Читать книгу A Love Untamed - Karen Van Der Zee - Страница 9

LIVIA’S heart was pounding. He was not a man who suffered defiance, but she’d be damned if she’d let him intimidate her. ’there’s nothing to talk about. This is my house and I want you out.’ She went on rolling up the heavy, awkward carpeting. Dust motes floated in the sunlight streaking through the window.

Clint Bracamonte reached out, took her arms and pulled her to her feet. ‘I said, let’s talk,’ he said quietly.

Her reaction was automatic. A couple of swift moves and she was free of his grip. ‘Keep your hands off me,’ she said coldly.

He laughed. ’that was very impressive, I have to admit.’

His reaction infuriated her. How dared he be amused? ‘Next time you won’t laugh. You’ll hurt.’

He nodded solemnly, but a spark of humour glinted in his eyes. ‘I’ll keep that in mind. Karate and gypsy spells. You’re a dangerous woman.’

She gave him a withering look which seemed to have no effect on him at all. Not that she really had any hope of affecting him; he didn’t look like a man who’d feel threatened by anything, and certainly not by a lightweight female.

He pushed his hands into his pockets. ‘Now, I have a proposition to make,’ he said casually.

‘I’m not interested in your propositions.’

‘I made some enquiries,’ he went on, unperturbed. ‘And you’re right, you bought the house, and it’s yours.’

She inclined her head in mockery. ’thank you,’ she said, pseudo-polite. ‘I understand you are the recipient of the money from the sale.’

‘Correct. Unbeknownst to me, my grandmother had made a new will. Apparently she thought I’d rather have the money than be burdened with the house.’

‘Good. Then it’s all cleared up.’

‘No, it’s not. My grandmother thought wrong. I do want the house. So this is what we’ll do. I’ll buy the house back from you and give you a five-per-cent profit.’

She laughed. She simply couldn’t help it. The audacity of the man was amazing. Did he think he could tell her what to do? Did he think that she would let this opportunity be taken from her just like that? She met his eyes unflinchingly. ‘No, sir, this is not what we will do. I bought the house because I wanted it.’

‘I’ll give you a ten-per-cent profit,’ he said calmly.

‘No.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want this house. It’s a beautiful old house and I’m going to fix it up and make it even more wonderful. I’m going to make it a masterpiece of renovation,’ she said loftily. ’then I’ll sell it for every penny it’s worth to someone who’ll recognise the value of it. That’s the business I’m in. That’s what I do for a living.’ And she was very, very good at it. She had an eye for what would work, and what would not, and a brother who was an architect.

House renovation hadn’t exactly been the career she’d dreamed of since she was five. She’d wanted to be a ballerina then. She’d fallen into the remodelling business by coincidence, helping out a friend of her mother’s restore a trashed townhouse in Georgetown, a yuppie Washington DC neighbourhood. I can do this, too, she’d thought, and with a loan from her father she’d done just that. She’d made a huge profit. She’d paid off the loan and bought another house, repeating the process.

Now, six years later, she was making a respectable living, which was very nice because she loved to travel, which she did in between projects. She loved travelling even more than remodelling houses, which was a lot of fun. Having a job you loved doing was a great blessing, and she was well aware of it. She loved counting her blessings, which were many.

Clint was not happy with her reply. His jaw worked. ‘I don’t want it renovated,’ he said tightly.

’that’s too bad, because it’s not for you to decide.’ She couldn’t help feeling a nasty little twinge of triumph. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. ‘Besides, it’s stupid not to fix this house up. Have you seen the electricial wiring? It’s ancient! It’s a fire hazard! And the plumbing is medieval.’ She was beginning to like this man less and less. Which was not promising because she had liked him not at all to start with. He was arrogant and presumptuous and condescending.

He was also dangerously handsome and sexy.

All in all, a toxic mixture and not one that was easily dealt with. There was an innate sexuality about him that was hard to miss. It was nothing he did or said in particular. It was just there, an aura, something radiating from him, something that affected her more than she was willing to admit. It seemed so primal that it frightened her a little. After all, she was not the kind of woman who let herself be swept away just by a good body and a handsome face. She wanted more, a whole lot more.

He was observing her with an infuriating glint in his eyes. ’there’s more to you than meets the eye, is there?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said coldly. ‘I’ve never had a first impression of myself.’

