That relief had turned to something very different, though, when he had received a fax from Michael advising him that his assistant, Ms Elena Bennett, would be flying over to Britain to act as his representative over the repair and renovation of the property. He could, of course, have simply chosen to turn his back, walk away, and leave someone else to liaise with Elena, but Roth wasn’t like that. If he had a job to do he preferred to see it through for himself, no matter how unwanted or potentially problematic that task might be.Potentially problematic! A bitter half-smile curled his mouth. There was nothing potential about the problems that Elena was likely to cause him... Nothing potential at all.He had heard scraps of news about her over the years, of course, mainly from lucas and Lia. Elena had completed her degree course and majored summacum laude... She was living in New York and looking for a job... She had got a job... Elena was working in Venice... In Rome... In Prague...
FIVE miles or so before her ultimate destination Elena pulled the car she had hired at the airport over to the side of the road and switched off the engine—not because she was unsure of where she was going, not even because she wanted to absorb the beauty of the Derbyshire countryside around her, magnificent though it was as it basked warmly in the mid-afternoon sunshine, devoid of any sign of human occupation apart from her own.No, the reason she had stopped was that she had been tellingly aware for the last few miles not just of the slight dampness of her hands on the steering wheel but, even more betrayingly, of the increasing turmoil of her thoughts and the nervous butterflies churning her stomach.When she finally met...confronted...Roth, she wanted to be calm and in control of both herself and the situation. She was not, she reminded herself sternly, meeting him as an idealistic teenager who had fallen so disastrously and desperately in love with him, but as a woman, a woman wh
Set on a small incline, so that it could overlook its surrounding gardens and parklands, it was everything that the neoclassicist architects had decreed their houses should be and then some more, Elena acknowledged as she drove slowly towards the gravelled parking area in front of the massive columned portico to the house. Stopping the Discovery, she opened the door and started to get out.*Roth had seen her drive up from an upstairs window. She was just a few seconds short of five minutes early. Remembering a younger elena, and her apparent total inability to arrive anywhere on time, he grimaced ruefully to himself before making his way downstairs.They met on the paved portico. Roth opened the massive front door just as elena mounted the last step. She stopped the minute she saw him, freezing instinctively like a gazelle scenting the presence of a leopard.He hadn’t changed, but then why should he have? He still looked exactly the same. Tall, broad-shouldered, with the smooth warm
‘Roth!’Was that really her own voice, that soft, husky, and, yes, somehow invitingly sensual little thread of sound, gasping his name in a slow-drawn-out moan that was more invitation than protest?But it was too late to correct the erroneous message she knew instinctively, But it was too late to correct the erroneous message she had given; Roth was already acting on what he had obviously interpreted her ‘protest’ to mean, his hands lifting from her waist to her arms, her shoulders, as he drew her closer, his mouth fastening on hers as he kissed her, not as an old acquaintance or a friend of her brother’s, Elena recognised, her senses reeling, but in all the ways she had dreamed of him kissing her all those years ago, as a man kissed a woman.Despairingly she struggled valiantly to resist but it was useless. Her own foolish senses were doing far more to aid Roth than to support her, turning traitor and welcoming his sensual assault of her mouth with the eagerness of parched land gree
She was under no illusions about why he had kissed her like that... It was his way of reminding her not just of the past, but also of his superiority...of telling her that, whilst she might be the one who was in charge of the project they were going to be working on together, he still had the power to control her...to control her and to hurt her.Elena turned swiftly on her heel, not waiting for him to see the emotions she knew were clouding her eyes. knew were clouding her eyes.‘The lake needs dredging,’ she commented crisply as she shuttered her eyes and stared out towards the large ornamental lake several hundred yards away from the house.It was the wrong thing to say. She could hear the mocking amusement in Roth's voice as he drawled, ‘Well, yes, it does, but let’s hope this time you don’t end up head-first in the mud. We’ll have to hose you down out here if you do.There’s no way Mrs Lucia is going to let you into the Rectory smelling of stagnant lake water and covered in mud
She gave him an acid-sweet smile. ‘The Rectory may have been yours, Roth, but as part of the estate it is now owned by the Trust and—’ ‘Not so.’ Roth stopped her even faster than she had him. ‘I have retained ownership of the Rectory and the land. I intend to farm it and to develop the fishing and shooting rights.’ Elena was momentarily caught off guard. It was most unusual for Michael to allow something like that. He normally insisted on buying whatever land went with a property, if only to ensure that as much of its natural background and with a property, if only to ensure that as much of its natural background and surroundings as possible were retainedIf you’d like to follow me we can drive over to the Rectory now,’ Rothoffered coolly.Immediately Elena shook her head. ‘No... I want to see over the house first,’she told him crisply.Roth stared at her and then looked at his watch before telling her softly, ‘Thatwill take at least two hours, possibly longer; it’s now five o’
THEY had covered the ground floor of the house, walked the length of the elegant gallery, with its windows overlooking the parkland and the distant vista of the Derbyshire hills, and were just inspecting the enormous ballroom which opened off it when Elena acknowledged inwardly that Roth might have been right to advise her to wait until after she had rested to inspect the house. Haverton Hall’s rooms might not possess quite the vastness of the palazzo’s marble-floored rooms, nor the fading grandeur of the Prague palace, but Elena had already lost count of the number of salons and ante-chambers they had walked through on the lower floor. The gallery felt as though it stretched for miles, and as she studied the dusty wooden floor of the ballroom her heart sank at the thought of inspecting its lofty plasterwork ceiling and its elegantly inlaid panelling. And they still had the upper floors to go over! But she couldn’t afford to show any weakness in front of Roth and have him crowing ov
The next thing she knew, Roth was taking her very firmly by the arm andpropelling her towards the door, ignoring her protests to leave her alone.At the top of the stairs, to her infuriated chagrin, he turned round and swungher up into his arms, telling her through gritted teeth, ‘If you’re going to faint onme, Elena, then here’s the best place to do it.’She wanted to tell him that fainting was the last thing she intended to do, buther face was pressed against the warm flesh of his throat and if she tried to speakher lips would be touching his skin and then...Swallowing hard, Elena tried to concentrate on banishing the agonizing painin her head but it was something that she couldn’t just will away. As she knewfrom past experience, the only way of getting rid of it was for her to go to bedand sleep it off.They were downstairs now and Roth was crossing the hallway, thrusting openthe door and carrying her out into the fresh air.‘What are you doing?’ she demanded as he