noises about.’
‘They will.’
‘You seem very sure about that.’ Rose laughed because this sort of assertiveness was just typical of him and it was something she really...
For a few seconds her heart stopped beating and she could feel the prickle of perspiration break out over her body. Something she really found amusing. Not something she loved, but something she found amusing.
‘I am.’
‘Well, I must say, it would be fantastic for the community as a whole. Naturally, I still stand by my guns when I say that I hate big developers who think they can descend and gobble up whatever slice of land they want, but it’s fair to say that not many would go the extra mile to appease disgruntled locals.’
* * *
Art didn’t say anything. He’d slept with her and done a hundred small things with her that he’d never done with anyone else. That, in itself, was unsettling and he latched onto that sentiment with some relief because it made him realise that he was clearing off in the nick of time. Sharing cosy suppers and painting bedrooms wasn’t in his genetic make-up and never would be! He wasn’t cut out for anything like that and had he stayed on he knew that the inevitable boredom with her would have set in.
She invigorated him at this moment in time, but it wouldn’t have lasted.
He would have become restless, got itchy feet. It never failed to happen.
Which was why, he thought with conviction, it was imperative he left. Rose, underneath the tough veneer, had risen above the odds dealt to her in her background and turned out to be endearingly romantic. Were he to stay on, there was a chance that she would have fallen for him.
And then what? A broken heart when he vanished? A life in need of being rebuilt? Looking at the bigger picture, he was doing her a favour.
‘That’s because,’ Art told her patiently, ‘there’s always more to people than meets the eye, and that includes billionaire developers.’
‘Really? I hadn’t noticed. Do you want to tell me what’s going on here, Art, or shall I make it easier for you by bringing it out into the open myself?’
‘What do you mean?’ He frowned.
‘I mean you...this atmosphere...’ She breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. ‘Something’s off and I’ll spare you the discomfort of spelling it out in words of one syllable, shall I? You’re leaving. Your time here is up. You came for a protest that ended up a damp squib. Perhaps you were hoping for more fireworks.’
‘The opposite,’ Art told her quietly.
‘You’re...not off?’
‘No, that bit you got right. I... It’s time for me to pack my bags and leave.’
* * *
Rose stared at him, horrified at how painful it was to hear those words. Everywhere hurt. He was going. She’d known he’d be off but, now that he’d confirmed it, it felt as though she’d been hit head-on by a train. Her legs had turned to jelly but she kept standing, holding her ground and hoping with everything inside her that the pain tearing her apart wasn’t reflected in her face.
‘Of course,’ she said politely.
‘You always knew I’d be leaving.’
‘Because you’re a wanderer in search of a cause.’
‘Not entirely.’
‘What do you mean? What are you talking about?’
‘I think this is a conversation better conducted with you sitting down.’
‘Why?’ Rose wondered whether she would be able to move at all without falling to the ground in an undignified heap. That was what jelly legs did to a person.
‘Because...you might find what I’m about to say somewhat surprising.’
Rose looked at him uncertainly, then galvanised her body into action. She wasn’t going to sit at her desk. She wasn’t conducting an interview! Although the atmosphere felt hardly less formal.
She walked towards the sitting room, which was the only room downstairs, aside from the large cloakroom, that hadn’t been converted into something useful that could be modified and used as a source of income.
Like all the other rooms in the house, it was high-ceilinged and gracious in proportions. It was painted in soothing shades of grey and cream and lavender and the furniture was well-made and tasteful.
Rose flopped down onto the sofa and then watched in tense silence as he prowled the room, his beautiful lean body jerky as he darted thoughtful glances in her direction.
‘Are you going to spare us both the drama and just say what you have to say? It’s not as though you haven’t warned me in advance and you needn’t worry that I’m going to do anything silly like break down and cry.’
* * *
‘It might be better if I show you,’ Art said slowly. He pulled out his phone, found what he was looking for on the screen and handed it to her. And waited, eyes glued to her expressive face. Every nerve in his body twanged with the sort of tension he had seldom experienced in his life before.
He watched as bewilderment turned to confusion, as confusion turned to disbelief and then, finally, as disbelief morphed into appalled horror.
Long after she should have finished reading the article about him, just one of many to be found online, she kept staring at the phone as though hopeful that it might deliver something that would make sense of what he’d shown her.
His biography. Succinct. Replete with his success stories. Sycophantic in its adoration of the man who had made his first billion before the ripe old age of thirty-five.
She finally looked up with a dazed expression.
‘You’re DC Logistics...?’
Art flushed darkly but he wasn’t going to start justifying himself.
‘Yes,’ he said flatly.
‘You’re the guy we’ve been fighting...’
‘Yes.’
‘You came here... You pretended to be... Why?’ She shot up, trembling, as thousands of implications clearly began sinking in. ‘You bastard.’ She edged away from him, recoiling as though he was contagious, and took up position by the large Victorian fireplace, leaning against it and staring at him with huge round eyes.
