From festive fling...

When heartbroken Becky Shaw retreats to the Cotswolds for Christmas, she expects to be warming herself in front of a fire, not in the arms of gorgeous Italian billionaire Theo Rushing. As a snowstorm rages outside, indoors the temperature starts to rise...

...to fake fiancée!

It was meant to be a holiday fling, until Theo reveals he needs a fake fiancée and sweeps Becky away to Italy and his luxurious world. To protect her heart, she agrees to a “relationship” in name only, but as the chemistry between them crackles, how long before Theo and Becky pass the point of no return?

Short of throwing Theo to his fate in the driving snow outside, Becky had no choice but to put him up—and from the looks of the weather he was going to be around for at least another night.

Just the two of them under the one roof.

Becky’s mind broke its leash and raced off in all sorts of crazy directions.

He was awful, with his generalizations and his sneering, patronizing assertions, and that typical rich man’s belief that money was the only thing that mattered...that he could just buy things and buy people...

In short, he was just the sort of guy she had no time for.

But he was so outrageously beautiful. And that was what gripped her imagination and held it. That was what shot through her head with the treacherous accuracy of a heat-guided missile, cutting a swathe through all logic and common sense...

This gloriously, sinfully beautiful man was going to be under her roof, and her whole body tingled at the thought of that.

Which was worse than crazy.

CATHY WILLIAMS can remember reading Mills & Boon books as a teenager, and now that she is writing them she remains an avid fan. For her, there is nothing like creating romantic stories and engaging plots, and each and every book is a new adventure. Cathy lives in London, and her three daughters—Charlotte, Olivia and Emma—have always been, and continue to be, the greatest inspirations in her life.

Books by Cathy Williams

Mills & Boon Modern Romance

A Virgin for Vasquez

Seduced into Her Boss’s Service

The Wedding Night Debt

A Pawn in the Playboy’s Game

At Her Boss’s Pleasure

The Real Romero

To Sin with the Tycoon

The Uncompromising Italian

The Argentinian’s Demand

Secrets of a Ruthless Tycoon

Enthralled by Moretti

His Temporary Mistress

A Deal with Di Capua

The Secret Casella Baby

The Notorious Gabriel Diaz

The Italian Titans

Wearing the De Angelis Ring

The Surprise De Angelis Baby

One Night With Consequences

Bound by the Billionaire’s Baby

Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

Snowbound with His Innocent Temptation

Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my three wonderful daughters

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘HONESTLY, ALI, I’M FINE!’ Complete lie. Becky Shaw was far from fine.

Her job was on the line. The veterinary practice where she had been working for the last three years was in the process of being sold—and being turned into yet another quaint coffee shop to attract the onslaught of tourists who arrived punctually every spring and summer, snapping the gorgeous Cotswold scenery with their expensive cameras and buying up all the local art in a flurry of enthusiasm to take away a little bit of local flavour with them. Her friends Sarah and Delilah had got it right when they had decided to turn their cottage into a gallery and workshop. Not that they had had to in the end, considering they had both been swept off their feet by billionaires.

And then there was the roof, which had decided that it was no longer going to play ball and she was sure that right now, if she listened hard enough, she would be able to hear the unnerving sound of the steady leak drip-dripping its way into the bucket she had strategically placed in the corridor upstairs.

‘I keep telling you that you’re too young to be buried out there in the middle of nowhere! Why don’t you come out to France? Visit us for a couple of weeks? Surely the practice can spare you for a fortnight...’

In three months’ time, Becky thought glumly, the practice would be able to spare her for approximately the rest of her life.

Though there was no way that she was going to tell her sister this. Nor did she have any intention of going out to the south of France to see Alice and her husband, Freddy. Her heart squeezed tightly as it did every time she thought of Freddy and she forced herself to answer her sister lightly, voice betraying nothing.

‘I’m hardly buried out here, Alice.’

‘I’ve seen the weather reports, Becks. I always check what the weather’s doing on my phone and the Cotswolds is due heavy snow by the weekend. You’re going to be trapped there in the middle of March, when the rest of the country is looking forward to spring, for goodness’ sake! I worry about you.’

‘You mustn’t.’ She glanced out of the window and wondered how it was that she was still here, still in the family home, when this was supposed to have been a temporary retreat, somewhere to lick her wounds before carrying on with her life. That had been three years ago. Since then, in a fit of lethargy, she had accepted the job offer at the local vet’s and persuaded her parents to put all plans to sell the cottage on hold. Just for a little while. Just until she got her act together. She would pay them a monthly rent and, once she’d got herself on a career ladder, she would leave the Cotswolds and head down to London.

And now here she was, with unemployment staring her in the face and a house that would have to be sold sooner rather than later because, with each day that passed, it became just a little more run down. How long before the small leak in the roof expanded into a full scale, no-holds-barred deluge? Did she really want to wake up in the middle of the night with her bed floating?

So far, she hadn’t mentioned the problems with the house to her parents, who had left for France five years previously, shortly having been joined by Alice and her husband. She knew that if she did the entire family would up sticks and arrive on her doorstep with tea, sympathy and rescue plans afoot.

She didn’t need rescuing.

She was an excellent vet. She would have a brilliant recommendation from Norman, the elderly family man who owned the practice and was now selling to emigrate to the other side of the world. She would be able to find work somewhere else without any problem at all.

And besides, twenty-seven-year-old women did not need rescuing. Least of all by their younger sibling and two frantically worried parents.

‘Shouldn’t I be the one worrying about you?’

‘Because you’re three years older?’

Becky heard that wonderful, tinkling laugh and pictured her beautiful, charming sister sitting in their glamorous French gîte with her legs tucked under her and her long, blonde hair tumbling over one shoulder.

Freddy would be doing something useful in the kitchen. Despite the fact that he, like her, was a hard-working vet, he enjoyed nothing more than getting back from the practice in which he was a partner, kicking off his shoes and relaxing with Alice in the kitchen, where he would usually be the one concocting the meals, because he was an excellent cook.

And he adored Alice. He had been swept off his feet from the very first second he had been introduced to her. At the time, she had been a high-flying model on the way to greatness and, whilst Becky would never have believed that Freddy—earnest and usually knee-deep in text books—could ever be attracted to her sister—who was cheerfully proud of her lack of academic success and hadn’t read a book cover to cover in years—she had been proved wrong.

They were the most happily married couple anyone could have hoped to find.

‘I’ll be fine.’ Becky decided to put off all awkward conversations about job losses and collapsing roofs for another day. ‘I won’t venture out in the middle of a snowstorm in my pyjamas, and if anyone out there is stupid enough to brave this weather on the lookout for what they can nick then they won’t be heading for Lavender Cottage.’ She eyed the tired décor in the kitchen and couldn’t help grinning. ‘Everyone in the village knows that I keep all my valuables in a bank vault.’

Old clothes, mud-stained wellies, tool kit for the hundreds of things that kept going wrong in the house, enviable selection of winter-woolly hats...just the sort of stuff any robber worth his salt would want to steal.

