Her response to him, lounging indolently against the door frame, finger poised as if about to summon her again, was immediate and powerful. Her stomach constricted and her eyes widened, swiftly and unconsciously taking in his lean, muscular frame and those killer sea-green eyes that seemed to burn holes through her. She had to make a mental effort to gather herself together.
‘Hullo.’ Pause. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Still getting to the point, I see. What’s going on?’
‘What do you mean?’ She followed his curious glance behind her and shrugged. ‘Oh. The noise. Just a bit…of repair work.’
‘Are you going to invite me in?’
‘Has Lily told you to get in touch with me?’ She had been careful not to mention a word about her financial problems, but who knew? Maybe her sister had picked up on something and, innocent that she was, might have mentioned to Nick, Nick with the heart of gold who had done so much for her, that perhaps he could just pop his head round the door and make sure that Rose was okay.
Rose instantly felt like a charity case and gripped the door knob a little harder.
‘I was in the area.’
‘Really? I wouldn’t have thought that this would be the sort of area you would just happen to be passing through.’
‘Stop arguing, Rose, and open the door.’ Getting fed up with her non-argument, he pushed the door and strode in, not leaving her the option of slamming it in his face.
Nick, for the first time in years practising celibacy, was aware of the shameful truth, which was that he had been thinking on and off about her for the past few weeks. His life had been as busy and hectic as ever, his work taking him abroad, as it always did, on a regular basis, but every so often he had caught himself conjuring up her face and wondering what she was up to.
Gentle prodding had eventually elicited from Lily something he could respond to. Rose, Lily had told him in all confidence, had not sounded herself when they had last spoken on the phone. She had said all the right things, that everything was fine, but she had sounded anxious.
Nick had reacted like a man who suddenly discovered the site of an itch and realised that he could reach to scratch it. Sitting on his leather swivel chair, feet carelessly propped up on his gleaming, mahogany desk, he had immediately and piously promised to look in on her.
‘You wouldn’t want to have filming ruined because you’re worried about what’s going on over here,’ he had soothed. His prospect of a weekend of solid work, interrupted only by a stuffy Saturday night do, which he had reluctantly agreed to purely for diplomatic reasons, suddenly brightened considerably.
He wasn’t entirely sure why he could be bothered to hunt down a woman who rubbed him up the wrong way, but when it came to members of the opposite sex he rarely questioned his responses, safe in the knowledge that his gut feelings had rarely, if ever, let him down. Granted his gut feelings were usually wrapped up in the normal, testosterone-driven desires for a sexual relationship, but the fact that Rose was out of the ordinary in that respect didn’t put him off. She had been on his mind, for whatever reason, and the fastest way to solve that problem would be to hunt her down. And Lily was a very handy go-between, giving him an excuse he might not otherwise have had.
‘What the hell is that banging all about?’
‘I told you. Repair work. Minor.’ Rose bristled at the sight of those fabulous eyes sweeping along the banister, up to where a fine shimmer of dust obscured the small upstairs corridor. She wondered what her sister had said to him. God, what if she had begged Nick to check up on her? Lily would have thought nothing of asking such a favour because, in her eyes, Nick wasn’t a shark but some innocuous little minnow, someone who would be happy to do her a small favour. In Lily’s world, everyone was potentially sweet and good because she herself was.
Rose determined that as soon as her sister returned to England, she would personally teach her the ways of the world. Lily might have oodles more experience when it came to men, but her insight into human nature was sadly lacking.
‘Doesn’t sound minor.’
‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here. If Lily put you up to this, then there’s no need to be concerned.’
‘Even though your house is falling down?’
‘My house is not falling down!’
Nick had forgotten how easily the woman bristled. He had also forgotten how amusing he found the trait. It made a refreshing change from his normal interaction with women, which went along all the usual courses that inevitably led to bed. Bed and all its attendant complications, which he was determined to avoid, at least for a while.
‘Why don’t you get me a cup of coffee and tell me all about it? You look stressed.’
Rose gaped. Of course she was stressed. An army of plumbers was currently bankrupting her and now, on top of that, the last man on earth she wanted to see had waltzed through her front door, brimming over with tea and sympathy because her dear, well-intentioned and hopelessly misguided sister had asked him to. Who wouldn’t be stressed?
And on top of that, she was now embarrassingly aware of her clothes, which advertised someone who was in serious danger of imminent arrest by the fashion police.
While he, she noticed sourly, fashionably dressing down in faded jeans and a rugby sweater, still managed to look fantastic.
‘I’m more stressed now that you’ve shown up,’ Rose told him and Nick immediately jumped on the slip-up.
‘So you’re admitting you’re stressed out. Lily did say you didn’t sound your normal self when she spoke to you on the phone.’
Rose mentally strangled her sister. ‘Hence you were coerced into rushing over here just to make sure I wasn’t about to jump off the nearest bridge.’
‘That’s taking it too far.’ There was an almighty thump from the direction of the dust and Rose groaned, waiting for Andy’s voice to summon her up, probably to confront yet another unexpected problem. Like a routine trip to the dentist, which turned out to reveal a nightmare of hidden problems, her house was beginning to revel in showing its age. A little crack there, a small spot of damp here and suddenly it was as if it had given up the fight and was now determined to fall down around her ears. And as she mounted the stairs she could already see from the grim look on Andy’s face that more bad news was on the way.
‘Sorry, Rose.’
Behind her she was aware that Nick had followed in her hurried wake and she could sense his attention moving up a gear.
‘We’ve discovered something a little unfortunate…’
Rose was too afraid to ask, so she stared at him in mute silence while he shook his head and gave her a look of such profound sympathy that she feared the worst.
‘Asbestos.’
Rose saw the very last of her savings flutter through the window and she balled her hand into a fist and clenched it under her chin. ‘How can that be?’
‘Lodged under the floorboards,’ Andy said kindly. ‘Nothing to look at, but I can spot it a mile away. It’s not everywhere but for the moment we’re going to have to put everything back in place until it’s sorted. We’re not trained to remove it.’
‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me that you’re joking.’
‘Wish I could, love.’
‘And I guess you don’t know how much it’ll cost to have it removed?’
He