The Tycoon's Ultimate Conquest. CATHY WILLIAMS

      ‘I can cook and when I put my mind to it I actually enjoy it, but I’m so busy all of the time that it always feels like a chore.’

      ‘You might regret asking me to paint a room,’ Art said seriously as she bumped along the narrow lanes, driving past clusters of picturesque houses with neat box hedges before the open fields swallowed them up again, only to disgorge them into yet another picturesque village. ‘I’m very happy to try my hand at it, but one thing I do insist on doing is paying you for my accommodation.’

      ‘Don’t be stupid.’

      ‘If you don’t agree to this then you can dump me off right here and I’ll sort myself out, whatever the cost.’

      Rose clicked her tongue impatiently.

      ‘You obviously need the money,’ Art continued almost gently, as the outskirts of the village loomed into view. ‘You rent rooms out and the place, from all accounts, is falling apart at the seams...’

      ‘Very well.’ She kept her eyes firmly focused on the road ahead. ‘In which case, I’ll accept your dinner invitation on the proviso that I cook dinner for you.’

      ‘Deal,’ Art drawled, relaxing back into the passenger seat. Could he have hoped for a better outcome than this? No.

      He was looking forward to this evening. The thorny business of going undercover to talk some sense into his opposition wasn’t going to be the annoying uphill trek he had originally foreseen after all...

      In fact...hand on heart, Art could honestly say that he was looking forward to this little break in his routine.

       CHAPTER THREE

      BY THE TIME they were back at the house the clatter of people had been replaced by the peace of silence. The gardening club crew had departed, as had whoever else was renting one of the downstairs rooms. Phil popped out and Art watched as he and Rose huddled in a brief discussion.

      While they talked in low voices, he took the opportunity to look around him.

      It was a big house but crying out for attention. The paint was tired, the carpet on the stairs threadbare and the woodwork, in places, cracked or missing altogether.

      He made himself at home peering into the now empty rooms and saw that they were sizeable and cluttered with hastily packed away bits and pieces.

      It was impossible to get any real idea of what the house might once have looked like in grander times because every nook and cranny had been put to use. Work desks fitted into spaces where once sofas and chaises longues might have resided, and in the office where she worked books lined the walls from floor to ceiling.