‘I just thought, Becks, that you might venture out here and have a little fun for a while before summer comes and all those ghastly crowds. I know you came over for Christmas, but it was all so busy out here, what with Mum and Dad inviting every single friend over for drinks every single evening. I... I feel like I haven’t seen you for absolutely ages! I mean, just the two of us, the way it used to be when we were younger and...well... Freddy and I...’

‘I’m incredibly busy just at the moment, Ali. You know how it is around this time of year with the lambing season nearly on us, pregnant sheep in distress everywhere you look... But I’ll come out as soon as I can. I promise.’

She didn’t want to talk about Freddy, the guy she had met at university, the guy she had fallen head over heels in love with, had he only known, the guy who had turned her into a good friend, who had met Alice, been smitten in the space of seconds and proposed in record time.

The guy who had broken her heart.

‘Darling, Freddy and I have something to tell you and we would much rather tell you face to face...’

‘What? What is it?’ Filled with sudden consternation, Becky sat up, mind crash-banging into worst case scenarios.

‘We’re going to have a baby! Isn’t it exciting?’

* * *

Yes, it was. Exciting, thrilling and something her sister had been talking about from the moment she had said I do and glided up the aisle with a band of gold on her finger.

Becky was thrilled for her. She really was. But, as she settled down for one of the rare Saturday nights when she wasn’t going to be on call, she suddenly felt the weight of the choices she had made over the years bearing down on her.

Where were the clubs she should be enjoying? Where was the breathless falling in and out of love? The men in pursuit? The thrilling text messages? When Freddy had hitched his wagon to her sister, Becky had turned her back on love. Unlike Alice, she had spent her teens with her head in books. She’d always known what she’d wanted to be and her parents had encouraged her in her studies. Both were teachers, her father a lecturer, her mother a maths teacher at the local secondary school. She had always been the good girl who worked hard. Beautiful, leggy Alice had decided from an early age that academics were not for her and of course her parents—liberal, left wing and proud of their political correctness—had not batted an eyelid.

And so, while Becky had studied, Alice had partied.

‘Everyone should be free to express themselves without being boxed into trying to live up or live down to other people’s expectations!’ had been her mother’s motto.

At the age of eighteen, Becky had surfaced, startled and blinking, to university life with all its glorious freedom and had realised that a life of study had not prepared her for late-night drinking, skipping lectures and sleeping around.

She had not been conditioned to enjoy the freedom at her disposal, and had almost immediately developed a crush on Freddy, who had been in her year, studying veterinary science like her.

He, too, had spent his adolescence working hard. He, too, had had his head buried in text books between the ages of twelve and eighteen. He had been her soul mate and she had enjoyed his company, but had been far too shy to take it to another level, and had been prepared to bide her time until the inevitable happened.

Only ever having watched her sister from the sidelines, laughing and amused at the way Alice fell in and out of love, she had lacked the confidence to make the first move.

And in the end, thank goodness, because, had she done so, then she would have been roundly rejected. The boy she had considered her soul mate, the boy she had fancied herself spending her life with, had not been interested in her as anything but a pal. She had thought him perfect for her. Steady, hard-working, considerate, feet planted firmly on the ground...

He, on the other hand, had not been looking for a woman who shared those qualities.

He had wanted frothy and vivacious. He had wanted someone who shoved his books aside and sat on his lap. He had wanted tall and blonde and beautiful, not small, dark-haired and plump. He hadn’t wanted earnest.

As the dark night began to shed its first flurries of snow, Becky wondered whether retreating to the Cotswolds had been a good idea. She could see herself in the same place, doing the same thing, in ten years’ time. Her kid sister felt sorry for her. Without even realising it, she was becoming a charity case, the sort of person the world pitied.

The house was falling down.

She was going to be jobless in a matter of months.

She would be forced to do something about her life, leave the security of the countryside, join the busy tide of bright young things in a city somewhere.

She would have to climb back on the horse and start dating again.

She felt giddy when she thought about it.

But think about it she did, and she only stopped when she heard the sharp buzz of the doorbell, and for once didn’t mind having her precious downtime invaded by someone needing her help with a sick animal. In fact, she would have welcomed just about anything that promised to divert her thoughts from the grim road they were hell-bent on travelling.

She headed for the door, grabbing her vet’s bag on the way, as well as her thick, warm, waterproof jacket, which was essential in this part of the world.

She pulled open the door with one foot in a boot, woolly hat yanked down over her ears and her car keys shoved in her coat pocket.

Eyes down as she reached for her bag, the first things she noticed were the shoes. They didn’t belong to a farmer. They were made of soft, tan leather, which was already beginning to show the discolouration from the snow collecting outside.

Then she took in the trousers.

Expensive. Pale grey, wool. Utterly impractical. She was barely aware of her eyes travelling upwards, doing an unconscious inventory of her unexpected caller, registering the expensive black cashmere coat, the way it fell open, unbuttoned, revealing a fine woollen jumper that encased a body that was...so unashamedly masculine that for a few seconds her breath hitched in her throat.

‘Plan on finishing the visual inspection any time soon? Because I’m getting soaked out here.’

Becky’s eyes flicked up and all at once she was gripped by the most unusual sensation, a mixture of dry-mouthed speechlessness and heated embarrassment.

For a few seconds, she literally couldn’t speak as she stared, wide-eyed, at the most staggeringly good-looking guy she had ever seen in her life.

Black hair, slightly long, had been blown back from a face that was pure, chiselled perfection. Silver-grey eyes, fringed with dramatically long, thick, dark lashes, were staring right back at her.

Mortified, Becky leapt into action. ‘Give me two seconds,’ she said breathlessly. She crammed her foot into wellie number two and wondered whether she would need her handbag. Probably not. She didn’t recognise the man and, from the way he was dressed, he wasn’t into livestock so there would be no sheep having trouble giving birth.

Which probably meant that he was one of those rich townies who had second homes somewhere in one of the picturesque villages. He’d probably descended for a weekend with a party of similarly poorly equipped friends, domestic pets in tow, and one of the pets had got itself into a spot of bother.

It happened. These people never seemed to realise that dogs and cats, accustomed to feather beds and grooming parlours, went crazy the second they were introduced to the big, bad world of the real countryside.

Then when their precious little pets returned to base camp, limping and bleeding, their owners didn’t have a clue what to do. Becky couldn’t count the number of times she had been called out to deal with weeping and wailing owners of some poor cat or dog that had suffered nothing more tragic than a cut on its paw.

In fairness, this man didn’t strike Becky as the sort to indulge in dramatics, not judging from the cool, impatient look in those silver-grey eyes that had swept dismissively over her, but who knew?

‘Right!’ She stepped back, putting some distance between herself and the disconcerting presence by the door. The flurries of snow were turning into a blizzard. ‘If we don’t leave in five seconds, then it’s going to be all hell getting back here! Where’s your car? I’ll follow you.’

‘Follow me? Why would you want to follow me?’

His voice, Becky thought distractedly, matched his face. Deep, seductive, disturbing and very, very bad for one’s peace of mind.

‘Who are you?’ She looked at him narrowly and her heart picked up pace. He absolutely towered over her.

‘Ah. Introductions. Now we’re getting somewhere. You only have to invite me in and normality can be resumed without further delay.’

