The Tycoon’s Ultimate Conquest

by Cathy Williams

  And Art needed peace. He needed the community onside. He needed to get past this first stage of development to reach the important second stage. When he thought of the benefits of the equestrian and craft centre he hoped to develop, for his stepbrother and the small intake of similar adults like his stepbrother, he knew just how vital it was for him to win this war with the backing of the people waving the placards. If he barrelled through their protest with marching boots they would turn on him and all his long-term plans would lie in ruins.

  He’d met all the people who were protesting and the majority of them had kids who attended the local school.

  He could appeal to them directly, imply that the heartless developers might be forced to build a new school.

  His role, he had made sure to establish, was a fluid one. He had gone from protestor in situ to keen observer of human nature and general do-gooder who cared about the environment. He’d been vague about his actual background but had somehow managed to imply that he was more than just a drifter out to attach himself to a worthwhile cause. He’d used his imagination and he knew that a lot of the protestors were beginning to turn to him to answer some of their questions.

  It irked him that even as he tried to find a solution to the situation and even as he mentally worked out the cost of digging into his pocket to effectively buy them off when there was, technically, no need for him to do so, he was still managing to feel bloody guilty at his charade.

  He’d had no idea his conscience was so hyperactive and it got on his nerves.

  Although...he had to admit a certain desire to impress the woman he was sharing a house with—fistfuls of cash would mean she could do the improvements she needed. He was cynical enough to suspect that if sufficient hard cash was put on the table she would not be able to resist because she was human and humans were all, without exception, susceptible to the lure of money.

  Trouble was, he had to content himself with the painting job she had delegated to him.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ she had said two days previously, when she had led him to a part of the house that looked as though the cobwebs had set up camp the day after the final brick in the house had been laid. ‘You pay rent and, believe me, that’s sufficient help.’

  But Art had felt obliged to make good on his vague assurances that he was capable of helping out.

  Besides, painting the room was proving to be a valuable way of avoiding her because the more contact he had with her, the more interested he became in digging deeper, past the polite conversation they shared, usually in the company of a million other people. After that first night she had shared nothing more about herself. They had had no time alone together. Her house was apparently a magnet for every person in the village who had nothing better to do than drop by for a chat.

  The night before, someone she had bumped into several weeks previously had shown up for an informal chat about a problem he was having with his new employer, who had taken over the company and was trying to get rid of all the old retainers by fair means or foul.

  To Art’s amazement, Rose had been happy to feed the guy and give him free advice. Little wonder she didn’t have much money going spare when she failed to charge for most of her services.

  Her absolute lack of interest in making money should have been anathema to him but the opposite appeared to be the case. The more she invited the world into her house, the more he wanted her to slam the front door so that he could have her all to himself.

  Nothing to do with the reason he was here.

  Just because...he wanted to have her all to himself.

  He’d managed to find a couple of hours during which he’d touched base with several of his clients and answered a couple of urgent emails and then he’d done some painting.

  Now, at a little after six-thirty, he stood back to inspect his efforts and was quietly pleased with what he had managed. The mucus shade of green was slowly being replaced by something off-white and bland. Big improvement.

  Still in paint-spattered clothes, Art went downstairs, fully expecting to find a few more waifs and strays in the kitchen, but instead there was just Rose sitting at the kitchen table, poring over a file.

  From the doorway, he stood and looked, giving in to the steady pulse of desire rippling through him like a forbidden drumbeat. She was frowning, her slender hands cupping her face as she peered down at the stack of papers in front of her. She reached to absently remove the clasp from her hair and he sucked in a sharp breath as it fell around her shoulders in a tumble of uncontrolled curls. Deep chestnut brown...shades of dark auburn...paler strands of toffee...a riot of vibrant colour that took his breath away.

  For once she wasn’t wearing something long and shapeless but instead a pair of faded blue jeans and an old grey cropped tee shirt and, from the way she was hunched over the table, he was afforded a tantalising glimpse of her cleavage.

  She looked up, caught his eye and sat back.

  She stretched and half yawned and the forbidden drumbeat surged into a tidal wave of primal desire.

  No bra.

  He could see the jut of her nipples against the soft cotton and the caution he had been meticulously cultivating over the past few days disappeared in a puff of smoke.

  His erection was as solid as a shaft of steel and he had to look away to gather himself for a few vital seconds or else risk losing the plot altogether.

  ‘Took the afternoon off.’ Rose smiled and stood up. ‘Hence the casual gear. Drink? Tea? Coffee? Something stronger? I’ve actually gone out and bought some wine.’

  ‘The rent I pay doesn’t cover food. It’s Friday. Allow me to take you out for a meal.’

  * * *

  Rose hesitated. She hadn’t been out for a meal with a man for ages. She was twenty-eight years old and the thrills of her social life could be written on the back of a postage stamp.

  ‘Restaurants will be packed out.’ She laughed, anticipation bubbling up inside her. ‘Tourists...’

  ‘We can venture further afield. Name the place and I’ll reserve a table.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You don’t have to...’