‘You came here with a plan, didn’t you? You came here so that you could infiltrate and get us onside. You didn’t like the fact that we were protesting about you putting up a bunch of houses that no one wants!’
Art’s jaw hardened but there was nothing he could say to refute her accusations since they were all spot on. ‘I owned the land. I was going to build, whether you stood in the way or not. I thought it diplomatic to try to persuade you to see sense before the bulldozers moved in and trying to persuade you within the walls of my London offices wasn’t going to work.’
‘You used me.’
‘I...’ Art raked his fingers through his hair. ‘There was no need for me to come clean. And I did not use you. We both enjoyed what happened between us. I could have walked away without saying anything.’
‘Are you asking for a medal because you finally decided to tell the truth?’
‘There was also no need for me to grant the concessions that I have.’
‘No wonder you were so confident that the big, bad developers were going to accept our terms and conditions. Because you were the big, bad developer.’
‘I played fair.’
‘You lied!’
‘A small amount of subterfuge.’
‘You came here...you...’ She turned away because she needed to gather herself. Everything was rushing in on her and she was beginning to feel giddy. She took a few deep breaths and forced herself to look at him. To her fury, he met her gaze squarely, as if he was as pure as the driven snow!
‘I let you stay in my house.’ Rose laughed bitterly. ‘No wonder you insisted on paying rent! You’re worth a small fortune. It must have troubled your conscience that you were sponging off someone who couldn’t hope to come close to matching you in the financial stakes. Someone with rooms in need of decorating and plumbing on the verge of waving a white flag and giving up! I bet you’ve never painted anything in your life before or done anything manual at all!’
‘Going through each and every detail of the ways you feel deceived isn’t going to progress this.’
‘I slept with you.’
Those four words, delivered without any expression whatsoever, dropped like stones into a quiet pond and silence settled between them, thick and uncomfortable.
* * *
‘I’m guessing...’ Rose kept her voice level but the blood was rushing through her veins like lava ‘...that that was all part of the game plan? To get me onside?’
‘That’s outrageous!’
‘Really? Is it? Why? You conned your way into my home!’
‘I was more than happy to go stay in a hotel.’
‘You accepted my hospitality and you used it to get what you wanted out of me! I can’t believe I was stupid enough to actually think that you were a man of integrity.’
‘Sleeping with you was never part of any plan.’ Art shook his head and dropped down on the sofa, legs apart. She walked towards him and stood in front of him with her arms folded. ‘You doubt me?’ he growled, staring at her, and even in the height of this scorching argument, when she was burning with rage, those fabulous dark eyes still had the power to do things to her body. Rose’s lips thinned.
‘Do you honestly believe that I could make love with you the way I have if I wasn’t seriously attracted to you?’
Hot colour flooded her cheeks. Rose remembered the intensity of their lovemaking, the flaring passion in his eyes. She remembered the way he had touched her, his fingers as they’d explored her body and the urgency of those times when he just couldn’t wait to have her.
No, he hadn’t been faking that. Somehow that was something she just knew. He’d come here on a mission but going to bed with her had never been part of the plan. Should she feel better for that? Maybe, but then, with a bitter twist, she also remembered the way she had felt about him and her stupidity in actually thinking that there might have been more to what they had than just a romp in the sack.
It was always going to be just a romp in the sack, had she but known, because she had always just been an enjoyable add-on to the main reason he was there, a pleasant side dish but never the main meal.
Humiliation roared through her, stiffening her backbone and settling like venom in her veins.
How on earth could she have been so stupid? She, of all people! Always cautious, always watchful...how could she have thrown herself in the path of a speeding train and actually thought that it would be okay?
‘You need to leave,’ she said coldly.
‘I was honest with you.’ Art rose to his feet, a towering, dominant presence that made her step back in alarm.
He sucked the oxygen out of the room, left her feeling as though she needed to gasp for air, and the strength of her reaction terrified her because she knew that, mixed in with the rage, the hatred and the bitter disillusionment, was something else...something she didn’t want to put her finger on.
‘And now that I’m weeping with gratitude at your terrific display of honesty, are you going to renege on all the things you said you’d do for the village?’
‘Dammit, Rose!’ Art roared. ‘I could have just disappeared. Instead, I came clean. Why can’t you cut me some slack?’ He stepped towards her, ignoring her crab-like shuffle away from him, until he had cornered her without her even realising it was happening.
She collided with the wall and he placed both hands squarely on either side of her so that she had nowhere to run.
‘I didn’t come here to—’ he looked away and clenched his jaw in frustration ‘—mess you or anyone else around.’
‘You came here to get on our good side so that we would get off your case and make things easier for you!’
‘Where’s the crime in that? I purchased the land going through all the proper channels. Okay, yes, I admit I figured that life would be a lot smoother if I didn’t have to steamroller my way through protesters waving placards, but I can’t think of many big, bad wolves who would have given a damn about the protesters or their placards.’
