Tangling with the London Tycoon

by Suzi Jennings

“Don’t mention it yet,” she groaned. “Brick Square, Jabbering Gerbera, media rubbish, work and responsibilities. I left them all at home, and now they’re crowding back on me.” She gulped a hot mouthful of tea, washed the thoughts from her mind. It wasn’t yet time to question.

  “So, shhh…” She placed her finger against his soft, warm mouth. “Thirty more minutes of Rosco-Kitty world.”

  She selected a square of caramel fudge from the tin, took a bite, felt the sweetness dissolve in her mouth. Then, raising the remaining half to Rosco’s mouth, she traced his sexy lower lip with the sugary treat.

  “Temptation.” He grinned, deliciously wolfish, and took the caramel into his mouth, sucking her fingers and waggling his brows.

  “Irresistible temptation,” she agreed, stretching across him and placing their mugs on the nightstand.

  Her body wanted him again, and she turned to sit astride him, tenting the thick, soft covers around them.

  “Last on my list,” she said as she faced him, skin to skin. “One more kiss.”

  He took her mouth, sharing the lingering sweet flavor of caramel, and scooped her body to his one last time.

  Those last thirty minutes sped by in a blur, and all to soon Kitty laid her head on his shoulder as sadness washed over her. “No more time for passion.”

  He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “It’s our world to step back into whenever we want. Our oath and passion will be waiting for us.”

  “Already on my tick list,” she said, snuggling her head to his chest, hiding the doubts she felt surely must be showing on her face. It was the real world that bothered her now.

  A new worry floated across her thoughts like random dust on a camera lens, spoiling the image. Would Rosco still want her back in the real world? He hadn’t wanted to take her to the village.

  Did not wanting to share her really mean he was ashamed to be in public with her?

  When they did return to normal life she would need to find out.

  …

  “Three, two, one,” they counted together at noon, and Rosco blinked as he switched on his cell phone. The screen lit up with unread messages blasting him back to reality.

  At the top of the list was a message bearing the Sandford Palace coat of arms.

  He clicked it open and groaned aloud as an ornate invitation filled the screen. It set out a time for him and his “mystery woman” to attend an interview high tea.

  Kitty noticed his annoyance and flicked a look at the screen before he could jab it closed.

  “Huh,” she snorted, snatching the phone from him and devouring the invite information. “Trinity St. George! There’s no way she wants to meet me.”

  Rosco absorbed Kitty’s self-scorn and felt the acid burn of unfairness. Kitty was nothing like these people. They had no right to judge her.

  “Why do you single out Trinity St. George?” He’d hoped to avoid involving Kitty in this ridiculous situation. People he hardly knew shouldn’t dictate his private life.

  Kitty turned to him but didn’t meet his eyes. “She was a friend of my mother’s, but they were very competitive. Trinity abandoned my mother to marry the duke.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Anger and betrayal smacked through him, and he drew away from her, hauling in his temper. “I would have understood,” he insisted, unable to hide the hurt he was feeling. After all, it was one of his father’s enemies who had put them in this situation.

  Kitty drew breath and scrunched farther into the folds of the bedding. “You told me I would have nothing to do with them.” She visibly cringed. “Is that meeting what this weekend was about? You thought if you seduced me I would go with you to your meeting?” She was on the verge of tears now, and Rosco was helpless to stop her. “You plotted wrong, I’m afraid,” she scoffed angrily. “Trinity won’t want me haunting her from the past and threatening her aristocratic image.”

  “That’s not at all why I brought you to Chopper House—you know that.” He couldn’t control the bite in his tone, cursed himself as she rounded on him.

  “Do I?” she spat at him. “You manipulated me.” She tossed his phone back at him, and he flinched at her words.

  It hadn’t felt like manipulation to him. He’d let go. Let their mutual attraction seduce him away from business, against all his instincts. Against everything his father had unwittingly taught him.

  Against his own better judgment.

