“I have yet to tell you my proposition,” Angelo murmured, and tilted her face to his when she would have looked away.

“I will set you up with your first big job. You won’t need to invest in any equipment. I’ll even throw in a small car. You can pay me back when you start making money or if the cottage is sold.” He shrugged. “Or you can not pay me back at all. It’s immaterial…”

Rosie blinked. Never had such soothingly spoken words carried such dangerous intent. She was listening to him propose a pact with the devil. Her mouth parted and she made an inarticulate, strangled sound under her breath.

“I know. Thrilling, isn’t it? And just when you thought your ship had sunk.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I’m not a…a…”

“I think I know the word you’re striving to say, but let’s leave that unspoken. I like to think that what we have here is the perfect arrangement.”

About the Author

CATHY WILLIAMS is originally from Trinidad, but has lived in England for a number of years. She currently has a house in Warwickshire, which she shares with her husband, Richard, her three daughters, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma, and their pet cat, Salem. She adores writing romantic fiction, and would love one of her girls to become a writer—although at the moment she is happy enough if they do their homework and agree not to bicker with one another!

Recent titles by the same author:

 THE SECRET CASELLA BABY

 THE NOTORIOUS GABRIEL DIAZ

 A TEMPESTUOUS TEMPTATION

 THE GIRL HE’D OVERLOOKED

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

A Deal with Di Capua
Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

ROSIE HAD NEVER been to a cremation before. Even when her dad had died eight years before, there had been a funeral. Friends—and he had had a surprising number of them, bearing in mind he had spent the majority of his life blearily watching the sun rise and set from the bottom of a whisky glass—had come to pay their respects. Rosie had known few of them. Her own friends had tagged along to give her moral support. At the age of eighteen, she had needed it. From recollection, a distant cousin who had turned out to live a scant three blocks away, in an impoverished two-bedroomed bungalow on a council estate remarkably similar to theirs, had shown up and expressed regret that he hadn’t been a more consistent family member.

For all his drunken ways and love of the bottle her father had been a jovial alcoholic and the number of people who had turned out on that brilliantly hot summer day had been testimony to that.

But this…

She had arrived late. It was bitterly cold and a series of small mishaps had made the journey far longer and more arduous than it should have been: Ice on the tracks. Rush hour on the tube. Signal problems as she had neared Earl’s Court. It hadn’t helped that she had purposefully decided to arrive late so that she could sneak into the back of the chapel and disappear before the service was finished. She had anticipated blending into the crowds.

Hovering now at the back, Rosie felt her heart begin to thud at the scant clutch of people who had shown up for the cremation of Amanda Di Capua, née Amanda Wheeler. Having made the effort to attend the ceremony, she was now desperate to leave, but her unsteady legs had a will of their own. They propelled her forwards so that she neared the group at the front. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the plump middle-aged man addressing them in a crisp, no-nonsense voice.

Of course, he would be there: Angelo Di Capua. Why kid herself that she hadn’t seen him? The instant she had stepped into the chapel her eyes had swivelled in his direction. He was easy to spot, but then hadn’t he always been? Three years was not nearly long enough for her to have buried the memory of just how tall, how striking, how impossibly good-looking he was. In a packed room, he had always had the ability to stand out. It was just the way he was built.

The horrible, sickening nervous tension that had begun to build over a week ago when she had received that phone call informing her of Amanda’s death—when she had decided that she would attend the funeral because Mandy had, after all, once been her closest friend—was spiralling into an unstoppable wave of nausea.

She forced herself to breathe and drew her thick coat tighter around her.

She wished that she had brought Jack along with her but he had wanted no part of it. His bitterness towards their one-time friend ran even deeper than hers.

The service ended whilst she was still lost in her thoughts and she felt the blood drain away from her face as the group of mismatched people began to turn around. She found that she couldn’t really recall any of the ceremony at all. The coffin had disappeared behind a curtain. In a few minutes, another batch of mourners would be arriving to replace them.

Angelo would surely come over to speak to her. Even he had some rudimentary politeness, and she forced herself to smile and walk forwards as though she was happy to mingle with the handful of people nearing her.

Angelo was among them. Beautiful, sexy Angelo. How must he be taking the death of his young wife? And had he even seen Rosie yet? She wondered whether there was still time to flee the scene but it was too late: a young woman was walking towards her, holding out her hand and introducing herself as Lizzy Valance.

“I phoned you. Remember?” She wiped her eyes with a handkerchief, which she stuffed into the top of the black dress that barely seemed equipped for the job of restricting some of the biggest breasts Rosie had ever seen in her life.

“Yes. Of course…”

“I got your name from Mandy’s address book. Plus you were logged in her mobile phone, but I would have got hold of you anyway, cos she always talked about you.”

“Oh really?” Rosie’s mouth twisted. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Angelo talking to the vicar while glancing surreptitiously at his watch. He hardly looked like a grieving husband, but then what did she know? She had seen neither him nor Amanda for a very long time, had no idea how life had treated them. She was dimly aware of Lizzy talking, reminiscing over the good times she and Mandy had had, although it seemed those times had become fewer and further between towards the end because of Mandy’s drinking.

Rosie didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to hear about her ex-friend’s trials and tribulations. The times of feeling sympathy for Amanda were long over.

“How did she die?” She interrupted Lizzy abruptly. “You just mentioned an accident—was anyone else involved?” Whatever conversation Angelo had been having with the vicar was at an end and he was turning around towards her. Rosie focused on the small, curvy brunette with the massive bosoms and willed herself into a state of composure But she had to clasp her hands tightly together in front of her to stop them from shaking.

“Thankfully, no. But she had been drinking. It’s awful. I told her over and over again that she should get some help, but she never wanted to admit that she had a problem, and she was such fun when…you know…”

“Excuse me. I really have to go.”

“But we’re all going back to the little pub by her house.”

“I’m sorry.” Rosie could sense Angelo walking towards her, breaking free of the twenty or so people around him. The urge to run away as fast as her feet could take her was so overpowering that she thought she might faint.

She shouldn’t have come. Life was a tough business and there was no room for nostalgia. She, Jack and Amanda might have started their story together, but it certainly hadn’t ended up that way, and she just should have let sleeping dogs lie.

She had known that she would see Angelo here. How could she have kidded herself that she wouldn’t have been affected? She had given her heart to him, lock, stock and barrel, and he had taken it, broken it and walked off into the sunset with her best friend. Had she really imagined that she had managed to put all that behind her sufficiently to face him once again?

Lizzy had drifted away, leaving her standing on her own, a prime target for the man bearing down on her.

“Rosie Tom. Well, well, well, you’re the last person I expected to see here. No, maybe I should rephrase that—you’re the last person welcome here.”

Of course he had seen her. The second the brief service had concluded and he had half-turned, he had spotted Rosie and instantly he’d felt every muscle in his body, every pore and nerve-ending, spasm painfully with the combined weight of loathing and a certain heightened awareness that angered him almost as much as the sight of her did.

In the winter-infused chapel, she was radiantly striking. Tall and slender as a reed, with that peculiar shade of vibrant auburn hair that never failed to draw attention. She was pale and looked as though, with that hair colouring, she should have had freckles, but her skin was satinsmooth, creamy and unblemished and her eyes were the colour of sherry.

