‘Anton?’ Art’s ears pricked up and he frowned.
‘Anton Davies. He’s the lawyer who has been handling the formalities in Oxford. If there’s going to be a transition of duties then we’ll have to get together to discuss that and to work out his fee accordingly. Although...he’s not the sort to quibble.’
Art heard the smile in her voice, the softening of her tone, and his hackles rose accordingly.
But, he thought, if she was working under his roof, so to speak, then he could easily find his way to whatever space had been allocated to her and meet the guy.
It was a taste of jealousy rarely experienced and he moved on from that to conclude the conversation.
Less than five minutes later, everything had been sorted. It took one phone call to his PA for the hotel room to be arranged and a work space sorted.
She was going to experience the joy of five-star luxury and the seclusion of an office in one of the most prestigious buildings in the city.
He sat back and luxuriated in a feeling of pure satisfaction that was very far from the cool, forbidding and controlled exterior he showed the world.
* * *
Rose had no idea really what to expect of her time in London. She had been all cool logic and common sense ever since she had agreed to Art’s proposal but now, standing in front of the daunting glass tower where his headquarters was housed, her heart plummeted faster than a boulder dropped from a great height.
At 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 wasthatbusy? 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 beinghim.
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 inVoguemagazine 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 asooner or laterscenario.
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.