  He’d wanted to escape business, but Kitty’s past made that impossible. The closer they had grown, the bigger the divide between them over the palace deal. Now he had no interview prospects with her.

  And much worse, Kitty no longer trusted him. Not at all where he had intended to end their weekend.

  He punched the pillow in frustration and turned to comfort her distress.

  …

  Kitty clenched her fist around her cell phone, clutching it to her chest, and launched herself out of bed in the half light. “I’ve had enough talk.” Rosco’s anger and her sense of betrayal were too much to stomach any longer.

  She was naked and grabbed a shirt Rosco had discarded sometime during the night.

  Its soft cotton, rumpled with Rosco-ness, irritated her now as she slipped it over her skin and secured a couple of buttons.

  Stretching aching muscles, she stepped purposefully away from him to the window by the bed where the soft midday light, filtering through thick brown fabric, offered a gentle re-entry into the world.

  She pulled the curtains aside and screamed.

  Yanking the curtains back across the window, she ran around the bed, heading for the door. “Tele lens the size of a dinner plate,” she hissed, picking up her cell phone, fury propelling her across the room.

  Rosco instantly bounded out of bed to intercept her, but she sidestepped him.

  “Get dressed,” she said, pushing him away and running to the front door, not wanting to be stopped by him or to lose sight of the paparazzo It was the guy with the squashy face, and she’d had enough.

  “Stop, Kitty,” she heard Rosco call behind her, and it made her run faster.

  Her bare feet hit the wooden porch, the concrete driveway, and then she was dimly aware of softer damp grass as she accelerated toward her target. He was running towards the road.

  School athletics training kicked in and she planted her feet, toes up, to maximize glute power and drove her arms back hard to boost her speed.

  She’d catch the creep and get his camera off him if it killed her.

  Gaining on him was easy. He was stumbling, obviously torn between escape and protecting his camera and the photos he’d snatched.

  Kitty wanted to yell her head off at him but saved her breath for the sprint

  A green car, half hidden in bushes at the edge of the country road, came into view. She’d swear it was the one she’d imagined was following her to the wedding. The one she’d lost sight of and dismissed as fanciful. She should have trusted her gut.

  Panting, she finally caught up with him as he wrenched open his car door and dived in. She threw herself at that door just as he clicked it locked.

  “You low life, creepzoid,” she shouted, aiming her phone camera at him. “I’ve got your face now and your plate number.”

  “It’s a rental, Kitty Mayfair,” he sneered through the car window, gunning the engine.

  A cold tide of fear swept through her.

  He knew her name.

  Her carefully constructed adult life flashed in front of her eyes. The truth about her mother’s suicide, all the ancient titillating gossip about her childhood, could pop up in some psycho-babble article alongside this guy’s bedroom shot.

  He’d publish it all for a few hundred bucks and a laugh in the pub.

  Her privacy would also be lost, her reputation tainted along with Rosco’s. She felt the icy claw of lost love freeze any hope that what they’d shared had been real.

  Rosco skidded to a halt beside her, wearing only shoes and boxer shorts, and he hit the car
door with force. But the guy just laughed as he squealed away from them. Taking her hopes with him.

  Rosco had misled her about Trinity St. George, and now the paparazzi had enough snaps and info to ruin her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Breathing hard, Rosco caught Kitty around the waist. She was amped up and ready to take off after the car as it disappeared around the bend in the road.

  Her heart pounded beneath his hands as she kicked his shins, struggling to escape. He held her closer, his temper seething next to hers. Their privacy breached.

  “He’s gone,” he said, waiting for her adrenalin surge to fade.

  “I want to find him, destroy his camera.” Kitty’s voice was taut, her breath hot against his skin.

  “I knew this was all too good to be true,” she said, using her fists to pummel his arms.

  His own adrenalin rush turned clammy-cold at her tone. Then anger at himself, and at the damn paps, raged through him again. He was the one who’d been selfish enough to think he could carve out some happiness without consequences. He had deliberately tuned out his childhood lessons, and this was the cost.