She had the glorious, other-worldly beauty of a woman designed to make men lose their minds. Angelo’s mouth thinned with displeasure as he fought to stop the floodgates to the past that were opening up.

“This is a public place,” Rosie said coolly. “You might not welcome me here, but I have every right to pay my respects.”

“Don’t make me laugh. You and Amanda parted as sworn enemies. How did you hear about her death anyway?”

She had had her hair cut. The last time he had seen her, it had been long, tumbling over her shoulders and down her back. Now it was still wavy, but cut in a graduating bob that fell to her shoulders. She looked as chic and eye-catching as she always had.

“I had a call from Lizzy, her friend.”

“And you immediately thought that you would bury the hatchet and rush here to shed big crocodile tears. Do me a favour.”

Rosie took a deep breath. She found that she couldn’t quite look at him. Too many memories. Not that it mattered whether she actually looked at him or not. In her mind, his image was stamped with ruthless efficiency. The raven-black hair close-cropped; those fabulous eyes that were a peculiar shade of opaque green; the harsh, unforgiving angles of his face that heightened his sexual appeal rather than diminished it; a body that was lean and muscular and lightly bronzed.

“I wasn’t going to shed any tears,” she said quietly. “But we grew up together. And, now that I’ve come, I think it’s time for me to leave. I just…Whatever’s happened, Angelo, I’m sorry for your loss.”

Angelo threw back his head and laughed. “You’re sorry for my loss? We’d better step outside, Rosie, because if we don’t I might just burst out laughing again, and somehow that doesn’t seem appropriate for the inside of a chapel.”

Before she could protest, her arm was in a vice-like grip and she was being frog-marched out, her breath coming and going in staccato bursts, her brain in complete shutdown mode.

“You’re hurting me!”

“Really? Surprisingly, I don’t honestly care.” They were outside, standing to one side in the bitterly cold, gathering gloom. “Now, why the hell have you shown up here?”

“I told you. I know there’s a lot of water under the bridge, but Amanda and I go back a long way. We were at primary school together. I felt sad about the way things turned out…”

In the darkness, she couldn’t make out the expression on his face. She didn’t have to. His voice was as sharp as a shard of glass. This had been a big mistake.

“I’m not buying it. You’re a gold-digger and, if you think that you can show up here and see if there are any nuggets for the taking, then you can think again.”

“How dare you?”

“Let’s not go down that road, Rosie. You and I both know exactly how I dare. I should have known better than to expect anything else from a semi-clad waitress I happened to meet at a cocktail bar once upon a time.”

Rosie saw red. Her hand flew up and she felt the sting of flesh meeting flesh as it hit his cheek, sending his head back. Before she could back away, he was holding her wrist, pulling her towards him until she could breathe in that uniquely masculine scent she had always found so intoxicating.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t try that again.”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, appalled at her lack of self-control and even more appalled at the way her body was reacting to the proximity of his. She tried to wriggle free of the steel band of his fingers around her wrist and just as suddenly as he had caught her hand, he released it to step back.

“I just don’t appreciate being called a gold-digger. I’m not here to see what I can get from you, Angelo. You must think I’m crazy, to imagine for a second that I would—”

“Once an opportunist, always an opportunist.”

“I’ve already told you that—”

“So you have. It’s a well-worn road, Rosie, and not one I’m about to travel down again.” His mouth twisted in a cynical half-smile. Even after all this time, and with enough loathing and bitterness towards the woman standing in front of him to sink a ship, Angelo still couldn’t tear his eyes away from her face. Any more than he could have controlled his reaction when he had felt her supple body pressed up close against his.

“Angelo, I haven’t come here to argue with you.”

“Fine.” He shrugged in a gesture that was exotically foreign and typically sexy.

From the very first instant she had laid eyes on him, Rosie had been bowled over. She had been working in London for over a year, serving drinks in an expensive club for well-heeled members, most of whom, she had clocked very early on, were married men either having illicit affairs or arranging to. Not even on the rough council estate where she had been brought up had she had to fend off so many unwanted advances.

It wasn’t exactly what she had dreamt of when she had left behind her life of no hope and limited chances. Growing up, she’d had big plans to work in one of the high-class restaurants, starting from the bottom and working her way up and into the catering side of it. She loved cooking. She was good at it. But the high-class restaurants had all knocked her back. Do you have any qualifications? Have you been to any cookery schools? No? Well…sorry. Don’t call us, we’ll call you if anything comes up…

So she had ended up dressed in skimpy clothing, serving over-priced drinks to overweight businessmen. Her incredible looks had assured her a generous income and what choice had she had? She’d needed the money. And then, one night, dead on her feet, she had looked across the room and there he was—Angelo Di Capua. Six-foot-four of pure, unadulterated alpha male surrounded by six well-dressed businessmen, wearing a bored expression on his face. Had she but known it at the time, that was the very instant her fate had been sealed.

She surfaced from memory lane to find Angelo staring down at her with eyes that were as cold as the wind whipping through the layers of her clothes.

“You want to be civil?” Angelo shot her a curling smile that sent shivers racing up and down her spine. “Let’s play that game, then. What have you been up to for the past few years? Still trawling cocktail bars in search of wealthy men?”

“I never did that.”

“So many things we disagree on.” Yet it hadn’t always been that way. Before everything had collapsed, he had considered her to be the best thing ever to have happened to him. Just thinking about it now made something deep inside him twist with pain.

“I…I haven’t done any waitressing for a while,” Rosie told him, determined to keep the conversation as remote and as polite as possible. She knew that what she should really be doing was leaving, walking away, but she couldn’t fight the small cowardly part of her that wanted just a little bit longer in his company because, like it or not, such a big part of her was still wrapped up in him.

“In fact, I finished at catering college a couple of years ago and I’ve been cooking at one of the top restaurants in London ever since. It’s hard work, but I enjoy it.”

“I can’t picture you behind the scenes. Nor can I picture you giving up a lucrative lifestyle of generous tips to take a pay cut.”

Rosie flushed. “I don’t care whether you can picture it or not. It’s the truth. You know I always wanted to go into the food business.”

“I stopped believing what I thought I knew about you a long time ago. But you’re right. Who wants to waste time bickering over a piece of history that has little relevance now? Let’s change the subject. Have you managed to net some poor guy? I can’t imagine you’d still be single after all this time.”

Angelo had no idea what possessed him to ask that question, but why fight the truth? It was something he had wondered about over the years. He didn’t like himself for his curiosity, not about a woman he had so thoroughly eliminated from his life. But, like some low-level virus, the question had circulated in his bloodstream, pernicious and resistant to the passage of time.

Rosie stilled. She could feel the sudden grip of clammy perspiration.

“I’m still single.” She tried to laugh but there was a nervous edge to her laughter.

Angelo looked at her narrowly, head tilted to one side. He hadn’t seen her for years, yet it seemed that he could still tune in to the nuances in her voice, the slight pauses and small hesitations that were always a clue as to what was going through her head. So there was a man in her life. His lips thinned as the silence hummed between them, broken only by the hushed voices of the people waiting to enter the crematorium.

“Now, why is it that I don’t quite believe that?” he asked softly. “Why lie, Rosie? Do you think I care one way or the other what’s going on in your life?”