  ‘You don’t have to...?’ Arturo shot her a wry look from under sooty lashes. ‘Anyone who knows me at all would know that those four words would never apply to me because I make it my duty never to feel that I have to do anything I don’t want to do. If I didn’t want to take you out to dinner I would never have issued the invitation in the first place. Now, name the place.’

  God, Rose thought, who would ever think that she would go for a guy who took charge? She was much more into the sensitive kind of guy who consulted and discussed. Arturo Frank couldn’t have been less of a consulting and discussing man, and yet a pleasurable shiver rippled through her as she met his deep, dark eyes. ‘Name the place? Now, let me think about that. How generous are you feeling tonight...?’

  Rose shocked herself because she wasn’t flirtatious by nature. Her mother had always been the flirt, which was probably why she had ended up where she had. That was a characteristic Rose had made sure to squash, not that there had ever been any evidence of it being there in the first place.

  But she felt like a flirt as their eyes tangled and she half smiled with her head tilted pensively to one side.

  ‘I’m just kidding.’ She grinned and ran her fingers through her tangled hair. ‘There are a couple of excellent pizza places in the next village along. I can call and reserve a table. So...in answer to your invitation, it’s a yes.’

  ‘I’m saying no to the cheap and cheerful pizza place,’ Arturo delivered with a dismissive gesture, eyes still glued to her face.

  ‘In that case...’

  ‘Leave it with me. I’ll sort it.’

  ‘You will?’

  ‘Expect something slightly more upmarket than a fast-food joint.’

  ‘In which case, I’ll naturally share the bill.’

  ‘That won’t be happening. When I ask a woman out, she doesn’t go near her wallet.’

>   There she went, tingling all over again! Behaving like the frothy, frilly, girly girl she had never been. He was so macho, so alpha male, so incredibly intelligent, and yet he cared about all the things she cared about. She prided herself on being savvy but she could feel the ground slip beneath her feet and she liked the way it felt, enjoyed the heady sensation of falling.

  She wasn’t interested in any man who was just passing through, but a little voice asked inside her head... What if she took a risk? After all, where had being careful got her?

  And an even more treacherous little voice whispered seductively, What if he delays his plans to move on...? In the end all nomads found their resting ground, didn’t they? And there were jobs aplenty for a guy as smart and proactive as he was...

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You look a little bemused. What kind of guys have you gone out with in the past? Did they take out their calculator at the end of the meal so that they could split the bill in half? Call me antiquated—’ his voice lowered to a murmur ‘—but I enjoy being generous with the women I take out.’

  So we’re going on a date.

  Excitement surged through Rose in a disturbing, all-consuming tidal wave.

  Maybe—she brought herself back down to earth—it wasn’t a date. As such. Maybe it was simply his way of saying thank you for renting a room in her house and having whatever food and drink he wanted at his disposal. He was paying her a lot more than she’d wanted but it was still a lot less than if he’d been staying in even the cheapest of the local hotels.

  But the warmth of his gaze was still turning her head to mush when, an hour later and with no idea where they would be going, she stood in front of her wardrobe surveying the uninspiring collection of comfortable clothes that comprised her going-out gear.

  It bore witness to the alarming fact that when it came to going out she had become decidedly lazy over time. Easy evenings with friends, the occasional movie, casual suppers at the kitchen table, for which she could have shown up in her PJs and no one would really have cared one way or the other.

  In fact, working largely from the house as she did, her work clothes were interchangeable with her casual wear. Everything blurred into loose-fitting and shapeless.

  Practical, she reminded herself, hand brushing past the baggy culottes to linger on the one and only figure-hugging skirt she possessed. Her wardrobe was filled with practical clothes because she was, above all else, practical. Her mother had had the monopoly on impulsive behaviour. She, Rose, was practical.

  Yet she didn’t feel practical as she wriggled into the clinging jade-green skirt and the only slightly less clinging black top with the little pearl buttons down the front, the top four of which she undid. Then promptly did back up.

  There was little she could do with her hair, but she liked the way it hung in a riot of curls over her shoulders, and when she plunged her feet into her one and only pair of high-heeled shoes...well, she would have dwarfed a lot of men but she wasn’t going to dwarf the one who would be waiting for her downstairs.

  In fact, she would be elevated to his level. Eye to eye...nose to nose...mouth to mouth...

  * * *

  Waiting for her in the kitchen with a glass of wine in his hand, Art was just off the phone from one of the finest restaurants in the area. He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain away the extravagance but he was sick of mealtimes being pot luck, along the lines of a bring-and-buy sale in someone’s backyard.

  He was also sick of conversations with her being halted by someone popping their head around the door. She worked from her house and so seemed accessible to any and everyone. While he had been busy planting questions in the heads of all those protestors squatting on his land in the misguided belief that they were going to halt the march of progress, he hadn’t actually got around to planting a single question in Rose’s head because he never seemed to find the time to be alone with her for longer than five seconds.

