She wasn’tsocialisingwith the man, nor was she going to be swayed because she’d glimpsed a side to him that wasn’t entirely objectionable. It made sense to be here, she thought, having been left in the kitchen while he disappeared to settle Rosa, because their conversation wasn’t over and this might just be the perfect time to reintroduce it. She perked up just thinking about it.
She waited at the kitchen table and stiffened, immediately nervous, as he breezed back in and began fumbling through the fridge and in cupboards, extracting items of food at random. Bread, cheese, tomatoes and various other items wrapped in deli containers were piled onto the counter.
Did he even know the layout of his own kitchen? Izzy wondered as he continued to open and shut drawers, finally locating cutlery and a couple of wine glasses.
‘No, thank you.’ She covered the glass with her hand. ‘I really can’t hang around.’
Gabriel shrugged and began slicing the bread into uneven wedges.
‘Join me, or are you in too much of a rush to escape even though you’re hungry?’
‘I only came here because you wanted to know how Rosa was, Mr Ricci, and it was only fair that I reassured you that she was fine. I haven’t changed my stance about you and about trying to convince you that what you’re doing to Evelyn is a terrible idea.’
‘You’ve met my daughter. I think it’s appropriate that we drop the formal address. My name is Gabriel. So feel free to call me Gabriel and I’ll call you Izzy. Rosa likes you. She woke up just long enough to tell me that as I was settling her.’
Izzy bristled because she was sitting here, intent on not relaxing into chit chat,but he was tucking into the food without restraint and taking the conversation away from the cottage.
She wasn’t going to let him think that he had wrapped it all up in a five-minute warning talk, and that once she’d gone he’d be able to wash his hands of her.
‘She’s very engaging.’
‘I’m not sure Bella would agree with you,’ Gabriel said wryly. ‘But, in fairness, she hasn’t made life particularly easy for her nanny. Drop the pride and eat some of this food, Izzy. It’s not much but you must be starving.’
‘I’m good, thank you, Mr...Gabriel.I just don’t want you to think that everything’s forgotten, that the business with the nanny has overtaken the reason I came here to see you in the first place. I don’t want you to imagine that you can threaten me into retreat.’
‘Pick your battles,’ he returned softly, glancing at her. ‘You’re not going to win this one.’ He nodded at the food and she ignored him. Her taxi would arrive soon enough—she had taken a couple of seconds to order one—but where did they go from here?
‘Would you at least come to the cottage?’ she ventured, because if she left without any follow up in place she felt the next correspondence, should Evelyn fail to accept his offer, would be something informing her that he had begun the process of buying the rest of the acreage around the cottage and to expect the builders soon.
‘Why would I do that?’
Their eyes met, bright blue colliding with darkest black, and again she felt a shiver of awareness, a hint of danger that went beyond anything to do with the cottage and the silken threats of what he could do. It was a hint of danger that confused and panicked her. She was tooawareof him. When his eyes rested on her, she felt a lot more than just angry.She felt...unsettled, as though a part of herenjoyedwhatever weird, incomprehensible sensations he managed to stir deep inside.
He unsettled her on a physical level, and she hated that, because it was distracting and bewildering. Jefferson had left her disillusioned with her first foray into the business of a relationship. She’d been badly let down. She’d fled, disappointed and embittered by her experience, so why was she finding her eyes drawn to this man?
‘Perhaps if you met Evelyn...’
‘I would have...’ he relaxed back to look at her coolly ‘...had you not decided to jump to her rescue and represent her in her absence. What is your relationship with her, anyway? I don’t believe you said.’
‘I believe I did,’ Izzy returned. ‘Friend.’ Should she tell him about her connection to the house? What would be the point? It was hardly as though the house had awakened anything inside her at all. Aside from knowing that her mother had been brought up there, it could just have been any mansion. Too much had changed from those wistful photos her mother had taken all those years ago.
While the cottage—and Evelyn—had both stirred feelings inside her, taking her back to the past and helping her recall her mother. Was that why she felt so strongly about protecting it? About not seeing it turned into something for someone else, expanded into a compound to house strangers, which would probably involve it being razed to the ground and replaced with something cold, anodyne and functional?
‘You’re here on holiday...’ He inclined his head and his expression was both lazy and shrewdly calculating at the same time. ‘And a long way from home, judging from your accent. Did you just decide to pay Miss Scott a visit out of the blue—since you insist on talking about this?’
She took a deep breath. ‘Why all the questions? It doesn’t matter why I’m here, does it?’ She paused. ‘I’d really appreciate it if you did come to the cottage and did meet Evelyn,’ she said quietly. ‘It might make you change your mind.’
Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I assure you, Izzy, that I’m not a man who ever changes direction.’
‘That’s not something to brag about,’ Izzy muttered.
She had spent so much of her life doing what Max told her to do: working hard to get good grades at school, studying for a degree she had minimal interest in because it made sense and would establish a clear career path, avoiding all the complications of fun relationships with boys because it had been important not to be distracted. She had finally taken a stand in throwing out Max’s ideas for the hotel and imposing her own. She had found her voice, taken a deep breath and decided to use it.
So what if her stand had been a bit shaky? She had kept her plans for the hotel under wraps, trying to work out how she could break it to her brother that she didn’t agree with his vision when she should have justtoldhim.
Then, riding a wave of independence, she had flung herself into an ill-fated love affair, only to take the coward’s way out when it had crashed and burned and disappear in search of something she now knew she would never find because her mother was in her heart and not in a pile of bricks and mortar...
But it had still been a stand. She had still dug her heels in with Max instead of dutifully settling into the career he had carved out for her...and he respected her for it! Wonder of wonders, he’d actually said so when they’d talked at last, on the phone. And she had still broken through the ever-increasing burden of her lack of love-life and so what if she’d made a mistake?
