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Inevitable.
Hadn’t she already realised that?
‘I have another high-rise in Manhattan, too. And one in Hong Kong. Dubai. A mall in Canada. Is that excessive enough?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Now you’re just trying to impress me.’
‘I would think those assets far too pedestrian for someone like you to be deemed impressive.’
She sucked in a breath and flicked a gaze at the water. It was rippled by their movement. If only he knew that her parents lived in a small, pebbledash semi-detached bungalow in Harlesden.
‘What I find impressive is that you did all this yourself,’ she said with truth. ‘You say your mother struggled? And she passed away when you were still a teenager? Yet by the time you were twenty you were a force to be reckoned with.’
Emotions flicked across his face, none of which she could interpret. ‘You have been researching me?’ he asked quietly at last, when her nerves felt as if they were about to snap.
She leaned closer, her expression conspiratorial, her nose wrinkled. ‘Nope. Not even a bit. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but...’
‘But?’ he murmured, his eyes resting on the tip of her nose before lifting to hers.
‘You’re kind of famous.’
His laugh resonated around the cove. ‘Is that so?’
‘Well...well-known.’ She grinned, her head bobbing in agreement.
Art had mentioned Rio several times. She’d listened. She’d learned. Though she had never imagined herself coming face to face with the man.
‘What’s the building?’
He frowned.
‘In New York?’ she supplied.
‘It’s a turn-of-the-century masterpiece,’ he said with a grin. ‘Art Deco, with original fittings on almost all the floors. It’s on the edge of Harlem, and for a long time it was ignored, but now the area has begun to gentrify.’
‘And you want to be in on that?’
His eyes were dark in his face. ‘I want to stop it being knocked down to make way for yet another steel monolith.’
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘You have a habit of doing that. Of buying old buildings.’
Again, she thought of the pub in London he’d saved.
‘It’s good business,’ he said with a shrug. ‘To see value in what other people disdain. It’s served me well.’
She tilted her head to one side. ‘I think it’s more than that.’
His laugh was a rumble. Desire skittered along her spine. ‘Do you? Why?’
Because she looked at him and saw something she didn’t understand. Because she’d known him a day and felt as if she’d seen into his soul. Because he was a confusing mix of machismo and compassion. Because she just did.
‘You bought a pub in London.’
His eyes honed in on her, waiting for her to continue.
‘It’s really beautiful. Old. Dilapidated. And you saved it. I think you buy these old buildings because you want to save them.’
‘That’s a by-product of what I do,’ he agreed.
