Reform Of The Playboy

‘I just know that you two lovely people are going to get on like a house on fire!’ her friend continued, blissfully unaware of a highly embarrassed flush spreading over Harriet’s cheeks, or the sudden stiffening of the man’s tall figure.

‘Let me introduce you. This is my friend Harriet Wentworth, and—’

‘I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting Miss Wentworth,’ he drawled sardonically. A tight-lipped, grim smile of amusement flickered over his handsome features as he viewed the dawning consternation in the tall, red-headed girl’s green eyes.

‘Oh, that’s good!’ Sophie burbled happily.

No, it isn’t—it’s a bloody disaster! Harriet wanted to scream out loud. Although, considering the horrendous amount of noisy laughter and shouting going on around them, no one would have taken any notice if she had suddenly started yelling her head off.

Life was just so damned unfair! Of all the men in London—why did it have to be this particular man who was now wanting to rent a flat in her house? she asked herself incredulously. But—as much as she wanted to tell him to get lost—she simply didn’t have enough nerve to cause a scene.

‘Well, actually…’ she began, desperately trying to pull herself together. ‘I’m sure that Mr…um…’ What was the guy’s name? ‘That Mr—’

‘My name is Finn Maclean,’ he interrupted curtly.

‘Oh, yes…er…sorry…’ she mumbled, suddenly hating both Sophie and this awful man for putting her in such a difficult position, and desperately wishing that she’d never—absolutely never—agreed to come to this awful party. ‘The fact is…’

‘The fact is, you apparently have a flat to let. And I need to rent one, almost immediately,’ he told her in a firm let’s-have-no-nonsense tone of voice, which immediately raised her hackles.

‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that Sophie has jumped the gun,’ she told him quickly. ‘I’ve only just got rid of the builders, and—’

Busily intent on explaining just why it was not possible for him to rent her new apartment, Harriet was startled to find herself abruptly cut off in mid-sentence, the man quickly grasping her arm and towing her determinedly towards the back of the room, before opening a door and issuing her into a dimly lit small office.

‘Now, just a minute!’ she protested, rubbing the top of her arm where he’d gripped her so fiercely.

‘I’m sorry. But we were hardly able to hear ourselves think—let alone hold a reasonable conversation,’ he said, perching himself down on the edge of a large partners desk and stretching his long legs out in front of him.

‘I’ve bought this new flat, in Holland Park,’ he continued, before explaining the problem he was likely to have with so many workmen, and his need for alternative accommodation for anything up to six months. ‘And so, when your friend told me that you’d completed the conversion of the second floor in your house, it seemed the perfect solution to my problem,’ he added with a warm, engaging smile.

While Harriet would normally admire a guy who was prepared to take decisive action in pursuit of his goal, she’d already had dealings with Finn Maclean—and it had not been a pleasant experience.

So, it was no good him trying to turn on the charm—which he clearly possessed in abundance. Or trying to smooth-talk her into allowing him to rent her flat, she told herself grimly. Because he was definitely not the sort of tenant she’d had in mind.

‘I’d be at work in the City all day—and I’m out quite a lot in the evenings,’ he was saying as she stared mulishly back at him, determined to stick to her guns. ‘So, most of the time you’d hardly know I was there.’

‘What do you do? I mean,’ she added quickly as he looked at her in surprise, ‘Sophie seems to think that you are some kind of film producer.’

He gave a deep chuckle of laughter. ‘No, I’m afraid not. I work in the City as a lawyer,’ he explained. ‘In fact, my only contact with the film company giving this party concerned drawing up a contract for some work they were doing recently, on location.’

‘Oh, right,’ Harriet murmured, feeling somewhat relieved to know that if she was going to let her flat to this man—which, of course, she wasn’t—he would be unlikely to be throwing wild parties full of weird people, and disturbing her neighbours in the early hours of the morning.

However, Finn Maclean was obviously a very successful lawyer, if that wafer-thin Cartier gold watch on his wrist was anything to go by. So there seemed no point in mentioning that she, too, was a lawyer—albeit having worked as a very junior solicitor in a large, multinational firm.

‘Come on, you gorgeous girl—give me a break!’ He grinned engagingly at her. ‘I really am desperate to find somewhere to live.’