“I know you don’t. And it’s none of your business whether I have someone in my life or not.” She was tempted to tell him about Ian, to pretend that there was someone significant in her life, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie. In fact, just the thought of Ian made her feel a little ill.

“I should go,” she said with a hint of desperation. She took a couple of steps back and nearly stumbled. She was no longer accustomed to wearing heels.

“Good idea,” Angelo said smoothly. “And then we can put an end to this charade of pretending that we’re actually interested in each other’s lives.” He turned away abruptly, but couldn’t walk away because the group who had attended the cremation, now standing outside, was splintering apart.

Rosie guessed that they would be making their separate ways to whatever pub they intended to go to. She saw Lizzy give her a little wave and wondered what the other woman must be thinking—that a friend had rolled up and after a three-year absence had shown surface interest before disappearing outside with the husband of the deceased.

She had barely paid attention to any of the other people there, but now she could recognise that a short, rotund man bearing down on them had also been there in the front row and she forced herself to stand her ground. As did Angelo, although once again she saw him glance at his watch.

She wondered what their marriage had been like. She had walked away and never looked back. Had they been happy? She couldn’t think so, but who knew?

“Foreman.”

Angelo greeted the man curtly before reluctantly turning around to make introductions.

It seemed that James Foreman was a lawyer.

“Nothing big and fancy.” James extended his hand out to Rosie. “Small practice near Twickenham. Brr, cold out here, isn’t it? Still, what can you expect in the middle of February?” He seemed to suddenly remember that he was at a funeral and altered his tone accordingly. “Terrible shame, all this. Terrible shame.”

“Miss Tom is in a bit of a rush, Foreman.”

Rosie nodded awkwardly. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it to the pub—one of Amanda’s friends mentioned that everyone would be gathering there to pay their respects. I’ve travelled all the way from East London and I really need to be getting along.”

“Of course, of course! But I need to corral the pair of you for a word.” James Foreman looked around him with a little frown, as though searching for somewhere convenient into which the corralling could take place. Rosie, by now, was thoroughly confused. More than anything else, she wanted to be gone. It had been a mistake seeing Angelo again. That part of her life was a chapter that should be firmly closed. Coming here had reopened it and now she knew that their brief, embittered encounter would prey on her mind for weeks ahead.

“What’s this about, Foreman?” Angelo asked in a clipped voice.

“Stroke of luck finding you both here. Of course, Mr Di Capua, I knew that you would be here but…Well, put it this way, Miss Tom, it’s saved me a bit of bother tracking you down…not that it would have been difficult. All part of the business.”

“Cut to the chase, Foreman.”

“It’s about a will.”

Rosie had no idea what this had to do with her. She did know, however, that the longer she stood still the colder it felt. She glanced across to Angelo, her eyes drawn to the harsh, beautiful lines of his face like the unerring and dangerous tug of a moth towards an open flame.

The last conversation they had ever had was imprinted on her brain. The coldness in his eyes, the contempt in his voice when he had told her that he wanted nothing more to do with her. They had been dating for nearly a year, the most wonderful year of her entire life. She had not stopped marvelling at how this terrific, wealthy, sophisticated guy had pursued her. Later he had told her that the second he had laid eyes on her he had wanted her, and that he was a man who always got what he wanted. He had certainly got her and she had been on cloud nine.

Of course, on the home front, things had not been quite so rosy. Jack’s problems had been deteriorating steadily and Amanda…How could she not have guessed that, whilst she had been waxing lyrical about the love of her life, her best friend had been busily storing up jealousy and resentments that would one day spill over into the horror story from which none of them had emerged intact?

While the past threatened to overwhelm her, James Foreman was still talking in a low voice, ushering them away from the chapel and towards the car park which was shrouded in darkness.

“Hang on a minute.” Rosie stopped dead in her tracks and the other two men turned to look at her. “I don’t know what’s going on here and I don’t care. I need to get back home.”

“Have you been listening to a word Foreman’s been saying?”

Actually, no, she hadn’t. “So Amanda left a will. I don’t see what that has to do with me. I haven’t seen her for over three years.” She looked apologetically at the lawyer who probably hadn’t a clue what was going on. “We had a bit of a falling out, Mr Foreman. Amanda and I used to be friends, but something happened. I only came here because I felt sad about how things had ended between us.”

“I know all about the falling out, my dear.”

“Do you? How?”

“Your friend—”

“Ex-friend.”

“Your ex-friend was a very vulnerable and confused young woman. She came to see me when…eh…she was having certain difficulties…”

“Difficulties? What difficulties?” Rosie laughed bitterly. Mandy had played her cards right and she had got exactly what she had wanted—Angelo Di Capua. “All’s fair in love and war,” she had once said to Rosie when they were fifteen. Rosie had come to see just how tightly her so-called friend had been prepared to cling to that outlook.

“Not for me to say at this juncture. Look, why don’t we nip to a little bistro I know not far from here? It should be relatively quiet at this hour and it would save you both the hassle of coming to my office in the morning. My car’s in the car park so we could go right now. Mr Di Capua, perhaps your driver could come and collect you in an hour or so?”

They were virtually at his car and Rosie heard Angelo click his tongue impatiently but he shrugged and made a brief phone call before sliding into the passenger seat, leaving her to clamber in the back. She felt as though she had no choice but to surrender to this turn of events. The short drive was completed in silence and twenty minutes later they were in a bistro which, as James Foreman had predicted, was fairly empty.

“I find it hard to believe that Amanda would leave a will,” Angelo said the second they were seated. “She had no one in her life. At least, no one of any significance.”

“You’d be surprised,” James Foreman murmured, his sharp eyes flicking between them.

“What were the difficulties you were talking about?” Rosie pressed. Next to her, Angelo’s hand, resting on the table, brought back sharp memories of how things had once been between them, cutting through the bitterness, leaving her dry-mouthed and panicked.

“Your friend was an emotional young woman carrying burdens she found difficult to cope with. She came to see me about a certain property she owned. I believe you know the property I’m talking about, Mr Di Capua—a certain cottage in Cornwall?” He turned to Rosie with a warmly sympathetic half-smile. “I understand the problems you both had. Over the years I built up a strong rapport with your friend. She was a needy soul and I became something of a father figure for her. My wife and I had her over many times for dinner. Indeed, we both did our best to counsel her on—”

“Are we ever destined to get to the point, Foreman?”

“The point is that the cottage was your wife’s prized possession, Mr Di Capua. She found refuge there.”

“Refuge from what?” Rosie interjected. She glanced across to Angelo’s hard, uncompromising profile and saw him flush darkly.

“We’re not here to discuss the state of my marriage,” Angelo bit out, meeting her puzzled stare with ice-cold eyes. “So she went a lot to the cottage.” He dragged his eyes away from her face. Hell, how was it that she could claw a reaction out of him? Was it possible that only this burning hatred could find a response in him?

“And the cottage belonged to her. In its entirety. Along with the acreage surrounding it. You recall, Mr Di Capua, she insisted shortly after you were married that you give it to her so that she could feel secure there and could be certain that it would never be taken away.”

“I recall,” Angelo said abruptly. “I agreed because I owned the estate alongside it. I could keep an eye on her.”

“Keep an eye on her? Why would you want to do that, Angelo?”