Because this sure as hell wasn’t normal.

Theo Rushing had just spent the past four-and-a-half hours in second gear, manoeuvring ridiculously narrow streets in increasingly inhospitable weather conditions, and cursing himself for actually thinking that it would be a good idea to get in his car and deal with this mission himself, instead of doing the sensible thing and handing it over to one of his employees to sort out.

But this trip had been a personal matter and he hadn’t wanted to delegate.

In fact, what he wanted was very simple. The cottage into which he had yet to be invited.

He anticipated getting it without too much effort. After all, he had money and, from what his sources had told him, the cottage—deep in the heart of the Cotswolds and far from anything anyone could loosely describe as civilisation—was still owned by the couple who had originally bought it, which, as far as Theo was concerned, was a miracle in itself. How long could one family live somewhere where the only view was of uninterrupted countryside and the only possible downtime activity would be tramping over open fields? It worked for him, though, because said couple would surely be contemplating retirement to somewhere less remote...

The only matter for debate would be the price.

But he wanted the cottage, and he was going to get it, because it was the only thing he could think of that would put some of the vitality back into his mother’s life.

Of course, on the list of priorities, the cottage was way down below her overriding ambition to see him married off, an ambition that had reached an all-time high ever since her stroke several months ago.

But that was never going to happen. He had seen first-hand the way love could destroy. He had watched his mother retreat from life when her husband, his father, had been killed suddenly and without warning when they should have been enjoying the bliss of looking towards their future, the young, energetic couple with their only child. Theo had only been seven at the time but he’d been sharp enough to work out that, had his mother not invested her entire life, the whole essence of her being, in that fragile thing called love, then she wouldn’t have spent the following decades living half a life.

So the magic and power of love was something he could quite happily do without, thanks very much. It was a slice of realism his mother stoutly refused to contemplate and Theo had given up trying to persuade her into seeing his point of view. If she wanted to cling to unrealistic fantasies about him bumping into the perfect woman, then so be it. His only concession was that he would no longer introduce her to any of his imperfect women who, he knew from experience, never managed to pull away from the starting block as far as his mother was concerned.

Which just left the cottage.

Lavender Cottage...his parents’ first home...the place where he had been conceived...and the house his mother had fled when his father had had his fatal accident. Fog...a lorry going over the speed limit... His father on his bicycle hadn’t stood a chance...

Marita Rushing had been turned into a youthful widow and she had never recovered. No one had ever stood a chance against the perfect ghost of his father. She was still a beautiful woman but when you looked at her you didn’t see the huge dark eyes or the dramatic black hair... When you looked at her all you saw was the sadness of a life dedicated to memories.

And recently she had wanted to return to the place where those memories resided.

Nostalgia, in the wake of her premature stroke, had become her faithful companion and she wanted finally to come to terms with the past and embrace it. Returning to the cottage, he had gathered, was an essential part of that therapy.

Right now, she was in Italy, and had been for the past six weeks, visiting her sister. Reminiscing about the cottage, about her desire to return there to live out her final days, had been replaced by disturbing insinuations that she might just return to Italy and call it quits with England.

‘You’re barely ever in the country,’ she had grumbled a couple of weeks earlier, which was something Theo had not been able to refute. ‘And when you are, well, what am I but the ageing mother you are duty-bound to visit? It’s not as though there will ever be a daughter-in-law for me, or grandchildren, or any of those things a woman of my age should be looking forward to. What is the point of my being in London, Theo? I would see the same amount of you if I lived in Timbuktu.’

Theo loved his mother, but he could not promise a wife he had no intention of acquiring or grandchildren that didn’t feature in his future.

If he honestly thought that she would be happy in Italy, then he would have encouraged her to stay on at the villa he had bought for her six years previously, but she had lived far too long away from the small village in which she had grown up and where her sister now lived. After two weeks, she would always return to London, relieved to be back and full of tales of Flora’s exasperating bossiness.

Right now, she was recuperating, so Flora was full of tender, loving care. However, should his mother decide to turn her stay there into a permanent situation, then Flora would soon become the chivvying older sister who drove his mother crazy.

‘Why are you getting dressed?’ Theo asked the cottage’s present resident in bemusement. She was small and round but he still found himself being distracted by the pure clarity of her turquoise eyes and her flawless complexion. Healthy living, he thought absently, staring down at her. ‘And you still haven’t told me who you are.’

‘I don’t think this is the time to start making chit chat.’ Becky blinked and made a concerted effort to gather her wits because he was just another hapless tourist in need of her services. It was getting colder and colder in the little hallway and the snow was becoming thicker and thicker. ‘I’ll come with you but you’ll have to drive me back.’ She swerved past him, out into the little gravelled circular courtyard, and gaped at the racing-red Ferrari parked at a jaunty angle, as though he had swung recklessly into her drive and screeched to a racing driver’s halt. ‘Don’t tell me that you came here in that!’

Theo swung round. She had zipped past him like a pocket rocket and now she was glaring, hands on her hips, woolly hat almost covering her eyes.

And he had no idea what the hell was going on. He felt like he needed to rewind the conversation and start again in a more normal fashion, because he’d obviously missed a few crucial links in the chain.

‘Come again?’ was all he could find to say, the man who was never lost for words, the man who could speak volumes with a single glance, a man who could close impossible deals with the right vocabulary.

‘Are you completely mad?’ Becky breathed an inward sigh of relief because she felt safer being the angry, disapproving vet, concerned for her safety in nasty weather conditions, and impatient with some expensive, arrogant guy who was clueless about the Cotswolds. ‘There’s no way I’m getting into that thing with you! And I can’t believe you actually thought that driving all the way out here to get me was a good idea! Don’t you people know anything at all? Not that you have to be a genius to work out that these un-gritted roads are lethal for silly little cars like that!’

‘Silly little car?’

‘I’d find the roads difficult and I drive a sensible car!’

‘That silly little car happens to be a top-end Ferrari that cost more than you probably earn in a year!’ Theo raked fingers frustratedly through his hair. ‘And I have no bloody idea why we’re standing out here in a blizzard having a chat about cars!’

‘Well, how the heck are we supposed to get to your animal if we don’t drive there? Unless you’ve got a helicopter stashed away somewhere? Have you?’

‘Animal? What animal?’

‘Your cat!’

‘I don’t have a cat! Why would I have a cat? Why would I have any sort of animal, and what would lead you to think that I had?’

‘You mean you haven’t come to get me out to tend to an animal?’

‘You’re a vet.’ The weathered bag, the layers of warm, outdoor clothing, the wellies for tramping through mud. All made sense now.

Theo had come to the cottage to have a look, to stake his claim and to ascertain how much he would pay for the place. As little as possible, had been his way of thinking. It had been bought at a bargain-basement price from his mother, who had been so desperate to flee that she had taken the first offer on the place. He had intended to do the same, to assess the state of disrepair and put in the lowest possible offer, at least to start with.

‘That’s right—and if you don’t have an animal, and don’t need my services, then why the heck are you here?’

