style="font-size:15px;"> She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the breeze cut through her clothes to settle its teeth on her flesh, and peered into another room, where three men were working with impressive efficiency. Walls were being plastered and there were rolls of wallpaper in one corner of the room. She squinted and tried to decipher the pattern, but failed.
Katherine had not been lying when she’d said that the place was undergoing a major overhaul.
She stretched forward, avoiding the shrubbery underneath the window, and was leaning against the windowsill, with her body supported by her hands, when a voice said from behind her, ‘Enjoying yourself?’
The shock of being addressed when she’d believed herself to be unobserved almost made her fall forward into the shrubbery. Instead, she propelled herself backwards and spun around to be confronted by Gregory who was standing, looking at her, with his arms folded and an aggravating look of amusement on his face.
‘What are you doing here?’ Sophie said, highly flustered at being caught red-handed doing something she would not have dreamt of doing under normal circumstances. Namely, snooping.
‘What am I doing here?’ He appeared to give the question a great deal of thought, then his brow cleared and he said, as though bowled over by a sudden revelation. ‘Oh, yes, I remember. I live here!’
A sudden gust of wind blew Sophie’s hair across her face, and she pushed it aside, tucking it irritatedly behind her ear. ‘I was told that you were going to be in London.’
‘Aren’t gossips unreliable?’ He stared at her as her face became redder, then rescued her from complete humiliation by saying lazily, ‘Actually, I was supposed to be in London until tomorrow, but I rescheduled my meeting so that I could come up here and see what was happening to the work on the house.’ He was, she saw, still dressed in a suit of charcoal grey, visible beneath his coat, which seemed to add height and width to him so that he appeared even more daunting than she remembered.
‘I apologise if I was trespassing on your land,’ Sophie said stiffly, glancing around and making sure that her bike was where she had left it.
‘But you happened to be in the general vicinity…?’
‘No.’
‘Ah, in that case, you must mean that you made a special trip out here just to see what was going on.’
‘That’s right.’ Now that she wasn’t moving it was much colder than she had thought. Bitterly cold, in fact.
‘I didn’t see a car out front.’
‘I came on my bike.’ She nodded briefly in the direction of the abandoned bicycle and fought down the urge to sprint over to it, jump on and cycle away from the house as fast as she could pedal.
‘Cold out here.’ He looked around him, enjoying, she thought sourly, every moment of her discomfort. The breeze obligingly picked up, gusting through the empty branches of the trees and making the shrubbery rattle against the side of the house. ‘Why don’t you come inside? Then you can see exactly what I’m doing to the place and you can put your curiosity to rest.’
‘I’m not that curious, thank you.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. What is your problem?’
‘I don’t have a problem, and it’s too cold to stand around here, arguing the point. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just hop on—’
‘Don’t be so bloody ridiculous,’ he cut in impatiently. ‘Everyone’s curious about what I’m doing to the place. It’s only natural, and if you can’t admit that you are as well then you’re a damned hypocrite.’
Sophie’s mouth fell open. ‘Just who do you think you are?’ she finally demanded, in a high voice.
‘The owner of this property and someone who is fairly intolerant of stupidly stubborn women who are afraid of saying what they’re thinking.’
Sophie looked at him, speechless. ‘You may see fit, Mr Wallace, to address the women in your life like that, but let me tell you—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. This is the second time I’ve ever met you and I’m fast beginning to think that you are the most infuriating woman on the face of the earth. Now why don’t you just climb down off your high horse, escape the wind out here for a minute and come inside. You’re quite safe with me. There are dozens of workmen in the house.’ He glanced at her and his look was enough to tell her that even if his house had been completely empty of all signs of life she would still have been eminently safe with him.
She had no reason to even remotely doubt his word. She knew what she looked like. More than that, she revelled in what she looked like. Her face was bare of all make-up, her hair a mass of curls and knots, her curves well shielded in a long skirt, woollen tights, ankle-length, lace-up boots and two baggy jumpers under which nestled, even less erotically, a thermal vest and a T-shirt. The fingerless gloves were the final touch.
‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ Sophie said, because refusing now seemed childish.
‘If it was too much trouble,’ he said, leaning slightly towards her, ‘I wouldn’t have asked, would I?’
Sophie shrugged and looked away towards the gardens, wondering whether he had any plans for those as well. Perhaps a few fountains here and there, the odd statue sticking out from behind some plants. Who knew what the man’s tastes were?
She would be interested in seeing what he was doing to the house, though. She had been inside several times and had always been vaguely depressed at the gradual decline.
Wouldn’t Kat give her eye teeth for this? she thought with a sudden smile. Personal escort by the Big Man himself.
‘You’re smiling,’ Gregory said from next to her, and she suddenly realised that he had been observing her, which made her feel like a bug under a microscope. ‘I wondered whether you could.’
‘What exactly is that supposed to mean, Mr Wallace?’
‘Do you think we might dispense with the formalities?’ They began to walk around the side of the house, where builders were working in a manner never before seen by Sophie. Quite a few were local men, and she recognised them and nodded. One she stopped and spoke to.
‘James, can I ask how come you never seemed to work this hard for me when you were doing my kitchen?’ She smiled broadly and secured her hair with her hand. He was her age, married with four children and had gone to school with her a lifetime ago.
‘You would keep offering me cups of tea. Earl Grey is a killer on my concentration.’ They laughed.
‘How’s Claire and the children?’
‘Have four kids and you won’t need to ask that question.’ That made them laugh again.
‘You were lying about that gene pool,’ Gregory said, as they moved into the house.
‘What are you talking about now?’
‘You can relax. Which means it must just be me.’ He stood in the doorway and looked around him, his sharp eyes missing nothing.
Sophie
