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