‘This is ridiculous. It’s freezing out here. I refuse to have a conversation in sub-zero temperatures.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t feel comfortable letting you into my house.’ Becky squinted up at him. She was a mere five-foot-four and he absolutely towered over her. He was a tall, powerfully built stranger who had arrived in a frivolous boy-racer car out of the blue and she was on her own out here. No one would hear her scream for help. Should she need help.

Theo was outraged. No one, but no one, had ever had the temerity to say anything like that to him in his life before, least of all a woman. ‘Exactly what are you suggesting?’ he asked with withering cool, and Becky reddened but stoutly stood her ground.

‘I don’t know you.’ She tilted her chin at a mutinous angle, challenging him to disagree with her. Every pore and fibre of her being was alert to him. It was as though, for the first time in her life, she was aware of her body, aware of her femininity, aware of her breasts—heavy and pushing against her bra—aware of her stiff and sensitive nipples, aware of her nakedness beneath her thick layer of clothes. Her discomfort was intense and bewildering.

‘You could be anyone. I thought you were here because you needed my help with an animal, but you don’t, so who the heck are you and why do you think I would let you into my house?’

‘Your house?’ Cool grey eyes skirted the rambling building and its surrounding fields. ‘You’re a little young to be the proud owner of a house this size, aren’t you?’

‘I’m older than you think.’ Becky rushed into self-defence mode. ‘And, not that it’s any of your business, but yes, this house is mine. Or at least, I’m in charge while my parents are abroad and, that being the case, I won’t be letting you inside. I don’t even know your name.’

‘Theo Rushing.’ Some of the jigsaw immediately fell into place. He had expected to descend on the owners of the property. He hadn’t known what, precisely, he would find but he had not been predisposed to be charitable to anyone who could have taken advantage of a distraught young woman, as his mother had been at the time.

At any rate, he had come with his cheque book, but without the actual owners at hand his cheque book was as useful as a three-pound note, because the belligerent little ball in front of him would not be able to make any decisions about anything.

Furthermore, she struck him as just the sort who would bite off the hand clutching the bank notes, or at least try and persuade her parents to...

He was accustomed to women wanting to please him. Faced with narrowed, suspicious eyes and the body language of a guard dog about to attack, he was forced to concede that announcing the purpose for his visit might not be such a good idea.

‘I’m here to buy this cottage so you’ll find yourself without a roof over your head in roughly a month and a half’ wasn’t going to win him brownie points.

He wanted the cottage and he was going to get it but he would have to be a little creative in how he handled the situation now.

He felt an unusual rush of adrenaline.

Theo had attained such meteoric heights over the years that the thrill of the challenge had been lost. When you could have anything you wanted, you increasingly lost interest in the things that should excite. Nothing was exciting if you didn’t have to work to get it and that, he thought suddenly, included women.

Getting this cottage would be a challenge and he liked the thought of that.

‘And I’m here...’ He looked around him at the thick black sky. He had planned to arrive early afternoon but the extraordinary delays had dumped him here as darkness was beginning to fall. It had fallen completely now and there were no street lights to alleviate the unlit sky or to illuminate the fast falling snow.

His eyes returned to the woman in front of him. She was so heavily bundled up that he reckoned they could spend the next five hours out here and she would be immune to the freezing cold. He, on the other hand, having not expected to leave London and end up in a tundra, could not have been less well-prepared for the silent but deadly onslaught of the weather. Cashmere coats were all well and good in London but out here...

Waiting for an answer before she dispatched him without further ado, Becky could not help but stare. He was so beautiful that it almost hurt to tear her eyes away. In those crazy, faraway days, when she had been consumed by Freddy, she had enjoyed looking at him, had liked his regular, kind features, the gentleness of his expression and the warmth of his brown, puppy-dog eyes.

But she had never felt like this. There was something fascinating, mesmerising, about the play of shadow and darkness on his angular, powerful face. He was the last word in everything that wasn’t gentle or kind and yet the pull she felt was overwhelming.

‘Yes?’ She clenched her gloved fists in the capacious pockets of her waterproof, knee-length, fleece-lined anorak. ‘You’re here because...?’

‘Lost.’ Theo spread his arm wide to encompass the lonely wilderness around him. ‘Lost, and you’re right—in a car that’s not very clever when it comes to ice and snow. I’m not...accustomed to country roads and my satnav has had a field day trying to navigate its way to where I was planning on ending up.’

Lost. It made sense. Once you left the main roads behind—and that was remarkably easy to do—you could easily find yourself in a honeycomb of winding, unlit country lanes that would puzzle the best cartographer.

But that didn’t change the fact that she was out here on her own in this house and he was still a stranger.

He read her mind. ‘Look, I understand that you might feel vulnerable out here if you’re on your own...’ And she was, because there was no rush to jump in and warn him of an avenging boyfriend or husband wending his weary way back. ‘But you will be perfectly safe if you let me in. The only reason I’m asking to be let in at all is because the weather’s getting worse, and if I get into that car and try and make my way back to the bright lights I have no idea where I’ll end up.’

Becky glanced at the racy, impractical sports car turning white as the snow gathered on it. In a ditch, was written all over its impractical bonnet.

Would her conscience allow her to send him off into the night, knowing that he would probably end up having an accident? What if the skittish car skidded off the road into one of the many trees and there was a fatality?

What if he ended up trapped in wreckage somewhere on an isolated country lane? If nothing else, he would perish from hypothermia, because his choice of clothing was as impractical for the weather as his choice of car.

‘One night,’ she said. ‘And then I get someone to come and fetch you, first thing in the morning. I don’t care if you have to leave the car here or not.’

‘One night,’ Theo murmured in agreement.

Becky felt the race of something dangerous slither through her.

She would give him shelter for one night and one night only...

What harm could come from that?

CHAPTER TWO

THE HOUSE SEEMED to shrink in size the minute he walked in. He’d fetched his computer from his car but that was all and Becky looked at him with a frown.

‘Is that all you brought with you?’

‘You still haven’t told me your name.’ The house was clearly on its last legs. Theo was no surveyor but that much was obvious. He now looked directly at her as he slowly removed his coat.

‘Rebecca. Becky.’ She watched as he carelessly slung his coat over one of the hooks by the front door. She could really appreciate his lean muscularity, now he was down to the jumper and trousers, and her mouth went dry.

This was as far out of her comfort zone as it was possible to get. Ever since Freddy, she had retreated into herself, content to go out as part of a group, to mingle with old friends—some of whom, like her, had returned to the beautiful Cotswolds, but to raise families. She hadn’t actively chosen to discourage men but, as it happened, they had been few and far between. Twice she had been asked out on dates and twice she had decided that friendship was more valuable than the possibility of romance.

Truthfully, when she tried to think about relationships, she drew a blank. She wanted someone thoughtful and caring and those sorts of guys were already snapped up. The guys who had asked her out had known her since for ever, and she knew for a fact that one of them was still recovering from a broken heart and had only asked her out on the rebound.

The other, the son of one of the farmers whom she had visited on call-out on several occasions, was nice enough, but nice enough just wasn’t sufficient.

Or maybe she was being too fussy. That thought had occurred to her. When you were on your own for long enough, you grew careful, wary of letting anyone into your world, protective of your space. Was that what was happening to her?

