In The Billionaire's Bed

‘I don’t go to them,’ he said, with an odd tightening of his mouth.

There had been an ostentatious wreath, Catherine remembered, a sharp contrast to the country flowers she and her boating friends had placed on the coffin. The florist’s card bore just one word. ‘Farewell.’ Not the most heartfelt message she’d ever seen, but typical of someone like Zach. And now she was intrigued.

‘You were the lilies,’ she said.

‘I was the lilies,’ he confirmed.

Catherine’s eyes widened. Knowing Edith as she did, it seemed inconceivable that Zach and the old lady could have any point of contact!

‘How would Edith ever know someone like you?’ she wondered aloud.

‘I run an investment company. I was her financial adviser and I managed her money.’

She nodded. That made sense. But Edith wouldn’t have liked him enough to entrust her precious island to his smooth, City hands!

‘Why would she give the island to you?’ she asked in confusion. ‘You’re the last person on earth—’

She clamped her lips together. She’d said too much.

‘You’re right,’ he said, his mouth curling in wry amusement. ‘I don’t understand either. For some wacky reason known only to Edith, she wanted me to live here.’

‘But you must already have a house!’ she declared, visualising an opulent mansion with four swimming pools and obsequious servants tugging their forelocks like crazy.

‘No. A flat in London.’

And that, she thought, would suit him perfectly. Something in stainless steel with furniture that looked stylish but was hell to use, something in a smart and expensive district.

‘Well, you can’t want this island!’ she argued.

‘You’re right. I don’t.’

For a moment, Catherine felt a glimmer of hope. He’d off-load it on to someone else—someone more empathetic—and she’d have a better chance of persuading the next owner to let her stay.

‘I see,’ she said, perking up considerably. ‘You’ll put it on the market, then.’

‘I don’t discuss my business,’ he replied cuttingly.

Suitably rebuked, Catherine nodded, still delighted that their acquaintance would probably be short and sour.

‘I don’t blame you,’ she confided. ‘The path gets horribly muddy in the winter. You can see what it’s like now, even with the few showers we’ve had recently. And of course you’re very isolated here.’ She remembered the wheat grass. ‘No city amenities. A distinct lack of exotic food.’

He gave her a thoughtful and searing look which suggested he knew exactly what she was up to.

‘But despite all these problems, you…love it all,’ he observed in a low tone.

Her eyes rounded. ‘How do you know that?’

There was a pause, during which she noticed the increased rise and fall of his chest.

‘The way you looked at the bluebells.’ Apparently about to say something else, he cleared his throat instead.

‘You noticed them, then?’ she said drily.

‘In passing.’ Zach tilted his head to one side and gave her another speculative look. ‘If you were as close to Edith as you claim,’ he mused, ‘why didn’t she leave you the house and land?’

Catherine smiled, thinking of her conversation with the old lady.

‘Oh, she said she was planning to do that. But I told her I didn’t want it,’ she answered solemnly.

He gave a snort of disbelief. ‘I find that hard to accept,’ he said scathingly.

‘It was a practical decision. How would I afford to run it?’ she argued.

‘With her money, of course.’

‘But I didn’t know she had any!’ Catherine protested.

‘Odd that she didn’t tell you,’ he mused.

‘I didn’t give her a chance. I told her that I’d rattle around in Tresanton Manor on my own and feel lonely. And my friends might not come and visit me any more.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because they’re ordinary people and they’d feel intimidated,’ she said simply.

‘You could have sold it.’

She stared, uncomprehending. ‘What would be the point in being given a house and then immediately offloading it?’

‘Are you deliberately being provocative, or are you financially naïve?’ he marvelled sarcastically. ‘The point is that you would have made a lot of money.’

Money. It obviously ruled his life. Acquisitions, material possessions, they were all he saw, all he knew. Odd that she was so attracted to him. Perhaps it was the magnetism of opposites. Even now, alienated by his cold obsession with wealth, she felt an undeniable feral thrill from his extreme masculinity.

But where to start, to explain her philosophy of life? He wouldn’t understand it for a moment. His eyebrow hooked up cynically as though she must be lying because she hadn’t come up with an explanation. That galvanised her to give him one.

