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COMPOSING emails to Lily was becoming a combination of subtlety and creative fiction.

After Lily had been abroad for three weeks, it had become clear to Rose that life in the fast lane was suiting her sister. She waxed lyrical about the movie she was making, devoted pages to telling her all about the fabulously talented Damien Hicks and the groovy, exciting people she was working with. The flat she was sharing with four other girls, all newcomers like herself, was cheap but apparently called a condo and had a swimming pool. The adjective amazing had become a staple word in her vocabulary. Everything was amazing from the movie to the people to life in general, and Rose was relieved and pleased that it was all working out for her sister.

Which, unfortunately, didn’t solve the financial problems that seemed to have been saving themselves for the minute Lily waved her fond goodbye to British soil.

The bathroom had sprung a leak, which, as the plumber had ominously told Rose, revealed all the makings of a dated system that could be patched up but would really need to be replaced at some point. Rose had opted for the patching-up job. Then the washing machine had collapsed, which had meant a new one. And now, sitting in the kitchen, she could see a damp patch on the ceiling, which didn’t augur well for the dated plumbing system or, for that matter, her rapidly depleting savings account.

Rose groaned. She wondered how she could phrase the words ‘need money’ so that her sister didn’t go into spasms of guilt and worry. Lily had already apologised for not being able to send any over, but she would just as soon as she could. At the moment, she was being paid enough to cover her rent and build a lifestyle that befitted an up-and-coming Hollywood actress, which left precious little for the crumbling house she had left behind.

Rose didn’t begrudge her a minute of the enjoyment she was having. Lily deserved it. But her single income was being tested to its limits and it was getting harder to keep writing her all ‘fine here’ emails when the roof was falling down.

Literally.

One week later, with the damp patch still making small inroads even though the bath was out of commission, she sat at her kitchen table to the sounds of plumbers banging upstairs and the horrible prospect of going to check on them so that she could find her floorboards up and her cool magnolia walls covered with dust. They had been at it for the past two days, putting in a new, updated system. She had not dared enquire as to the cost but the sight of the shiny new copper pipes had made her blood run cold.

Lily was, according to her email yesterday, heading off for two weeks to Arizona where some of the movie was being filmed. Rose knew that she had tried to de-glamorise the whole thing, but it wasn’t hard to read between the lines that she was bubbling over with excitement.

While I sit here, she thought glumly, like Chicken Little waiting for the sky to fall down. Everything else seemed to be.

The sound of the doorbell managed, just, to penetrate the sounds of the banging and Rose vaguely wondered what life had in store for her next. A kindly neighbour coming to tell her that her car had been vandalised? Maybe they had noticed a spot of terminal subsidence on an outside wall?

She pulled open the door, dressed in her very best dungarees, bedroom slippers and old jumper because dust and fine clothing just didn’t go hand in hand, and there he was. The man she had avoided mentioning in all the emails she had sent her sister, the man who kept popping into her head at all the wrong times, even though she had robustly told herself that she was well rid of him.

Her response to him, lounging indolently against the door frame, finger poised as if about to summon her again, was immediate and powerful. Her stomach constricted and her eyes widened, swiftly and unconsciously taking in his lean, muscular frame and those killer sea-green eyes that seemed to burn holes through her. She had to make a mental effort to gather herself together.

‘Hullo.’ Pause. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Still getting to the point, I see. What’s going on?’

‘What do you mean?’ She followed his curious glance behind her and shrugged. ‘Oh. The noise. Just a bit…of repair work.’

‘Are you going to invite me in?’

‘Has Lily told you to get in touch with me?’ She had been careful not to mention a word about her financial problems, but who knew? Maybe her sister had picked up on something and, innocent that she was, might have mentioned to Nick, Nick with the heart of gold who had done so much for her, that perhaps he could just pop his head round the door and make sure that Rose was okay.

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.’

‘That’s taking it too far.’ There was an almighty thump from the direction of the dust and Rose groaned, waiting for Andy’s voice to summon her up, probably to confront yet another unexpected problem. Like a routine trip to the dentist, which turned out to reveal a nightmare of hidden problems, her house was beginning to revel in showing its age. A little crack there, a small spot of damp here and suddenly it was as if it had given up the fight and was now determined to fall down around her ears. And as she mounted the stairs she could already see from the grim look on Andy’s face that more bad news was on the way.

‘Sorry, Rose.’