At any rate, her comfort zone was on the verge of disappearing permanently unless she chose to stay where she was and travel long distances to another job.

She decided that inviting Theo in was good practice for what lay in store for her. She had opened her door to a complete stranger and she knew, with some weird gut instinct, that he was no physical threat to her.

In fact, seeing him in the unforgiving light in the hall did nothing to lessen the impact of his intense, sexual vitality. It was laughable to think that he would have any interest in her as anything other than someone offering refuge from the gathering snow storm.

‘I can show you to one of the spare rooms.’ Becky flushed because she could feel herself staring again. ‘I don’t keep them heated, but I’ll turn the radiator on, and it shouldn’t take too long to warm up. You might want to...freshen up.’

‘I would love nothing more,’ Theo drawled. ‘Unfortunately, no change of clothing. Would you happen to have anything I could borrow? Husband’s old gardening clothes? Boyfriend’s...?’ He wondered whether she intended to spend the rest of the evening in the shapeless anorak and mud-stained boots. She had to be the least fashion-conscious woman he had ever met in his entire life, yet for the life of him he was still captivated by something about her.

The eyes, the unruly hair still stuffed under the woolly hat, the lack of war paint...what was it?

He had no idea but he hadn’t felt this alive in a woman’s presence for a while.

Then again, it had been a while since he had been in the presence of any woman who wasn’t desperate to attract his attention. There was a lot to be said for novelty.

‘I can let you borrow something.’ Becky shifted from foot to foot. She was boiling in the coat but somehow she didn’t like the thought of stripping down to her jeans and top in front of him. Those sharp, lazy eyes of his made her feel all hot and bothered. ‘My dad left some of his stuff in the wardrobe in the room you’ll be in. You can have a look and see what might be able to work for you. And if you leave your stuff outside the bedroom door, then I guess I can stick it in the washing machine.’

‘You needn’t do that.’

‘You’re soaked,’ Becky said flatly. ‘Your clothes will smell if you leave them to dry without washing them first.’

‘In that case, I won’t refuse your charming offer,’ Theo said drily and Becky flushed.

Very conscious of his eyes on her, she preceded him up the stairs, pointedly ignoring the bucket gathering water on the ground from the leaking roof, and flung open the door to one of the spare bedrooms. Had she actually thought things through when she had fled back to the family home, she would have realised that the ‘cottage’ was a cottage in name only. In reality, it was reasonably large, with five bedrooms and outbuildings in the acres outside. It was far too big for her and she wondered, suddenly, whether her parents had felt sorry for her and offered to allow her to stay there through pity. They hadn’t known about Freddy and her broken heart but what must they have felt when she had dug her heels in and insisted on returning to the family home while Alice, already far flown from the nest, was busily making marriage plans so that the next phase of her life could begin?

Becky cringed.

Her parents would never, ever have denied her the cottage but they weren’t rich. They had bought somewhere tiny in France when her grandmother had died, and they had both continued working part-time, teaching in the local school.

Becky had always thought it a brilliant way of integrating into life in the French town, but what if they’d only done that because they needed the money?

While she stayed here, paying a peppercorn rent and watching the place gradually fall apart at the seams...

She was struck by her own selfishness and it was something that had never occurred to her until now.

She would phone, she decided. Feel out the ground. After all, whether she liked it or not, her lifestyle was going to change dramatically once she was out of a job.

Theo looked at her and wondered what was going through her mind. He hadn’t failed to notice the way she had neatly stepped past a bucket in the corridor which was quarter-full from the leaking roof.

It was startling enough that a woman of her age would choose to live out in the sticks, however rewarding her job might be, but it was even more startling that, having chosen to live out in the sticks, she continued to live in a house that was clearly on the verge of giving up the fight.

When he bought this cottage, he would be doing her a favour by forcing her out into the real world.

Where life happened.

Rather than her staying here...hiding away...which surely was what she was doing...?

Hiding from what? he wondered. He was a little amused at how involved he temporarily was in mentally providing an answer to that ridiculous question.

But if he had to get her onside, manoeuvre her into a position where she might see the sense of not standing in his way when it came to buying the cottage, then wouldn’t it help to get to know her a little?

Of course, there was no absolute necessity to get anyone onside. He could simply bypass her and head directly to the parents. Make them an offer they couldn’t refuse. But for once he wasn’t quite ruthless enough to go down that road. There was something strangely alluring underneath the guard-dog belligerence. And he was not forgetting that there were times when money didn’t open the door you wanted opening. If he bypassed her and leant on the parents, there was a real risk of them uniting with their daughter to shut him out permanently, whatever sums of money he chose to throw at them. Family loyalty could be a powerful wild card, and he should know... Wasn’t family loyalty the very thing that had brought him to this semi-derelict cottage?

She was switching on the ancient heating, opening the wardrobe so that she could show him where the clothes were kept, fetching a towel from the corridor, dumping it on the bed and then informing him that the bathroom was just down the corridor, but that he would have to make sure that the toilet wasn’t flushed before he turned on the shower or else he might end up with third-degree burns.

Theo walked slowly towards her and then stopped a few inches away.

When Becky breathed, she could breathe him in, masculinity mixed with the cold winter air, a heady, heady mix. Leaning against the doorframe, she blinked, suddenly unsteady on her feet.

He had amazing lashes, long, dark and thick. She wanted to ask him where he was from, because there was an exotic strain running through him that was quite...captivating.

He had shoved up the sleeves of his jumper and, even though she wasn’t actually looking, she was very much aware of his forearms, the fine, dark hair on them, the flex of muscle and sinew...

Her breathing was so sluggish that it crossed her mind...was it actually physically possible to forget how to breathe?

‘I don’t get why you live here.’ Theo was genuinely curious.

‘Wh-what do you mean?’ Becky stammered.

‘The house needs a lot of work doing to it. I could understand if your parents wanted you in situ while work was being done but...can I call you Becky?...there’s a bucket out in the corridor. And how long do you intend emptying it before you face the unpalatable fact that the roof probably needs replacing?’

Hard on the heels of the uncomfortable thoughts that had been preying on her mind, Theo’s remarks struck home with deadly accuracy.

‘I don’t see that the state of this house is any of your business!’ Bright patches of colour stained her cheeks. ‘You’re here for a night, one night, and only because I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I had sent you on your way in this weather. But that doesn’t give you the right to...to...’

‘Talk?’

‘You’re not talking, you’re—’

‘I’m probably saying things that have previously occurred to you, things you may have chosen to ignore.’ He shrugged, unwillingly intrigued by the way she was so patently uninterested in trying to impress him. ‘If you’d rather I didn’t, then that’s fine. I have some work to do when I get downstairs and then we can pretend to have an invigorating conversation about the weather.’

‘I’ll be downstairs.’ This for want of anything more coherent to say when she was so...angry...that he had had the nerve to shoot his mouth off! He was rude beyond words!

But he wasn’t wrong.

And this impertinent stranger had provided the impetus she needed to make that call to her parents. As soon as she was in the kitchen, with the door firmly shut, because the man was as stealthy as a panther and obviously didn’t wait for invitations to speak his mind. There was some beating around the bush but, yes, it would be rather lovely if the house was sold, not that they would ever dream of asking her to leave.