“Because.” Once again he looked at her. Once again he felt that surge of blistering, chaotic emotion which was a damn sight more than he had felt for the past few years. For as long as he could remember he had been completely dead inside. “Amanda had a problem with alcohol. She fancied the cottage because she wanted peace and quiet. On the other hand, with her fondness for the bottle, I couldn’t let her stay there without some form of supervision. She was unaware that I owned the estate abutting the cottage. I always made sure that one of my people was around to check on her now and again.”

“I can’t believe she started drinking. She was always so sure she wouldn’t go down that road.”

“Is that your convoluted way of asking me whether I drove her to drink?”

“Of course not!”

“Because you’re not sitting here at my request. Nor are you entitled to any explanations or niceties from me. You burned your bridges three years ago and lost the right to have a voice, as far as I am concerned.”

Rosie flushed bright red. She forgot that they both had an audience. The only person she was aware of was Angelo, looking at her with deep, dark hostility.

“You forget that I don’t even want to be here. Why should I? Why would I want to spend more time than absolutely necessary in your company?”

James Foreman cleared his throat and Angelo was the first to break the stranglehold of their stares.

“The cottage,” he said curtly. “Cut to the chase, man, and get on with it.”

“She left the cottage to you, Miss Tom.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Angelo cut in before Rosie had had time to assimilate what had been said to her. He placed both hands squarely on the table and leant forward, his body language bristling with intimidation, and the lawyer looked back at him with an apologetic smile.

“It’s all above board, Mr Di Capua. Amanda left the cottage to her friend.”

“Why on earth would she do that?” Rosie asked in bewilderment.

“Before you start getting any ideas,” Angelo gritted, looking at her, “over my dead body will you so much as put a foot over the threshold of that place.” He sat back and turned to stare at the lawyer who, for someone round-faced and sheepishly polite, was doing a good job of not being in the slightest bit cowed by a toweringly angry Angelo. A lesser man would have run for the hills at this point.

“I’m very much afraid that there’s very little you can do to prevent Miss Tom from accepting what has been willed to her,” James Foreman said, in the same apologetic voice. He looked at her with kindly eyes. “Whatever happened between you, my dear, there were regrets.”

“I wouldn’t dream of accepting anything Amanda may have left to me, Mr Foreman.”

“Well, hallelujah!” Angelo flung his hands up in a gesture of pure satisfaction, success rightfully accepted as his due. “So for once, we’re singing from the same song sheet. Now that this little charade is over, perhaps you two can get together and work out the paperwork to ensure that Miss Tom relinquishes whatever dodgy hold she may think she has on my property—which, in point of fact, will be a matter of necessity because I intend to develop it within the year. Now, if that’s all?”

“You always wanted to go into the catering business—am I right, Miss Tom?”

Rosie nodded dumbly. She felt as though she had been taken on a rollercoaster ride. Her thoughts were all over the place. Every part of her body was in a state of shock. All over again, and to her dismay, she was realising how powerfully Angelo Di Capua still affected her, despite her deep loathing of him.

“How did you know?”

“Amanda kept tabs on you without you realising it, I expect.” He shrugged. “With the Internet and social networks, it’s virtually impossible to remain anonymous these days. At any rate, you might want to think about what was behind this legacy to you. Of course, you must do what your heart tells you to do, but Amanda began cultivating the land around the cottage. There’s quite a bit of it, if I’m not mistaken.”

“This conversation is going nowhere!” Angelo insisted, making a slashing motion with his hand.

“It is my duty to explain the circumstances of this will,” the lawyer murmured, still looking at Rosie. “Amanda made plans of how the land was to be laid out, and what would grow where.”

“But she didn’t know that she would…She couldn’t possibly predict…”

“I think she knew, deep down, that she was not destined for a long life. I also think that she was working up the courage to contact you to give you the land. Fate got in the way.”

“This is so much to take in,” Rosie said, dazed. “Perhaps…perhaps I might just have a look at the cottage.” If nothing else, to see whether she might get full closure at least by visiting the place her one-time friend had obviously come to regard as a haven. Perhaps, more than attending a service in a chapel, visiting that cottage would be a better way to pay her final respects.

“Yes.” She made her mind up, although she didn’t dare look across to where Angelo was sitting in a silence far more threatening than any words. “Yes. I think, Mr Foreman, I would very much like to see that cottage.”

CHAPTER TWO

“YOU’RE WASTING YOUR time.” Angelo rounded on her the second the lawyer had disappeared back to his car, into the night. “You surface here from out of nowhere and suddenly you think you’re a cottage richer?”

Rosie looked up at him. He was one of the few men who towered above her when she was in heels. Once upon a time, that had made her feel very feminine and very protected. Now it made her feel intimidated.

“I don’t think anything of the sort.”

“No. Well, you moved very swiftly from wanting nothing to do with a dubious inheritance to informing us that you would be paying it a visit.” His chauffeur-driven luxury car pulled up alongside them and, as she tried to turn in the direction of the station, Angelo stepped out in front of her, blocking her path.

“Not so fast,” he said grimly.

“I need to get back.”

“Really? To whom?”

“There’s nothing to discuss, Angelo.”

“There’s a hell of a lot to discuss and we’ve only just begun. Get in the car.” He pulled open the car door and moved around so that he was now somehow cornering her into stepping into the long, powerful car. It remained gently purring while George, the guy with whom she had laughed on many an occasion in the past, stared straight ahead with a blank expression.

Their eyes locked and Rosie was the first to look away, ducking into the car with a jerky shrug of her shoulders.

“Address. Where do you live?”

“There’s no need to put yourself out. I’m fine being dropped to the station.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

Rosie snapped out her address and leant back in the car seat while Angelo relayed the information to his driver before sliding shut the partition between them. She could feel heat racing through her body like a raging fever and, although her voice was controlled, that was about the only thing that was. Her heart was beating like a jackhammer and she was struggling to string her thoughts together.

Here she was, back in this car with him! Except the good old days were now lost in the mists of time, replaced with a present that bristled with threat.

“So,” Angelo drawled. “Drop the protestations of innocence. We know each other too well. Did you know about any of this before you came here? I never thought that you had anything further to do with Amanda after you left, but maybe I was wrong.”

“No, I most certainly did not know about any cottage! And Mandy and I have not been in contact since…Well, since…” She looked away, briefly unable to speak as the circumstances of the past reared up, threatening to devour her.

She remembered the horror of the last time she and Angelo had met, when she had turned up longing to see him, excited as always, because the short periods they spent apart had always felt like an eternity. He had opened the door to her and she had known immediately that something was wrong. Her smile had faltered and she had stood there in the doorway of his amazing house in Chelsea, no longer a welcome visitor, his lover, but someone to be dispatched. She had known it before he had even uttered a word.

And, actually, he had said remarkably little. There had been no need. He had just held out all those damning little tickets, receipts from the pawnbrokers, and she had known exactly what was happening.

Their glorious relationship had terminated with him believing her to be a cheap, worthless gold-digger who had conned him out of huge sums of money, for he had been a generous lover. He had seen the evidence of her greed in the proof of items of jewellery she had sold. Evidence that had been supplied by her one-time best friend and used against her.

