‘I guess you’ll be helping? Rose says you’re interested in what’s taking place in this little pocket of the world.’
‘Very interested,’ Art said with heartfelt honesty, relieved to be dragged away before he could be quizzed further. The woman struck him as the sort who took no prisoners.
Overhead, the sun continued to beat down with ferocity. He felt hot and sweaty and in need of just a handful of those minor luxuries he took for granted. A nice cool shower, for one thing.
He’d brought the minimum of clothes, stuffed into a holdall which he’d left in the Land Rover. They nestled on top of his computer, because there was no way he intended to be completely out of reach. That would have been unthinkable.
‘So,’ Rose said brightly when she was back at his side, having done the rounds, including squatting on the ground to talk to some of the children, ‘I notice that you didn’t think to bring a tent.’
‘Come again?’
‘I’m getting ahead of myself.’ She drew him to one side. ‘You said that you planned on staying for a few days and you don’t have a tent, but I think it might be possible for you to share one. I know Rob over there has a tent that’s as big as a house and I’m sure he’d be delighted to share his space with a fellow protestor.’
Art tried not to recoil with horror. ‘That,’ he all but choked, ‘won’t do.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I have some savings and I will dip into them to stay somewhere...er...locally...’
‘But why? Honestly, the site is really very comfortable. Everyone enjoys staying there.’
‘And I applaud them, but that’s not for me.’
‘It’s stupid to use your savings to rent somewhere for a week. Or however long you plan on staying. Besides, in case you haven’t noticed, this is an extremely touristy part of the country. Dead in winter but the hotels around here are expensive and almost all of them will be fully booked in summer.’ She stood back and looked at him narrowly.
‘I believe you when you say that you don’t have criminal tendencies.’ She folded her arms and inclined her head to one side.
‘I’m breathing a sigh of relief as I stand here.’
‘And I think it’s ridiculous for you to waste your money trying to find somewhere around here to rent. You’ll be broke by the end of a week. Trust me.’ She said nothing for a few minutes, giving him ample time to try to figure out where this was heading.
But she didn’t expand, instead choosing to begin walking back to the Land Rover, which was a longwinded exercise because she was stopped by someone every couple of steps. On the way she collected an offering of several files, which she promised to look at later.
‘Nothing to do with the land,’ she confided to Art when they were finally back in the muddy four-wheel drive and she was swinging away from the land, back out to the open road. ‘George is having issues with one of his employees. Wants some advice. Normally it’s the other way round for me, but I promised I’d have a look at the file.’
‘Generous of you. I can see how popular you are with everyone there.’
Rose laughed, a musical sound of amusement that did the same thing to Art as her smile did, rousing him in ways that were unexpected and surprisingly intense.
He did know that there were pertinent questions he should be asking to further his understanding of how he could win this war without losing the battle but he couldn’t seem to get his head in the right place to ask the right questions. Instead, he found himself staring at her from under his lashes, vaguely wondering what it was about her that was so compelling.
‘Now that you’ve turned down my dinner invitation,’ he drawled, ‘perhaps you could drive me to the nearest, cheapest B&B. I’m touched at your concern for the level of my savings, but I’ll manage.’
‘There’s no reason why you can’t stay at my place.’
‘Your place?’
Rose laughed, caught his eye sideways and forced a grin out of him. ‘It’s big and you can pay your way doing things around the house while you’re there. Two of the rooms need painting, which is a job I never seem to get round to doing, and there’s a stubborn leak in the tap. A constant drip, drip, drip.’
‘You want me to fix leaks and paint your house?’ DIY and Art had never crossed paths. Paint a room? Fix a leak? He couldn’t have flung himself further out of his comfort zone if he’d tried.
‘In return for free board and lodging. Oh, how good are you at cooking?’
‘It’s something I’ve always tried to avoid.’
‘Do we have a deal?’
‘Why do you live in such a big house if you can’t afford to?’
‘Long story.’
‘I’m a very good listener. There’s nothing I enjoy more than a long story. I guess we can get to that in due course because I would love to accept your generous offer.’ He wondered what other skills she thought he possessed. There was a chance they would both end up in Casualty if he tried his hand at cooking, so he disabused her straight away on that count and she laughed and shrugged and laughed again and told him that it had been worth a shot.
‘I can cook and when I put my mind to it I actually enjoy it, but I’m so busy all of the time that it always feels like a chore.’
‘You might regret asking me to paint a room,’ Art said seriously as she bumped along the narrow lanes, driving past clusters of picturesque houses with neat box hedges before the open fields swallowed them up again, only to disgorge them into yet another picturesque village. ‘I’m very happy to try my hand at it, but one thing I do insist on doing is paying you for my accommodation.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘If you don’t agree to this then you can dump me off right here and I’ll sort myself out, whatever the cost.’
Rose clicked her tongue impatiently.
‘You obviously need the money,’ Art continued almost gently, as the outskirts of the village loomed into view. ‘You rent rooms out and the place, from all accounts, is falling apart at the seams...’
‘Very well.’ She kept her eyes firmly focused on the road ahead. ‘In which case, I’ll accept your dinner invitation on the proviso that I cook dinner for you.’