But...but...but...but.

Lots of buts, so that by the time Becky hung up fifteen minutes later she was in no doubt that not only was she heading for unemployment but the leaking roof over her head would not be hers for longer than it took for the local estate agent to come along and offer a valuation.

Mind still whirring busily away, she headed back up the stairs. She wished she could think more clearly and see a way forward but the path ahead was murky. What if she couldn’t get a job? It should be easy but, then again, she was in a highly specialised field. What if she did manage to find a posting but it was in an even more remote spot than this? Did she really want the years ahead to be spent in a practice in the wilds of Scotland? But weren’t the more desirable posts in London, Manchester or Birmingham going to be the first to be filled?

And underneath all those questions was the dissatisfaction that had swamped her after she had spoken to her sister.

Her life had been put into harsh perspective. The time she had spent here now seemed to have been wasted. Instead of moving forward, she had stayed in the same place, pedalling furiously and getting nowhere.

She surfaced from her disquieting thoughts to find that, annoyingly, the clothes she had asked to be placed outside the bedroom door were not there.

Did the man think that he was staying in a hotel?

Did he imagine that it was okay for her to hang around like a chambermaid until he decided that he could be bothered to hand over his dirty laundry for her to do? She didn’t even have to wash his clothes! She could have sent him on his way in musty, semi-damp trousers and a jumper that smelled of pond water.

He obviously thought that he was so important that he could do as he pleased. Speak to her as he pleased. Accept her hospitality whilst antagonising her because he found it entertaining.

She had no idea how important or unimportant he was but, quite aside from the snazzy little racing-red number and the designer clothing, there was something about him that screamed wealth.

Or maybe it was power.

Well, none of that impressed her. She’d never had time for anyone who thought that money was the be all and end all. It just wasn’t the way she had been brought up.

It was what was inside that counted. It was why, although Freddy had not been the one for her, there was a guy out there who was, a guy who had the sterling qualities of kindness, quiet intelligence and self-deprecating humour.

And, having ducked the dating scene for years, she would get back out there...because if she didn’t then this was the person she would be in the years to come, entrenched in her singledom, godmother to all and sundry and maid of honour to her friends as they tied the knot and moved on with their fulfilling lives.

Swamped by sudden self-pity, she absently shoved open the door to the spare room, which was ajar, and...stopped. Her legs stopped moving, her hand froze on the door knob and her brain went into instant shutdown.

She didn’t know where to look and somewhere inside she knew that it didn’t matter because wherever she looked she would still end up seeing him. Tall, broad-shouldered, his body an amazing burnished bronze. She would still see the hardness of his six pack and the length of his muscular legs, the legs of an athlete.

Aside from a pair of low-slung boxers, he was completely naked.

Becky cleared her throat and opened her mouth and nothing emerged but an inarticulate noise.

‘I was just about to stick the clothes outside...’

Without the woollen hat pulled down over her head, her hair was long, tumbling down her back in a cascade of unruly, dark curls, and without the layers upon layers of shriekingly unfashionable arctic gear...

She wasn’t the round little beach ball he had imagined. Even with the loose-fitting striped rugby shirt, he could see that she had the perfect hourglass figure. News obviously hadn’t reached this part of the world that the fashionable trend these days leaned towards long, thin and toned to athletic perfection, even if the exercise involved to get there never saw the outside of an expensive gym.

He could feel his whole body reacting to the sight of her lush curves and he hurriedly turned away, because a pair of boxers was no protection against an erection.

He was staring. Becky stood stock-still, conscious of herself and her body in ways she had never been before. Why was he staring at her like that? Was he even aware that he was doing it?

She couldn’t believe that he was staring at her because she was the most glamorous woman he had ever set eyes on. She wasn’t born yesterday and she knew that when it came to looks, well, a career could not be made out of hers. Alice had got the looks and she, Becky, had got the brains and it had always seemed like a fair enough deal to her.

He’d turned away now, thankfully putting on some ancient track pants her father had left behind and an even more ancient jumper, and by the time he turned back around to face her she wondered whether she had imagined those cool, grey eyes on her, skirting over her body.

Yes, she thought a little shakily. Of course she had. She had stared at him because he looked like a Greek god. She on the other hand was as average as they came.

Should she feel threatened? She was alone in this house...

She didn’t feel threatened. She felt...excited. Something wicked and daring stirred inside her and she promptly knocked it back.

‘The clothes.’ She found her voice, one hand outstretched, watching as he gathered items of clothing and strolled towards her. ‘I’ll make sure they’re washed and ready for you tomorrow morning.’

‘First thing...before I’m sent on my way,’ Theo murmured, still startled at the fierce grip of his libido that had struck from nowhere.

She couldn’t wait to escape, he thought with a certain amount of disbelief.

Something had passed between them just then. Had she even been aware of it? A charge of electricity had shaken him and she hadn’t been unaffected. He’d seen the reaction in the widening of her eyes as she had looked at him, and the stillness of her body language, as though one false move might have led her to do something...rash.

Did rash happen out here? he wondered. Or was she out here because she was escaping from something rash? Was the awkward, blushing, argumentative vet plagued by guilt over a misspent past? Had she thrown herself into a one-way relationship to nowhere with a con man? A married man? A rampant womaniser who had used her and tossed her aside? The possibilities were endless.

She certainly wasn’t out here for the money. That bucket on the landing said it all. She might be living rent free at the place but she certainly wasn’t earning enough to keep it maintained. Old houses consumed money with the greed of a gold-digger on the make.

‘What if it’s still snowing in the morning?’

She was clutching the bundle of clothes like a talisman and staring up at him with those amazing bright blue eyes. Her lips were parted. When she circled a nervous tongue over them, Theo had to fight down an urge to reach out and pull her against him.

‘It won’t be.’

‘If you weren’t prepared to risk my life by sending me on my way, then will you be prepared to risk someone else’s life by asking them to come and collect me and take me away?’

‘I could drive you myself. I have a four-wheel drive. It’s okay in conditions like this.’

‘When I knocked on your door...’ Theo leant against the door frame ‘... I never expected someone like you to open it’

‘What do you mean someone like me?’ Becky stiffened, primed for some kind of thinly veiled insult.

Theo didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. Instead, he watched her, head tilted to one side, until she looked away, blushing. Very gently, he tilted her face back to his.

‘You’re on the defensive. Why?’

‘Why do you think? I... I don’t know you.’ The feel of his cool finger resting lightly on her chin was as scorching-hot as the imprint from a branding iron.

‘What do you think I’m going to do? When I said someone like you, I meant someone young. I expected someone much older to be living this far out in the countryside.’

‘I told you, the house belongs to my parents. I’m just here... Look, I’m going to head downstairs, wash these things...’ Her feet and brain were not communicating because, instead of spinning around and backing out of the room, she remained where she was, glued to the spot.

She wanted him to remove his hand...she wanted him to do more with it, wanted him to curve it over her face and then slide it across her shoulders, wanted him to find the bare flesh of her stomach and then the swell of her breasts... She didn’t want to hear anything he had to say, yet he was making her think, and how could that be a bad thing?