His mouth curved in amusement and for a moment, a long, endless moment, their eyes were locked in a wordless sizing up of each other, a recognition of each other, an acknowledgement. Her body grew warm, her pulse throbbed and knees began to tremble. It was hard to breathe. It was terrifying. He hadn’t even touched her. She broke her gaze away. She wanted to run away, out of that room with its dangerous vibrations, but she fought the impulse.

‘If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.’ She heard the nervous quiver in her voice and prayed he wouldn’t notice.

Before she’d gone down on her knees again, he’d bent down and without a word rolled up the last strip of heavy carpeting and slung it over his shoulder as if it were nothing more than a wet towel.

‘In the skip?’ he enquired.

‘Yes.’ She watched him go, thrown completely off balance. She didn’t like the feeling. One moment he was insufferably autocratic, the next he made a helpful gesture like this—helping her do the very thing he was angry at her for doing. Through the window she saw him toss the carpeting effortlessly into the skip. He had dropped the subject of buying the house. He had not insisted, or made threats. However, she was not deluding herself in thinking the issue was dismissed and the discussion over. Clint Bracamonte was not a man who gave up.

He strode up to his car and opened the back, taking out two paper grocery bags. He put them down in the kitchen, then washed his hands before taking out the contents.

Strawberries, asparagus, sirloin steak, French bread, and double cream, butter, mushrooms, onions, the makings for a salad, and a small selection of French cheeses. A bottle of red wine with an impressive label joined the luscious foodstuffs on the counter.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she asked.

He smiled at her, a true blue Boy Scout smile that threw her even more off-balance. ‘I’m inviting you to dinner,’ he said, ’to repay you for your hospitality.’

She was lost for words.

What could she possibly say? Get out of my house and take your steak and strawberries with you? She’d be nuts. She’d worked like a horse all day, surviving on a breakfast burrito, a peanut butter sandwich and a couple of chocolate bars. She was famished. She stared longingly at the food he’d taken out of the bag. Why eat chicken soup and crackers if she could dine on steak, asparagus and strawberries and cream? And wine, too.

He studied her face, waiting for an answer. ’so, what do you say? It looks to me as if you could use a good meal.’ His voice was even. ‘You put in quite a day’s work.’

So she had. She straightened. ‘I’d love a good meal.’ It was the truth, and she wasn’t in the habit of lying. Also, it was difficult to resist him. She had to admit it. Besides, there was no harm in a meal together, was there?

‘Excellent.’ He reached in a drawer, found a corkscrew and opened the bottle. ‘How about a glass before dinner? Or are you a purist and want your wine to breathe first?’

‘I’m a purist only when it’s convenient. I’d like a glass now.’

Wine in hand, she left the kitchen, allowing him the freedom to do his cooking all by himself. She wasn’t much of a cook herself. It simply wasn’t one of her talents. However, she did like eating good food. Eating in nice restaurants worked very well, or at her mother’s house. Her mother did like cooking. Only her mother, as well as her father, were not presently in the neighbourhood. The government had sent them to Stockholm, Sweden.

Livia went into the living-room and started emptying drawers and packing more boxes, sipping wine. A vague, uneasy feeling stirred inside her. She pushed it back. Nonsense. No reason to feel this way. No obligation, no duty. The house was hers. Everything in it was hers. She’d bought it fair and square with her own money.

Yet the little fairy inside her was not happy.

When she was little, her mother had explained about that little voice inside her that sometimes bothered her when she’d done something wrong. It belonged to her personal little fairy of virtue that lived in her heart. The fairy loved her very much. The fairy told her what was right and wrong. As a little girl she had imagined the little fairy with small fluttering wings of gossamer silk, and a tiny candle in her delicate little hands, a candle to guide her on the right path.

As she was packing the boxes, the fairy fluttered nervously. Livia told the fairy to go for a nice long walk. The fairy did not oblige. Livia kept on packing. Ashtrays, doilies, chipped vases, a stained tea cosy, a box of buttons, a worn-out Scrabble game, a soft baby toy. She smiled as she looked at the brightly coloured cloth ball. Someone must have left it here. She tossed it into the box.

Her hands were dry from all the dust and all the washing she’d been doing. This wasn’t the sort of job that was compatible with soft hands and lovely, long nails, polished burnished copper or honey rose.

