The Billionaire's Convenient Bride. Liz Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ Kam was a man, the scent still masculine but more sophisticated. Leather, good soap and something unfamiliar that stirred the butterflies back into life, sending a frisson of awareness across her skin.

      She gave herself a mental shake. It was all memory, it wasn’t real...

      ‘I’m going to check the bluebell woods,’ she said, briskly. ‘Why don’t you join me?’

      ‘It’s a bit early if you’re hoping for a rush of visitors to pay for a new boiler.’

      ‘It would take more than a rush,’ she said. ‘It would take an invasion.’

      She risked a glance at him but he was looking out over the woods, his jaw set, his mouth a straight line. Whatever he was remembering it wasn’t a recollection that brought him joy.

      If that was how he felt, there was no point in putting it off until lunch. He might as well know the situation right now so that he could leave.

      She cleared her throat and he turned to look at her. ‘You wanted to say something?’

      ‘Only that if you’ve come hoping to claim compensation from the estate for your mother, Kam, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.’

      His face remained stony, only the barest tightening of jaw muscles suggesting that she’d hit a nerve.

      ‘We’ll talk about why I’m here over lunch, Agnès.’

      Then he looked at her and the butterflies stilled as she felt all his pent-up anger coming at her in waves. She didn’t flinch. Years of living with her grandfather’s temper had taught her to stand her ground and she was simply being honest with him.

      ‘Why wait?’ Whatever was on his mind would be easier said in the quiet of the woods than over dull food in the Orangery. ‘If you come with me now you could at least avoid a mediocre lunch. You might even spot a badger.’

      Something flickered in those dark eyes as he glanced away towards the woods. But then his head snapped round so that he was looking straight ahead.

      ‘I have to meet someone.’

      Who? Where?

      ‘Maybe later,’ she said, as Dora tugged impatiently at the lead. ‘If you’re staying that long.’

      ‘I’m staying,’ he said, turning to look down at her, eyes dark as pitch, his expression unreadable. ‘I’m back for good.’

      Before she could answer, could begin to think what that might mean, he stepped down onto the drive. There was a dark blue sports car parked casually alongside the front door that hadn’t been there earlier and could only be his but he strode past it and headed down the drive.

      Agnès stared after him, remembering the jaunty walk, the cheeky smile of the boy she’d grown up with, the teenage Kam. There was nothing of that in Kam Faulkner’s expression or in his determined stride, straight back and broad shoulders.

      She wasn’t sure she liked the man who’d returned but swallowed down a sense of loss. He owed her no smile. The debt was all on one side, but she’d have to wait to find out what he wanted from her.

      Money?

      His car must have cost telephone numbers and the way he’d ignored the guest car park and left it at the door, as if he owned the place, spoke volumes. He’d booked the most expensive suite in the hotel, her grandfather’s old room, and the clothes he was wearing hadn’t come from a chain store.

      This wasn’t a man looking for a few thousand pounds for his mother.

      Maybe it was simply about returning to the scene of his banishment to show them all that the boy her grandfather had branded a half-Arab bastard had done more than survive. A lot more.

      And she was glad. Truly.

      That he was back for good, though, disturbed her.

      Was he planning to buy one of those expensive places with river frontage, a boathouse, fishing rights? Rub all their noses in his success?

      Everyone knew what had happened back then—you couldn’t keep gossip like that quiet in a small town.

      Would people remember, stop what they were saying when she went into the post office?

      Did he still play the guitar?

      The thought slipped into her mind without warning, a melancholy minor chord rippling through the woods at night as fresh in her memory as if she were leaning out of her bedroom window to catch the sound.

      Dora’s paws jiggled up and down in her eagerness to chase down the scents reaching her from the wood.

      ‘Patience,’ Agnès said, glancing back as she finally headed for the trees, but her disturbing visitor had vanished beyond the curve in the drive.

      Where was he going? There was nowhere down the lane... Except his old home.

      It had been empty for years. She’d suggested that her grandfather do it up as a holiday let to help with the running costs of the estate.

      Fat chance.

      Her grandfather had never listened to women and by the time he’d died there had been no money.

      No money to fix the boiler, repair the roof, replace the guttering which, as the castle was listed, would have to be specially made to match the existing elaborate hoppers. No money to flip the cottage so that they could turn it into a holiday let...

      She’d drawn up a five-year plan but it had ground to a halt. It was definitely time to look reality in the face and the woods had always been her favourite place to think.

      Sunlight was filtering through the fresh green of the canopy but there was barely a hint of blue to lift her spirits and, as she took the path leading down to a clearing where the first bluebells would open, her footsteps beat out the word trapped, trapped, trapped...

      * * *

      Kam strode down the lane, oddly unsettled by his exchanges with Agnès. Her face, that last image of her, had been imprinted like a photograph on the hard drive of his memory.

      In his head he’d known that she would be older, known exactly what kind of trouble she was in and yet the reality had been a shock.

      In the few seconds when he’d watched her, before she’d known he was there, he’d seen the woman she had become. Her dark hair was still long and thick, tied back to keep it from her face.

      Her voice was a little deeper, her shoulders wider, her neck still long.

      But then she’d turned around to see who had invaded her privacy and he’d seen the dark shadows beneath eyes the exact grey of an osprey’s feather lit by sunlight, the strain of constantly flirting with the edge of disaster as she attempted to keep Priddy Castle ticking over.

      The heat of embarrassment at being overheard begging.

      In the millisecond of shock as she’d realised who he was, before the shutters had come down and she’d retreated behind the СКАЧАТЬ