that instant Gene knew that he would make it his mission to change Rose’s mind about him. He would slowly reveal more of his true nature and let her see that, despite what she might have read and heard about him, he was at his core an honourable man.
As he opened the door and went out he felt more than a little pleased with his decision...
* * *
Faced with the prospect of spending time in a landscape as alien to her as the moon, Rose gritted her teeth and braced herself as a friendly Scottish boatman guided a sturdy fishing boat towards the island.
As fierce waves lashed at the sides and inevitably splashed her she couldn’t help praying that she was doing the right thing in adhering to Philip’s heartfelt plea to take the papers to the arrogant businessman and get the deal ‘done and dusted’ as quickly as possible. Philip had looked so poorly when she’d last seen him in the hospital that the need to arrange some full-time care for him when he went home—at least until he had recovered more fully—had become glaringly imperative.
‘This is a rare event,’ the young curly-headed boatman remarked cheerfully as he steered the craft towards a landing bay carved out between the rocks. ‘As far as I know the Lord of the Manor never has women visit him here... In fact, he never has anyone. It’s his private hideaway, he told me once. He likes the remoteness of the place. ‘It helps him to think straight.’ Grinning, he added, ‘Must like you a lot, I’d say.’
Grimacing painfully, Rose answered. ‘The truth is the man doesn’t like me at all. The sooner my business with him is over and I’m heading away from here, the better.’
‘Well, the soonest you can leave is tomorrow, lass. The tides dictate when you can come and go. They’re a stern mistress to these remote islands.’
‘I can’t leave until tomorrow?’ Crestfallen at the news, Rose wrinkled her smooth brow in distress. ‘You mean I’ll have to stay here overnight?’
‘Yes, lass. I’m sure His Lordship will have made arrangements. Here we go—give me your hand and I’ll help you out.’
Once on terra firma, although it was rocky and felt less than safe underfoot, Rose couldn’t deny she was relieved to be on dry land again. The small craft had negotiated the choppiest of seas on their crossing and she couldn’t attest to being remotely excited by it. Give her the ground beneath her feet any day. At least there she felt some small semblance of control.
Arranging the strap of her red leather tote more securely over her shoulder, she lifted her hand to shade her eyes from a watery sun and stared. The wind was groaning with a mournful howl and as far as she could see the surrounding landscape looked relentlessly bleak. She shivered hard.
There was no welcoming party in sight to greet her—but then she wasn’t exactly surprised. Although Gene Bonnaire had arranged for a luxurious sedan to pick her up and take her to the airport, and had provided a business class ticket for her to travel on the plane, Rose wasn’t resting on her laurels. The two encounters she’d had with the man had been both unpredictable and unsettling, but as she’d made the effort to travel all this way to bring him the documents to sign she thought he might at least have had the decency to meet her and take her up to the house.
‘Likely he’s forgotten what time you were arriving...’ The boatman lifted a broad shoulder in an apologetic shrug.
‘Can I get a signal here to ring him on my mobile?’ she asked hopefully.
The boatman shook his head. ‘Sorry, but we don’t have any service. I’d take you up to the house myself, but I’ve got to make tracks straight away or lose the tide. See that path marked out up ahead? Follow it right to the top and you’ll get to Four Winds. You can’t exactly miss it. The house is like some huge glass fortress from a sci-fi movie.’
‘What about the other people on the island? Where do they live?’
‘They don’t. Live here, I mean. When he’s here, Mr Bonnaire is the sole inhabitant.’
Rose took a deep breath in. So, not only did she have to stay on the island tonight, but she would be marooned with one of the most unpredictable and challenging men she’d ever met. Now she really did have to grit her teeth.
As she turned to watch the boatman get back into his craft she had a real sense of being abandoned. She knew that wasn’t good for her morale. The last thing she needed to feel when she came face to face with Gene Bonnaire again was unsure. The man had too many advantages as it was. And the most disturbing of all wasn’t his power and wealth, but his arrogant belief that money could get him anything he wanted—that getting what he wanted was in fact his right, even if it meant remorselessly manipulating people to achieve it...
She addressed the young man who’d brought her over to the island. ‘Will you be collecting me tomorrow?’
‘Aye, it will be me. If you could be here in the morning round eleven I’ll come and get you.’
‘I wish it could be sooner...’
‘You’ll be all right, lass. His bark is worse than his bite.’
‘You’re a lot more confident about that than I am. By the way, I didn’t ask your name or tell you mine. I’m Rose...Rose Heathcote.’
‘You can call me Rory. It’s nice to meet you, Rose. Well, I’d best be on my way. Take care, won’t you? Chin up—and don’t worry. Just look at His Lordship with those beguiling violet eyes of yours and he’ll be putty in your hands! Bye, now!’
With a cheerful salute, Rory expertly steered the craft out of the rocky bay and headed out to sea.
Warmed by his jovial assurance, Rose stood for perhaps longer than she should have, watching the boat. It very quickly disappeared, engulfed by the wind and the rain and the thrashing waves as if it had never been. Offering up a silent prayer for the young boatman’s safe journey home, she turned and negotiated some rocks that had been carved into paving stones and made her way onto the path marked out on the hillside.
By the time she’d made the deceptively steep climb to the end, even though on several occasions the icy wind had threatened to unbalance her and she’d had to watch carefully where she stepped, she was surprisingly warm, and she was more than a little out of breath when an impressive glass edifice loomed up before her.
Rory’s description had been right on the money. Four Winds was like something out of a sci-fi movie. All that glass and chrome was a stunning contradiction, set in the bleak and yet beautiful landscape that embraced it.
Wiping away the sea spray that had moistened her face, Rose stared for what felt like an eternity, trying to make out where the entrance to the building was. Because it was a circular design, it wasn’t easy to detect. There was no sign of Gene Bonnaire. How could she be sure he was even there?
As tense seconds turned into minutes she had a battle royal on her hands to keep her fury at bay. What the hell did the man think he was playing at? What if he’d changed his mind about his offer. What if he’d decided to pay her back for not agreeing to persuade Philip he should sell to him straight away and had made her come all the way out here to this remote Scottish island just because he could?
Her heart thumped so hard it felt as if it might burst out of her chest. If this was Gene Bonnaire’s warped idea of a joke then it wasn’t remotely funny...
‘Well, well, well...look who the wind’s blown in.’
The deeply gravelled tone almost made Rose jump out of her skin. Glancing up, she saw that part of the glass edifice had silently peeled back to reveal an entrance. Standing outside that futuristic doorway was the man she’d come to see. Dressed in fitted blue jeans that hugged his hard-muscled thighs and a black cashmere sweater, he had his arms casually folded across his impressive chest, giving the impression that it was the most natural thing in the world for him to come outside and find her standing there.
Clearly