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What had his Friday evenings been like with Amanda? Her curiosity on the subject of his marriage was so huge that she knew she dare not allow it to get a foothold. She needed to keep her distance.
“But I don’t think there would be any point,” she persevered into the silence. “I don’t think I’m the most credit-worthy person in the world.” Looking down, Rosie realised that she had barely touched the food on her plate and she now made a few half-hearted attempts to eat a bit more. Her nerves were all over the place. She was so conscious of him sitting in the chair opposite her that she had to stop herself from choking on the food. She had removed the scarf and draped it over the back of the chair and she realised that the shadow of her cleavage was on show. Very quickly, she straightened up and pushed the plate slightly to one side.
“Plus I would need money for a car. Not that it wouldn’t be nice having a car,” she said wistfully. “Driving lessons were the one thing my dad set aside money for. He paid it direct into an account which he couldn’t touch because he knew how tempted he would be on a bad day to take it all out. He used to tell me that there was nothing like being behind the wheel of a car.”
“You should have told me about your father,” Angelo said abruptly.
Rosie wondered whether it would have made any difference. He would still have disappeared with her best friend. That thought grounded her. “That’s not relevant now,” she said with a cool shrug of her shoulders. She refused coffee and told him that it was time she was heading back to the house.
“What I think you will find relevant,” she said, meeting his inscrutable green eyes without flinching, “Is the decision I’ve reached.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“Having tried to work out how I could afford to move to the cottage and come up against a brick wall, Angelo, you win. I won’t move. I can’t afford to. I can’t throw money I don’t have after a dream and there’s no need really now anyway. I don’t have to run away. So, I’m happy to sell the cottage to you, and I don’t really care how much you give me for it. I realise it shouldn’t have been mine anyway. You can buy it and develop the land into whatever you want and it’ll be as though we’d never met each other again.”
CHAPTER FIVE
HE HAD GOT precisely what he wanted. From the very first second he had learnt that the cottage had been willed to her, Angelo had been determined to make sure that he got it back, one way or another. His preferred route would have been to haul her through the courts and watch as a legacy to which she had no right crumbled and fell apart in front of her greedy little eyes. But the will had been watertight, so he had tried to buy her out. In return, she had dug her heels in.
His one goal, his only goal, had been to remove the cottage from her, get her out of his life.
When, he wondered uneasily, had that changed? When had he discovered that she was on his mind and not all of his thoughts were charged with anger and frustration?
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Rosie pressed, annoyed now that she had been the only one talking for the past ten minutes. The bill came and went and they got up to leave, amid a flurry of exuberant gratitude from the proprietor that they had chosen to patronise his little restaurant. Even without trying, Angelo was managing to elicit the sort of fawning behaviour to which he was accustomed. When the owner expressed the wish that they come again to sample different dishes, she fought the temptation to tell him that that wouldn’t be happening any time soon.
“I’ll talk when we’re back at your house,” Angelo informed her. Frustrating though it was to admit it, he was having a hard time relinquishing the idea that she would disappear from his life as fast as she had re-entered it. He knew that he could throw a derisory amount of money at her for the cottage and she would accept it. She might be a gold-digger who had flogged the presents he had given her but she was also smart.
So, now that he could get rid of her, and everything sensible, logical and cool-headed was telling him that that was the right road to go down, why was he restlessly dissatisfied with the promised outcome?
Sex.
The word lodged in his brain, an instant answer to the questions that had popped up like nasty insects released from Pandora’s Box. There was no need to look further to find the reason behind his recent distracted behaviour.
In the aftermath of their relationship, he had never quite managed to stifle the fact that he still wanted her. He had wanted her the second he had seen her in that bar. He had carried on wanting her the whole time they were together, which had been nothing short of a miracle, because longevity had never featured in any of his previous relationships. His purpose was to work, to achieve the security only wealth could bring as far as he was concerned, and women, pleasant distractions that they were, always made short-lived appearances in his frenetically busy and high-pressured life. Before Rosie his relationships had been of the hit-and-run variety and he had liked it that way.
But she had come along and, he could now admit to himself, he had never stopped wanting her even though he had ended up married to Amanda through circumstances that hardly bore thinking about.
Angelo understood the power of sex. He had felt it when he had seen Rosie again. He just hadn’t admitted its hold. Their relationship had ended in chaos. He hadn’t had time to grow tired of her. Naturally, that would have happened inevitably, but at the time of her departure he had still found her insanely attractive.
Mentally piecing together the puzzle, he was pleased to have found the solution to his restlessness and to the unsavoury fact that he couldn’t envisage her disappearing from his life just yet.
If he hadn’t seen an answering flame in her eyes, if she hadn’t made that pass at him which had been proof positive that he still affected her the way she still affected him, then maybe he wouldn’t have objected to getting rid of her. Maybe he would be listening to her ramble on about selling the cottage without getting that sickening twist in his gut.
The prospect of having his life back to a place where he wasn’t having to deal with annoying thoughts about her was blessed relief and he allowed himself to relax from behind the wheel of his car.
Revenge, he decided, was not to be found watching her fail in her quest to kick-start her life. Revenge, such as it was, could easily be achieved by seducing her back between the sheets and then dumping her when he had got his fill. With everything that had gone on between them, he confidently predicted that it would be a remarkably transient situation.
How long could good sex block out the fact that he didn’t like her? How long before his body caught up to his brain? A week or two? And then he would be able to wash his hands of her for ever. His unfinished business would draw to its conclusion and he would be able to walk away without a backward glance. A bonus would be to have her plead with him to stay but, even if her pride got in her way and there was no such bonus, sleeping with her would be a job well done because it would obliterate the demons inside him.
He allowed himself a half-smile in the darkness of the car and he was still smiling when he pulled up in front of her house.
Forget about the running away from a stalker situation, Angelo felt that he would have wanted to run away if he had been stuck living in a dump such as the one he was now looking at. He wondered how often she had cursed herself over the years for not having played her cards right, for not having used all that money to do something sensible. He had no idea where it had gone and could not care less, but it certainly hadn’t gone towards a deposit on a house.
“There’s no need for you to come in.” Rosie began unbuckling her seat belt, half-turning to glance at him over her shoulder. “You’ve already done enough and I can’t begin to thank you.” Buckle undone, she paused and sat very still, gazing down at her lap before turning to him. He was staring at her, his eyes silver in the shadowy light. She felt a tingle run through her. Time to wrap up the thank-you speech before her body went into overdrive and she did something stupid again—like try to kiss him one last time before they parted company for good. The thought of being that weak terrified her.
“Now that you’ve taken care of Ian, I can’t believe how light I feel, as though a great big weight’s been taken off my shoulders.”
“Was that loser the only reason you wanted the cottage?” Angelo inserted mildly, because he was sick of being thanked for something he had taken a perverse delight in doing. Besides, without this unexpected situation, would he be here now? Ian might be a creepy stalker but he was also a pivotal player in Angelo’s move forward. Because of him, Rosie had found herself in a vulnerable place and he, Angelo, had been the one to rescue her from it. Instantly the dynamics of their relationship had been subtly altered.
“Well...” Rosie looked at him, sprawled against the car door so that he could have the best possible vantage point as he lazily stared at her. “Of course, I know you thought it was all wrong that Mandy did what she did. Left me something you considered yours, and maybe she was...”
“We’re not debating the rights or wrongs about what Amanda did.”
