directly in front of her and Rose only managed to stand her ground through sheer willpower and a driving urge not to feel intimidated.
‘It’s very...nice.’
‘Very nice?’ Art looked away briefly, then returned his dark searching gaze to her face.
‘It’s not what I’m used to.’ Rose cleared her throat and gathered herself. ‘It really makes me see the gaping chasm between us.’
Art flushed darkly. ‘We’ve been over this. Let me take you to the hotel. You can drop your bag and then we’ll go for lunch.’
‘Art, there’s no need to put yourself out for me. I don’t expect you to take me to lunch or anywhere else, for that matter. Your PA gave me the impression that I wouldn’t actually be seeing a great deal of you.’
‘Like I said, plans change. You’ll be thrilled to hear that I’ve cleared my diary for you.’
Rose looked at him wryly, eyebrows raised. ‘Do I look thrilled?’
‘I’ve missed your sense of humour. Some men might be turned off because you’re not simpering, but not me.’ Art held her gaze and raked his fingers through his dark hair, his lean body taut and tense.
Rose stilled. Her whole body froze and for a few seconds she wondered whether she had heard correctly. His fabulous eyes were giving nothing away but there was something there that made her mouth go dry.
‘You missed me?’
Her body came to life. Her nipples pinched and a spreading dampness between her legs was a painful reminder of the dramatic effect he still had on her.
She’d hoped that seeing him in his gilded surroundings would kill off what remnants of idiotic sexual attraction lingered inside her, but looking at him now...
She was no expert but that suit looked handmade, to match the shoes which also looked handmade. His smooth, ridiculously sophisticated attire would probably have cost the equivalent of what most normal earthlings earned in a year. It should have got up her nose, been a massive turn-off, and yet she had a sudden urge to swoon.
‘Well, I have not missed you,’ she croaked and he looked at her steadily, eyes pinned to her flustered face. ‘And I don’t appreciate you...bringing this up. What happened between us...happened and I’m not here to rake up the past. As I’ve already told you.’
‘I know. I’m crashing through all those barriers and voicing what you don’t want to hear.’
‘Shall I be honest with you?’ He dropped the loaded question into the lengthening silence and waited.
‘No,’ she whispered.
‘I still want you, Rose. Just standing here is doing all sorts of things to my body, turning it on in ways you couldn’t begin to imagine. You’re in my system and, I won’t lie, you’re screwing up my working life because I can’t get you out of my head.’
‘Art, don’t...’ Rose heard the weak tremble in her voice with horror. She glanced at him and her breath hitched in her throat.
‘I still want you in my bed,’ he continued roughly. ‘It’s the only way I can think of to get you out of my system. I won’t lay a finger on you but...every time you look at me, you should know that I’m thinking about touching you.’ He stared away.
‘I should never have come here!’
‘But you’re here now. Do you want to leave?’ His smouldering dark eyes fastened on her, pinning her to the spot.
Rose hesitated. As he said, she was here now and she would sort out all the fine detail he had summoned her to London to sort out. She had promised all those loyal protestors that she would return with plans in place for them to start thinking long-term about improvements to the community. She wasn’t going to let them down.
‘I’ll do what I came here to do,’ she replied, breathing in deep and not looking away. ‘I told everyone I would have details for them to pick over and I have no intention of going back empty-handed. What you think when you look at me is your business.’
IF ART HAD planned on dropping a bomb in her life then he’d succeeded.
He still wanted her. He still wanted to take her to his bed. He still wanted to do all those things to her that she still wanted to do to him.
When Rose thought about that she felt giddy. She knew that, by being honest, he had deliberately dropped that bomb to wreak havoc with her peace of mind. Honest or selfish? Did he really care if he ended up getting what he wanted? He’d got her to London under false pretences and now he was playing a waiting game.
It had only been forty-eight hours but already her nerves were shredded. She felt like a minnow being slowly circled by a shark and, worse, the minnow was finding it hard to stop fantasising about its predator.
Now, he was taking her out to an elaborate dinner.
‘Networking,’ he had explained succinctly, having earlier dropped by her office, which had also turned into her sanctuary, where she could find a brief reprieve from his overwhelming personality.
She had looked up and given him a perplexed frown, which had clearly done nothing to dampen his high spirits.
‘I’m not here to network.’
‘Granted, but this is a charity event hosted by some fairly prominent members of the international legal community. All those causes you take such an interest in? Well, they’ll be represented across the board. Several people you’ll have heard of will also be giving speeches and, for the intrepid, I gather there will be an opportunity to go abroad to places where civil liberties are at risk. You may not want to personally vanish to the opposite side of the globe on a crusade to eradicate injustice, but you might be interested in meeting fellow like-minded citizens who are.’
‘A charity event?’
‘Reasonably smart, I should point out, as these things invariably are. A few degrees off black tie.’
‘I haven’t brought any smart clothes with me, Art.’
‘Nothing but the hands-off suits that could have been designed to deter roving eyes and repel curious hands,’ he murmured, in his first departure from the perfectly well-behaved gentleman he had been since his warning of intent. ‘Why don’t you get yourself something? You can charge it to my company account. Elaine, my PA, will sort that out for you.’
‘I couldn’t...’
He’d shrugged but he’d dropped the bait and she’d taken it.
How could she not?
Rose immediately told herself that it didn’t mean anything. She’d been presented with an opportunity to meet people she admired so why shouldn’t she grab the chance just because Art had arranged it? She could pat herself on the back for not letting his suffocating presence plunge her into a state of permanent confusion. And since he seemed convinced that she wouldn’t take him up on his offer to subsidise an evening dress for the event, then why shouldn’t she prove him wrong and do what he least expected?
Rose wasn’t stupid. She knew how to sift through the deceit and ferret out the truth. Art had descended on their village with one thing in mind and that had been to persuade her to stop the protests that were slowing up development of the land he’d bought. He could have run roughshod over all of them because he had the law on his side but he was clever enough to know that a diplomatic solution would have been preferable and so that was the road he had decided to go down.
He hadn’t banked on her being a nuisance and getting in his way but he’d found her attractive and she knew why. It was because she represented everything he wasn’t accustomed to. From the