Easily able to discard his outrageous flattery—‘gorgeous girl’ indeed!—and frantically searching her mind for a good excuse to avoid renting him her apartment, Harriet was nevertheless finding it very difficult to concentrate on the problem.

Even though she was still relatively sober—mostly because she hadn’t liked the look of those peculiar-coloured cocktails—she was finding it extraordinarily difficult to ignore the amazing good looks, heady attraction and all-persuasive allure of this man.

Despite being perched on the desk, a few feet away from her, the magnetic force of his personality—not to mention the staggering effect of so much sheer naked sex appeal—was causing her to feel confused and breathless. The warm sparkling glints in those large blue eyes of his seemed to contain an almost seductive enticement; the atmosphere between them now was so thick that she could practically cut it with a knife.

‘Well…?’

‘I don’t know…’ she muttered weakly, realising that it would be no good saying that, since he hadn’t even seen the house, it was far too soon to take any sort of decision. Because not only did he know her house very well—but he’d also been extremely angry when she’d refused to sell it to him, all those months ago.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Finn Maclean—alongside all the other gifts with which nature had clearly endowed him—was also quite capable of reading her mind.

‘You may not want to rent me that flat of yours, Harriet. But I reckon you owe me a favour,’ he told her bluntly, the icy-cold, forceful determination in his voice sharply at variance with the warm, soothing tones he’d been using only a few seconds ago.

‘You were responsible for the fact that I wasted a great deal of time and money,’ he continued grimly. ‘Which is why I feel it’s not asking too much for you to now help solve my current difficulty.’

‘Yes, well…maybe I did…but…’

‘So, we’ve got a deal—OK?’

‘That’s great!’ Sophie cried, bursting into the room just in time to catch his last words. ‘And there’s no need to worry, Harriet. I’ll get my boss to draw up a really iron-clad contract. No problem!’

‘Oh…all right,’ Harriet sighed helplessly, well aware that she was being somehow railroaded—by these two highly persistent and determined people—into agreeing to have this awful man in her house for six months.

But, of course, it was very far from being ‘all right.’ In fact, she barely needed to glimpse the icy-cold gleam of triumph in those startling blue eyes, to know that Finn Maclean was Bad News.

Not to mention a feeling of total certainty, now settling like a hard stone in her stomach, that this was one decision she was going to bitterly regret.

CHAPTER TWO

DESPITE the fresh, early-summer breeze rustling the thin gauzy curtains of her bedroom, Harriet felt hot and sticky as she tossed and turned in the darkness, desperately trying to seek oblivion in sleep.

Eventually giving up the unequal fight, she threw back the bedclothes. Slipping on a light dressing gown and padding barefoot through into the large sitting room, she made her way towards the large French windows on the far side of the room.

Was she stupid—or what? How could she have been such an idiot? Why had she allowed herself to be thrown so completely off base by that totally unexpected encounter this evening with Finn Maclean?

Right from the moment they’d first met, all those months ago, she’d taken an instant dislike to the man. Although when she tried to work out exactly why she’d felt so instinctively aggressive and antagonistic towards someone whom she had never met—Harriet had absolutely no idea.

It was all Great-Aunt Jane’s fault, she told herself glumly, before giving a rueful shake of her head at her own foolishness. How could she even think such a thing? Talk about being ungrateful! Although it was true that if her aunt hadn’t died, and left her both this wonderful house and access to its adjacent and utterly enchanted garden, she would never have met Finn Maclean.

So what’s new? Nasty bugs could always find a way of invading even the most glamorous, expensive apartments, Harriet reminded herself grimly, unlocking the glass doors and stepping out on to the small balcony.

Taking a deep breath of the soft night air, fragrant with the scent of jasmine, lilac and early-flowering roses, she could immediately feel herself beginning to relax and unwind. Sitting down on one of a pair of small white, iron garden chairs, Harriet gave a contented sigh as she leaned back and stared up at the stars, twinkling in the dark sky high above her head.

It was a private fantasy of hers that she was somehow the sole possessor of this half-acre of lawn, trees, secluded walks and flowerbeds, vibrant with colour all the year round. And she knew, from talking to many of the other occupants of the houses surrounding this ‘secret’ garden, that they felt exactly the same way.