Was it any surprise that he was staring at her as though she was something that had crawled out from under a rock, asking her whether she had known about the existence of a cottage that might be worth something?

Rosie took a deep breath. It made her feel giddy.

“It’s not going to happen,” he informed her coldly. “You. The cottage. Forget it. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

“You have no right to boss me about.” But she did look at him. Thrown into shadow, his face was all menacing angles and planes.

“Amanda and I were not divorced at the time of her death. I will fight you through the courts if you try and get your greedy little paws on so much as a square inch of that place.”

“I never said that I was going to…” But a cottage, out in the country, away from the daily grind of the city; away from Ian, a man she had met once six months previously when she had decided that enough was enough, that it was time to try and join the ranks of the living…A man who had refused to take no for an answer, who had tried to force himself on her, who had become a silent, scary stalker.

A bolt hole away from it all suddenly presented itself to her like manna from heaven.

“Then why don’t you try and justify your sudden decision to check it out?”

“Maybe I think it might be the place to say goodbye to Mandy,” Rosie told him painfully, and he burst out laughing again, just as he had when they had been standing inside the chapel at the crematorium.

“So suddenly you’re all bleeding heart and flowers?”

“Why does it matter so much to you whether I go to that cottage or not? Why does it matter if I decide that it might be somewhere I could live?” Rosie asked.

“It sits on my grounds.”

“Mr Foreman said that it had some land, that Mandy had been cultivating it.”

“Ah, so your little ears had already pricked up even while you were mouthing all the right platitudes about wanting nothing from Amanda.” What else could he expect? The woman looked like an angel and spoke in a soft voice that reeked of milk and honey, and all things good, and yet didn’t he know better? He let his eyes rove over her body. Her coat was open and he could make out a stretchy black dress underneath. He had instant recall of the length of her limbs, entwined with his, as pale as his were brown; her small breasts which she’d used to complain about laughingly but which were perfect, the perfect handful, the perfect mouthful…

He yanked himself back from the brink of memories that had no place whatsoever in his life.

“If Mandy left me that cottage with the land, then why shouldn’t I take it?” Rosie was spurred into demanding.

“At last. A bit of honesty. I can deal with that. It’s so much healthier than the sad face and the honeyed words. If that will is as watertight as Foreman implies, then you’ll be amply recompensed for letting it go. And, as we both know, money talks as far as you are concerned.” He delivered a chilling smile.

What would he say if she decided to retaliate? Rosie wondered. But she knew that she would never do that. Maybe there was just that part of her that wouldn’t be able to deal with the ugliness of the truth, with the fact that, whilst he had been seeing her, he had also been seeing Mandy. Maybe that was something she would never, ever want him to confirm. There was such a thing as too much truth.

“It’s why I told him about all that stuff you flogged,” Mandy had said when challenged. “He was looking for an excuse to break up with you so I gave him one and he took it. Didn’t think twice, in fact! More fool you for thinking that he was your knight in shining armour. People like us don’t get knights in shining armour, Rosie. People like me and you and Jack live off the scraps. Angelo was just another guy stringing you along while giving me the come-on behind your back. You should thank me for getting rid of him for you. You’d never have been tough enough to handle him.”

And how could Rosie not believe her when, a month later, there had been a wedding? She had heard it on the grapevine.

So did she want to start a tit-for-tat fight now? Did she want to hear him tell her exactly how little she had meant to him? The past was the past and re-opening old wounds was only going to hurt her. Angelo would be just fine.

And, if he never knew where that money had gone, then so be it. That too was a story wrapped up in guilt and not one she wanted to discuss.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ll pay you off,” Angelo intoned harshly. For a few seconds he had lost her. When they had been lovers, he had interpreted those fleeting moments of withdrawal when her eyes had clouded over as flashes of vulnerability. He had made it his mission to wait them out until she could tell him for herself where she had gone. Now he knew the answer. She hadn’t been so much dealing with some internal tussle, which she’d had yet to confide, as calculating how much she could screw him for. Doing the maths in her head. Indulging in a bit of mental arithmetic involving his money and all those expensive items of jewellery he had lavished on her.

Angelo didn’t come from money. He’d got there the hard way, working like a beast at school, a small backwater school in Italy where it wasn’t cool to get good grades. He’d lucked out when, at the age of sixteen, he had managed to win a scholarship to study abroad.

His mother had urged him to take it. He was her only son and she had wanted nothing more than for him to succeed. She’d worked in a shop and as a cleaner on two evenings a week. Did he want to end up scraping the barrel like her? He had grabbed the opportunity with both hands and had challenged any one of those rich, private-school kids to look down on him. He had made sure to stay focused and had realised that to get on he had to do one better than everyone else. He had to go the extra mile. He had. And he had at university. The price had been steep, for during that period his mother had died and he had not been there for her.

He had reasoned that life’s experiences made you tough. He was a rock, alone in the world and determined to master it as a legacy to his mother. He wasn’t one of those gullible kids born with a silver spoon in their mouth. He couldn’t be taken in by a pretty face. Except he had been, and just thinking about it made him see red. Rosie Tom had got to him in a way no other woman ever had. Hell, she had made him start revising his priorities.

“I can have people in tomorrow evaluating its worth and I can get a cheque to you the day after.”

“Is it because it’s of sentimental value?” Rosie hazarded.

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Do you feel attached to the place because it was somewhere she loved? I know that sometimes a person can feel helpless when dealing with someone who has a drinking problem.”

“Three years away and you really and truly imagine yourself as an amateur psychologist. Stick to the catering, Rosie, or the cooking, or whatever else it is you do.” Did she really think that he would ever fall for that sympathetic, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-the-mouth routine again?

Rosie flushed. “I don’t imagine myself as anything of the sort. I was just curious as to…”

“As to what happened once you exited the stage and the curtain fell?” He looked at her narrowly. “I really wouldn’t bother trying to fish for information. Just tell me when you intend to go to the cottage.”

“Why do you ask?” So there weren’t going to be any confidences. This was the tenor of whatever remained between them: bitterness and dislike. Well, that would make things easier, she told herself, but it still hurt to think how far they had both come from where they had once been.

“Because I intend to make sure that I’m there at the same time.”

“What for?” Rosie’s mouth dropped open as she contemplated seeing him again, having all these emotions churned up anew. “I can let you have my decision one way or another via Mr Foreman. If I decide that I don’t want the place, then I’m sure he’ll be the first to let you know. Or maybe,” she added with acerbity, “you want to make sure that there’s nothing there that doesn’t belong to you.”

“I actually hadn’t considered that possibility but, now that you’ve mentioned it, it’s certainly one worth thinking about.” The journey had passed without him even noticing. Now they were in front of a terraced house that was claustrophobically hemmed in by a sprawl of identical terraced houses on either side of it. In the depths of winter, there was nothing whatsoever charming about it, and he thought that even in the height of summer it would still proudly announce its mediocrity.

“That’s an awful thing to say.”

“Oh well, if the cap fits…” the car had pulled to a stop, smoothly pulling in to a vacant spot right in front of the house. “I see investment wasn’t part of the grand plan when you pawned the jewellery,” he observed. “Because I can’t imagine that this place will ever get to the elevated status of the up-and-coming.” Rosie flushed and paused midway to opening the car door.

