Theo, watching her, felt a stab of alarm. A pep talk wasn’t going to get her packing her belongings and moving on and a wad of cash, by all accounts, wasn’t going to cut it with her parents.
When was the last time he had met someone who wasn’t impressed by money and what it could buy?
His mother, of course, who had never subscribed to his single-minded approach to making money, even though, as he had explained on countless occasions, making money per se was a technicality. The only point to having money was the security it afforded and that was worth its weight in gold. Surely, he had argued, she could see that—especially considering her life had been one of making ends meet whilst trying to bring up a child on her own?
He moved in circles where money talked, where people were impressed by it. The women he met enjoyed what he could give them. His was the sort of vast, bottomless wealth that opened doors, that conferred absolute freedom.
And what, he wondered, was wrong with that?
‘Touching,’ he said coolly. ‘Clearly none of your family members are in agreement, considering they’re nowhere to be seen. The opposite, in fact. They’ve done a runner and cleared off to a different country.’
‘Do you know what?’ Becky said with heartfelt sincerity. ‘You may think you’re qualified to look down your nose at other people who don’t share your...your...materialism, but I feel sorry for anyone who thinks it’s worth spending every minute of every day working! I feel sorry for someone who never has time off to just do nothing. Do you ever relax? Put your feet up? Listen to music? Or just watch television?’ Becky’s voice rang with self-righteous sincerity but she was guiltily aware that she was far from being the perfectly content person she was making herself out to be.
She hadn’t rushed back to the cottage because she couldn’t be without the vast, open peaceful spaces a second longer. She’d rushed back because her heart had been broken. And she hadn’t stayed here because she’d been seduced by all the wonderful, tranquil downtime during which she listened to music or watched television with her feet up. She’d stayed because she’d fallen into a job and had then been too apathetic to do anything else about moving on with her life in a more dynamic way.
And it wasn’t fun listening out for leaks. It wasn’t fun waiting for the heating to pack up. And it certainly wasn’t fun to know that, in another country, the rest of her family was busy feeling sorry for her and waiting for her to up sticks so that the house could be sold and valuable capital released.
‘I relax,’ Theo said softly.
‘Huh?’ She focused on a sharply indrawn breath, blinking like a rabbit caught in the headlights at the lazy, sexy smile curving his mouth.
‘In between the work, I actually do manage to take time off to relax. It’s just that my form of relaxation doesn’t happen to include watching television or listening to music... But I can assure you that it’s every bit as satisfying, if somewhat more energetic...’
‘WHAT DO YOU do here?’
‘What do you mean?’ Becky asked in sudden confusion.
‘To relax.’ Theo sprawled back, angling the chair so that he could loosely cross his legs, ankle resting on thigh, one arm slung over the back of the chair, the other toying with the wine glass, twirling it slowly between his long fingers as he continued to look at her.
‘I mean,’ he continued pensively, ‘it’s all well and good killing time in front of the television with your feet up, while you congratulate yourself on how peaceful it is, but what else do you get up to when you’ve had your fill of the great open spaces and the lack of noise?’
‘I grew up here’ was all Becky could find to say.
‘University must have been a very different change of scenery for you,’ Theo mused. ‘Which university did you go to?’
He could see her reluctance to divulge any personal details. It made him want to pry harder, to extract as much information as he could from her. Her dewy skin was pink and flushed. In a minute, she would briskly stand up and dodge his personal attack on her by busying herself in front of the Aga.
‘Cambridge.’
‘Impressive. And then you decided, after going to one of the top universities on the planet, that you would return here so that you could get a job at a small practice in the middle of nowhere?’
‘Like I said, you wouldn’t understand.’
‘You’re right. I don’t. And you still haven’t told me what you do for relaxation around here.’
‘I barely have time to relax.’ Becky stood up abruptly, uncomfortable with his questioning. She rarely found her motives questioned.
‘But I thought you said...’ A smile quirked at the corner of Theo’s mouth.
‘Yes, well,’ snapped Becky, turning her back to him, more than a little flustered.
‘But when you do...?’ Theo followed her to where she was standing, clearing an already tidy counter.
He gently relieved her of the cloth and looked down at her.
Becky had no idea what was happening. Was this flirting? She had successfully convinced herself that there was no way the man could have any interest in her, aside from polite interest towards someone who had agreed to let him stay for the night because of the poor weather conditions. But when he looked at her the way he was looking at her now...
Her mind broke its leash and raced off in all sorts of crazy directions.
He was obnoxious. Of course he was, with his generalisations, his patronising assertions and that typical rich man’s belief that money was the only thing that mattered.
He was just the sort of guy she had no time for.
But he was so outrageously beautiful and that was what gripped her imagination and held it. That was what was making her body react with such treacherous heat to his smoky grey eyes.
He’d painted a picture for her when he’d told her how he relaxed. He hadn’t had to go into details because in a few sentences she had pictured him naked...aroused...focusing all that glorious, masculine attention on one woman...
‘You surely must get a little lonely out here?’ Theo murmured softly. ‘However much you love the peace and isolation.’
‘I...’
Her eyelids fluttered and her lips parted on an automatic denial of any such thing.
Theo drew in a sharp breath, riveted by the sight of those full, plump lips. She had no idea how alluring that mixture of apprehension and innocence was. It made him want to touch, even though he knew that it would be a mistake. This wasn’t one of those women who’d stopped being green round the ears when they were sixteen. Whatever experiences this woman had had, whatever had driven her back to this house—and he was certain that something had—she was innocent.
He stepped back and raked his fingers through his hair, breaking the electric connection between them.
Becky was trembling. She could feel the tremor running through her body, as though she had had a shock and was still feeling the aftermath of it, even though he had returned to the table to sit back down. She couldn’t look at him as he picked up the conversation, making sure to steer clear of anything personal.
He asked her about the sort of situations she had to deal