Little known outside the immediate area, the Ladbroke Estate, covering much of Notting Hill and Holland Park, contained sixteen of these very rare, very private and totally secluded gardens.

What made them so special was the fact that they were totally inaccessible to anyone other than those living in the houses which completely encircled the private gardens. And they were, indeed, a hidden secret known only to a few. Even she hadn’t realised, despite regularly visiting this house over the past few years, that such a luxurious green oasis lay at the back of her aunt’s home.

In fact, it hadn’t been until after her great-aunt’s death last year, when, as one of her cousins had so accurately put it, ‘Harriet’s numbers came up on the lottery,’ that she’d realised just how very lucky and fortunate she was.

‘The lottery’ wasn’t, in truth, any form of gambling. Her cousin’s remark had merely referred to the fact that her great-aunt Jane—a highly eccentric, imperious old lady—had made a habit of regularly changing her will in favour of one or another of her many great-nephews and nieces. And thus it had been that, following the unexpected death of her aunt, late last year, Harriet—to her utter surprise and total amazement—had suddenly found herself the proud possessor of the enormous house in Lansdowne Gardens, together with some money, currently locked away in stocks and shares.

‘Lucky old you!’ her cousin Martin had exclaimed on hearing the news. ‘I was at the top of the list last year. So I guess I must have done something to blot my copybook. Maybe deciding to throw up work and go on the stage might just have had something to do with it?’ he added with a rueful laugh, before giving Harriet a hug and wishing her the very best of luck with her inheritance.

‘It’s a dreadful old house, full of cats and dusty furniture. What are you planning to do? Sell it?’

Harriet shrugged and agreed that the house had always appeared to be in a dreadful state. So, probably the best thing would be to clear it out, and then put it up for sale. A course of action which received enthusiastic support from her parents. Especially her mother.

‘It’s absolutely the only thing to do, darling,’ her mother announced firmly. ‘What on earth do you want with a huge old house in an extremely unfashionable part of London? You must try and sell it as best you can, and then buy a nice little mews house. Somewhere fashionable, like Knightsbridge or Sloane Square, would be just about perfect.’

Although she seldom saw eye to eye with her mother, Harriet had to agree that the older woman had, for once, given her some good and practical advice. However, neither Harriet, at that time renting a small flat in Islington, nor her mother—living deep in the country, in Gloucestershire—could have guessed that the Holland Park and Notting Hill Gate area of London would suddenly become so extraordinarily fashionable.

Harriet had no way of knowing whether it was the many ‘private’ gardens which had proved to be the main attraction—particularly when contrasted with the hot dusty streets and high-rise buildings of central London—or if it was just some inexplicable movement of people from one area to another. However, it seemed that as soon as some wealthy pop stars and highly paid executives in the advertising and entertainment business ‘discovered’ Holland Park and Notting Hill Gate, everyone else suddenly appeared to want to live there, too.

All of which went some way to explaining why, on her approach to a local estate agent, he was visibly pleased at the thought of selling her aunt’s house. When he explained that she could expect to gain close to a million pounds for the property, Harriet’s legs suddenly felt as though they’d turned to jelly. Collapsing down into the chair before his desk, she gazed at the man in utter disbelief.

‘I had no idea…I mean…you must be kidding?’ she gasped, feeling quite faint and dizzy for a moment.

‘Oh, no,’ Mr Evans told her confidently, impatiently clicking his fingers at his assistant as he called for a glass of water, since the girl looked as though she was about to pass out any minute.

‘After you gave me the keys, I had a good look around the property,’ he continued. ‘It’s an absolute shambles, of course, but there’s no reason why—when you’ve cleared out all the mess—you shouldn’t get something very close to that sum.’

‘I…I just can’t believe it!’ Harriet mumbled helplessly, shaking her head in bemusement. ‘Are you absolutely sure…? I mean…I don’t want to be rude—but that really is such a huge amount of money!’

‘That’s nothing!’ He waved his hand dismissively in the air. ‘Why, only the other day I was approached by a young couple—looking for a house just like yours—who were quite happy to pay two or three million for a property in good condition. You would be able to get a much higher price if your aunt’s home had been looked after,’ he confided. ‘But, all the same, I think we ought to be able to get you at least a million—no problem.’