“I don’t own this, I rent it, and I would rather if we didn’t dwell on the past. I mean, it’s over and done with and we’ve both moved on.” She thought about Jack and the guilt that had followed her around for such a long time. She hadn’t hesitated in pawning those items of jewellery even though, in another place and another time, the thought of selling things given to her by the man she had fallen in love with would have been abhorrent. In a place and time where her conscience was clear.

She knew that Angelo despised her for what she had done. How much more would he have despised her if he had known the full story?

“So, in other words, the cottage really would be a fantastic opportunity for you—no rent to pay, no mortgage to cover. I’m not surprised that you’re desperate to put the past to bed.”

Rosie looked at him, sprawled indolently against the car door, a lurking, dangerous predator having fun with the prey that had once escaped him. She got the feeling that he would be happy to maul her should she make one wrong move. And expressing interest in a cottage he considered his definitely fell into that category.

Whatever had gone wrong in his marriage—and she was certain that something had somewhere along the way, for why else would Amanda have taken to the bottle?—here they now were and the past certainly had not been forgotten.

“I just want to have a look at it.”

“Like I said, I’ll expect you to inform me the instant you decide to go there. I’m going to give you my private number. Use it.”

“And if I choose not to?” Rosie dared.

“Word of advice—don’t even think of going down that road.”

Rosie spent the next week seriously wondering whether she should just leave well alone. James Foreman had been in touch again, had wanted to find out what she intended to do. There were all sorts of papers that required signing. She would need to see him; he could arrange a meeting. There were things he needed to discuss with her.

Still tense and preoccupied after seeing Angelo and being subjected to the full force of his hatred, and still smarting from his warning to ditch any thoughts of actually taking up the legacy that had been deposited at her doorstep, Rosie deferred any meeting. She honestly no longer knew what she should do. London had not turned into the stuff of dreams, but it was home, for better or for worse. Could she sacrifice it on a whim, because she was in a difficult situation at the moment? Difficult situations didn’t last for ever.

And how ethical would it be to accept something from a woman she had spent the past three years trying to forget? How hypocritical to imagine that she could conveniently overlook the dire circumstances of their broken friendship to take what was on offer because it suited her? Her lawyer had hinted at Amanda’s regrets but could accepting a guilt gift ever be justified?

In the end, Ian made up her mind for her. Just as he had been the reason for her considering the cottage in the first place.

The calls from him, containing barely veiled threats. The bombardment of text messages…

Rosie had been to the police ages ago to be told that nothing could be done. A crime had yet to be committed. With no chance of an injunction being issued against him, Rosie battened down the hatches and tried to ignore his attempts to intrude into her life. She wasn’t a kid. She was an adult. She could deal with a loser who couldn’t take no for an answer. She had dealt with far worse growing up! He was no match for any of those creeps who had tried to make her life hell on the grim council estate where she had grown up. Being attractive had never worked to her advantage. But she found that she could deal with wolf-whistles and boys circling her on their bikes and trying to get her to go out with them.

And she could almost deal with the hang ups and the text messages from Ian. But, returning to her house on the Friday two weeks after that eventful funeral, Rosie unlocked the front door, entered the house and knew instantly that something was wrong.

It was very late and the lights had all been switched off. It was the first thing to alert her to the notion that someone was either inside the house or had been inside the house. She always left the light in the hall on during the winter; it lent the illusion of homeliness and dispelled the reality of a place that was as inviting and welcoming as a prison.

With one hand on her mobile, she silently scoured the property, which wasn’t large. Just three rooms downstairs, including the kitchen, and one bedroom upstairs with a bathroom adjoining it. At the first sign of an intruder, she would not have hesitated to call the police but, having reassured herself that the place was empty, she soon discovered that there was no room to breathe a sigh of relief because someone had certainly been to the house and it hadn’t taken her long to find out their identity.

Propped up against the toaster in the kitchen, Ian had left a note warmly telling her how wonderful it was finally to get to see the inside of her house and informing her that he hoped to be back soon, perhaps when she was there so that they could try and sort out their silly differences.

Heart beating fast, Rosie scrolled down the address book in her phone and found what she was looking for. She didn’t think twice. was that because old habits died hard? Once upon a time, Angelo had been her rock. He was now her sworn enemy but Was there still some lingering feeling lurking deep inside her that she could still depend on him if she was threatened? Was her lack of hesitation some left-over, unconscious emotion that she couldn’t quantify or explain?

Angelo answered on the second ring. He knew instantly who the caller was. He had given her his mobile number and she had grudgingly returned the favour by giving him hers. What choice had she had? Like it or not, with a cottage in the equation, there might be the need to communicate with him.

It was after ten-thirty at night, but he was still working, albeit in his sprawling London house. At the sight of her name on his phone, Angelo pushed himself away from his desk and swivelled his chair towards the impressive abstract painting which dominated most of one wall of the massive downstairs room which he had had converted into a study. He had paid a ridiculously large sum of money for it, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had given it a second glance.

He realised that he had been expecting her phone call for some time. in fact, he had anticipated her getting in touch pretty much as soon as they had parted company. One gold-digger living in a dump meets one freebie cottage in its own grounds in a beautiful part of the country and, hey presto, what else could follow but a rapid response? He’d found, as the days had passed, that he had been looking forwards to hearing her flimsy justification for grabbing what had landed in her lap. Indeed, he had been grimly looking forwards to the pleasurable prospect of ensuring that she didn’t get her hands on what she so clearly wanted. If it meant paying her off, then he looked forwards to handing her a cheque, while ramming home his scathing views on opportunists.

“Well, if it isn’t Rosie Tom,” he drawled, eyes on the painting, although he wasn’t actually seeing the slashing lines and curious splashes of paint on canvas. What he was seeing was the perfection of a heart-shaped face; a full mouth that always looked as though, given the right provocation, it would part in a brilliant smile; eyes that made something soften inside him, a body that had once driven him mad with desire.

“I’m really sorry if I’m disturbing you. I know it’s Friday and you’re probably out…”

Angelo decided that she was less than entitled to any clue as to his whereabouts. “Before you continue wasting time with a long, pointless spiel, just tell me what you want to say. Or rather, shall I tell you what you want to say? Save you the bother? You’ve had a good, long think and you’ve decided that you just can’t resist the pull of something for nothing.”

“I…” She thought about Ian finding his way into the house. There was no burglar alarm and little chance that her cheapskate landlord would ever run to one. Her voice wobbled and she took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves, but like someone suddenly feeling the aftershock of some terrible disaster her body began to tremble and she had to sit down on the cheap sofa.

Lounging back, Angelo stiffened, sat up straight and frowned. Was she all right? For a second there, he could have sworn that she was going to burst into tears. He reminded himself that this was the woman who had successfully pulled the wool over his eyes for months.

“It’s late, Rosie, and I’m busy. So why don’t you just get to the point? Am I right?”

“I’m going to see if I can get through to Mr Foreman tomorrow. I’m sure he won’t mind letting me have the key to the cottage. I…I…” Once again her voice nearly broke and she had to inhale deeply to gather herself.

“What’s going on with you, Rosie?”