Clint called her less than an hour later. By then she was practically passing out from hunger. The table had been set. He’d even found a white tablecloth and candles. They were baby-blue and sat in crystal candlesticks. She liked the candlesticks. She was going to keep them for herself.

‘My grandmother loved these candlesticks,’ he said. ’she’d brought them with her from Poland when she and my grandfather emigrated. They were a wedding gift.’

Oh, great. Now she was going to have to feel guilty. No, she was already feeling guilty. Inside her the little fairy was practically screaming.

‘You can have them,’ she heard herself say. Guilt was a nasty emotion and not one she intended to cultivate.

‘I’ll buy them from you.’

Their eyes met. ‘I can’t have you buy back your own grandmother’s favourite candlesticks,’ she said. ‘Just take them.’

‘All that businesslike behaviour covers up a soft heart, doesn’t it?’ he said with a crooked smile.

‘Oh, please, spare me,’ she said derisively and concentrated on her food, which was delicious. She wanted to ask him who he was, what he was. But something inside her kept her from asking. The less she knew, the better it was. She already knew about a Polish grandmother and wedding-gift candlesticks. She wanted him out of her way. If he didn’t like her carting out all the old furniture, what was he going to say when the contractor arrived and some of the walls were going to come down?

‘What were you doing in the rainforest?’ she heard herself ask. She couldn’t help herself. She wanted to know. ‘Catching tropical birds and smuggling them out? Cutting down the trees for tooth-pick companies?’

He raised his brows. ’do you always think so well of people, or is it just me?’

She gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look. ‘Just a few wild guesses, that’s all.’ She smiled. ‘May I assume you’re doing something more honourable?’

‘I’m involved in a research project. I study the interaction between the indigenous people and their rainforest environment.’

‘Ah, a scientist.’

‘I’m an ecological anthropologist.’

It sounded very impressive. She was impressed. ’do you live with the people you’re studying?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘I live in a traditional longhouse village.’

‘Live? Are you going back?’

‘Yes.’ He was on home leave for two months, he said, working for the University of Virginia, giving lectures and interviews in various places. After that he would go back to Kalimantan. He gave her this information in short, crisp sentences.

‘Why do you want this house, then? You’re not going to live here anyway.’

He gave her a dark, inscrutable look. ‘For starters, I intended to live here for the next couple of months while I’m in the country. And more importantly, this was my grandmother’s house and the place I call home.’

The place I call home. Had he no family, then? No parents? The guilt stirred some more and again she forced it down. ‘I see,’ she said, cutting a piece of steak. ‘Obviously your grandmother had other ideas.’

His jaw tightened and he did not respond. For a while they ate in tense silence.

‘What are your plans for this house?’ he asked then. His voice was coolly casual.

She swallowed a piece of steak. ‘I told you. I’m going to renovate it, then sell it.’

‘What sort of renovation do you have in mind?’

She didn’t want to discuss it. Yet he was not being unreasonable asking these questions. Anyone coming to the house could conceivably be interested in what she intended to do. It was not exactly a terribly sensitive, private, personal thing. Only it was. She glanced at her plate.

‘I’m going to add another bathroom upstairs and modernise the two existing ones and put in a whirlpool bath. The kitchen is going to be overhauled.’ There was more. Walls were going to come down, a sunroom added. She didn’t tell him.

‘Are you an architect?’

‘No. I’m good with hammer and saw and paint.’

He studied her face. ’there’s a whole lot more to it than that.’

So there was. ‘I know what I’m doing. I’ve done it plenty of times before.’

‘Ah, a handywoman.’ He poured more wine. She kept looking at his hands, which aroused disturbing images in her mind.

If she weren’t feeling so off-balance, it would be very pleasant, actually, sitting here in such a civilised fashion eating a wonderful meal, fixed by a man. The man she married would have to be willing and able to cook. This was one of the prerequisites, if not the most important one. Most important was, of course, his eternal devotion.

He buttered a piece of bread. ‘Are you going to have contractors, plumbers, electricians, workmen around here?’

‘Yes. All the wiring is going to be replaced and most of the plumbing.’

‘And you’re dealing with these men on your own?’

She raised a quizzical brow. ‘Yes, I am.’ And she was very good, too. Growing up with four brothers was good for many things. ‘Is there a problem with that?’