A million pounds! Such a sum was absolutely ridiculous, Harriet told herself as she drove slowly back to her small rented apartment in Islington, which she’d chosen originally because of its proximity and ease of access to the law courts in The Strand.

Having studied law at university, she was now working as a very junior member of a large firm of solicitors. Unfortunately, it hadn’t proved to be the job of her dreams. In fact, she’d come to see that the dry, dusty world of lawyers was definitely not for her. It was only the problem of trying to decide exactly what she did want to do with her life—plus the need to earn a decent living, of course—which had, so far, prevented her from resigning her job and looking for work elsewhere.

However, despite repeating the words ‘a million pounds’ to herself over the following weeks, she still couldn’t somehow make it seem any more real.

Although, in a moment of total euphoria, she thought about giving up work and living on the proceeds of the sale of her aunt’s house, it didn’t take Harriet very long to see that wasn’t the answer to her problems. Lying around doing nothing all day might seem an attractive idea. But she was fairly certain that she’d soon get bored with such an idle, lazy existence.

Her parents were, of course, delighted at her sudden change of fortune. And as for her boyfriend, George—for once in his life he actually looked visibly excited.

‘I say, Harriet, that sounds a pretty useful sum!’ he exclaimed, giving her a much warmer smile than usual. ‘And there’ll be no need to worry your pretty little head about investing the money. Because I know several clever men in the City who’d definitely be interested in dealing with a nice little nest egg like that.’

In fact, Harriet told herself, it was amazing how everyone was busy spending the money she had yet to get. Her mother seemed determined that she should buy a small, bijou house in a highly fashionable area: ‘So handy, darling, when I want to do some shopping.’ Several of her friends thought she ought to blow the lot on travelling around the world until the money ran out, while someone else suggested that she open a trendy restaurant.

Even an old friend, Trish Palmer, had come up with the idea of Harriet buying the empty property next to her own antiques shop in Ledbury Road.

‘Hang on, Trish!’ she muttered sleepily, at six-thirty one morning, as she helped to lay out small pieces of antique jewellery on the stall her friend operated on Saturdays in the nearby Portobello Road Market.

‘While I enjoy lending you a hand with the stall every now and then,’ Harriet continued, warming her cold hands on a mug of steaming hot coffee. ‘I know absolutely nothing about old furniture and objets d’art. Quite honestly, the idea of me buying a shop and suddenly becoming a successful antiques dealer is absolutely daft!’

‘It doesn’t have to be that sort of shop,’ Trish pointed out. ‘You could sell anything you liked—clothes, flowers, or jewellery. I mean, just look at the terrific success of that girl who has an amazing shop at the other end of the road, selling nothing but gorgeous purses and handbags.’

‘She’s so talented,’ Harriet agreed with an envious sigh. ‘Unfortunately, I have a horrid feeling that I don’t have a creative bone in my body!’

However, it was Trish who eventually provided the answer to all Harriet’s problems.

Offering to lend their friend a hand one weekend, cleaning the house ready for viewing by prospective buyers, Trish and Sophie were both amazed at the sheer size of the place.

‘It’s looking great, now that all that broken-down, dusty old furniture has been carted away,’ Sophie said, leaning on a broom and gazing up at the ornate cornice of the large, high-ceilinged first-floor sitting room.

‘You wouldn’t know the place,’ Trish agreed, lifting a grimy hand to brush the damp hair from her brow. ‘It’s a pity you have to sell the house after all this effort. If it had been left to me, I’d try and find a way to hang on to it.’

‘Even if I did—I could never afford to live here,’ Harriet pointed out, before throwing down her mop and declaring that they’d all earned a tea-break.

Making her way down to the antiquated old kitchen on the lower ground floor, Trish continued to lament the fact that her friend was having to sell such a lovely old house.

‘Come off it!’ Sophie laughed, waving a chocolate biscuit around the high-ceilinged kitchen, which surprisingly seemed full of light, ‘What on earth would Harriet do with herself, living all alone in a place like this?’

