mortgage?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘On the contrary—money is my business.’
‘Oh, that’s right,’ Lily flared, ‘because you work on the stock market, because you’re featured in some magazines and appeared on television, you think you’re entitled to poke your nose into everyone’s private affairs?’
‘I don’t work on the stock market—I work the stock market,’ Hunter corrected calmly, an utter contrast to Lily’s trembling rage. ‘More often than not to my advantage. People pay a lot of money for my opinion and I’m giving it to you free—I’d listen, if I were you.’
‘I don’t have to listen,’ Lily bristled. ‘I already know that I can’t afford it—I already know that the banks are not going to lend me the money and that the house…’ Suddenly it all caught up with her, the tension of the past few weeks, the frustration of feeling so helpless all culminating into this moment, all her fears magnified as this impossible man forced her to confront what she already knew. Tears stung her eyes as she resumed talking, her words more to herself than Hunter as she admitted the unpalatable truth. ‘It’s going to have to be sold.’
‘Sold?’ Hunter frowned, staring again at the papers. ‘I thought you were looking to buy…Oh, I see.’ He flicked over a couple of pages. ‘This is your parents’ house.’
She was too exhausted to be angry as he shamelessly delved further into her documents, the anxiety that had propelled her in recent weeks utterly depleted now. Sitting on the sofa beside him, Lily took a sip of wine and leant back, closing her eyes as Hunter questioned her further.
‘My mother’s,’ Lily corrected him her voice a monotone. ‘My father died two years ago.’
‘So it’s solely in your mother’s name?’ Without even a murmur of acknowledgment to her loss, Hunter dealt with the facts. ‘Why do you want to buy it?’
‘Because my mother can’t afford it—she’s defaulted on her loan.’ Lily let out a long tense breath. ‘She was planning to turn it into a bed and breakfast in the hope of keeping it. She’s up in Queensland now, talking to her sister about coming in with her, but things have just started to snowball. I just found out that there’s going to be a mortgagee’s auction in two weeks and unless she comes up with the money…’
‘But if she can’t afford it, surely she’s better off downsizing,’ Hunter responded, his voice utterly void of emotion, just as the bank manager’s and the umpteen lenders she had dealt with over the past few weeks had been. For Lily it was the last straw.
‘Says who?’ Lily’s voice was shrill. ‘She’s lived in that house for thirty years, all of her memories are there—her life. Why should she lose it?’
‘Because she hasn’t got the money to keep it,’ Hunter said blandly, utterly unmoved by her emotive outburst. ‘Why does she owe so much if she’s been there so long?’ God, he was direct—no skirting around the edges, no gently feeling his way into a conversation. He was business personified. ‘Didn’t your father have insurance?’
‘They took out a new mortgage to pay for my father’s treatment and to spend his last year travelling.’
‘That was rather selfish!’ Hunter rolled his eyes. ‘Didn’t he realise the mess he’d be leaving for your mother?’ Lily’s mouth gaped open, stunned at what she was hearing, reeling that he would say such a thing, but Hunter stared coolly back. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought the same.’
‘Maybe…’ Lily blinked rapidly, feeling sick at her confession to a stranger. ‘Perhaps a bit, but you don’t know the circumstances, and you have no right—’
‘Fine.’ Shuffling the papers into a neat pile, he placed them down on the table and picked up his coffee, dropping the difficult subject, leaving Lily to freefall with all the emotion he’d just triggered as he calmly drank his coffee in a couple of gulps then stood up. Even though she hadn’t wanted him to stay, suddenly she didn’t want him to leave, curiously deflated as this wild animal took one sniff of the air and seemingly meekly walked away.
‘Thanks so much for the lift.’ Lily stood up and walked him to the door.
‘No problem. Thanks for the coffee.’
‘You’ll be OK to drive?’
‘Why? Are you worried about me?’
‘You’re a client…’ Lily attempted, but he shook his head.
‘No.’ Very deliberately he excused himself and Lily felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as he took away that moral dilemma and plunged her into a rather more personal one. ‘I was never there for me—I was checking the place out for someone else. So, you see, I’m not your client, which means you have absolutely no need to worry about me—unless, of course…’ boldly he stared ‘…you want to.’
‘But you said…’
‘I’m not into group therapy.’ Even the most bland of words were laced with innuendo when Hunter said them, even the most subtle flick of his eyes had her head spinning. ‘I prefer things to be one on one. I really was just there to make sure that things were aboveboard for…’ He hesitated for a fraction. ‘A friend.’
‘And were they?’
‘Very.’ He nodded. ‘And the coffee was most welcome, but now it’s time to go, I can tell that I’ve annoyed you.’
‘A bit,’ Lily admitted, ‘but that’s my problem, not yours.’
‘Do you do it all the time?’ Hunter asked, still staring unashamedly, but it was his mouth rather than his eyes that held Lily’s attention now, thick sensual lips that barely moved as he spoke, but his words were all silkily measured. ‘I mean, everything someone says—do you analyse it? How can my obnoxiousness be your problem?’
A sliver of a smile shivered on her own lips, countered by a nervous pink tongue bobbing out, and it was as if they were writing their own rules for flirting, the manual that said eye contact was so important tossed aside as they both concentrated on a more subtle erogenous zone. For Lily the effect was devastating, her mouth rendered almost immobile, words stammered out in a breathless voice as her lips ached for his. ‘It-t i-isn’t—my reactions are m-my own.’
‘Well, I’m glad I can evoke a reaction.’ The irony of his statement wasn’t lost on Lily. Never in her life had a person evoked such a reaction, her mind, her body spinning with awareness, dizzy from a host of new sensations. ‘And I am sorry if I offended. I have this terrible superiority complex, you see. I know I’m always right.’
She was actually smiling now, terribly reluctantly but she was definitely smiling, and in that unguarded second he pounced, well, not pounced, but for the first time he touched her, his fingers picking up a strand of damp blonde hair and tucking it behind her ear. Even though she stood stock still his touch felt like a dam was bursting somewhere inside, rivers of awareness, arousal coursing through her as his free hand took the glass she was clutching and placed it carefully on the hall table.
‘Tonight’s been…’ He paused while he chose his words. ‘Unexpectedly pleasant.’
‘I’m glad I didn’t bore you.’
‘Far from it.’ He frowned quizzically at her. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Why bother checking?’ Lily gave a rueful smile, but it covered a nervous swallow. She somehow sensed what was coming next, almost knew what he was going to ask her. ‘Why would a pretty little thing like you give up on the pot of gold?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Oh, but I think you do!’ He was pinning her with his eyes as he voiced a question most would never have dared. ‘How did someone as young and as beautiful as you get so cynical?’
‘Cynical.’