‘Do you want a cup of tea or anything?’
Jade gave him a saccharine-sweet smile. ‘I really don’t think so. You wouldn’t have a clue where to find anything, it’s not your house, and anyway cups of sweet tea don’t actually cure anything. It’s all a myth.’
‘You’re probably right,’ he agreed. ‘So this is where you sleep?’
‘Goodbye.’
He continued to survey her room critically. ‘No television. Is that why you were in the other bedroom at that hour of the evening?’
‘You,’ Jade said furiously, ‘are totally out of order. What I do in this house is none of your business. You came here to fix a leak, which you aren’t even competent enough to do, and if you don’t leave immediately I shall…’
‘Throw me out by the scruff of my neck?’
This situation, she thought, was getting out of hand. He was beginning to frighten her a little now.
‘Let’s put it this way; there are other plumbers around. Now, please go!’
‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and Jade squirmed into a sitting position, drawing her legs up and clasping her arms around them. She looked desperately towards the door, wondering whether she could make a dash for it. But if he wanted to he would have no trouble in pinning her down.
‘Get out or else I’m going to call the police.’ Quiet, menacing, utterly serious. He failed to be intimidated.
‘That won’t work either, you know,’ he said conversationally.
‘Want to bet?’
‘I don’t take money off a lady, if that’s what you are.’ He inclined his body forward slightly. ‘Nor do I wrest telephones away from people, if that’s what you’re thinking. No, it won’t make any difference who you call…’
‘And why not?’
‘Because I’m Andy’s brother and I own this house.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘I DON’T believe you.’
She did. Something hadn’t added up from the minute she had laid eyes on him. His clothes, his accent, his general charisma. But she had been expecting a plumber and she had naively assumed that because he had showed up he must be the plumber she had been waiting for. Of course, she should have asked for his card instead of innocently running with her assumptions while he played along, trying to pump information out of her all the way.
Too late now.
‘Of course you believe me,’ he said coldly. ‘But just in case there are any lingering doubts in your mind…’ He extracted a wallet from his trouser pocket, flicked it open to reveal a row of platinum and gold credit cards, and extracted his driver’s licence from one of the compartments.
Jade dutifully took it, confirmed his identity and handed it back to him.
She couldn’t think of a thing to say. She knew why he had come, and Andy was going to be distraught.
‘Cat got your tongue, Miss Summers? I’m disappointed. You were so eloquent up to ten minutes ago.’
Jade glared at him with loathing. ‘Why didn’t you just introduce yourself at the front door and spare us both the ludicrous pretence?’
‘Now, why on earth should I have done that?’ He stuck his wallet away and proceeded to view her without warmth. ‘I didn’t know who the hell you were, but I was willing to stake my fortune on your not being the daily help, and you would have clamped up the minute you knew who I was. No, it was altogether far more productive for me to go along with the charade and see what I could find out along the way.’ He stood up, strolled across to the bay window and looked out before turning around. ‘You look as though you could do with a stiff drink,’ he said in a deceptively mild voice. ‘Don’t go fainting on me, now. I have too many questions to ask.’ He smiled with dangerous menace. ‘And far too many answers you’re just bursting to give.’
‘I’ll get in touch with Andy,’ she said, reaching across to the telephone at the side of her bed, but before she could pick up the receiver his hand was over hers like a vice, stopping her.
‘Not so fast, Miss Summers. You’re in my house and you’re going to listen to what I have to say. Do you read me loud and clear? And we’ll just wait for my brother to return. I’m sure he’d far rather appreciate the surprise.’
‘Your hand? Please remove it. I don’t appreciate the caveman approach.’
Another of those deep, velvety, unsettling laughs, but he removed his hand and stood back.
‘A girl with spirit. Unusual for my brother.’
‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ Jade asked quickly, shooting back to the furthest edge of the bed just in case he got it into his head to try another lunge at her. The man seemed to have a bad effect on her nervous system, and she was rapidly discovering that the closer he got, the worse the effect was.
‘It means that the few trollops he’s ever had, to my knowledge, have all been watery, insignificant bores with the personalities of wet rags.’
Jade sighed. She had never thought that she would meet Curtis Greene. When she and Andy had moved into his house he had assured her that his brother was a workaholic, firmly ensconced in the fast-living bowels of Manhattan, and rarely came to London. When he did there would be advance notice, and they would simply move out until he had cleared off.
He clearly disliked his older brother, even though she had detected a certain awe and admiration in his voice whenever his name was mentioned, and conversations about him had been limited.
‘So I think it’s question-and-answer time, Miss Summers, don’t you?’ No wonder he had failed to be intimidated by her withering looks, she thought miserably. Lord of the house and master of the withering look, himself. The sort of man who would fail to be intimidated by a charging rhino, never mind a diminutive blonde with more lip than common sense.
‘And, charming though the bedroom is, I don’t think it’s quite the place for a conversation.’ He began walking towards the door, looking around only when he was standing in the doorway. ‘Why don’t we adjourn to the sitting room? We’ll be far more comfortable there. Unless, of course, you’re the sort who finds bedrooms the best place to be…?’
Jade sprang out of the bed, barely sparing him a glance, her arms protectively folded across her chest, and brushed past him, irritated to find that, despite his high-handed, despicable, loathsome arrogance, she still found that fleeting physical contact with his shirt slightly unnerving.
‘I don’t care who you are,’ was her opening shot, as soon as they were in the sitting room, ‘I don’t like your attitude. You may think it’s a whizz threatening people but it won’t work on me. And rubbing my nose in the fact that this is your house and I’m a trespasser isn’t going to work either. I have no problem with packing up my things and moving out.’
Her bank manager might find it a little worrying, she thought, but she had enough money saved from her last job to see her through finding a place to rent. And working while she studied was hardly inconceivable. The offer from Andy to share this house, with space for her to paint and only their bills and food to cover, had been manna from heaven, but if it involved bowing and scraping to the brute in