‘You could have done the decent thing and been honest from the start!’
‘You would have had the sheriff run me out of town before I got the first sentence out.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Isn’t it?’
Rose flushed. She could breathe him in and it was doing all sorts of crazy and unacceptable things to her nervous system.
‘I thought,’ Art said heavily, ‘that this would be fairly straightforward. How hard could it be to talk sense into a group of people who were never going to win the war? I never banked on really engaging with anyone here and I certainly never entertained the idea that...’
Rose tilted her chin and stared at him in hostile defiance. ‘That what? That you’d break that code of yours and start sharing space in a kitchen with a woman?’
To think that she had actually entertained the idea that having him do all that domesticated stuff might be an indication of feelings that ran deeper and truer than they had both originally predicted.
‘Something like that,’ Art muttered, glancing away for a few taut seconds before returning his dark gaze to her face. ‘You’re hurt and I get that,’ he continued in a low, driven voice.
Rose raised her eyebrows. She was keeping it together by a thread, determined not to let him see just how devastated she was, but it was so, so very hard, especially when he was standing so, so very close to her, when, with barely any effort, she could just reach out and touch that body she had come to feel so much for. Too much.
‘Thanks. I feel so much better for that,’ she said with thick sarcasm.
‘I’m no good for you.’ He gave her a crooked smile and pushed himself away, although he remained standing in front of her.
‘No, you’re not,’ Rose said shortly.
‘You deserve a far better man.’
‘I do.’ She tossed her hair and for a few seconds her expression changed from anger to on-the-edge-of-tears disappointment. ‘I always knew that guys with money were unscrupulous and I proved myself right.’
‘I refuse to get into a debate about this. I don’t think your fellow locals will agree when they find themselves the recipients of some spanking-new additions to the village. I don’t think they’ll be gnashing their teeth and shaking their fists and cursing my generosity.’
‘You can wave money around but that doesn’t make you an honourable man. It doesn’t mean that you’ve got any sense of...of spirituality.’
‘I didn’t think you were paying too much attention to my fascinating lack of a spiritual side when we were in bed together.’
‘How dare you bring that up?’ The silence that greeted this was electric. Her nostrils flared and her pupils dilated and every pore in her body burned with humiliation because the warmth between her legs wouldn’t let her forget the shameful truth that she still found him unbearably sexy even though she absolutely loathed him for how he had played her.
She breathed deep and closed her eyes and wasn’t aware that he was reaching out until he was. Reaching out to lightly stroke the side of her face.
‘You still want me,’ he murmured and Rose glared at him furiously. ‘You still want me and you can’t deny it.’
Rose opened her mouth to utter an instant denial of any such thing. How dared he? Her skin burnt from where he had touched her. How dared he?
‘Are you going to lie?’ Art asked in a low, sexy undertone. ‘You can’t possibly stand there and accuse me of being a monster of deceit only to lie about something that’s so obvious.’
‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ she said on a sharply indrawn breath. ‘So what if I’m attracted to you? You’re an attractive man. But I will never be tempted to act on that attraction again, not that the situation is ever likely to arise.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I can’t fault you for being honest and telling me from the start that you weren’t going to be sticking around. Fair enough. But you hurt me with your deceit, whether that deceit was intended or not. I’ll never, ever forgive you for that.’
Art’s lips thinned.
‘Forgiveness has never been high on the list I’ve striven for.’
‘Can I ask you something before you disappear back to that jet-set life of yours?’ Rose folded her arms, proud of the fact that her voice continued to betray nothing of what was going on inside her, the roil of tumultuous emotions tearing her up.
‘I’m guessing that’s a question you will ask whatever my response.’
‘If we’d stood firm, would you have steamrolled us all away? So that you could have your acres and acres of land for the sake of a handful of flash houses?’
‘Yes.’
Rose frowned because she had sensed something behind that flat monosyllabic reply. A curious shadow had crossed his face but then she wondered whether she’d imagined it because when he fixed his deep, dark eyes on her they were as remote as hers were. Two people who had shared intimacies she had never dreamed of and now here they were, standing opposite one another with a huge unsurmountable wall between them.
Rose looked away quickly because she could feel the treacherous onset of tears.
She put distance between them and gathered herself.
‘I’ll get my things,’ Art said abruptly. ‘I’ll be fifteen minutes, tops.’
‘I expect you won’t need to borrow my battered car to get you to the station? Maybe you could call your personal chauffeur to swing by for you. Or, if that’s not efficient enough, I’m sure you could find a corner of your field to land a private jet.’
‘My driver is on his way.’
‘Of course he is,’ Rose said acidly. ‘I’ll leave you to get on with your packing. You know where the front door is.’
She didn’t look back. She headed straight to her office and she made sure to close and lock the door behind her. But she didn’t cry. She knew how to contain the tears. She’d learned that trick at a very young age.