Rose instantly felt like a charity case and gripped the door knob a little harder.
‘I was in the area.’
‘Really? I wouldn’t have thought that this would be the sort of area you would just happen to be passing through.’
‘Stop arguing, Rose, and open the door.’ Getting fed up with her non-argument, he pushed the door and strode in, not leaving her the option of slamming it in his face.
Nick, for the first time in years practising celibacy, was aware of the shameful truth, which was that he had been thinking on and off about her for the past few weeks. His life had been as busy and hectic as ever, his work taking him abroad, as it always did, on a regular basis, but every so often he had caught himself conjuring up her face and wondering what she was up to.
Gentle prodding had eventually elicited from Lily something he could respond to. Rose, Lily had told him in all confidence, had not sounded herself when they had last spoken on the phone. She had said all the right things, that everything was fine, but she had sounded anxious.
Nick had reacted like a man who suddenly discovered the site of an itch and realised that he could reach to scratch it. Sitting on his leather swivel chair, feet carelessly propped up on his gleaming, mahogany desk, he had immediately and piously promised to look in on her.
‘You wouldn’t want to have filming ruined because you’re worried about what’s going on over here,’ he had soothed. His prospect of a weekend of solid work, interrupted only by a stuffy Saturday night do, which he had reluctantly agreed to purely for diplomatic reasons, suddenly brightened considerably.
He wasn’t entirely sure why he could be bothered to hunt down a woman who rubbed him up the wrong way, but when it came to members of the opposite sex he rarely questioned his responses, safe in the knowledge that his gut feelings had rarely, if ever, let him down. Granted his gut feelings were usually wrapped up in the normal, testosterone-driven desires for a sexual relationship, but the fact that Rose was out of the ordinary in that respect didn’t put him off. She had been on his mind, for whatever reason, and the fastest way to solve that problem would be to hunt her down. And Lily was a very handy go-between, giving him an excuse he might not otherwise have had.
‘What the hell is that banging all about?’
‘I told you. Repair work. Minor.’ Rose bristled at the sight of those fabulous eyes sweeping along the banister, up to where a fine shimmer of dust obscured the small upstairs corridor. She wondered what her sister had said to him. God, what if she had begged Nick to check up on her? Lily would have thought nothing of asking such a favour because, in her eyes, Nick wasn’t a shark but some innocuous little minnow, someone who would be happy to do her a small favour. In Lily’s world, everyone was potentially sweet and good because she herself was.
Rose determined that as soon as her sister returned to England, she would personally teach her the ways of the world. Lily might have oodles more experience when it came to men, but her insight into human nature was sadly lacking.
‘Doesn’t sound minor.’
‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here. If Lily put you up to this, then there’s no need to be concerned.’
‘Even though your house is falling down?’
‘My house is not falling down!’
Nick had forgotten how easily the woman bristled. He had also forgotten how amusing he found the trait. It made a refreshing change from his normal interaction with women, which went along all the usual courses that inevitably led to bed. Bed and all its attendant complications, which he was determined to avoid, at least for a while.
‘Why don’t you get me a cup of coffee and tell me all about it? You look stressed.’
Rose gaped. Of course she was stressed. An army of plumbers was currently bankrupting her and now, on top of that, the last man on earth she wanted to see had waltzed through her front door, brimming over with tea and sympathy because her dear, well-intentioned and hopelessly misguided sister had asked him to. Who wouldn’t be stressed?
And on top of that, she was now embarrassingly aware of her clothes, which advertised someone who was in serious danger of imminent arrest by the fashion police.
While he, she noticed sourly, fashionably dressing down in faded jeans and a rugby sweater, still managed to look fantastic.
‘I’m more stressed now that you’ve shown up,’ Rose told him and Nick immediately jumped on the slip-up.
‘So you’re admitting you’re stressed out. Lily did say you didn’t sound your normal self when she spoke to you on the phone.’
Rose mentally strangled her sister. ‘Hence you were coerced into rushing over here just to make sure I wasn’t about to jump off the nearest bridge.’