‘Edith knew my views on living simply,’ she said with quiet passion. ‘I wouldn’t want more money than I knew what to do with. Besides, I’d worry like mad if I had money invested in the stock market.’

‘Think of all the new clothes you could have had,’ he suggested.

‘I have all I need! If I want something like a winter coat, I work extra hours. I already have a home that means a great deal to me. I truly have everything I want. Why should I rock the boat by changing my circumstances? I could end up very unhappy and out of my depth. Edith knew me well enough to know that quality of life is more important to me than material possessions. She accepted that because it was her philosophy too.’ Catherine smiled fondly.

Clearly baffled, he shook his head. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘No,’ she said with a gentle sorrow. ‘I don’t suppose you do. But… Supposing I had accepted her offer. It would have changed the way people regard me, especially if she’d left me all her money too. As I said, my friends would have been ill at ease in the manor and very conscious of the differences in our situations. If I bought them a round of drinks in the pub, they might think I was being patronising. If I didn’t, they’d think I was mean. You can’t win. When someone’s financial circumstances change, the attitude of people around them changes too. I have good friends, people I am very fond of,’ she said, gazing up at him earnestly. ‘I don’t want to lose their unquestioning friendship. It means everything to me.’

‘Living in an expensive house you’d soon make new friends,’ he remarked cynically.

‘Exactly! They would be drawn by my apparent wealth,’ she cried with heartfelt passion. ‘That’s the last thing I want! My friendships are genuine. People like me for who I am, not what I am or how much money I’ve got. We do one another favours, which makes for a wonderful sense of community and protection. I am very happy and I’d be a fool to jeopardise that happiness. I explained all this to Edith and she realised that I already had…my…paradise.’

Her voice had faltered towards the end of the sentence. Any moment now and it could be Paradise Lost.

The kettle began to sing. Just in time, she managed to stop him from lifting it and burning his hand. Unfortunately her dash to the stove meant that they ended up body to body, his arms wrapping around her protectively when she cannoned into him.

‘Hot,’ she babbled breathily, her flapping hand indicating the kettle. But all she could feel was the fiery furnace of his chest. The frantic beating of her imprisoned heart. She was too shocked to move.

‘Hot. I see,’ he murmured, his mouth a sinful curve as his head seemed to bend low to hers.

Scorn laced her eyes. Another married man on the make, ready for any opportunity. Buster, she thought, your six seconds are up.

‘I’ll make the drinks,’ she snapped, glaring at him.

The grey eyes chilled. The sinful curve disappeared and she was abruptly released.

‘You do that.’

With elaborate care she filled the cafetière and placed it on the table. Then she added hot water to the herbal tea bag and slid, subdued, into her chair again.

Her pulses were galloping like a herd of wild horses. The man was so packed with rampant male hormones that he was a danger to her self-respect. She had to get away.

Her heart sank. That meant she must broach the subject of her mooring without any further beating about the bush.

She’d hoped to prepare the ground by chatting in a companionable way so that he felt at ease with her, and therefore more inclined to let her stay. But, she thought gloomily, a leisurely approach was out of the question now.

‘Have you thought of a reason for wandering about my island?’ he asked sardonically before she could come up with her opening line.

Her shoulders slumped. Not the most promising of starts.

‘Edith let me moor my boat on the far side,’ she began, deciding on a full frontal attack.

‘What kind of a boat?’ The frown was working hard as he pulled a pack of painkillers from inside his jacket and popped out two pills. ‘Do you row over here from the village or something?’

Catherine wondered if his bad temper was due to his headache. He’d been rubbing his head a lot, she recalled.

‘It’s a narrow boat,’ she explained. ‘I live on it.’

His face was a picture. Hastily she took advantage of his astonishment.

‘I was wondering, if temporarily—’

‘No.’

She blinked. ‘You haven’t heard what I was about to say!’

‘I’m not stupid. I make my living by putting two and two together. You want to continue the arrangement. The answer’s no.’

‘Surely, if you’re going to sell—?’

‘All the more reason to get rid of any illicit vagrants who call in whenever the fancy takes them.’

Her face flamed at the description. ‘But it’s—!’

‘No.’

Her mutinous gene seemed to assert itself. ‘Why?’ she demanded, her eyes blazing with anger.