‘Who says she has to live on her own?’ Trish retorted. ‘She could easily split a house of this size into flats—one to each floor. Or she could always let out rooms to her friends, or…’

‘What? Run a boarding house?’ the other girl scoffed. ‘Do me a favour! Can you honestly see Harriet cooking breakfast for everyone in the house before rushing off to work? Get real!’

‘I’ve definitely got better things to do with my time!’ Harriet agreed with a laugh, before reminding her friends that there was still a lot of work to do, and not much time left in which to do it.

However, as she walked slowly around the clean and empty building a week later, while waiting for the estate agent to call with a client who wished to view the house, Harriet had to agree that Trish had been quite right.

In fact, if there was some way in which she could manage to retain ownership of the house—and also to live here herself—she’d willingly do so. If only for the sheer pleasure of opening the tall, curved glass French windows in the large ground-floor room and being able to stroll out into the extremely peaceful and beautiful garden.

A moment later her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell, and she hurried through into the hall. Opening the door, she found the estate agent on the doorstep, introducing the tall man standing beside him as a Mr Maclean, who was very keen to see over the house before it was formally put up for sale.

She stood back to allow the men to enter the house, gaining only a brief impression in the dimly lit hall of a tall and slim dark-haired man.

However, as she led the two men through the large empty rooms, Harriet found herself beginning to think that ‘Mr Maclean’ didn’t seem at all keen on the house—or anything else, for that matter.

There was no doubt that he was tall, dark and handsome. In fact, as Harriet led the two men into the brightly lit, large main room on the ground floor, she found herself temporarily stunned into silence as she realised that the stranger wasn’t just a good-looking guy—but clearly quite extraordinarily handsome.

Viewing the man dressed in casual, but immaculate weekend attire, as he appeared to be gazing with complete disinterest around the room, Harriet was suddenly conscious of the fact that she, herself, must appear boringly conventional.

Never having done this sort of thing before, she’d spent some time earlier in the day trying to work out the right sort of ‘uniform’ for showing people around the house. Not that it was desperately important, of course. However, the estate agent had stressed the fact that first impressions were very important—which was why he’d also warned her to make sure the rooms were as clean as possible.

‘Ideally, of course, you should have bowls of flowers in every room,’ he’d told her. ‘In fact, I always tell my ladies that it doesn’t hurt to have the smell of fresh roasting coffee, or newly baked bread, issuing from the kitchen,’ he’d added with a conspiratorial wink, as he’d revealed some of the tricks of his trade.

However, since she obviously had no way of providing any of those items, Harriet had been forced to concentrate on making sure that all the rooms were sparkling clean—arranging for a window cleaner to call had worked wonders—and trying to dress as if she was the sort of person who normally lived in a house this size.

Which was why she’d discarded a short leather mini-skirt—obviously totally unsuitable when leading the way up a flight of stairs—and her favourite dress of floaty chiffon in autumn shades of brown and green—too frivolous. Hesitating over one of the sharp navy suits which she normally wore to the office—possibly too serious?—she’d eventually plumped for boring but safe: dark blue jeans, tight white T-shirt and a smart navy blue blazer.

But why she should care what she was wearing, when this man was stalking silently behind her as she led them in and out of the many upstairs bedrooms, she had no idea. Even when Harriet opened the large glass doors off the vast, first-floor drawing room, she found his total silence extremely off-putting.

She led the way out on to the balcony overlooking the garden, and expressed the hope that the men would enjoy the sight of such lush greenery as much as she did. But Mr Maclean merely glanced blandly at the view, before muttering noncommittally, ‘Very nice,’ before turning back into the house.

The man’s nothing but a philistine! she told herself grimly, closing the French doors angrily behind him.

Unfortunately, one of the security locks was rusty and stiff from disuse. As she struggled to turn the key, which stubbornly refused to budge, the tall stranger came over to give her a hand.

‘Here, let me help you,’ he murmured, suddenly materialising by her side and taking the key from her hand.

Thinking about the episode later, Harriet still didn’t understand why, as his hand brushed over hers, she should feel what seemed like a sudden electric shock, causing her to give a sudden yelp and a slight jump backwards, the key falling down with a clatter on to the hard wooden floor.