‘Deal,’ Art drawled, relaxing back into the passenger seat. Could he have hoped for a better outcome than this? No.
He was looking forward to this evening. The thorny business of going undercover to talk some sense into his opposition wasn’t going to be the annoying uphill trek he had originally foreseen after all...
In fact...hand on heart, Art could honestly say that he was looking forward to this little break in his routine.
CHAPTER THREE
BY THE TIME they were back at the house the clatter of people had been replaced by the peace of silence. The gardening club crew had departed, as had whoever else was renting one of the downstairs rooms. Phil popped out and Art watched as he and Rose huddled in a brief discussion.
While they talked in low voices, he took the opportunity to look around him.
It was a big house but crying out for attention. The paint was tired, the carpet on the stairs threadbare and the woodwork, in places, cracked or missing altogether.
He made himself at home peering into the now empty rooms and saw that they were sizeable and cluttered with hastily packed away bits and pieces.
It was impossible to get any real idea of what the house might once have looked like in grander times because every nook and cranny had been put to use. Work desks fitted into spaces where once sofas and chaises longues might have resided, and in the office where she worked books lined the walls from floor to ceiling.
‘Finished looking around?’
Art turned to find that she had broken off from talking to Phil, who was heading out of the front door, briefcase in hand and a crumpled linen jacket shoved under his arm.
‘Which of the rooms needs the paint job?’ was his response.
‘It’s actually upstairs,’ Rose said, steering him awa
y from the hall and back towards the kitchen where, he noted, no one had seen fit to tidy the paraphernalia of protest. ‘Now—’ she stood, arms folded, head tilted to one side ‘—tell me what you thought of our little band of insurgents.’
‘Well organised.’ Art strolled towards one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. ‘But I’m curious—how long do they intend to stay there and what is the end objective?’
‘That’s an odd question,’ Rose mused thoughtfully. ‘Does your contribution to the cause depend on an answer to that?’
‘I have a strong streak of practicality.’ Art wasn’t lying when he said that. ‘I’m interested in trying to find out if there’s any real chance of you winning with your protests.’
Rose sighed. ‘Perhaps not entirely,’ she admitted, ‘but I really hope we can make some kind of difference, perhaps get the company to rethink the scale of their project. They’re eating up a lot of open land and there’s no question that the end result will be a massive eyesore on the landscape.’
‘Have you seen the plans?’ Art asked curiously.
‘Of course I have. It’s all about houses for wealthy commuters.’
‘The rail link, I suppose...’
‘You’re the only person who has actually taken time out to think this through,’ Rose admitted. ‘And you’re not even from round here. I think everyone somehow hopes that this is a problem that will just go away if we can all just provide a united front. It’s a relief to talk to someone who can see the pitfalls. Just strange that you should care so much, considering this has never been your home.’
‘I have general concerns about the...er...countryside.’ Art had the grace to flush. Yes, all was fair in love and war, and it wasn’t as though this little deception was actually harming anyone, but the prick of his conscience was an uneasy reminder that playing fast and loose with the truth was a lie by any other name.
‘Does that extend to other concerns?’ Rose asked with interest.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Problems on a larger scale. Climate change. Damage to the rainforests. Fracking and the impact on the green belt.’
Art was used to women who were either career-driven—those with whom he came into contact in the course of his working life—or else women he dated. On the one hand, he conversed with his counterparts with absolute detachment, regardless of whether he picked up any vibes from them, any undercurrent of sexual interest. And then, when it came to the women he dated...well, that was sex, relaxation and pleasure, and in-depth conversations were not the name of the game. Quite honestly, he thought that the majority of them would have been bored rigid were he ever to sit them down and initiate a conversation about world affairs. If there was a world out there of smart, sassy women who had what it took to turn him on, then he’d passed them by.
Until now...
Because, against all odds, he was finding that this outspoken woman was a turn-on and he didn’t know why. She should have been tiresome, but instead she was weirdly compelling.
‘Doesn’t everyone think about the bigger picture?’
‘I like that,’ Rose murmured. ‘I really get it that you think about the bigger picture. But you surely must have some form of employment that enables you to take off when you want to, be it here or somewhere else...’ She turned away and began rustling for something to cook.
‘Let me order something in.’ Art was uncomfortable with this.
‘Order something in?’ She looked at him incredulously.
‘There’s no need for you to prepare anything for me.’
‘We both have to eat and it won’t be fancy. Trust me.’
‘Are you usually this welcoming to people who walk off the street into your house?’
* * *
‘You’re a one-off.’ She smiled a little shyly. Yes, she had lots of contact with the opposite sex. Yes, there was Phil and a wide assortment of men she met on a daily basis, either because they lived locally and she bumped into them or in the course of her work. But this was different. This was a reminder of what it felt like to be with a man and she was enjoying the sensation.
Of course, she sternly reminded herself, it wasn’t as though he was anything more than a nice guy who happened to share the same outlook on life as she did.
A nice guy who just so happened to be drop-dead gorgeous...
