The Mistresses Collection. Оливия Гейтс

      “You forget that I don’t even want to be here. Why should I? Why would I want to spend more time than absolutely necessary in your company?”

      James Foreman cleared his throat and Angelo was the first to break the stranglehold of their stares.

      “The cottage,” he said curtly. “Cut to the chase, man, and get on with it.”

      “She left the cottage to you, Miss Tom.”

      “Don’t be ridiculous!” Angelo cut in before Rosie had had time to assimilate what had been said to her. He placed both hands squarely on the table and leant forward, his body language bristling with intimidation, and the lawyer looked back at him with an apologetic smile.

      “It’s all above board, Mr Di Capua. Amanda left the cottage to her friend.”

      “Why on earth would she do that?” Rosie asked in bewilderment.

      “Before you start getting any ideas,” Angelo gritted, looking at her, “over my dead body will you so much as put a foot over the threshold of that place.” He sat back and turned to stare at the lawyer who, for someone round-faced and sheepishly polite, was doing a good job of not being in the slightest bit cowed by a toweringly angry Angelo. A lesser man would have run for the hills at this point.

      “I’m very much afraid that there’s very little you can do to prevent Miss Tom from accepting what has been willed to her,” James Foreman said, in the same apologetic voice. He looked at her with kindly eyes. “Whatever happened between you, my dear, there were regrets.”

      “I wouldn’t dream of accepting anything Amanda may have left to me, Mr Foreman.”

      “Well, hallelujah!” Angelo flung his hands up in a gesture of pure satisfaction, success rightfully accepted as his due. “So for once, we’re singing from the same song sheet. Now that this little charade is over, perhaps you two can get together and work out the paperwork to ensure that Miss Tom relinquishes whatever dodgy hold she may think she has on my property—which, in point of fact, will be a matter of necessity because I intend to develop it within the year. Now, if that’s all?”

      “You always wanted to go into the catering business—am I right, Miss Tom?”

      Rosie nodded dumbly. She felt as though she had been taken on a rollercoaster ride. Her thoughts were all over the place. Every part of her body was in a state of shock. All over again, and to her dismay, she was realising how powerfully Angelo Di Capua still affected her, despite her deep loathing of him.

      “How did you know?”

      “Amanda kept tabs on you without you realising it, I expect.” He shrugged. “With the Internet and social networks, it’s virtually impossible to remain anonymous these days. At any rate, you might want to think about what was behind this legacy to you. Of course, you must do what your heart tells you to do, but Amanda began cultivating the land around the cottage. There’s quite a bit of it, if I’m not mistaken.”

      “This conversation is going nowhere!” Angelo insisted, making a slashing motion with his hand.

      “It is my duty to explain the circumstances of this will,” the lawyer murmured, still looking at Rosie. “Amanda made plans of how the land was to be laid out, and what would grow where.”

      “But she didn’t know that she would…She couldn’t possibly predict…”

      “I think she knew, deep down, that she was not destined for a long life. I also think that she was working up the courage to contact you to give you the land. Fate got in the way.”

      “This is so much to take in,” Rosie said, dazed. “Perhaps…perhaps I might just have a look at the cottage.” If nothing else, to see whether she might get full closure at least by visiting the place her one-time friend had obviously come to regard as a haven. Perhaps, more than attending a service in a chapel, visiting that cottage would be a better way to pay her final respects.

      “Yes.” She made her mind up, although she didn’t dare look across to where Angelo was sitting in a silence far more threatening than any words. “Yes. I think, Mr Foreman, I would very much like to see that cottage.”