The Little Clock House on the Green. Eve Devon

in buying it?’ He tried to hide the disappointment, worried he could feel so let down at the news when he’d only been in the building less than thirty minutes.

      ‘I’m going to buy it,’ she said, with complete confidence.

      She couldn’t be more than mid-to-late twenties. He wasn’t much older than that. His gaze slid over her attire. She didn’t look like the horse-and-hound set, who came from money, were schooled privately and then lived in Chelsea for a few years before moving back home to add to the country pile, so how could she possibly afford it?

      ‘Sounds like you have some sort of special advantage,’ he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

      ‘I guess you’d call it a home advantage.’

      Daniel frowned. ‘Is that what the current owner is looking for? Someone who knows the area? I’d have thought they’d be more interested making as much money from the sale as possible.’

      She shook her head. ‘The owner of this particular building isn’t like that. At least, I’m banking on that being the case,’ she admitted.

      So maybe she didn’t have the funds and was getting a little ahead of herself? Daniel let the prospect sink in. If the owner wasn’t looking for top market value – just wanted to get shot of the property as quickly as possible, he was probably still in with a chance of buying it himself. His inner-sensible did a double-take. Buying a building because someone else was implying he couldn’t was even crazier than wanting to buy it in the first place. ‘Maybe the owners are more interested in someone being able to make something of this place,’ he said, almost to himself as excitement in his business idea notched up a gear.

      ‘That’s what I intend to do. Make something of it, I mean,’ Kate declared, sliding her hands into the frayed pockets of her exquisitely short shorts.

      She looked so wonderfully brave and naively defiant standing in front of him that he found a grin starting at the corners of his mouth and spreading.

      ‘Well, this is going to make life interesting,’ he told her, ‘because so do I.’

      Her jaw dropped open. ‘Excuse me?’

      ‘I intend to make something of this place too. Soon as I walked in, I knew,’ he said, making himself ignore the shock streaking naked through her eyes. Telling himself that business was business and if he’d been more assertive with West and Westlake then he might have stopped everything from turning out like it had. ‘This place is perfect.’

      ‘Perfect for what?’

      ‘For me.’

      ‘For you? You’re seriously interested in buying The Clock House?’

      ‘I’m seriously intending to buy The Clock House.’

      ‘But you can’t,’ she spluttered.

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because…’

      ‘Because?’ For a moment he was worried those lovely chocolate brown orbs were going to fill with water and he’d be lost, but after a few seconds a fire sparked the amber flecks reminding him of a phoenix bursting into life again.

      ‘Because I know the owner. And I know he’ll sell to me.’

      ‘Yeah?’

      ‘Yeah,’ she answered.

      ‘You’re convinced then that you can get together the capital needed to buy a place of this size?’

      She smiled.

      No, grinned.

      Like a Cheshire cat.

      And he should not find that sexy!

      He began to revisit his theory that she was some sort of multi-millionairess. Maybe this is what she did – went about playing at businesses, trying to find one that took her fancy. Well, not this time, sweetheart, he thought, as resolve settled in his guts.

      ‘You should probably start looking at other properties,’ she said, her tone consoling.

      ‘But I like this one.’

      ‘I’m quite sure that there are other fabulous properties all over the country.’

      ‘And I wish you luck in finding one,’ he said, grinning.

      Her eyes narrowed. ‘You know, it occurs to me we haven’t bumped into each other before today. Exactly how long have you lived in Whispers Wood?’

      His grin slipped a little. ‘Technically, I guess it would be fair to say I don’t actually live here.’

      ‘Really? Well, good luck. I hope you know how to deal with disappointment.’

      ‘Disappointment’s not something I’ve really had to get used to in life,’ Daniel lied as the last year flashed before him in ego-smashing 4-D detail. ‘Disappointment’ didn’t even begin to cover this last year… and yet he’d come out the other side eventually, hadn’t he? And now he felt the fight lift him. ‘So, I certainly hope you won’t be too upset with me when I buy this place.’

      ‘You’re really that sure that you will?’

      ‘You’re really that sure that you will?’ he countered.

      Again, that super-sexy smile transformed her face, making her button-brown eyes sparkle with delight.

      ‘I guess this is “Game-On”?’

      ‘I guess it is,’ she said. She moved towards the front doors, almost as if she knew he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to watch those hypnotic hips swaying as she walked out on him.

      When she turned and found him staring she gave him a cheeky smile. ‘Oh, in case I forgot to say it already, welcome to Whispers Wood.’

      Daniel tipped his head in a thank you, his eyes glued to her as she turned and walked out of The Clock House. He stared after her for a couple of seconds after the door shut and then, with a shake of his head and a huge smile on his face, he got out his phone and punched in the number on the front of the For Sale sign. He hadn’t felt this upbeat and optimistic about things in ages. When he got through to the independent estate agents he was told that if he wanted to discuss terms they would be happy to make an appointment for him with the owner.

      It was a little strange, but he actually liked the idea of taking a business meeting for the first time in a year. At least this one would be about new beginnings instead of wrapping things up.

      He was about to leave the room when he saw something glinting on the floor, where he and Kate had tumbled to the ground.

      Walking over, he picked up the necklace, and intrigued, opened the locket dangling from the chain.

      On one side was a watch. The screen had a huge crack running right through the centre of it and he was only just able to work out that the time had stopped at 1:23pm.

      Well, damn.

      He felt awful that he’d obviously broken her watch as he’d fallen on top of her.

      He frowned as his gaze fell on the photo on the opposite side of the watch.

      It was a photo of a man and little girl, arms wrapped around each other and staring up at the camera laughing.

      Well, double damn.

      He could have sworn there’d been some chemistry between him and Kate. But thinking about it, she hadn’t said anything overly flirty at all. All the smiling had been about buying this property.

      God, his instincts really were shot to hell.

       Chapter 9