Behind her she was aware that Nick had followed in her hurried wake and she could sense his attention moving up a gear.

‘We’ve discovered something a little unfortunate…’

Rose was too afraid to ask, so she stared at him in mute silence while he shook his head and gave her a look of such profound sympathy that she feared the worst.

‘Asbestos.’

Rose saw the very last of her savings flutter through the window and she balled her hand into a fist and clenched it under her chin. ‘How can that be?’

‘Lodged under the floorboards,’ Andy said kindly. ‘Nothing to look at, but I can spot it a mile away. It’s not everywhere but for the moment we’re going to have to put everything back in place until it’s sorted. We’re not trained to remove it.’

‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me that you’re joking.’

‘Wish I could, love.’

‘And I guess you don’t know how much it’ll cost to have it removed?’

He shrugged while behind him his guys were efficiently putting the floorboards back down. ‘Best not lose sleep over that one, considering you’ve got no option…’

Rose saw them out and was too despondent to care whether Nick was hovering in the background with his uninvited sympathy. She didn’t even care that he had been dispatched to check on her as if she were incapable of looking after herself without Lily around.

‘So—’ she turned to face him, slamming the front door shut on her plumbing messengers of bad tidings ‘—there you go. House collapsing. Money disappearing. Stress levels high. In other words lots to report back to Lily, although I’m hoping you’ll dredge up sufficient compassion to know that I would rather she enjoyed all the opportunities opening up for her in America without having to worry about what’s happening to me back here.’

‘How long has this place been falling down?’

Rose shrugged. ‘Weeks. It’s been saving itself for Lily’s departure.’ She sighed, too tired and depressed to argue at his presence in the house, allowing him to witness her plight. She found that he was leading the way to the kitchen, manoeuvring around the cupboards until there was a mug of sweet tea in front of her, and she gratefully swallowed a mouthful.

‘And you never breathed a word to her because you didn’t want her to worry.’

‘There was no point. She would have rushed back over here and that would have been the end of her career, everything she has worked so hard for.’

‘So you decided to shoulder the stress on your own.’ He had shoved back his stool so that he could stretch out his long legs and was looking at her thoughtfully. ‘Except now you’re left facing bills you can’t afford.’

‘I’ll just have to put in a bit more overtime,’ Rose snapped, railing against any suggestion of pity.

‘Quite a bit more,’ Nick commented drily, raising his eyes to the ceiling and the source of her misfortune. Frankly he had zero firsthand experience of a woman who had to work literally to keep the roof over her head.

‘Yes, well, it’s not impossible.’ She stared at him sourly and with inspired accuracy continued, in a tight voice, ‘I guess this is a completely different world to the one you’re used to, where problems get fixed with the snap of your fingers. I don’t suppose you know too many women who face a struggle to pay unexpected bills and can’t afford the little luxuries you would take for granted.’

‘Attacking me isn’t going to solve your financial crisis.’

Rose didn’t care for the word crisis. It was a little too evocative for comfort. ‘You have to go. I need to phone my bank manager.’

‘On a Saturday?’

‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. Of course, I can call my bank manager and take out a loan.’

‘Which will have to be repaid.’

‘But at least I’ll be able to afford the repair work,’ Rose pointed out wearily. ‘And if you’re going to sit there and state the obvious then you can finish that cup of tea and go.’

‘And in the meantime, where do you intend to live?’

‘Here, of course.’

‘Dust everywhere? Hidden dangers under the floorboards? And what about when you get the men in to clear the asbestos? What then? Hang around in a mask?’

Rose felt tears of frustration and anger prick the backs of her eyes. ‘Oh, just leave me alone.’

‘So you can wallow in self-pity?’

‘I do not wallow in self-pity,’ she flung back at him through gritted teeth, shaken out of her despondency by the force of rage. ‘I’ve got my solution and as soon as the banks open on Monday, I’ll be there.’

‘You can’t live here.’

‘Oh, you’re right,’ she sniped with dripping sarcasm. ‘I’ll just get my butler to book me in at the Savoy until everything’s sorted out.’

Nick stifled a grin. ‘Better idea. You need money and I have it.’ ‘Forget it, Nick. You might do favours for my sister, but I don’t need anything from you.’ She gave him a mutinous look, which he chose to ignore.

Was there any woman as stubborn as this one? He felt a sudden desire to be the one who controlled the reins and melted the fortresses she had erected everywhere around herself.

