her side was her pull-along case, neatly packed with essentials. Work clothes. Prim, proper work clothes which were nothing like the relaxed, informal stuff she was accustomed to wearing in her own house. The image she wanted to project was one of inaccessible businesslike efficiency. There was no way she wanted him to think for a passing minute that she was the same woman who had hopped into bed with him, breathless and girly and excited.
To that end, she had actually bought two reasonably priced grey skirts and a jacket, two white blouses and a pair of black pumps. The perfect wardrobe for a woman who was in London for business.
She was wearing a sensible white bra which matched her sensible white knickers and bolstered her self-confidence as she continued to gaze at the aggressively thrusting glass facade with a racing heart.
She had asked for a schedule and a schedule she had duly received. Arrival at ten. She would then be shown to her temporary working quarters and then taken to the hotel, where she would deposit her belongings. At that point she could choose to return to the office to work if she liked. In all events, she wouldn’t be seeing Art until early evening in his office, where they would briefly discuss some of the details of the projects that lay ahead for the village.
She had liaised with his personal assistant by email for all of this and, reading between the lines, she had got the message that Arturo da Costa, billionaire and legend in the world of business and finance, was a man who had precious little time to spare so what she was getting would be his leftover free time, a few snatched moments here and there when he happened not to be closing an important deal or entertaining important big shots.
Rose had held her tongue and refrained from pointing out the obvious. Why on earth was he bothering to see her at all if he was that busy? But then she remembered that he was the guy who had gone the extra mile to appease the natives and this was just a duty-bound finishing touch to his benevolence.
Anyway, she thought now, taking a deep breath and propelling herself into the glass tower, it was great that he was only going to be around now and again.
That way, she would see enough of him to kill all the foolish, nostalgic, whimsical memories that seemed to have dogged her, against all her better judgement. She would have a world class view of the real man and he wasn’t going to be the easy-going, sexy, laid-back guy who had painted a room in her house and stood by her side in the kitchen pretending that he knew what to do when it came to food preparation, joking and teasing and turning her on just by being him.
A little disorientated, she found herself in a vast marble-floored foyer, manned by an army of receptionists who would not have looked out of place in Vogue magazine and, just in case anyone might think that there was an unfair proportion of female models in front of those silver terminals and where the heck was feminism when you wanted it, then they’d have to think again because there was a fair sprinkling of men alongside them who also looked as though they’d have been quite at home on a catwalk. People were coming and going. There was an air of purpose about the place. This was what the business of vast money-making looked like. It was as far removed from her own workplace as an igloo was from a hut on a tropical beach.
She had no idea who would be meeting her but she was expecting the helpful PA.
She was certainly not expecting Art and, indeed, was unaware of him until she heard his voice behind her, deep and dark and sexy.
‘You’re here.’
Rose spun around. She’d gone from ice cold to scorching hot in the space of two seconds. Dazed, she focused on him and the heat pouring through her body almost made her pass out.
* * *
‘I wasn’t sure whether you were going to come or not,’ Art remarked, already turned on even though the deliberately uninspiring office outfit should have been enough to snuff out any stirrings of ardour.
It was her face. It had haunted him and one look at her revived every single image that had been floating around in his head and every single lustful thought that had accompanied those images.
He was pleased that he had been proactive. He could have sat around thinking of her. Sooner or later the memories would have vanished into the ether but he wasn’t a man to rely on a sooner or later scenario.
The interruption to the smooth flow of his work life had been intolerable and the solution he had engineered had been worth the trouble.
Art hadn’t known how he was going to play his cards when she arrived. He’d acted on impulse in engineering the situation in the first place, had ceded to the demands of his body.
Now, for the first time in his life, he was taking a chance and venturing into unknown territory. At an age when he should have been having fun, Art had had to grow up fast to deal with his father’s unpredictable behaviour and the emotional and financial fallout each relationship had left in its wake. Before he had had a chance to plot his own life, he had already concluded that the only safe course was to hold tight to his emotions and to his money. Lose control and he could end up like his father. Adrift and ripped off.
This was the biggest chance he had ever taken. At least he wasn’t going to be ripped off and she would be gone just as soon as he got this thing out of his system.
He still wanted her. He accepted that as his body surged into hot arousal. Didn’t make sense but there you had it. What they had required a natural conclusion and looking at her now, seeing the way her cheeks reddened and noting the slight tremble in her hands, Art knew that she felt the same.
Even if she didn’t know it. Yet.
* * *
He dealt her a slow smile of utter charm and Rose’s mouth tightened.
‘Well, here I am,’ she replied neutrally. She wondered whether that remark of his had hinted at a suspicion that she might have tried to avoid meeting him because of the effect he still had on her. Had he thought that she had hesitated because she’d been scared of seeing him again? Or was that just being fanciful?
The way he was looking at her...
She dropped her eyes and resisted the temptation to fidget. ‘I was under the impression that your secretary would be meeting me.’
‘Change of plan.’
‘Why?’ She looked at him and it took a lot of willpower not to instantly look away because gazing into those fathomless dark eyes was the equivalent of having a shock delivered to her nervous system.
‘Call it respect for the fact that what we had was bigger than the sum total of what I’m going to contribute to your community.’
Rose felt the sting of colour creep into her cheeks. She didn’t want the past recalled. She wanted the brief time they’d shared neatly boxed up and shoved somewhere out of sight.
‘There was no need,’ she said tightly. ‘I’m not here to have a stroll down memory lane, Art. It’s not appropriate. I’m here to sort whatever details need sorting and then I’m heading back home. The quicker we can deal with what we need to decide the better.’
‘In which case,’ Art said briskly, ‘let’s start with your work space...’
* * *
It was the same size as the room which she shared with Phil and their assistant and all the various people who came and went at will. Compared with the clutter of the office in her house, the clean white modernist vision she had been allocated made her jaw drop.
She thought of the warm chaos of her own house and the familiar sounds of occupied rooms and felt a pang of longing so great that it took her breath away.
Life pre-Art had been simple. Making ends meet as she’d buried herself in her worthwhile causes had been a walk in the park because, when it came to stress, there was nothing more stressful than dealing with emotions. She had managed to avoid that for her entire life because no one had ever penetrated the protective wall she had built around herself.
‘What is it?’