November Harlequin Presents 2(191)

Do not feed the animals. Staring into her rather bleak pantry, Lily managed a wry smile—she couldn’t if she wanted to.

Taking a deep, calming breath, Lily headed back to the lounge, but any attempt at composure vanished as she saw Hunter sitting on the sofa, calmly reading her financial papers and barely looking up as he offered his unwelcome opinion.

‘You can’t afford it.’

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Shaking with rage, Lily just managed to put the drinks down with out spilling them before ripping the papers out of his hand. ‘You don’t read people’s private documents!’

‘Why not?’ Hunter shrugged, completely unperturbed by her fury. ‘There’s no quicker way to get to know someone. Tell me, Lily, why on earth would you want to take on such a massive mortgage?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘On the contrary—money is my business.’

‘Oh, that’s right,’ Lily flared, ‘because you work on the stock market, because you’re featured in some magazines and appeared on television, you think you’re entitled to poke your nose into everyone’s private affairs?’

‘I don’t work on the stock market—I work the stock market,’ Hunter corrected calmly, an utter contrast to Lily’s trembling rage. ‘More often than not to my advantage. People pay a lot of money for my opinion and I’m giving it to you free—I’d listen, if I were you.’

‘I don’t have to listen,’ Lily bristled. ‘I already know that I can’t afford it—I already know that the banks are not going to lend me the money and that the house…’ Suddenly it all caught up with her, the tension of the past few weeks, the frustration of feeling so helpless all culminating into this moment, all her fears magnified as this impossible man forced her to confront what she already knew. Tears stung her eyes as she resumed talking, her words more to herself than Hunter as she admitted the unpalatable truth. ‘It’s going to have to be sold.’

‘Sold?’ Hunter frowned, staring again at the papers. ‘I thought you were looking to buy…Oh, I see.’ He flicked over a couple of pages. ‘This is your parents’ house.’

She was too exhausted to be angry as he shamelessly delved further into her documents, the anxiety that had propelled her in recent weeks utterly depleted now. Sitting on the sofa beside him, Lily took a sip of wine and leant back, closing her eyes as Hunter questioned her further.

‘My mother’s,’ Lily corrected him her voice a monotone. ‘My father died two years ago.’

‘So it’s solely in your mother’s name?’ Without even a murmur of acknowledgment to her loss, Hunter dealt with the facts. ‘Why do you want to buy it?’

‘Because my mother can’t afford it—she’s defaulted on her loan.’ Lily let out a long tense breath. ‘She was planning to turn it into a bed and breakfast in the hope of keeping it. She’s up in Queensland now, talking to her sister about coming in with her, but things have just started to snowball. I just found out that there’s going to be a mortgagee’s auction in two weeks and unless she comes up with the money…’

‘But if she can’t afford it, surely she’s better off downsizing,’ Hunter responded, his voice utterly void of emotion, just as the bank manager’s and the umpteen lenders she had dealt with over the past few weeks had been. For Lily it was the last straw.

‘Says who?’ Lily’s voice was shrill. ‘She’s lived in that house for thirty years, all of her memories are there—her life. Why should she lose it?’

‘Because she hasn’t got the money to keep it,’ Hunter said blandly, utterly unmoved by her emotive outburst. ‘Why does she owe so much if she’s been there so long?’ God, he was direct—no skirting around the edges, no gently feeling his way into a conversation. He was business personified. ‘Didn’t your father have insurance?’

‘They took out a new mortgage to pay for my father’s treatment and to spend his last year travelling.’

‘That was rather selfish!’ Hunter rolled his eyes. ‘Didn’t he realise the mess he’d be leaving for your mother?’ Lily’s mouth gaped open, stunned at what she was hearing, reeling that he would say such a thing, but Hunter stared coolly back. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought the same.’

‘Maybe…’ Lily blinked rapidly, feeling sick at her confession to a stranger. ‘Perhaps a bit, but you don’t know the circumstances, and you have no right—’