She barely recognised her voice and she certainly didn’t know what was going on with her body.

‘Okay.’ He stepped back, hand dropping to his side.

For a few seconds, Becky hovered, then she cleared her throat and stepped out of the room backwards.

By the time he joined her in the kitchen, the clothes were in the washing machine and she had regained her composure.

Theo looked at her for a few seconds from the doorway. She had her back to him and was busy chopping vegetables, while as background noise the television was giving an in-depth report of the various areas besieged by snow when spring should have sprung. He felt that her house would shortly be featured because there was no sign of the snow letting up.

Before he had come down, he had done his homework, nosed into a few of the rooms and seen for himself what he had suspected from the bucket on the landing catching water from the leaking roof.

The house was on its last legs. Did he think that he was doing anything underhand in checking out the property before he made an offer? No. He’d come here to conduct a business deal and, if things had been slightly thrown off course, nothing had fundamentally changed. The key thing remained the business deal.

And was the woman peeling the vegetables an unexpected part of acquiring what he wanted? Was she now part of the business deal that had to be secured?

In a way, yes.

And he was not in the slightest ashamed of taking this pragmatic view. Why should he be? This was the man he was and it was how he had succeeded beyond even his own wildest expectations.

If you allowed your emotions to guide you, you ended up a victim of whatever circumstances came along to blow you off course.

He had no intention of ever being one of life’s victims. His mother had so much to give, but she had allowed her damaged heart to take control of her entire future, so that, in the end, whatever she’d had to give to anyone else had dried up. Wasn’t that one reason why she was so consumed with the thought of having grandchildren? Of seeing him married off?

Because her ability to give had to go somewhere and he was the only recipient.

That was what emotions did to a person. They stripped you of your ability to think. That was why he had never done commitment and never would. Commitment led to relationships and relationships were almost always train wrecks waiting to happen. Lawyers were kept permanently busy sorting out those train wrecks and making lots of money in the process.

He had his life utterly in control and that was the way he liked it.

He had no doubt that whatever had brought Becky to this place was a story that might tug on someone else’s heartstrings. His heartstrings would be blessedly immune to any tugging. He would be able to find out about her and persuade her to accept that this was no place for her to be. When, inevitably, the house was sold from under her feet, she would not try and put up a fight, wouldn’t try and coax her parents into letting her stay on.

He would have long disappeared from her life. He would have been nothing more than a stranger who had landed for a night and then moved on. But she would remember what he had said and she would end up thanking him.

Because, frankly, this was no place for her to be. It wasn’t healthy. She was far too young.

He looked at the rounded swell of her derrière...

Far too young and far too sexy.

‘What are you cooking?’

Becky swung round to see him lounging against the door frame. Her father was a little shorter and reedier than Theo. Theo looked as though he had been squashed into clothes a couple of sizes too small. And he was barefoot. Her eyes shot back to his face to find that he was staring right back at her with a little smile.

‘Pasta. Nothing special. And you can help.’ She turned her back on him and felt him close the distance between them until he was standing next to her, at which point she pointed to some onions and slid a small, sharp knife towards him. ‘You’ve asked me a lot of questions,’ she said, eyes sliding across to his hands and then hurriedly sliding back to focus on what she was doing. ‘But I don’t know anything about you.’

‘Ask away.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘London.’ Theo couldn’t remember the last time he’d chopped an onion. Were they always this fiddly?

‘And what were you doing in this part of the world? Aside from getting lost?’

Theo felt a passing twinge of guilt. ‘Taking my car for some exercise,’ he said smoothly. ‘And visiting one or two...familiar spots en route.’

‘Seems an odd thing to do at this time of year,’ Becky mused. ‘On your own.’

‘Does it?’ Theo dumped the half-peeled onion. ‘Is there anything to drink in this house or do vets not indulge just in case they get a midnight call and need to be in their car within minutes, tackling the dangerous country lanes in search of a sick animal somewhere?’

Becky stopped what she was doing and looked at him, and at the poor job he had made of peeling an onion.

‘I’m not really into domestic chores.’ Theo shrugged.

‘There’s wine in the fridge. I’m not on call this evening and, as it happens, I don’t get hundreds of emergency calls at night. I’m not a doctor. Most of my patients can wait a few hours and, if they can’t, everyone around here knows where the nearest animal hospital is. And you haven’t answered my question. Isn’t it a bit strange for you to be here on your own...just driving around?’

Theo took his time pouring the wine, then he handed her a glass and settled into a chair at the kitchen table.

His own penthouse was vast and ultra-modern. He didn’t care for cosy, although he had to admit that there was something to be said for it in the middle of a blizzard with the snow turning everything white outside. This was a cosy kitchen. Big cream Aga...worn pine table with mismatched chairs...flagstone floor that had obviously had underfloor heating installed at some point, possibly before the house had begun buckling under the effect of old age, because it wasn’t bloody freezing underfoot...

‘Just driving around,’ he said slowly, truthfully, ‘is a luxury I can rarely afford.’ He thought about his life—high-voltage, adrenaline-charged, pressurised, the life of someone who made millions. There was no time for standing still. ‘I seldom stop, and even when I do, I am permanently on call.’ He smiled crookedly, at odds with himself for giving in to the unheard of temptation to confide.

‘What on earth do you do?’ Becky leant against the counter and stared at him with interest.

‘I...buy things, do them up and sell them on. Some of them I keep for myself because I’m greedy.’

‘What sorts of things?’

‘Companies.’

Becky stared at him thoughtfully. The sauce was simmering nicely on the Aga. She went to sit opposite him, nursing her glass of wine.

Looking at her, Theo wondered if she had any idea of just how wealthy he was. She would now be getting the picture that he wasn’t your average two-up, two-down, one holiday a year, nine-to-five kind of guy and he wondered whether, like every other single woman he had ever met, she was doing the maths and working out how profitable it might be to get to know him better.

‘Poor you,’ Becky said at last and he frowned.

‘Come again?’

‘It must be awful never having time to yourself. I don’t have much but what I do have I really appreciate. I’d hate it if I had to get in my car and drive out into the middle of nowhere just to have some uninterrupted peace.’

She laughed, relaxed for the first time since he had landed on her doorstep. ‘Our parents always made a big thing about money not being the most important thing in life.’ Her bright turquoise eyes glinted with sudden humour. ‘Alice and I used to roll our eyes but they were right. That’s why...’ she looked around her at the kitchen, where, as a family, they had spent countless hours together ‘... I can appreciate all this quiet, which I know you don’t understand.’

The prospect of saying goodbye to the family house made her eyes mist over. ‘There’s something wonderfully peaceful about being here. I don’t need the crowds of a city. I never have or I never would have returned here after... Well, this is where I belong.’ And the thought of finding somewhere else to call home felt like such a huge mountain to climb that she blinked back a bout of severe self-pity. Her parents had moved on as had Alice. So could she.

Theo, watching her, felt a stab of alarm. A pep talk wasn’t going to get her packing her belongings and moving on and a wad of cash, by all accounts, wasn’t going to cut it with her parents.