‘You’re letting your emotions talk and emotions never solved anything. If you run to the bank for a loan, you’ll spend the next few years paying it back along with the crippling interest accrued.’

‘So instead I take the money from you? And in return you get what?’

A vivid image of her lying naked in his bed presented itself and he blinked it away.

‘You can’t hide a problem of this magnitude from your sister. You might want to protect her from everything harsh that life can throw at her, but she deserves to know the truth about what’s happening over here. Give her enough credit not to be a complete fool and come hurtling back to England when she knows that it wouldn’t solve anything. If she finds out that you’ve been keeping this from her, she’ll feel betrayed.’

‘Don’t pretend you know my sister better than I do,’ Rose retorted, but his words set up a chain of thoughts that began to gnaw away at her composure. She had always been the one looking out for Lily, but where did concern end and smothering begin?

Uncertainty shadowed her face and Nick, spotting it, jumped in. ‘I’m not pretending anything, but you have to tell her. Course she’d want to fly over, make sure you were okay, but she might not if…’

‘If what?’

‘If she knew that I was looking out for you.’ Since when had he ever looked out for any woman? The rules of his game had always been simple. No dependency, no strings attached. Rose ignited some other feeling in him. She didn’t conform to his ideas of physical feminine beauty so, whatever weird stirrings he had occasionally felt in her presence, he was certain it wasn’t lust. But whatever it was, it was certainly novel and to his jaded palate the thought of something new was strangely alluring.

‘Oh, please.’

‘I am trying to help you out here,’ Nick told her irritably. ‘Why can’t you just accept it?’

‘I don’t see you as the kind of guy who helps damsels in distress,’ Rose pointed out, omitting to mention the fine print, which was unless they looked like Lily or unless he wanted something from them. ‘You think you ought to offer assistance because you feel guilty. By some weird coincidence, you happen to show up when all this…’ she gestured vaguely around her ‘…is going on and you think you ought to do something because you have a relationship with Lily. You feel sorry for the plain, ungainly sister left behind trying to cope.’

‘I’m not suggesting I hand over the money and walk away. You seem to forget I’m a businessman.’

‘Well, what are you offering, then? Not that there’s any chance I’m going to take you up on your offer.’

‘Because you’re a stubborn fool.’

‘Because I don’t like the thought of being indebted to anyone.’

‘Except the bank.’

‘That’s different.’ Rose flushed, feeling boxed in by his clever use of words.

Novelty value was fast turning into challenge and it was invigorating. ‘Take a couple of months off work…’

‘Take a couple of months off work?’ Was the man a complete lunatic? ‘Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?’ She shook her head in disgust and snatched up the mugs, carrying them off to the sink. Nick swivelled round so that he was looking at her and, while he was staring, she spun around and leant against the kitchen sink, arms folded. ‘You know what’s happening here, the financial strain I’m suddenly under, and your breezy solution is for me to have time off work? That activity that pays the bills?’

‘How much do they pay you a month?’

Rose went pink. Wasn’t discussing of salary the final taboo? Not that this man would skirt round a taboo if his life depended on it.

‘Well? No need to be shy.’

‘What I earn is none of your concern.’ She should have asked for a pay rise months ago. She was damned good at her job and worked a lot longer hours than all of her colleagues. If only she had had a crystal ball foretelling her huge household bills were on the horizon she might have been more assertive during her appraisal. She reluctantly told him, knowing that he would just carry on sitting there until she did. He didn’t laugh, as she had expected him to. Instead he looked at her for a few seconds, as though weighing up something in his head.

‘I’m branching out,’ he told her, ‘going into the leisure business. Corporate investment and the money markets pay the bills but I’ve conquered that challenge. Now, I’m investing some of my own reserves in building up a boutique hotel portfolio.’

Rose thought of the reserves she was investing in—making sure she didn’t wake up with the ceiling on her pillow.

‘What’s a boutique hotel?’

‘Something very small and exquisite and strictly for people who don’t want to be surrounded by hundreds of people every time they step out of their bedroom.’

‘Don’t tell me…strictly for the very rich because privacy costs.’

‘Of course. Like I said, I’m a businessman. I’m starting with one in Borneo.’

‘Borneo,’ she echoed sceptically.

