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‘It’s impossible—’ she began urgently.
‘It’s sensible,’ he cut in. ‘Look, Rose, your great-aunt’s house is going to be uninhabitable and you know it. You haven’t got any money to spend on a hotel and my cottage is standing empty. Why not take advantage of it? Are you going to let your stupid pride stand in the way?’
Rose’s tempestuous feelings found vent in anger. ‘That’s a very sneakily worded question,’ she snapped. ‘If I say yes, it’s like admitting that I’m proud and stupid, and if I say no, I’ve played right into your hands.’
‘Touché,’ murmured Greg admiringly. ‘You’re no fool, are you, Rose?’
‘No, I’m not,’ she retorted. ‘And I’m not going to be sweet-talked into this. I’m sorry, Greg, I’m genuinely grateful for all you’ve done for me, but enough is enough. I don’t want to be so much in your debt. And anyway, what about the weekends? What would we do then?’
‘We slept together last night,’ pointed out Greg.
Several newspapers rustled and there was a discreet turning of heads on other parts of the balcony. ,
‘No, we did not!’ hissed Rose, wishing passionately that she could manage to shout and whisper at the same time. ‘You slept in the spare room and nothing happened between us!’
‘Nothing?’ taunted Greg.
Rose’s face flamed at the reminder of that kiss in the firelight. She tossed her head angrily and her blue eyes shot sparks.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a tense, rapid voice. ‘But I am not going to come and live in your cottage.’
Greg sighed and shook his head. ‘That’s a pity,’ he said soberly, looking straight into her eyes. ‘I didn’t think you really cared about convention. When I first saw you, I thought to myself, Now there’s a woman who looks conventional, but isn’t. She’s just on the brink of dis-covering who she is and she’s got the courage to find out. Well, it seems I was wrong.’
Rose flinched at the unmistakable sarcasm in his voice, then she glanced around the balcony and noticed how the other customers’ eyes shifted hastily away from her. Her eyes came back to Greg’s with a proud, defiant ex-pression. In that instant she reached a hard decision. She knew he was intentionally goading her, but there was enough truth in his words to touch her on the raw. Was she always going to hang back from challenges or was she going to find out what she really wanted from life?
‘You’re not going to give up at the first sign of difficulty, are you?’ she demanded in a deliberate echo of his words the previous day. ‘You don’t have the look of a coward, my dear.’
A gleam of admiration illuminated Greg’s face. He reached across and gripped her hand so hard that it hurt
‘Let’s go home,’ he urged hoarsely.
Greg’s cottage was as spacious as Aunt Em’s, but in far better condition. It stood high on the cliff-top just to the west of Polperro, with a dry-stone wall around it, a ship’s wheel set in its sparkling teal-blue gate, a garden full of lavender and roses in the front and a paved terrace and dazzling view of the ocean in the rear. He led her round to the back of the house and opened an unlocked glass door which led into a Victorian-style conservatory.
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