The Tycoon's Ultimate Conquest. Cathy Williams

around the house while you’re there. Two of the rooms need painting, which is a job I never seem to get round to doing, and there’s a stubborn leak in the tap. A constant drip, drip, drip.’

      ‘You want me to fix leaks and paint your house?’ DIY and Art had never crossed paths. Paint a room? Fix a leak? He couldn’t have flung himself further out of his comfort zone if he’d tried.

      ‘In return for free board and lodging. Oh, how good are you at cooking?’

      ‘It’s something I’ve always tried to avoid.’

      ‘Do we have a deal?’

      ‘Why do you live in such a big house if you can’t afford to?’

      ‘Long story.’

      ‘I’m a very good listener. There’s nothing I enjoy more than a long story. I guess we can get to that in due course because I would love to accept your generous offer.’ He wondered what other skills she thought he possessed. There was a chance they would both end up in Casualty if he tried his hand at cooking, so he disabused her straight away on that count and she laughed and shrugged and laughed again and told him that it had been worth a shot.

      ‘I can cook and when I put my mind to it I actually enjoy it, but I’m so busy all of the time that it always feels like a chore.’

      ‘You might regret asking me to paint a room,’ Art said seriously as she bumped along the narrow lanes, driving past clusters of picturesque houses with neat box hedges before the open fields swallowed them up again, only to disgorge them into yet another picturesque village. ‘I’m very happy to try my hand at it, but one thing I do insist on doing is paying you for my accommodation.’

      ‘Don’t be stupid.’

      ‘If you don’t agree to this then you can dump me off right here and I’ll sort myself out, whatever the cost.’

      Rose clicked her tongue impatiently.

      ‘You obviously need the money,’ Art continued almost gently, as the outskirts of the village loomed into view. ‘You rent rooms out and the place, from all accounts, is falling apart at the seams...’

      ‘Very well.’ She kept her eyes firmly focused on the road ahead. ‘In which case, I’ll accept your dinner invitation on the proviso that I cook dinner for you.’

      ‘Deal,’ Art drawled, relaxing back into the passenger seat. Could he have hoped for a better outcome than this? No.

      He was looking forward to this evening. The thorny business of going undercover to talk some sense into his opposition wasn’t going to be the annoying uphill trek he had originally foreseen after all...

      In fact...hand on heart, Art could honestly say that he was looking forward to this little break in his routine.