‘I imagine there could be many. Many men are not comfortable taking orders from women, especially not if they perceive their manly domain invaded.’

She nodded. ‘Men with shaky egos, yes, I’ve noticed. You have to know how to handle them.’

His mouth quirked. ‘And you do?’

‘I’m an expert.’

Humour sparked in his eyes. ‘No pushover, are you?’

‘I grew up with four brothers. I learned to hold my own.’ Unfortunately she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold her own with this man.

His eyes narrowed, scrutinising her, assessing her, and she felt again that odd reaction—the warmth, that hypnotic feeling of not being in control. His black eyes seemed to look straight inside her very soul.

She didn’t want anybody looking into her soul uninvited, and certainly not this man. She got up from the table. ’thank you for a delicious dinner,’ she said nicely. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to go back to work.’

She hoped he would leave now. Put his things in his car and go. A while later she heard strange sounds coming from outside and looked out of the window. Clint was standing on a ladder, sawing a big dead limb off one of the old oaks. Transfixed, she watched the movement of his body, noticing the effortless control he had over it. Powerful arms, a strong back straining under his shirt. The sound of the limb crashing to the ground startled her out of her trance. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

She stayed out of his way for the rest of the evening, knowing he wasn’t leaving, not knowing what to do about it. She slept restlessly, aware of his presence down the hall, seeing in her mind the intent look in his black eyes, feeling apprehension shiver through her body.

The next morning he was gone by the time she came downstairs, but when she looked in his room his things were still there. He hadn’t given up.

Well, she hadn’t expected him to, had she?

She was angry and relieved at the same time.

* * *

‘I thought I’d come along and see if I could help,’ said Sara. ‘My mom’s babysitting the kids.’ Sara had short red hair, lots of freckles and a big smiling mouth. She was Jack’s wife and Livia loved her. The two of them had arrived around ten that morning and Jack had brought the blueprints for the remodelling work.

Livia and Jack had had the opportunity to tour the house on several occasions before the sale was finalised so they’d been able to plot and plan and take measurements ahead of time.

Jack was moving through the house, blueprints in hand, double-checking everything, while Livia was in the kitchen with Sara making coffee.

‘I can use all the help I can get,’ said Livia. ‘I’ve sorted through everything downstairs, and now I have to do the upstairs bedrooms yet. All those drawers and wardrobes…I’ll never buy a furnished house again!’

‘You mentioned something about the attic,’ Sara said. ‘And I dreamed about it, can you believe it?’

Livia took out three coffee-mugs and spooned coffee crystals into them. ‘With you, I believe anything. So what did you dream?’

’that we found a huge box of valuable antique jewellery.’

Livia laughed. ’they took her personal belongings out of the house, Sara. Her papers, jewellery, that sort of thing.’

‘Maybe they didn’t look in the attic. I can’t wait to get up there and see what treasures are hidden there. Maybe a long-lost Van Gogh painting! Or maybe a Picasso! Just imagine! You’ll be rich!’

Livia laughed and poured hot water into the mugs. ‘Oh, be quiet, Sara! You read too many hidden treasure stories to your children. It’s gone to your head.’ Sara and Jack had two little girls and Sara loved reading to them.

‘Well, it could happen, couldn’t it? You hear about that sort of thing sometimes. This coffee is awful. Is it instant?’

‘You were sitting here watching me make it. Of course it’s instant.’

’so tell me about this guy.’

Livia told her about Clint Bracamonte. It felt good to be able to talk to somebody.

‘Wow,’ said Sara. ‘Where is he going to live for the next couple of months?’

It wasn’t what she’d expected Sara to say. ‘I don’t know. I don’t care.’

Sara frowned, looking like a worried mother. ‘You can’t rent anything that short-term, you know. It’s almost impossible. And he’ll need a furnished place.’

‘It’s not my problem,’ Livia said tightly.

‘No, I know, I’m just thinking. He’s in quite a bind.’

‘I’m not responsible for his problems!’

Sara raised her brows. ‘I didn’t say that, but it must be quite a surprise to come back from overseas and find your home sold out from under you. No place to go. No bed to sleep in.’

‘Oh, please, don’t be melodramatic!’