  Kitty continued to wriggle, and he held on tight. He was afraid for her hurt, for this cruel ending to their weekend.

  “I should never have opened that curtain.”

  “To be sure, it’s a crime for a beautiful woman to draw a curtain in her own bedroom.” He turned on the brogue in the hope she’d laugh and melt his fear.

  But she stilled in his arms with no answering banter. “It isn’t my bedroom. That’s the story.”

  “It is your bedroom in our world, Gerbera Girl. No one else’s.”

  “That’s still the story,” she repeated, and pulled away from him. “I’ve brought the paparazzi to your door.”

  The adrenalin was gone, but he refused to let their world fade with it. “You know that isn’t true. I know that isn’t true.”

  “They ‘arrived’ with me for that first pre-wedding photo shoot. Your words, Rosco,” she said as he turned her toward him, his heart squeezing at the sight of her hurt, pinched face. “You blamed me then,” she persisted. “And you’ve never trusted me since.”

  Kitty started to shiver in his arms, and it wrung his heart even as his brain kicked into action mode. He propelled her back toward the house, acutely aware of the cold air on his bare chest and her bare feet on the damp grass.

  He kept his arm clamped around her waist, scared she would take off without listening to him. “I’m sorry I put you in this situation.”

  When they reached the porch he cupped her trembling chin, ensuring she paid attention. “I told you when we met at Brick Square that an old business enemy of my father’s is stalking me. He’ll be paying that guy to snoop and snap me to undermine my reputation. He wants to destroy my bid for the Sandford Palace contract.”

  “That makes it worse.” She shrugged off his embrace. “They’re hunting me, too. They could be anywhere in the trees. Even yesterday…” She looked around wild-eyed and suspicious.

  “He wouldn’t have been lurking outside if he’d got the pictures he wanted yesterday.”

  “At least I was fully clothed yesterday.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and he ached to hold her again, as much for his own comfort as hers.

  He’d failed in protecting her. In making their world safe and private. In gaining her trust.

  When they stepped inside the house, she was pale and trembling, looking as bleak as his own reflection in the bathroom mirror as he turned on the shower and insisted she defrost under the hot water.

  No steamy loving this time. He felt the loss as he rushed to make sweet tea and collect the last of her Brick Square cakes. He wanted to pull her out of her shock. They couldn’t escape this intrusion and he’d do what was needed to get it in perspective now.

  He heard the shower turn off and dragged the velvet comforter from his bed to wrap her up warm. She still looked a little wild-eyed as she emerged from the steam, and he pulled her gently into the living room.

  “I’ve made tea,” he said as she hunched in the corner of the sofa, tapping at her cell phone. Surely she wouldn’t find any of those wretched photos online this soon. “We’ll stay hidden a little longer.”

  “Not ashamed of me, of my history, are you?” Her voice was bitter, her scorn turned inward as she snapped her phone closed. “The real world is just a short car ride away. Even worse, just an instant click on the internet. That’s where you’ll find me now.”

  “Of course I’m not ashamed.”

  He moved closer, reached for her hand, but she snatched it away. “None of this”—she waved her hand around the room—“weekend was real.”

  “It is. It’s special. Sandford Palace meeting or not, what we shared here was real.”

  “Even if it was, that creepzoid’s wrecked it. We’ll be all over the internet, and your mystery woman will hardly have the reputation you want.”

  “We don’t know that. The creepzoid’s photos—great name, by the way, although I can think of others. His photos will be unusable,” he said, grappling for positives. “He was a long way from the window.”

  “They’ll do. He’ll enhance them. The quality won’t matter because he has what he wants.” She pulled the comforter up over her head, burrowing farther away from him. “He knows my name.” Anger surged within him as he watched her profile harden, her gaze inward and self-destructive. “He’s older than most paps—he must have been around when my mother died. Must have remembered who I am.” She twisted to face him. “Your double bad luck, Rosco.”

