Frisky Business by Clodagh Murphy Page A

laundry.’
    Kit’s mother was a domestic goddess of sorts – a goddess of destruction. Kit’s regulation white school shirts had always ended up pale shades of pink, blue and green, depending on what colour had run in the wash that week.
    ‘I used to think it was cool the way your whole family always dressed in the same colours – like a team uniform or something.’
    Kit looked balefully down at his shirt. ‘I wouldn’t mind, but this is Armani.’
    ‘So what are you going to do now?’
    ‘Well … that’s kind of why I came to see you.’
    ‘By coming to see me, you mean hiding in a tree outside my house and spying on me?’
    ‘Yeah.’ He gave a nervous laugh. ‘Sorry about that.’ ‘And in a mask too!’
    ‘Yeah, well, I had planned to surprise you. I was going to call to the door and say, “Trick or treat?”’
    ‘That would have been cute.’
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘Cuter than the whole Peeping Tom routine anyway.’
    ‘Right.’ He looked at her warily. ‘Anyway, when I got here and saw that you were having a party, I kind of lost my nerve. So I decided to hide out until I got up the courage to call, but I didn’t want to loiter around the street like a weirdo, so—’
    ‘Yeah,you avoided that pitfall,’ she said dryly.
    ‘I know, dumb move. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I’d have got away with it, though, if I hadn’t been rumbled by your bloody cat.’
    Romy smirked. ‘He’s not my cat. I’m just minding him for my tenant across the hall while she’s away.’
    ‘Just my luck!’ Kit pouted.
    ‘So there was some particular reason you wanted to see me?’ she prompted. ‘You weren’t just suddenly overcome by nostalgia?’
    ‘Well, that too. Being back in my old bedroom at home … there are so many reminders of you. I really wanted to see you again.’ He smiled at her fondly. ‘I’m sorry we lost touch.’
    ‘Me too.’ She smiled back at him. ‘So what was the other thing that made you come here?’
    ‘It was what Mom said, about you being a property developer. It gave me an idea, and I wanted to ask your opinion on something.’
    ‘Okay,’ Romy said warily, her heart sinking a little. She knew all too well that property developing was something everyone seemed to think they could turn their hand to when they wanted to make some quick money. During the property-buying frenzy of the Celtic Tiger she had lost count of the number of people who had asked her for help with projects, expecting her to act as consultant, site manager and interior decorator as a favour and getting very put out when she explained as nicely as she could that property development was how she earned a living and she couldn’t afford to put the time and effort into doing freebies. She really hoped Kit hadn’t come here after all this time to ask her for that.
    ‘I was hoping you could advise me,’ Kit said, pulling some papers from his jacket on the back of his chair. ‘I have this house that I inherited years ago from my aunt and I never didanything with it. I was thinking maybe I could renovate it now – as a way to make some money. I don’t have a clue about this stuff, so I thought maybe you’d be able to tell me whether it’d be worth doing, or if I’d just be wasting my time and money.’
    Romy sighed. ‘You know, developing’s not as easy as it looks.’ She began the speech she had made countless times to hopeful amateurs.
    ‘I know that.’
    ‘And the property market is abysmal right now.’
    ‘Tell me about it. But you seem to be doing okay,’ he said hopefully.
    ‘I did well in the boom,’ she said. ‘And I was careful.’ She had been told she was
too
careful, that she should get more mortgages, buy more properties, take on more debt, do whatever it took to capitalise on the opportunity of an out-of-control property market. It was like they were all in this glorious casino where no one ever lost. It didn’t matter where you placed your bet – as long as it was on the