‘A one-off...?’ He looked at her with assessing eyes and Rose burst out laughing. He sounded piqued, as though someone had stuck a pin in his ego. In a flash of wonderment because he was simply nothing like any man she had ever met before, she gathered that he was piqued because she wasn’t bowled over by him. Or at least because that was the impression she had given. She had turned down his dinner date, had rejected his offer to pay rent and had set him a number of tasks to complete, which was probably a first for a guy like him. He might not have money but he had style and an underlying aggressive sexual magnetism that most women would find irresistible.
Their eyes tangled and Rose felt her nipples pinch in raw sexual awareness, and the suddenness of its potency made her breath catch in her throat.
‘That’s the problem with living in a small community.’ Rose laughed breathlessly, deflecting a moment of madness which had smacked of her being lonely, which she most certainly was not. ‘You tend to know everyone. A new face is a rare occurrence.’
‘Surely not.’
‘Maybe not at this time of year,’ she admitted, ‘when the place is swarming with tourists, but a new face here for something other than the nice scenery and the quaint village atmosphere...that’s a bit more unusual.’
‘Why do you stay?’ Art asked with what sounded like genuine curiosity. ‘And, if that’s the case, then surely you must find it a little dull?’
‘No, I don’t. I’m not just a statistic here, one of a million lawyers sweating to get by. Here, I can actually make a difference. And I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this.’
‘Because I’m a new face and you don’t get to have conversations with people you haven’t known since you were a kid?’
Rose flushed and looked at him defiantly. ‘Not all of us are born to wander, which reminds me—you never told me how it is that you can afford to take time out to be here. Yes, you’ve said you do a bit of this and a bit of that but you’re obviously not a labourer.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Your hands, for a start. Not calloused enough.’
* * *
‘I’m not sure that’s a compliment,’ Art drawled, glancing at his hands. The last time he’d done anything really manual had been as a teenager when he’d had a summer job working on a building site. He recalled that his father had been going through divorce number three right about then.
‘Office jobs?’
‘You ask a lot of questions.’
‘No more than you,’ Rose pointed out and Art grinned at her, dark eyes never leaving her face.
He hadn’t thought through the details of why he was here and it hadn’t occurred to him that his presence would be met with suspicion. He was having to revise his easy assumption that he could just show up, mumble something vague and get by without any questions.
‘I’ve been known to sit behind a desk now and again. I confess I’m interested in the details of a sit-in, in what motivates people to give up their home comforts for a cause.’
‘You’re not a reporter, are you?’
‘Would you object if I told you that I was?’
‘No. The more coverage the better...’
‘Well, sorry to disappoint but,’ Art drawled with complete honesty, ‘I personally can’t stand the breed. Nosy and intrusive.’
‘But excellent when it comes to getting a message out there to the wider public.’
‘They’re a fickle lot,’ Art countered. ‘You think that they’re on your side and you usually open yourself up to inevitable disappointment. If you’re going to make me dinner and you won’t allow me to buy anything in, then the least
I can do is help.’
‘Okay. You can chop vegetables and tell me why you’re interested in what’s happening here.’ Rose rummaged in the fridge and extracted a random assortment of vegetables, fetched a couple of chopping boards and nodded to Art to take his place alongside her. ‘Asking questions is what I do for a living.’ She smiled, not looking at him. ‘So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m asking you a lot of them.’
Art was busy looking at the bundle of onions and tomatoes neatly piled in front of him. He held the knife and began fumbling his way to something that only laughably resembled food preparation. He only realised that she had stopped what she had been doing and was staring at him when she said with amusement, ‘You haven’t got a clue, have you?’
‘These bloody things are making my eyes sting.’
‘They have a nasty habit of doing that,’ Rose agreed. ‘And you’re in for a rough ride if you intend to take a couple of hours dicing them. By the way, you need to dice them a whole lot smaller.’
‘You’re having fun, aren’t you?’
‘I’m thinking you look like a man who doesn’t know his way round a kitchen very well.’
‘Like I said, cooking has never appealed.’
‘Not even when you’re relaxing with someone and just having fun preparing a meal together?’
‘I don’t go there,’ Art said flatly. He gave the onion a jaundiced look and decided to attack the tomatoes, which seemed a safer bet. ‘I don’t do domestic.’
‘You don’t do domestic? What does that mean?’
‘It means that I don’t share those cosy moments you’ve just described.’
‘Why not?’ she asked lightly.
‘I don’t do personal questions either.’
Looking into the ancient mirrored tiles that lined the counter, Art noted her pink cheeks. He met her eyes to find her staring at him, her pink cheeks going even pinker. She looked away hurriedly to continue slicing and dicing. Strands of her wildly curly hair fell around her face and she blew some of them out of her eyes, blatantly making sure not to look in those mirrored squares in case she caught his eye again.
‘You don’t do cosy and domestic,’ Rose said slowly, swivelling to lean against the counter, arms folded, eyes narrowed, ‘and you don’t do personal questions. So, if I’m joining the dots correctly, you don’t invite women to ask you why you’re not prepared to play happy families with them.’
The Tycoon’s Ultimate Conquest Page 4