Sara grinned. ‘But I’m so good at it! How does it feel to have added to the homelessness statistic?’

Livia glared at her. ’the man has a ton of money in the bank, which, for all practical purposes, I put there personally. Don’t ask me to feel sorry for him.’

Toys. A box of toy racing cars, a plastic bucket of Lego blocks, adventure books.

’these must be his,’ Sara said, rummaging through the trunk.

‘I suppose so.’ Livia felt something pressing on her breastbone. She did not want to think of the big, rugged man as a little boy. A little boy playing with Lego blocks. A little boy visiting his grandmother in this house.

They’d crawled up a rickety pull-down ladder into the attic, fighting cobwebs and dust. Sara simply had to see what riches lay hidden in the dark there, and her enthusiasm had been contagious. A single small light bulb hung suspended from a wire, spreading a vague, dull light. Several pieces of old furniture, none of them precious antiques, languished in the dusty darkness. No paintings, famous or otherwise, revealed themselves. Instead of treasures, they found boxes and trunks full of old clothes and trinkets and draperies, and now they’d opened one full of toys. The trunk was newer than the others, just a cheap storage locker students took to college to keep their possessions in.

Sara kept pulling things out—a heap of typical boy toys lay spread out in front of them.

‘Liv, look! A train set!’ Sara said. ‘It has everything! Mountains and tunnels and everything.’ She looked up at Livia. ’this is worth money. What are you going to do with it?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said tonelessly.

‘You can’t sell it, Liv. You’ll have to give it back to him.’

‘Yes.’

At every turn she was reminded how much the house belonged to him. His past was here. His memories. His damned toys!

* * *

Mrs Fletcher, the estate agent, drove up the drive in her big shiny car as Jack and Sara were leaving late that afternoon. The attic was empty. Tired of sorting odds and ends, Sara and Livia had stripped the dining-room of five layers of wallpaper. Jack had made himself useful by cleaning out the gutters and digging up a giant dead rhododendron bush. After that they’d all carried the good pieces of furniture down to the basement and covered them up for safe keeping. Livia was exhausted.

‘I have some interesting news for you!’ Mrs Fletcher said with a bright estate-agent smile. ‘I have someone who’s interested in the house and wants to make a deal.’

Alarms went off in her head. ‘Let me guess,’ she said calmly. ‘His name’s Clint Bracamonte.’

Mrs Fletcher nodded. ‘Yes. He mentioned you were not interested in selling the house back to him as is.’

’that’s right.’ She wondered if Mrs Fletcher blamed her, but she heard no censure in her tone. She imagined him going to his lawyer, trying to find a way to get the house back. She wondered what he might have said about her. She sighed. ‘Come on in and I’ll make us some coffee.’

Mrs Fletcher followed her in. ‘I told him he’d be nuts to want it back the way it was because it needs work and he’d end up having to deal with too many repairs and other upkeep problems anyway and who’s going to deal with it once he’s left the country again? The place is going to fall apart.’

They sat on the back porch, the fragrance of lilacs strong and sweet around them.

‘What Mr Bracamonte suggested,’ said Mrs Fletcher after Livia had brought out two cups of coffee, ‘was an option to buy. He was willing to plunk down ten grand for that. Cash. I didn’t think you’d go for it, though having ten thousand dollars as working capital must be a temptation.’ She gave Livia a questioning look.

Livia nodded. ’sure it is, but I don’t want to sell an option. It means we have to set a sale price now and I don’t feel I can do that reasonably yet. So much depends on the way the various jobs will go and how it all turns out. It’ s hard to tell what will happen.’

Mrs Fletcher nodded, stirring three spoons of sugar in her coffee. ’that’s what I thought. And besides, with an option in his pocket, he’s going to want his finger in the pie, making sure things are done a certain way. He’s going to want to know what colour paint you’re going to use and what quality tile in the bathroom and the kind of doorknobs on your doors, and so forth. Somehow I don’t think you’ll be able to work under those kind of conditions.’

Not in a hundred years. ‘Right.’ She would lose interest in the work very quickly. ‘I want to do the job my way.’ She liked her work. It was a real challenge to make the very best out of the house. And this house was special. She didn’t want any interference.

‘I made another suggestion,’ said Mrs Fletcher. ‘I told him he could offer to buy the right of first refusal. A thousand dollars is about standard.’

