‘Basically, I have no idea who you are. I don’t recognise you.’
‘And you know everyone who’s protesting?’
‘Everyone and, in most cases, their extended families, as well. You’re not from around here, are you?’
‘Not quite,’ Art murmured vaguely, unprepared for such a direct line of attack before he’d even started writing incendiary messages on a placard.
‘Well, where are you from? Exactly?’
Art shrugged and shifted in his chair. He was beginning to understand why the deputies sent to do this job had failed. Right now, Rose was staring at him as though he was something suspect and possibly contagious that had somehow managed to infiltrate her space.
‘Can anyone say exactly where they’re from?’ he threw the question back at her, which only made her look at him with even more suspicion.
‘Yes. Everyone on the site, for a start. As for me, I’m from here and always have been, aside from a brief spell at university.’
‘I largely live in London.’ Which was technically accurate. He did largely live in London. In his penthouse in Belgravia. He was also to be found in five-star hotels around the world, several of which he owned, or in one of the many houses he owned, although those occasions were slightly rarer. Who had time to wind down in a villa by the sea?
Strangely, that non-answer seemed to satisfy her because she stopped looking as though she had her finger on the buzzer to call for instant backup. ‘So what are you doing here?’ she asked with curiosity. ‘I mean, why this cause? If you’re not from around here, then what does it matter to you whether the land is destroyed or not?’
‘Destroy is a big word.’ Art was outraged but he held onto his temper and looked at her with an expression of bland innocence.
Definitely arresting, he thought. Exotic eyes. Feline. And a sensuous mouth. Wide and expressive. And an air of sharp intelligence which, it had to be said, wasn’t one of the foremost qualities he ever sought in a woman, but it certainly worked in this instance because he was finding it hard to keep his eyes off her.
* * *
Rose fidgeted. To her horror, she felt the slow crawl of colour stain her cheeks. The man was gazing at her with hooded eyes and that look was doing all sorts of unexpected things to her body.
‘It’s exactly the right word,’ she snapped, more sharply than she had intended, a reaction to those dark, sexy eyes.
Never had she felt more self-conscious, more aware of her shortcomings. The comfortable and practical culottes, which were the mainstay of her wardrobe on hot summer days, were suddenly as flattering as a pair of curtains and the loose-fitting vest as attractive as a bin liner.
She reminded herself that she wasn’t the star attraction in a fashion parade. Clothes did not the man, or woman, make!
But for the first time in living memory she had the crazy urge to be something other than the determined career lawyer who worked hard on behalf of the underdog. She had the crazy urge to be sexy and compelling and wanted for her body instead of her brain.
‘Too many developers over the years have whittled away at the open land around here.’ She refocused and brought her runaway mind back on track. ‘They’ve come along and turned the fields, which have been enjoyed for centuries by ramblers and nature lovers, into first a stupid shopping mall and then into office blocks.’
Rose half expected him to jump in here and heatedly side with her but he remained silent and she wondered what was going through that impossibly good-looking head of his.
‘And this lot?’
‘DC Logistics?’ She loosed a sarcastic laugh under her breath. ‘The worst of the lot. Certainly the biggest! They want to construct a housing development. But then I don’t suppose I’m telling you anything you don’t already know. Which brings me back to my question—why the interest in joining our protest?’
* * *
‘Sometimes—’ Art played with the truth like a piece of moulding clay ‘—big, powerful developers need to understand the importance of working in harmony with nature or else leaving things as they stand and, as you say, DC Logistics is the mother of all big companies.’ He succeeded in not sounding proud of this fact. When he thought of the work that had gone into turning the dregs of what had been left of his father’s companies, after five ex-wives had picked them over in outrageous alimony settlements, into the success story of today he was pretty proud of his achievements.
Art had lived through the nightmare of his father’s mistakes, the marriages that had fallen apart within seconds of the ink on the marriage certificates being dry. He’d gritted his teeth, helpless, as each ex-wife had drained the coffers and then, after his father had died several years previously, he’d returned to try to save what little remained of the thriving empire Emilio da Costa had carefully built up over time.
Art had been a young man at the time, barely out of university but already determined to take what was left and build it again into the thriving concern it had once been when his mother—Emilio da Costa’s first wife and only love—had been alive.
Art might have learned from the chaos of his father’s life and the greed of the women he had foolishly married that love was for the birds, but he had also learned the value of compassion in his unexpected affection for his stepbrother, José—not flesh and blood, no, but his brother in every sense of the word, who had been robustly ignored by his avaricious mother. The land was integral to his plan to make a home for José—the reason for Art needing to shut this protest down as quickly and as quietly as possible.
‘Yes, it is,’ Rose concurred. ‘So you’re idealistic,’ she carried on in an approving tone.
The last time Art had been idealistic had been when he’d believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Witnessing the self-serving venom camouflaged as true love that had littered his father’s life right up until his death had taken whatever ideals he might have had and entombed them in a place more secure than a bank vault.
‘Well, you’re in the right place.’ Rose gestured to the paraphernalia in the kitchen. ‘Obviously I don’t devote all of my time to this cause. I couldn’t possibly, but I do try to touch base with the people out there on a daily basis.’
‘What’s your main line of work?’
‘Employment law.’ Rose smiled and, just like that, Art felt the breath knocked out of his body.
The woman was more than arresting. When she smiled she was...bloody stunning. He felt the familiar kick of his libido, but stronger and more urgent than ever. Two months without a woman, he thought, would do that to a red-blooded man with a healthy sex drive. Because this outspoken feminist was certainly, on no level, what he looked for in a woman. He didn’t do argumentative and he definitely didn’t do the let’s-hold-hands-and-save-the-world type. He did blondes. Big blonde hair, big blue eyes and personalities that soothed rather than challenged.
Rose Tremain was about as soothing as a pit bull.
And yet... His eyes lingered and his inconvenient erection refused to go away. The blood surging in his veins was hot with a type of dark excitement he hadn’t felt in a very long time. If ever.
‘Come again?’ He realised that she had said something.
‘Your line of work? What is it?’
‘I dabble.’
‘Dabble in what?’
‘How much time have you got to spare? Could take a while.’
‘Could take a while covering your many talents? Well, you’re far from modest, aren’t you?’ She raised her eyebrows, amused and mocking, and Art smiled back slowly—deliberately slowly.
‘I’ve