His thoughts were so clear he felt washed clean.
He could see the wariness in her eyes and he strode towards her before that wariness could persuade her to get back into the taxi and disappear, leaving him stranded on her doorstep.
‘What are you doing here?’ Rose’s voice was curt as she paid the taxi driver, who was watching proceedings with keen interest. ‘Thanks, Stephen—’ she said to the driver through the window of the car, eyebrows raised ‘—I won’t keep you. I expect Jenny and the kids would like to have you home.’
‘That the big-shot she’s been banging on about for weeks?’
‘No idea, Steve. I don’t know how many big-shots Jenny’s met recently...’ She slammed shut the door and leaned towards him. ‘Give her my love and the thumbs-up that everything’s in place for the changes to the library. She can start picking out colours for the new kids’ space.’
Rose was playing for time but, with no distraction left, she remained where she was as Steve headed away. Her case was on the ground at her feet.
‘I’ve been waiting here for over an hour.’ For the first time in living memory, Art was nervous. He almost failed to recognise the sensation. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He wanted to climb into her head and read what she was thinking but her expression was cool and remote and he wondered...where did he go from here?
Scowling and ill at ease, he walked towards her and was pleased to note that, almost indiscernibly, she flinched. He was having some kind of effect on her and that was good because, going by her expression, he could have been a wind-up toy.
‘So sorry to have kept you waiting,’ Rose said coolly, tilting her head at a mutinous angle and refusing to back away. ‘And you still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.’
‘I...’ He shook his head, looked away, raked his fingers through his hair and then returned his dark gaze to her pale, cool face. ‘I...shouldn’t have...let you leave...with the wrong idea...’ was pretty much all he could find to say.
‘Not interested,’ Rose muttered, looking away. ‘You’re a free agent and you can do what you want. You’re right. You don’t owe me any explanations.’
‘Are we going to carry on this conversation out here?’
‘I didn’t think we were having a conversation. You came here to explain whatever it is you feel you should explain and I’m liberating you from that responsibility. So there’s no conversation to be had.’
‘It was about the land.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I was on the phone to someone about the land. The land you were protecting from greedy developers like me. I wanted to tell you...’ Art looked away but only momentarily.
‘The land?’ Rose looked at him in confusion because this was the last thing she’d been expecting to hear. ‘You weren’t on the phone to a woman?’
‘I’m monogamous.’ His lips quirked in a dry smile but he had no idea how this was going to play out and the smile only lasted a second. His usual panache and easy self-assurance were nowhere in evidence. ‘And when would I have had time to think about frolicking with another woman? You’ve kept me pretty busy...’
‘What about the land?’
Lengthening silence greeted this and eventually Rose spun around and began walking towards the house.
‘Tell me you haven’t been keeping more from me about the land,’ she said quietly as soon as the front door was shut behind them. She clearly hadn’t wanted to invite him into the house but he’d left her with no choice.
‘You don’t have the complete picture,’ Art said flatly. Cold dread was gripping him and he knew now that full disclosure should have been his approach. But events had moved swiftly and now...
He was going to lose her and if that happened he had no idea what he was going to do because he couldn’t contemplate a life without her in it. He’d screwed up.
* * *
‘Start small, end up big. Is that the complete picture?’ They were in the kitchen. Rose felt as if she could do with a stiff drink but instead she began the business of making herself a cup of coffee—anything to still her nerves, which were running amok as she gradually worked out that he had deceived her once again.
Had he slept with her the second time round so that he could build up to yet more revelations about what he intended to do with the acres of land he had bought?
Had he sweet-talked her into phase one with the intention of sweet-talking her into phase two, except she’d scuppered his plans by overhearing that conversation, jumping to the wrong conclusion and then walking out on him before he could complete what he had set out to do?
She felt sick.
‘You didn’t want a handful of tasteful mansions with lots of spare land, did you? That wouldn’t have made financial sense. What you wanted was to start with a handful of tasteful mansions and then what, Art? A housing estate? Mass housing that would mean more profits for you? As if you aren’t rich enough already.’
She managed to make it to the kitchen table, now free from placards and posters and cardboard with rousing slogans, and she sank into one of the chairs.