The right of first refusal. This meant that once the house was finished, she’d have to offer it to him before she put it on the market. Was there any reason not to?

Was there any reason why she shouldn’t sell him the house once it was finished? After all, it didn’t matter who bought the house.

‘A thousand dollars is a thousand dollars,’ said Mrs Fletcher practically. ‘And you’ll be free to determine the price the market will bear once it’s finished and you won’t be obliged to discuss any of the work with him. You’ll be a free agent.’

‘All right, you get the contract ready and I’ll have a look at it.’

After Mrs Fletcher had left, Livia made herself some soup and crackers and went back to work. She put the train set and the other toys in the room Clint had slept in. She stared at his duffel bag, her stomach churning. She wanted him gone. Maybe signing a contract would get him out of the house.

It’s the place I call home…

Just imagine coming home and finding your house has been sold out from under you…

Damn, damn! She hated feeling this way. As if she owed him something. As if she was guilty of something.

She lay awake for a long time that night, listening for his car, but it never came. Finally she fell into an exhausted sleep.

The next day she emptied one more bedroom and took up what seemed like miles of carpeting, listening all the time for his car, feeling nervous and jittery and hating herself for it.

Clint came back just after eight that evening. From the living-room window she saw him climb out of his car and her heart turned over. He looked like a different man. He wore new clothes—stone-coloured cotton trousers, navy jacket, a shirt and tie. His shoes gleamed with newness. His hair had been cut. Everything about him was crisp and streamlined—an image of professional confidence and authority. He even carried a leather briefcase. Very impressive.

She wasn’t too impressive herself in her dirty jeans and T-shirt, but that was the way it went. She slipped back to the kitchen, feeling a breathless sense of trepidation. What would he think when he saw the house, which was now basically empty apart from his bedroom and one small room on the third floor?

‘Hello, Livia.’

‘Hi.’ She felt tense all over. Brittle. Angry. ’the door has a bell,’ she said coolly. ‘Please use it.’

He ignored it, put the briefcase on the kitchen table and opened it. He extracted some papers. ‘I have something for you to look at.’

She glanced at the papers. It wasn’t difficult to see what it was. A contract for the right of first refusal.

‘I understand Mrs Fletcher was here to discuss this with you yesterday afternoon.’

‘Yes.’ She glanced quickly over the paper. Then her eyes stopped. He intended to pay two thousand dollars. Cash, non-refundable. It was way more than the average fee. It was a very generous offer.

Her stomach churned. There was no reasonable way to refuse this deal. It was excellent business on her part to accept it. It would give her valuable cash upfront while she was doing all the work. And she was free to do what she wanted with the house.

But would she be? She bit her lip.

‘Is something wrong?’

‘No.’ She swallowed. ‘You’re willing to pay a high fee.’

‘I want to make sure you have no reason to refuse,’ he said evenly.

She didn’t. Not any reason that would make sense. Only reasons for which she had no words. Feelings, fears, apprehensions. And the damned little fairy jumping up and down inside her.

She collected herself. This was absurd. It was nothing more than a standard business agreement and the price was right. More than right. She sat down and began to read more carefully, making sure all was in order.

All was. It was a simple agreement, wrapped in legalistic jargon with which she was quite familiar by now.

’do we have a deal?’ He was still standing, looming over her, tall and commanding.

She met his eyes. ‘It would be unreasonable to refuse it, wouldn’t it?’

He gave a crooked smile. ‘Yes, it would be,’ he said quietly. There was something else in his voice, something beyond the calm tone. Anxiety plucked at her insides.

‘And if I want to be unreasonable?’ she asked.

He leaned towards her, bracing his hands on the table, his face close to hers. ’then so will I.’ There was a devilish gleam in his black eyes. ‘I will haunt you, sweet Olivia. One way or another I will own this house again, don’t doubt it for a moment.’

She didn’t. Once she was done with it it would be up for sale. Anybody with money could buy it. She shrugged. ‘I don’t doubt it.’ He was so close that she could smell the warm male scent of him. It had a disastrous effect on her heart rate.

He straightened, and tapped the document with a brown finger. ‘You sign this and I’ll get my things and be gone.’ Pushing his jacket back, he slipped his hands in his trouser pockets and observed her calmly, waiting for a reply.