When was the last time he had met someone who wasn’t impressed by money and what it could buy?

His mother, of course, who had never subscribed to his single-minded approach to making money, even though, as he had explained on countless occasions, making money per se was a technicality. The only point to having money was the security it afforded and that was worth its weight in gold. Surely, he had argued, she could see that—especially considering her life had been one of making ends meet whilst trying to bring up a child on her own?

He moved in circles where money talked, where people were impressed by it. The women he met enjoyed what he could give them. His was the sort of vast, bottomless wealth that opened doors, that conferred absolute freedom.

And what, he wondered, was wrong with that?

‘Touching,’ he said coolly. ‘Clearly none of your family members are in agreement, considering they’re nowhere to be seen. The opposite, in fact. They’ve done a runner and cleared off to a different country.’

‘Do you know what?’ Becky said with heartfelt sincerity. ‘You may think you’re qualified to look down your nose at other people who don’t share your...your...materialism, but I feel sorry for anyone who thinks it’s worth spending every minute of every day working! I feel sorry for someone who never has time off to just do nothing. Do you ever relax? Put your feet up? Listen to music? Or just watch television?’ Becky’s voice rang with self-righteous sincerity but she was guiltily aware that she was far from being the perfectly content person she was making herself out to be.

She hadn’t rushed back to the cottage because she couldn’t be without the vast, open peaceful spaces a second longer. She’d rushed back because her heart had been broken. And she hadn’t stayed here because she’d been seduced by all the wonderful, tranquil downtime during which she listened to music or watched television with her feet up. She’d stayed because she’d fallen into a job and had then been too apathetic to do anything else about moving on with her life in a more dynamic way.

And it wasn’t fun listening out for leaks. It wasn’t fun waiting for the heating to pack up. And it certainly wasn’t fun to know that, in another country, the rest of her family was busy feeling sorry for her and waiting for her to up sticks so that the house could be sold and valuable capital released.

‘I relax,’ Theo said softly.

‘Huh?’ She focused on a sharply indrawn breath, blinking like a rabbit caught in the headlights at the lazy, sexy smile curving his mouth.

‘In between the work, I actually do manage to take time off to relax. It’s just that my form of relaxation doesn’t happen to include watching television or listening to music... But I can assure you that it’s every bit as satisfying, if somewhat more energetic...’

CHAPTER THREE

‘WHAT DO YOU do here?’

‘What do you mean?’ Becky asked in sudden confusion.

‘To relax.’ Theo sprawled back, angling the chair so that he could loosely cross his legs, ankle resting on thigh, one arm slung over the back of the chair, the other toying with the wine glass, twirling it slowly between his long fingers as he continued to look at her.

‘I mean,’ he continued pensively, ‘it’s all well and good killing time in front of the television with your feet up, while you congratulate yourself on how peaceful it is, but what else do you get up to when you’ve had your fill of the great open spaces and the lack of noise?’

‘I grew up here’ was all Becky could find to say.

‘University must have been a very different change of scenery for you,’ Theo mused. ‘Which university did you go to?’

He could see her reluctance to divulge any personal details. It made him want to pry harder, to extract as much information as he could from her. Her dewy skin was pink and flushed. In a minute, she would briskly stand up and dodge his personal attack on her by busying herself in front of the Aga.

‘Cambridge.’

‘Impressive. And then you decided, after going to one of the top universities on the planet, that you would return here so that you could get a job at a small practice in the middle of nowhere?’

‘Like I said, you wouldn’t understand.’

‘You’re right. I don’t. And you still haven’t told me what you do for relaxation around here.’

‘I barely have time to relax.’ Becky stood up abruptly, uncomfortable with his questioning. She rarely found her motives questioned.

‘But I thought you said...’ A smile quirked at the corner of Theo’s mouth.

‘Yes, well,’ snapped Becky, turning her back to him, more than a little flustered.

‘But when you do...?’ Theo followed her to where she was standing, clearing an already tidy counter.

He gently relieved her of the cloth and looked down at her.

Becky had no idea what was happening. Was this flirting? She had successfully convinced herself that there was no way the man could have any interest in her, aside from polite interest towards someone who had agreed to let him stay for the night because of the poor weather conditions. But when he looked at her the way he was looking at her now...

Her mind broke its leash and raced off in all sorts of crazy directions.

He was obnoxious. Of course he was, with his generalisations, his patronising assertions and that typical rich man’s belief that money was the only thing that mattered.

He was just the sort of guy she had no time for.

But he was so outrageously beautiful and that was what gripped her imagination and held it. That was what was making her body react with such treacherous heat to his smoky grey eyes.

He’d painted a picture for her when he’d told her how he relaxed. He hadn’t had to go into details because in a few sentences she had pictured him naked...aroused...focusing all that glorious, masculine attention on one woman...

‘You surely must get a little lonely out here?’ Theo murmured softly. ‘However much you love the peace and isolation.’

‘I...’

Her eyelids fluttered and her lips parted on an automatic denial of any such thing.

Theo drew in a sharp breath, riveted by the sight of those full, plump lips. She had no idea how alluring that mixture of apprehension and innocence was. It made him want to touch, even though he knew that it would be a mistake. This wasn’t one of those women who’d stopped being green round the ears when they were sixteen. Whatever experiences this woman had had, whatever had driven her back to this house—and he was certain that something had—she was innocent.

He stepped back and raked his fingers through his hair, breaking the electric connection between them.

Becky was trembling. She could feel the tremor running through her body, as though she had had a shock and was still feeling the aftermath of it, even though he had returned to the table to sit back down. She couldn’t look at him as he picked up the conversation, making sure to steer clear of anything personal.

He asked her about the sort of situations she had to deal with out in the country... How many were in the practice? Had she always wanted to be a vet? Why had she chosen that over a conventional medicine course?

He didn’t ask her again whether she was lonely.

He didn’t ask her why she had chosen to retreat to the country to live when she could have had a job anywhere in the country.

When he looked at her, it was without that lazy, assessing speculation that made her blood thicken and made her break out in a cold sweat.

He complimented her on the meal and asked her about her diet, about how she managed to fit in her meals with the hours she worked.

He could not have been more meticulously polite if he had been obeying orders with a gun held to his head and she hated it.

His arrival at the house was the most exciting thing that had happened to her in a long time and it had occurred just when she had been questioning her whole life, putting it into perspective, trying to figure out a way forward. It had occurred hard on the heels of her sister’s phone call, which had stirred up a grey, sludgy mix of emotion in her, some of which she didn’t like.

It also felt as though fate had sent him along to challenge her.

And how was she going to respond to that challenge? By running away? By retreating? She was going to be challenged a lot more when her job came to an end and the roof over her head was sold, and what was she going to do then? Dive for cover, close her eyes and hope for the best?

Where was the harm in getting into some practice now when it came to dealing with the unexpected? It wasn’t as though there would be any repercussions, was it? You could bare your soul to a stranger on a plane and then walk away when the plane landed, safe in the knowledge that you wouldn’t clap eyes on that person again, so if they happened to be a receptacle for all your secrets, what difference would that make?

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