‘Trust me…the next must-go-to destination. It’ll be small, eco friendly and built to the highest standards. And here’s where you come in…’ Nick paused. ‘You spend the next two months running the show. You set up the computer system for all the accounting et cetera, you liaise with the architects—’

‘I don’t know the first thing about…hotels. I can’t even think when the last time I stayed in one was.’

‘Which I’ll make sure to put right,’ Nick murmured. ‘Think about it, Rose. You won’t be able to live here while work’s being done…I’m offering to relieve you of the stress of living out of an overnight bag on a friend’s floor. I’ll put you up in three separate hotels in London over the next two months so that you can have firsthand experience of what makes a good one work, and in addition I’ll pay you double what you would have been earning. In return, you can try your hand at something other than sitting in front of a terminal all day long.’

Nick, who donated vast sums to charity on an annual basis, had only ever had nodding acquaintance with altruism on a personal level and he was finding that it felt good to be at the giving end of largesse. In truth, he could increase her salary multiple times and not notice the difference to his bank balance, but he was shrewd enough to know that there was a thin line between a reasonable proposition and a contemptuous act of charity for which he would probably find his hand roundly bitten off.

Because this woman snapped and snarled and yapped and bit and he was looking forward to taming her. He decided to look on it as his pet project. All work and no play…well, he knew the saying well enough and, as he wasn’t playing at the moment, he would devote all of his formidable attention to digging underneath that prickly exterior to the woman inside. And doing her a good turn in the bargain by fishing her out of a pretty nasty hole.

‘Don’t you have people who could do the job for you?’

‘Don’t you have any ability to just say thank you and go away to count your blessings?’

‘Why do I get the feeling that there’s an ulterior motive to your offer?’ Rose asked. She felt driven to find holes in his proposal even though the rational side of her was already calculating the benefits of what he was offering. She had worked long enough for the company to know that they would not have a problem in giving her unpaid leave while she sorted out her domestic situation and the thought of something different was appealing. Stepping out of her comfort zone was appealing. Appealing and frightening at the same time.

‘Because you’re inherently suspicious.’ Nick shrugged and stood up. ‘If you’re not interested, then I’ll leave you to get on with the messy business of sorting your house out with the help of your friendly bank manager.’

‘Wait!’

She raced behind him as he headed for the front door, glancing sideways as she did so, where the shimmer of dust in the air reminded her of the generosity of his offer.

‘What if I fail? I have no experience…’

‘Have faith in yourself. You won’t fail. I take it that that’s a yes?’

‘I shall have to clear it with my boss.’

‘And if you do take up this opportunity…’ Nick lazily appraised her, from her worn bedroom slippers to the shapeless dungarees, which, he now thought, should only ever be worn by labourers on a building site ‘…you’ll have to do something about your wardrobe.’

Rose went bright red. It occurred to her that actually working with the man might just prove to be more stressful than sorting out her situation without his help.

‘I don’t go to work in these clothes,’ she said coolly. ‘I put them on because anything else would have been stupid.’ Lily would have managed to look fabulous in faded, old clothes but she had to stop comparing herself to Lily. ‘If you don’t think that I’m decorative enough to work with you, then you might as well tell me now because I don’t intend to buy a brand-new wardrobe for a two-month stint. And also…’ she drew herself up and stared him straight in the eyes ‘…if I do happen to work for you, then I don’t want you to think that I’m doing it because I actually like you.’

‘Very tactful.’

‘I’m just being honest.’

‘And, believe me, I find that very refreshing, especially in a woman.’ He was so accustomed to women using their bodies and their wiles to get what they wanted that the metaphorical bucket of water Rose kept tipping over him was doing him no end of good. He even contemplated the possibility of taking a little time out to show her the ropes.

‘There might be some travel involved,’ he continued. ‘Do you have a passport?’

Rose nodded as the parameters broadened around her.

‘And because you’ll be working for me directly, I will set you up with an office inside my place.’

‘Whoa. Stop right there. I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because…because it would be a lot more professional for me to…ah…work in an office environment.’ She envisaged somewhere imbued with his masculine scent, with the open door to his bedroom within throwing distance. She shied away from the image with an inward yelp of dismay.

‘You’ll be there on your own,’ Nick said, amused at her discomfiture. ‘And, face it, this is my private project. I can hardly bring you into the office, sit you down and not expect you to become an object of curiosity.’

