‘So, do you always go to bed so early?’ The moment she had the words out a deep blush bloomed on her cheeks and her lips twisted into a small wince.
Amused at her embarrassment, he couldn’t resist saying, ‘Only when I have good cause to.’
Her eyes popped open and heat infused her cheeks.
For a moment they just stared at one another, and the atmosphere immediately grew thick with awareness. Two strangers … alone in a house. She was wearing his clothes.
A spark of something happening between them had his pulse firing for the first time in years. And warning bells rang in his ears. She was his neighbour. He was not into relationships. Period. He was no good at them. He had a long day ahead of him. He needed to walk away.
Swept into the Rich Man’s World
Katrina Cudmore
A city-loving book addict, peony obsessive KATRINA CUDMORE lives in Cork, Ireland, with her husband, four active children and a very daft dog. A psychology graduate, with a MSc in Human Resources, Katrina spent many years working in multinational companies and can’t believe she is lucky enough now to have a job that involves daydreaming about love and handsome men!
You can visit Katrina at www.katrinacudmore.com.
This book is dedicated to my mum.
I miss you with all my heart.
Contents
‘HELLO? IS ANYONE HOME?’
Her lungs on fire, Aideen Ryan desperately heaved in some air as she waited for someone to answer her knock and call. She had run in the dark through gale-force winds and rain to get to Ashbrooke House: the only place that could give her shelter from the storm currently pounding the entire Atlantic coastline of Ireland.
Ashbrooke House, stately home of billionaire Patrick Fitzsimon. A man who, given the impenetrable walls that surrounded his vast estate and his über-wealthy lifestyle, was unlikely to welcome her intrusion.
She straightened her rain jacket and ran a hand through her hair. Oh, for crying out loud. Her hair was a tangled mess. Soaked to the skull and resembling a frizz bomb... She really hoped it wouldn’t be Patrick Fitzsimon who answered the door. Not the suave, gorgeous man she had seen in countless magazines. A man who stared at the camera with such serious intensity and intelligence that she had held her breath in alarm, worried for a few crazy seconds that he could see her spying on him.
The only sightings anyone ever made of him locally was when he was helicoptered in and out of the estate. Intrigued, she had looked him up. But just because she’d been unable to resist checking out her neighbour, one of the world’s ‘top ten most eligible billionaire bachelors’, it didn’t alter the fact that she was determined to keep her life a man-free zone.
A nearby tree branch creaked loudly as a ferocious gust of wind and rain swept up from the sea. How was her poor cottage faring in the storm without her? And how on earth was her business going to survive this?
Pushing down her spiralling panic, she took hold of the brass knocker and rapped it against the imposing door again, the metal vibrating against her skin.
‘Hello? Please... I need help. Is anyone home?’
Please, please, let one of his staff answer.
But the vast house remained in silence, while beyond the columned entrance porch sheets of rain swept across the often written about formal gardens of Ashbrooke.
And then slow realisation dawned. Although outside lighting had showcased the perfect symmetry and beauty of the Palladian house as she had run up the driveway, not a single interior light had shone through the large sash windows.
In her panic, that simple fact had failed to register with her...until now.
What if nobody was at home?
But that didn’t make sense. A house this size had to have an army of staff. The classically inspired villa had a three-storey central block, connected by colonnades to two vast wings. The house was enormous—even bigger than the pictures suggested.
Somebody simply had to be home. They probably just couldn’t hear her above the storm. She needed to knock louder.
She grabbed hold of the knocker again, but just as she raised it high to pound it down on the door the door swung open. As she flew forward with it all she could see was a tanned, muscular six-pack vanishing beneath a grey sweatshirt, its owner in the midst of quickly dressing. But not before she headbutted that glorious vision of masculine perfection.
It was like colliding against steel. As she ricocheted backwards she heard a loud grunt. Then hands gripped her upper arms and yanked her back from slamming bottom first on to the ground. The momentum pulled her back towards that hard body, and