What was she doing here?

She should forget the whole thing and nurse her embarrassment in private.

She was about to walk away when a voice came through the intercom.

Liza froze.

She pictured herself being watched by a team of guards in a control room.

She’d spent the whole of Sunday feeling ridiculous and fighting the temptation to drive home. But then she decided to do what she was encouraging her children to do—take responsibility.

“Hi. I’m Liza.” She stepped closer to the camera and the intercom. “My mother owns the house down the lane—I’m staying there. I’m here to see Finn Cool, although he probably won’t—” There was a buzz and the gates opened.

“Oh. Right.”

Left with no choice, Liza walked through the gates and they closed smoothly behind her, sealing her inside.

She walked along a winding drive shaded by huge bushes of rhododendrons and azaleas, and finally the house came into view.

It was spectacular, of course, which was nothing less than she would have expected. The front seemed to be constructed almost entirely of glass, with views across sloping gardens which dropped away sharply above a small beach accessible only from this property.

How the other half lived.

She drank in the view for a few moments and then the front door opened.

She’d expected a burly bodyguard or a scary housekeeper. What she hadn’t expected was to see Finn Cool himself, lounging against the door frame.

With his lean, handsome face and sleepy eyes he looked as dissolute and dangerous as he had when she’d first seen him in her kitchen, although at the time she’d been too stressed to admire him. He was wearing board shorts and a black T-shirt. His feet were bare and his jaw shadowed. She couldn’t work out if he’d just woken up, or hadn’t bothered shaving.

“Did you come alone, or are the police following you? If so, I need to open the gate again.”

The heat in her cheeks had nothing to do with the sun. “I came to apologize for calling the police. Obviously I had no idea—I mean, my mother never mentioned you.” There wasn’t much she could say to redeem herself so she flourished the bag she’d carried all the way from the cottage. “I brought you a peace offering.” She’d spent hours wondering what to give the man who had everything, and in the end settled on something homemade. Probably another mistake, but what was one more amidst so many?

He straightened. “You beat me to it. I was planning on coming over this afternoon to apologize to you.”

“You were going to apologize to me? Why?”