  He was also disgruntled and frustrated at the tantalising glimpses of her personal life which he had been unable to explore. He accepted that that was just thwarted curiosity but it was still frustrating. He existed on a diet of being able to get exactly what he wanted, and that included a woman’s full and undivided attention.

  She had told him something about herself and he had found himself wanting to hear more and had been unable to. When had that ever happened before? Given half a chance, there was no woman he could think of who wouldn’t have clawed her way back to that interrupted personal conversation with the tenacity of a tigress.

  But no. It was almost as though Rose had more pressing things to do than talk to him.

  And yet...there was something between them. He felt it and so did she. It was just not big enough for her to actually put herself out to try to cultivate it and that irked him.

  All in all, he was looking forward to this meal out more than he could remember looking forward to anything in a long time.

  He swirled the wine in his glass, looked down at the golden liquid and then, when he looked up...

  There she was.

  Art straightened. His mouth fell open. Rooted to the spot, he could feel the throb of sexual awareness flower and bloom into something hot and urgent and pressing.

  She was...bloody stunning.

  That body, long-limbed and rangy under the challenging attire, was spectacular. Lean and toned and effortlessly graceful. She lacked the practised art of the catwalk model, the strutting posture and the moody expression, and she was all the sexier for that.

  And she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  He did his utmost not to stare at the small, rounded pertness of her breasts and the indentation of pebbly nipples pushing against the fine cotton.

  He could see Rose’s whole body react to that leisurely appraisal and the horrified look on her face which accompanied her involuntary response. It galvanised her into speech and action at the same time, moving into the kitchen whilst simultaneously pinning a bright smile to her face as she quizzed him on where they were going.

  Art snapped out of his trance.

  ‘I’ll just grab my bag.’ She interrupted her nervous chatter to look around her.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Car keys, for one thing!’ she announced gaily.

  * * *

  The kitchen felt too small for both of them to be in it. He was wearing nothing more than a pair of dark trousers and a white shirt, staple components of any wardrobe, and yet he looked jaw-droppingly beautiful. He filled the contours of the shirt to perfection. She could see the ripple of muscle under the fabric and he had rolled the sleeves up so that her eyes were drawn to his forearms, liberally sprinkled with dark, silky hair. The minute her eyes went there they couldn’t help but move further along to his long brown fingers and it was then a hop and a skip until she wondered what those fingers would feel like...on her and...in her.

  ‘What? Sorry?’

  Had he said something?

  ‘I’ve ordered a taxi so there’s no need for you to drive,’ he delivered smoothly, allowing her no time to lodge a protest.

  ‘You’re so good at taking over,’ Rose murmured, blushing and smiling.

  ‘I can’t help it,’ Arturo said without apology. ‘It’s part of my personality.’

  He lowered his eyes and offered his arm to her.

  ‘It’s been a while since...’

  ‘Since?’

  ‘Since I’ve been out for a meal.’

  ‘You mean...on a date?’

  ‘Is that what this is?’ They were outside and he was opening the car door for her, waiting as she slid into the back seat before joining her. ‘I thought...’ she turned to him and breathed in the clean, woody smell of him, which made her want to pass out ‘...that this was just your way of thanking me for putting you up. Not—’ she laughed ‘—that it’s been any bother at all!’

  ‘That as well...’

  ‘You needn’t have.’

  ‘Again. Those annoying words. It’s not
a declaration of intent,’ he interjected, then his voice lowered. ‘It’s a... I haven’t told you, but you look...remarkable...’

  ‘I know it’s not a declaration of intent! You’re just passing through and, besides, you’re the guy who doesn’t do domesticity, home cooking or women asking personal questions. And thank you for the compliment, by the way. I...I haven’t worn this old outfit in a long time.’

  Her breathing was jerky and she took refuge in gazing through the window at the familiar countryside. She had no idea where they were going, but it wasn’t long before she found out because she recognised the impressive drive that led to one of the top hotels in the county, where a famous Michelin-starred chef produced food she could never have afforded in a million years.

  She turned to him, her face a picture of bemusement and shock.

  ‘I recently came into some money,’ Arturo said smoothly, ‘and I can’t think of a better way of spending some of it than on bringing you here.’

  ‘I’m not dressed for this place.’

  ‘Do you care what other people think?’ He swung out of the car and walked around to open her door.

  ‘Who doesn’t?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a legacy from when my mum went away.’ Rose was agog as they were shown into the splendid hotel and then escorted like royalty to the most impressive dining room she had ever been in. She was hardly aware of what she was saying. She was way too focused on trying to take in everything around her.

  ‘You were saying...?’ he said as soon as they were seated, a corner table with a bird’s eye view of the richly ornate interior.

  ‘I was saying that my eyes are popping out.’ She swivelled to look at him and her breathing became shallow. What money, she wondered, had he come into? But then, hot on the heels of that thought, came another—her mother had been the recipient of an equally surprising inheritance. Stranger things happened in life. It certainly explained how he was footloose and fancy free...and able to indulge his interest in saving the countryside.