“What do you mean? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Why ring now? Isn’t this a phone call that could have waited until morning?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve had a bit of a fright…I wasn’t thinking straight. You’re right, of course, I should have waited to call you at a more convenient hour. It’s not as though I can go knocking on Mr Foreman’s door at this hour of the night. Look, forget I called. When I get through to the lawyer and I sort the keys out, I’ll call you. I know you have a vested interest in the place, and after everything I’m fine with you wanting to be there just in case I find something valuable that isn’t part of that stupid will.”

“What fright?” He fought down an urgent need to see her face. He had always been able to tell what was going on in her head from her face, her eyes. It dawned on him that that was a talent he might well have lost.

“It’s nothing. Well, nothing I can’t handle.”

“Not good enough. Explain.”

“Why should I? It’s none of your business what’s going on in my life at the moment!” And she would do well to remember that. She had rushed to the phone because some primitive instinct had taken over. One meeting with him and here she was, already acting like a complete idiot!

Angelo Di Capua was the last person whose voice she should want to hear in a time of crisis. Jack would have been more than happy to listen to her babble on about the crazy guy she had dated once. He would have offered to come over the second she told him that Ian had broken in. He knew all about Ian. But had she called him? No. Instead, her brain had gone on temporary leave and some insane instinct had taken over. Honestly. How lame was the excuse of the cottage when it came to phoning him?

“Expect me to be at the cottage some time over the weekend. Probably Sunday. If you want to be there, then fine. I can’t tell you where you can or can’t be, although if it’s my cottage then technically you’d be trespassing.” She covered her show of weakness for calling him in the first place with a virulent diatribe which didn’t make her feel any better.

“Ah, that’s more like it. Out come the claws. Have you been on the Internet to find out how much you could get for it?”

“Goodbye, Angelo. I’ll see you when I see you.”

She should have phoned Jack. Jack, who along with Amanda had packed up his belongings and fled their council estate just outside Liverpool before they had become too old or too resigned to fight the “no way out” signs. Amanda might have turned traitor, selling her friend down the river for the chance of netting Angelo, but Jack had always remained her best friend through thick and thin. Why hadn’t she called him instead of Angelo? Even though he was all loved up with his partner, Brian, a doctor at one of the big London hospitals, he would have jumped in his little car without hesitation and stayed with her until she had talked herself out of her anxiousness.

As things stood, she spent a wakeful night, listening out for noises, wondering how Ian had managed to infiltrate her haven. He didn’t have a key. She had gone out with the man once. But he must have followed her at some point to know where she lived. She shuddered thinking about it. She wondered whether there was any point contacting the police. Would they be able to do anything? Or would they say, again, that no crime had been committed? They might even doubt her when she told them that there was no way that Ian could have a key to her house.

During the course of her restless night, the idea of fleeing to the countryside seemed to make more and more sense. She would have to give notice at the restaurant, but there was a chance that they would release her if she explained the situation. she was on good terms with the head chef who ran the show.

The following morning, she rang James Foreman as early as she thought acceptable and told him that she had decided to take a look at the cottage as soon as possible.

“Today if I can,” she said, walking through the house and flinging bits and pieces of clothing into her holdall. “I know it’s very last minute, and I should have called you earlier, but I just decided on the spur of the moment.”

Excellent idea, the lawyer told her. She could come to his house for the keys, although of course Angelo had a set of his own.

“I’ll come to you,” Rosie said hastily. “I promised Mr Di Capua that I would let him know if I intended visiting the cottage and I have. I spoke to him yesterday. Of course, you might want to confirm that with him yourself. No rush there, though,” she continued vaguely. “I gather that he’s a very busy man. I’m sure he wouldn’t be interested in dashing down to Cornwall on a weekend.”

By the time the phone call had ended, a time had been arranged for her to collect the key. Having made her mind up, she couldn’t wait to go.

“I’m going to do it.” She called Jack on her mobile to tell him as she locked the front door behind her and stuck out her hand for a cab. “Long story, but I don’t feel safe in the house any more. I know Ian’s harmless, but it’s still a little scary to think…well…”

Jack did as she expected him to, spoke to her in that soothing voice of his, told her that it was a good idea and that she shouldn’t feel guilty about accepting Mandy’s gift because it was the least she could have done.

“She wrecked your life,” he said, indignant, and as always fiercely loyal.

“Or else made me see Angelo for what he really was. Just a ship passing in the night. He never loved me, Jack, or else he wouldn’t have been unfaithful behind my back with my best friend.” Yet, seeing him again, he still got to her, still fired her up and made every pore and nerve-ending in her body rush into immediate red-alert mode.

There was nothing Jack could say to that, nothing that he had ever been able to say to that. They had talked about it endlessly in the weeks after the relationship had crashed and burned, until Rosie had become aware that she was boring her friend to death. At which point she stopped, and the only conversations she had on the subject were in her head.

“She did me a favour.” Rosie thought of the glittering hatred in Angelo’s eyes, those fabulous moss-green eyes that were so sexy and so unusual in someone of his exotically dark colouring.

“He should have heard you out about those pawn tickets, Rosie baby.”

“Why would he? He didn’t care enough to hear my side of the story. He was already moving on. No, he had already moved on.” She was ashamed when she remembered how willing she would have been to force Angelo to hear her out, how happily she would have sacrificed her self-respect and begged for him to believe her. But in the end there had been no point, because he had married Amanda.

She felt drained and exhausted just thinking about it. She couldn’t believe that he was now back in her life, determined to make her suffer in whatever way he could.

Forty minutes later, with the key to the cottage in her purse, Rosie wondered whether she had the strength to fight Angelo for a cottage she hadn’t even seen and might well hate on sight. Of the three of them, Mandy had always been the one most determined to blank out the past and recreate it as something it had never been. The second she had met Angelo and sussed his wealth, she had hissed to Rosie that she should keep their background under wraps.

“A guy like that who could have anyone, literally anyone, would dump you in a heartbeat if he ever found out that you, me and Jack are refugees from a disgusting council estate up north. Can you imagine what he’d think if he knew that your dad died a drunk? That your best friend’s mum was a junkie doing time? You wouldn’t see him for dust.”

Rosie had laughed. She wasn’t ashamed of her background, even though she had wanted to escape it as badly as the other two. But, in all events, Angelo hadn’t been the sort of guy who had wanted to quiz her about where she had grown up, nor had he confided in her about his own background, save to say that he had no brothers or sisters and came from a little village in Italy. They had laughed and made love and lived purely for the moment, and she had forgotten that they came from two different worlds because he had made her feel like a princess.

She splashed out on her train ticket and felt the thud of excitement as the train slowly lurched out of Paddington station. She’d had to wait a couple of hours at the station, not having booked her ticket in advance, but she hadn’t minded. She had enjoyed sitting in one of the cafés, sipping coffee and watching the world go by.

The key in her bag felt like a good-luck charm and she had to resist the temptation to wrap her fingers around it.

She had to stop herself from grinning. She didn’t care if Angelo loathed her and wanted to buy her out of this inheritance. This was her wonderful adventure and it couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. She would grab it with both hands. Jack was right—why shouldn’t she? Amanda had taken a shotgun to her life and blown it apart so maybe James Foreman was right. Maybe this was her way of making amends.

