Snowbound With His Innocent Temptation. Cathy Williams

      Looking at her, Theo wondered if she had any idea of just how wealthy he was. She would now be getting the picture that he wasn’t your average two-up, two-down, one holiday a year, nine-to-five kind of guy and he wondered whether, like every other single woman he had ever met, she was doing the maths and working out how profitable it might be to get to know him better.

      ‘Poor you,’ Becky said at last and he frowned.

      ‘Come again?’

      ‘It must be awful never having time to yourself. I don’t have much but what I do have I really appreciate. I’d hate it if I had to get in my car and drive out into the middle of nowhere just to have some uninterrupted peace.’

      She laughed, relaxed for the first time since he had landed on her doorstep. ‘Our parents always made a big thing about money not being the most important thing in life.’ Her bright turquoise eyes glinted with sudden humour. ‘Alice and I used to roll our eyes but they were right. That’s why...’ she looked around her at the kitchen, where, as a family, they had spent countless hours together ‘... I can appreciate all this quiet, which I know you don’t understand.’

      The prospect of saying goodbye to the family house made her eyes mist over. ‘There’s something wonderfully peaceful about being here. I don’t need the crowds of a city. I never have or I never would have returned here after... Well, this is where I belong.’ And the thought of finding somewhere else to call home felt like such a huge mountain to climb that she blinked back a bout of severe self-pity. Her parents had moved on as had Alice. So could she.

      Theo, watching her, felt a stab of alarm. A pep talk wasn’t going to get her packing her belongings and moving on and a wad of cash, by all accounts, wasn’t going to cut it with her parents.

      When was the last time he had met someone who wasn’t impressed by money and what it could buy?

      His mother, of course, who had never subscribed to his single-minded approach to making money, even though, as he had explained on countless occasions, making money per se was a technicality. The only point to having money was the security it afforded and that was worth its weight in gold. Surely, he had argued, she could see that—especially considering her life had been one of making ends meet whilst trying to bring up a child on her own?

      He moved in circles where money talked, where people were impressed by it. The women he met enjoyed what he could give them. His was the sort of vast, bottomless wealth that opened doors, that conferred absolute freedom.

      And what, he wondered, was wrong with that?

      ‘Touching,’ he said coolly. ‘Clearly none of your family members are in agreement, considering they’re nowhere to be seen. The opposite, in fact. They’ve done a runner and cleared off to a different country.’

      ‘Do you know what?’ Becky said with heartfelt sincerity. ‘You may think you’re qualified to look down your nose at other people who don’t share your...your...materialism, but I feel sorry for anyone who thinks it’s worth spending every minute of every day working! I feel sorry for someone who never has time off to just do nothing. Do you ever relax? Put your feet up? Listen to music? Or just watch television?’ Becky’s voice rang with self-righteous sincerity but she was guiltily aware that she was far from being the perfectly content person she was making herself out to be.

      She hadn’t rushed back to the cottage because she couldn’t be without the vast, open peaceful spaces a second longer. She’d rushed back because her heart had been broken. And she hadn’t stayed here because she’d been seduced by all the wonderful, tranquil downtime during which she listened to music or watched television with her feet up. She’d stayed because she’d fallen into a job and had then been too apathetic to do anything else about moving on with her life in a more dynamic way.

      And it wasn’t fun listening out for leaks. It wasn’t fun waiting for the heating to pack up. And it certainly wasn’t fun to know that, in another country, the rest of her family was busy feeling sorry for her and waiting for her to up sticks so that the house could be sold and valuable capital released.

      ‘I relax,’ Theo said softly.

      ‘Huh?’ She focused on a sharply indrawn breath, blinking like a rabbit caught in the headlights at the lazy, sexy smile curving his mouth.

      ‘In between the work, I actually do manage to take time off to relax. It’s just that my form of relaxation doesn’t happen to include watching television or listening to music... But I can assure you that it’s every bit as satisfying, if somewhat more energetic...’