Zach’s gaze dropped, his thick black lashes a heart-stopping crescent on his cheeks as he pushed down the cafetière plunger slowly then poured out the coffee, filling the kitchen with its rich aroma.

‘Nobody would buy this place with itinerants tied up to its banks. And while I’m still here I want privacy and security. I’m not likely to get that with you camping out in the reeds and thinking you can treat my island like your own garden, to visit whenever you feel like it,’ he replied irascibly.

Catherine thought gloomily that it was just as well she hadn’t mentioned the chickens or the vegetable plot.

‘You wouldn’t know I was there,’ she persisted.

He looked her up and down. There was almost a dry amusement in his expression, although she doubted that his mouth cracked into a smile more than once a year.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ he said, as cold as the Arctic. ‘The answer’s no. Get used to it.’

The cracked ice eyes tried to freeze her resolve over the rim of the mug. She’d never heard such a definite refusal in her life. But what did she have to lose?

‘I can understand your reservations, but think of the advantages,’ she coaxed, all soft sugar and reason. ‘I could keep an eye on things while you’re away—’

‘Forget it,’ he snapped, swallowing both pills with a gulp of coffee. ‘I’ll install an alarm system.’

She winced, imagining sirens wailing across the peaceful countryside and emptying it of animal life for ever.

‘OK.’ She sighed. ‘Your position is clear. Nevertheless, I think I’ll wait and see what your wife has to say,’ she told him, playing her last, desperate card.

‘You’ll have a long wait,’ he muttered.

She frowned. ‘I don’t see why. She’s been here several times already. Everyone’s seen her. She drives a yellow car and she supervised the men in the removal van—’

‘Word does get about,’ he drawled.

‘That’s because the removal men didn’t get a tip,’ she said tightly. ‘They went into the local pub for a much-needed drink and complained that your wife was tight-fisted—considering they had to trudge across the bridge and through the orchard with everything you own!’

‘I’ll rectify that. But your gossips shouldn’t jump to conclusions,’ he shot back. ‘She’s my PA, not my wife. I’m divorced.’

Somehow she managed to stop herself from declaring that she wasn’t surprised. Her fingers played with the handle on her mug. The woman with egg-whisk hair had been a long shot, but a possible ally, nevertheless. Now her last hope was gone. Her body slumped a little in the chair.

‘There’s no way I can persuade you to let me live here till the new owner takes over?’ she begged in a small voice. ‘You see, I’ll lose my business if I can’t work from my boat—’

‘Wait a minute!’ His frown was ferocious. ‘I had the impression that you were asking to moor here occasionally. You’re talking about a permanent arrangement?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted meekly. ‘I’ve been here three years, you see. It would mean nothing to you, to let me tie up, but it would be everything to me. My whole livelihood would go if I have to leave. I have people who rely on me for regular—’

‘That’s your problem, not mine. I want you gone. See to it.’

Catherine rose to her feet, wondering what he would look like with half a pint of blackcurrant tea poured over his head. But dignity stayed her hand.

‘Very well. I’ll go,’ she said coolly. ‘But when it’s known how you’ve treated me, it will be your problem, too.’

‘Is that a threat?’ he growled.

She shrugged. ‘I just know what the local people are like. Treat them with courtesy and respect and they’ll go to the ends of the earth for you. Treat them or their friends badly…’ She shook her head as if he was making a huge mistake. ‘I just hope your plumbing doesn’t fail, or that you ever need help in the garden.’

And she stalked out before he could reply. Despite her bravado, she was shaking from the confrontation. And miserably she faced up to the fact that she was on the brink of leaving her beloved Tresanton Island for ever.

CHAPTER FIVE

EVEN as he followed her he knew he’d regret it. It would be far wiser to leave her to fly off in a huff and never see her again.

But of course, he argued, craning his neck to see where she’d gone, he had that bequest in the will to fulfil. And Catherine was the only person he knew who might tell him the whereabouts of the mysterious Perdita that Edith had mentioned.

Otherwise he wouldn’t be ruining a perfectly good pair of shoes by plunging through dense undergrowth in the search for a tiny scrap of a woman who seemed to have got so thoroughly under his skin that he was still tingling from head to toe in places he didn’t even know could tingle.