‘Well, you could explain…’

‘Dangerous curiosity…’ Nick expanded silkily, waiting in telling silence as her eyes widened. ‘People would naturally assume that because I had brought you in to work on my personal project, we were an item.’

‘An item?’

‘Involved with one another. Going out. Lovers. Now, I don’t much give a damn what other people think of me, but I don’t bring my private life to work.’

‘But you…we…we don’t have a private life,’ Rose protested, going bright red.

‘Immaterial. Tongues will wag and I can’t have my power diminished. Does that answer your objection?’

‘Of course, I can see your point of view, but…you have to see mine as well…’

‘And that is…?’ He leaned against the door and stuck his hands into his pockets.

‘Well…’ Rose tried to think of a coherent argument that wouldn’t make her sound prissy in the process. How could she explain that just standing next to him in her own house made her feel nervous and uncomfortable, so how much more difficult was it going to be when she was working in his?

‘Your virtue is perfectly safe with me.’ Nick grinned. ‘Like I said, I won’t be there during the day, and if you’re scared of being around me in my apartment, then we can always catch up on neutral territory. There’s a pub just around the corner. We can avoid the cubby-holes with the subdued lighting.’

‘Of course I’m not scared of you.’

‘Good, because there’s no reason to be, nor is there any reason to feel uncomfortable in my presence.’

Mortified, Rose interpreted his slow, amused smile as his way of telling her that he wouldn’t come near her if she happened to be the last woman on the face of the earth.

‘I’ll let you know after I’ve spoken to my boss. Tomorrow some time. Is that all right?’ What was she letting herself in for?

One month into her new temporary job, she was fast finding out.

A chic five-star hotel tucked away in the bowels of Covent Garden was her first project for inspection. Her brief was to examine why it worked and in detail, with a weekly report to be compiled for Nick’s scrutiny. That, in addition to checking out costs for everything under the sun that might possibly be needed in the construction of a hotel. There seemed to be a hundred people, all of whom she had to liaise with, and Nick, at the end of each day, expected perfect recall and written reports on everything.

He would sweep into his apartment at six-thirty and, although he had told her that she could clear off by five and email him with her findings, she had pretty quickly sussed that, whatever he said, he expected her to work until at least six-thirty and if necessary later.

And she didn’t mind. She had thought, a lifetime ago it seemed, that she would be crammed into his small personal space and, like a cat on a hot tin roof, would spend every minute there in nervous expectation of his sudden entry. She had envisaged being surrounded by his private objects, which would intrude on her, a constant nagging and stomach-churning reminder of his overwhelming personality.

But his apartment, for starters, was vast. It was also peculiarly impersonal. The abstract paintings on the white walls gave no clue to the man except to indicate his wealth. There were no photos in frames or ornaments standing on shelves. Two cleaners came promptly at eight every morning, and departed at ten, leaving the apartment spotless. Her office was no makeshift affair. It was large and kitted out for serious work and, once there, Rose had no trouble concentrating.

And then, just as she was usually packing up to leave, he would sweep in. From the office, Rose would hear the slam of the front door and the jangle of keys as he carelessly tossed them on the granite kitchen counter. Then he would appear in the doorway, tugging at his tie, leaning against the doorframe and watching her for a few seconds in silence as she logged off the computer.

It was the time of day she had been dreading. Yet now, it was the time of day Rose waited for with a sense of heady, forbidden, crawling expectation.

Tonight was no exception and she felt her stomach churn with excitement as she heard him approach. She knew it was wrong but her attraction to him was something she just couldn’t seem to stuff away somewhere conveniently out of reach. It had ambushed her from behind and her only defence against it was to hang onto her veneer of professional self-control.

‘I’ve got those costings for you.’ She had trained her eyes not to stare whenever he tugged his tie off, but, like recalcitrant kids, they still always managed to sneak a look at that glimpse of hard brown chest that was revealed as he undid the top two buttons of his shirt.

‘And I’ve got something for you…’ He walked towards her, waggling a piece of paper in his hand.

‘What is it?’

‘Have a look.’ He gave her the envelope and leant on the computer terminal, watching as she slit it open. ‘We’re going on a trip.’ He smiled slowly as she tipped her face up to stare at him. ‘A little look-see at some prime land in Borneo.’ He moved round so that he was behind her chair and then he bent towards her. Rose could feel his warm breath against her neck. ‘Fish out the summer glad rags, Rose. It’s going to be mighty hot out there…’