  “Rubbish.” He reached out to comfort her, but she flinched away. “I’m leaving the country tomorrow. You can negotiate the Brick Square contract with Rosa. I’ll start the photography when I get back.”

  He heaved in a furious breath and glared at her. “You’re making no sense. Where the hell are you going?”

  “One of those travel assignments I told you about was confirmed. I emailed back to accept while I was in the bathroom.”

  “How long for?”

  “Three weeks.”

  Her brown eyes swam with unshed tears, and he couldn’t ignore her pain. Hell, it was his pain, too. “You’re running away from us.”

  “No. I’m setting us free from hiding and innuendo.”

  “We can’t let others do this to us. We can still have our own world.” God, he wanted to hold her. He reached out again to touch her, to ease the pain, but she batted him away.

  “It isn’t about others. It’s about us.” Her voice was a tear-choked rasp against his heart. “It’s about me.”

  Fear clenched through him, and he braced his body against the sofa. “What about you?” He snatched a glance at her. Couldn’t bear to watch the rigid stubborn lines of her rejection.

  Kitty took a shuddering breath, then talked in a rush. “Family. I don’t know how to do family the way you do behind your smart London door. Those skills just aren’t in my DNA. I’ve jinxed yours already.”

  She sniffed, drew in another ragged breath. “So whatever this ‘special thing’ is we have, it’s over. It will always be tainted by paparazzi now. It always has been. You only want me when we’re hidden away, Rosco.”

  Tears caught at her throat, and she swallowed then continued, her voice thick and fierce, as dread filled him. “Special in our own world means secret, hidden. I can’t see a way ahead for that.”

  “What do you mean by ‘a way ahead’?”

  “No future. Perhaps I’m Jacqueline Mayfair’s daughter after all, in more ways than I’ve dared to think.”

  “You’re talking rubbish again.” She made no sense. She was nothing like her mother.

  “Really, Rosco? Let me spell it out.” She shifted to face him squarely. “I wanted a job and a contract. I wanted to stand up against your bullying family and the media. Then I wanted more…too much more.”

  She breathed heavily again, shuddering. “Our under-the-tablecloth and Chopper House worlds aren�
�t real. They’re not sustainable against all this. I should never have trusted temptation. Now I’m hurting you. It’s the last thing I want to do.”

  Kitty planted her feet on the floor, pulling herself up and away from him. “I need to go home. Think this through.”

  He eyed her determined stance and rubbed an exasperated hand across his jaw. Everything he’d worked for seemed turned against him.

  He needed to think, too.

  “Get your things together. I’ll fly you back to London.”

  She fled upstairs without comment, and he switched his concentration onto preparing the chopper, planning the flight. Tasks that didn’t require him to search his soul the way the bleak look on Kitty’s face did.

  …

  The helicopter cockpit felt like a glass cage as he flew a silent Kitty back to London. It was the first time since gaining his license that his spirits hadn’t lifted with the chopper.

  Kitty feigned sleep, and he left her alone. The emotions he was keeping under close control were incompatible with safe flying.

  When they landed she stirred immediately, unbuckled her harness, and reached for the cockpit door.

  “Don’t rush away. We can work this out.”

  “No.” She shook her head, emphatic, distress in every line of her body. “Those photos will be out there now.”

  “Nonsense.” Surely they wouldn’t be plastered all over the media already. Hopefully never.

  “Get your cell phone. It will be posted for everyone to see now. Even your Trinity St. George.”

  He stilled as he dug into the pocket of his jeans to grab his phone, activated it, and handed it to Kitty.

  “You’ll find them quicker than me.” He crossed his fingers, hoping she was wrong, sure that she was. This was crazy.

  The look on her face told him the worst, and he leaned closer, watching with her, as images of them filled the small screen.

  Kitty and him beside her little car at the heliport. She leaning into him, on her toes in her high-heeled boots, as his hand caressed the length of her pony tail.

  Anger swelled, a physical pressure in his chest.

  Kitty at full stretch opening their bedroom curtains, with him, clearly bare chested, in the bed behind her.