Wretched female! Irritably he pulled away a ferocious bramble which was trying to capture his jacket. He swore under his breath when it ripped the expensive cloth.

That was it. He’d had it up to here. She could take herself off and Perdita would have to do without the fifteen thousand pounds that Edith had left her—unless she read his advert, which he was honour bound to publish in the broadsheets.

He had work to do. Calls to make. This house was going to take up enough of his precious time, without him adding a stroppy flower child to his action list.

Fine. He’d made his decision.

And yet…he couldn’t carry it out. He, Mr Decisive himself. Something was holding him back. Curiosity, perhaps.

He grunted. Who was he kidding? Catherine was stopping him. A woman of extreme contradictions. Delicate and yet strong, sometimes laser-sharp with her eyes and tongue but with a voice so soft that it soothed his churning brain. A stubborn mouth. A smile that could melt diamonds.

Even more oddly, she was an old-fashioned sort of woman he wouldn’t have looked at twice if she’d walked past him in London. He went for the elegant type, well-groomed, high maintenance. They looked good and knew how to work a room. Catherine wouldn’t even know what that meant.

And yet his body had danced the moment he’d really looked at her. Flashes of intelligence and fire from those chocolate drop eyes had intrigued him. So had her face, seemingly fragile enough for the bones to be crushed if his hands ever cradled it. Not that they would, of course.

His mind skittered into thinking of her body. Lithe and flexible. Incredibly sensual despite its slimness…

No. This overwhelming urge to see her again was too ridiculous. He’d return to the house and…

He jumped as a chicken scuttled out of the bushes. Not an ordinary one—this was the size of a turkey and a kind of pinky buff. With a black beard, for heaven’s sake. It saw him, stopped in surprise and came up to him with an almost hopeful look on its intelligent face.

Well, OK, he amended, feeling stupid. That bright-eyed, head on one side look could have been interpreted as intelligent.

‘I suppose you’re Edith’s, too, are you?’ he muttered, and looked around furtively, suddenly embarrassed at talking to a chicken.

He sighed. The poor thing must have been living on air. Unless Catherine had been feeding it. He wouldn’t put it past her.

The chicken began to unpick his shoelace and he hurriedly moved on, heading back to the house. His steps were annoyingly reluctant, but he had far too much to do to chase after Catherine.

She’d soon go. And if she didn’t, he’d get the lawyers on to her. Any chickens would have to be sold or killed for the nearest market. Problem solved. He’d put Jane on to that one and keep her out of mischief, he thought with relief.

Once indoors, he went upstairs to find the master bedroom. He wasn’t interested in anywhere else, only where he’d sleep. There wasn’t time for aimless wandering.

Jane had hung up his suits and stored the rest of his clothes with unnerving care. He checked that he had everything he needed and settled down at the desk in the window, where she’d placed his computer.

Waiting for it to power up, he wriggled out of his jacket, slipped it over the back of the chair and happened to glance idly at the view of the garden.

He was high enough to see to the end of the island. A branch of the path ran from the bridge to the far side, though its destination was concealed by huge rhododendrons, their buds fat and ready to burst.

He froze. A man in a red T-shirt and jeans was walking along the path towards the rhododendrons. Zach’s scowl deepened. One of Catherine’s friends, no doubt.

Hopefully he’d find she’d gone and wouldn’t trespass on his land again. If he had any trouble, he’d have to put a locked gate on the bridge. This was his land, not a public park!

Angrily he punched in his password and concentrated on the day’s prices. Or tried to. Over the next hour he kept looking up, drawn by the view. Extraordinarily, the more he did, the more he felt his muscles relax.

The tension had eased from his shoulders. His muscles felt liquid instead of rock hard. And his almost permanent headache had cleared.

There must be something restful about the garden. He pursed his lips and tried to work out what it might be. Those soft, harmonising colours, perhaps? The variety of shapes—tall, conical trees and shrubs, weeping ones, fat, exuberant ones and some with feathery leaves? It was really rather attractive, he had to admit—

He held his breath, his smug serenity suddenly shattered. The intruder was on his way back, making for the bridge. On his way he passed a second man, who nodded as if they were both strangers to one another. This new arrival walked on steadily towards the rhododendrons. And, presumably, Catherine.

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