She felt a shadow of apprehension when she remembered that Angelo owned the grounds alongside it, but she would just have to work out how that might affect her. They had nothing to say to one another. Once he had accepted that he couldn’t fling her off her own premises or buy her off, he would wash his hands of her. Hadn’t he said something about wanting to develop the place anyway? He could develop his own land, turn it into whatever he wanted, and when that happened he would once again disappear from her life. It wasn’t as though he would be finding excuses to show up on her doorstep. The opposite.

She sat back, closed her eyes and did her utmost to block the image of Angelo burning into her retina, tall, dark, dangerous and seeking some sort of revenge.

CHAPTER THREE

NOTHING COULD HAVE prepared Rosie for the picture-postcard cottage she walked into.

She had alternately dozed on the journey and speculated on what would be waiting for her at the end of it. She hadn’t realised how stressed out she had been for the past few months, how accustomed she had become to looking over her shoulder, but the more distance she put between herself and London the more relaxed she became.

Her hours at the restaurant were insane. Eager to pack in as much experience as she possibly could, she worked like a demon and, on weekends, would obsessively try out variations on some of the dishes she had been taught to prepare, always trying to tweak them into something else, something that would give her the confidence to break away and do her own thing.

Her social life was practically nonexistent. She had become so used to it that it was only as she was travelling away from it that she could see how unhealthy a lifestyle it had become.

And then there was Ian, always hovering in the background like a bad dream. She had trained herself to ignore his invisible presence in her life and, at least until he had found a way into her house, she had firmly believed she had succeeded. Yet, as the train had eaten up the miles between London and Plymouth, she realised that she had been kidding herself. He had been just one more thing weighing her down and stressing her out.

But the second she stood in front of that cottage, all her problems seemed to magically disappear.

It wasn’t a large cottage, but what it lacked in size it more than made up for in charm. Rosie had wondered how far away it would be from Angelo’s house. She had wondered whether she would be able to see whatever mansion he owned towering in the distance, imposing an aura of permanent threat. She had known that, should that be the case, then she would never have been able to occupy it.

In fact, it was impossible even to guess that the cottage was anywhere near any other residence. It was set back from the main road, which was little more than a quiet country lane, and bordered by a white picket fence. Rosie had always imagined that white picket fences were things only found in kids’ books. She was charmed by the reality of actually seeing one in the flesh and before even entering the cottage she spent a few minutes tracing the outline of it with her hand.

She imagined that in summer the little front garden would be a riot of colour and the apple trees on either side would be heavy with fruit. Behind the cottage, the land stretched away into fields and a copse.

It was idyllic. No wonder Angelo had reacted with rage and horror at the thought of her occupying it. Having fancied himself conned out of thousands by a conniving opportunist, he would have been seething at the prospect of her descending on what must be a very valuable slice of real estate which he considered belonged to him.

With a little sigh, Rosie let herself into the cottage. She didn’t want to think about Angelo. She didn’t want to think of him storming down to Cornwall and blazing a furious trail through her flimsy defences. She was still trying to recover from the blistering effect he had had on her two weeks ago when she had encountered him at the funeral. Now, she just wanted to luxuriate in the tranquillity of her surroundings and determine the direction of her life.

Inside the cottage was perfectly proportioned, but what captivated Rosie were the small touches that were all Amanda’s: the choice of curtain, the choice of big and squashy sofas and the colour of the paint on the walls, rose-pinks and yellows.

She had wondered whether she would be spooked at walking into a house owned by her one-time friend, but she wasn’t. She strolled from room to room and reflected that, whatever the outcome of Amanda’s relationship with Angelo, she had managed to get what she had always dreamed of—a place close to the sea, decorated just the way she wanted, which was a style pinched from the occasional house magazine they used to drool over in their poky boxed houses on the council estate.

She didn’t realise how long she had spent wandering through the cottage until her stomach began to rumble with hunger.

Of course, she hadn’t thought to bring anything to eat with her. Fortunately, the fridge was completely empty. She didn’t think she would have coped had there been proof of her friend there. Had the place been cleaned after Amanda had died? Rosie thought it might have been. Perhaps James Foreman had seen to that. He hadn’t mentioned it, but he was just the sort of thoughtful, warm person who would have made sure the task was done in anticipation of her visiting.

She would have to go out, although without a car she had no idea how that would be achieved, and she was actively deliberating whether to call a taxi back or not when the doorbell rang.

Rosie froze instantly. It couldn’t be Ian. Could it? She realised with dismay that thoughts of him were never too far away. Just in case, she tiptoed to the front door and quietly secured the chain before opening the door a crack.

Although it was only a little after five-thirty, it was already dark, a bottomless darkness quite unlike the darkness in London which was always punctuated with light from street lamps.

Whoever her caller was, he was standing to one side, just out of direct sight. Panic flared through her. She struggled for reason and told herself that there was no way that Ian could be standing outside her front door. It just wasn’t possible! Yet, hadn’t he found a way into her house in London? She wished she had thought to bring something heavy from the kitchen—a frying pan; a rolling pin. Something she could use as a weapon. Even as those thoughts flitted through her head, she was aware that she was over-reacting. She realised just how threatened she had felt by Ian over the months, even though she had stoutly told herself that she had nothing to fear from a guy who was two inches shorter than her and a very slight build.

“Well? Are you going to let me in, Rosie?” Angelo had not been to the cottage for a long time. In fact, he had only been there once, after he had allowed Amanda to have it, and then only to assess what renovations had needed doing. He had never been able to understand her reasons for demanding ownership when she had a perfectly good townhouse in London at her disposal, but then again he had never been one for the country life, despite owning his own country mansion. As investments went, it had served him well although he wouldn’t have chosen to live there if he had had a gun to his head. It was there to appreciate in value and occasionally to host large events that were workrelated. Three times a year, high-performing employees were treated to an all-expenses-paid weekend.

“What are you doing here?” Rosie marvelled that she could ever have imagined her caller to be Ian when the most obvious candidate was Angelo. Her irrational fear disappeared to be replaced by something else, a darker and more dangerous emotion that made her heart begin to beat erratically in her chest. He had stepped out of the shadows and she felt ridiculously overwhelmed by his tall, powerful presence.

“Didn’t I tell you that I wanted to be here when you decided to have a look at your ill-gotten legacy?” He placed his hand flat against the door. In truth, there had been no need to rush down to Cornwall, but the second he had heard her voice down the end of the phone he had had no choice. It infuriated him.

“And why the latch?” he asked with silky sarcasm. “Left-over caution from having set up camp in a dump where it pays to make sure you know who your caller is before you open the door?”

“You should have told me that you would be coming.” Rosie could hear the breathlessness in her voice, lurking just below the cool control she wanted to impose.

“Why, when the element of surprise is so much more enjoyable? Now, open the door, Rosie. I don’t intend to spend the next hour having a conversation with you on the doorstep.”

Reluctantly, Rosie unhooked the chain and opened the door, stepping aside so that he could brush past her into the hallway. She remained with her back pressed to the closed door, watching him warily as he looked around.

She had no idea what to say. She wondered what was going through his head. The woman he despised was standing in the hallway of a house that wasn’t rightfully hers, given to her in the worst possible circumstances by someone who she hadn’t set eyes on for three years. She couldn’t drag her eyes away from his starkly handsome face and she flushed with embarrassment when eventually he finished his visual tour of the hallway and caught her staring at him.

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