Hired by the Brooding Billionaire (9 page)

He reached out and clasped her hand in his. Her hand was slender and warm but he felt calluses on her palm and fingers. Warrior calluses.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Not just about your horse but about your father too.’ He suspected the pain of losing her horse was inextricably tied up with her father’s betrayal.

She returned the pressure on his hand, not knowing what a monumental gesture it was for him to reach out to her. For a very long moment his eyes met with hers in a silent connection that shook him.
What he felt for her in this moment went way beyond physical attraction.

In the quiet of his kitchen, with the ticking of the clock and the occasional whirring of the fridge the only noise, this one room of many in the vast emptiness of his house suddenly seemed welcoming. Because she was there.

‘I’m sorry to lose the plot like that,’ she said. ‘I know that my loss is nothing—absolutely nothing—compared with your loss. I know he was only an animal but—’ She sniffed back the tears that obviously still threatened.

‘But you loved him.’

There’d been no pets in his childhood household, despite his constant clamouring for a dog. Then Lisa had been allergic to pet hair. One day he might get a dog. It was a new thought and one immediately rejected. He did not want to take the risk of loving anything,
anyone
again.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I adored Toby. There’s an incredible bond between horse and rider, you know. It’s not quite the same as loving a cat or a dog. Two become one, horse and human, when you ride. There’s a kind of mutual responsibility. It’s very special.’

‘Do you still ride?’ He couldn’t admit how he had observed her heading out of the house dressed in her breeches and boots.

‘Fortunately Centennial Park is so close by I can ride each weekend. Riding a hired horse is nothing like riding your own but I’m fortunate enough to ride the same lovely big boy every week. His owner is so grateful to have someone competent to exercise him and groom him, she only charges me a pittance.’

‘Sounds like a deal,’ he said.

‘It’s another reason I really wanted to stay in this area rather than moving out further where rents are cheaper. Again, thank you for the apartment. I love it.’

‘Thanking me with a pie was a great idea,’ he said.

‘I make a mean chocolate-fudge cake too,’ she said. ‘Unless you’d prefer something more savoury.’

‘Cake is good,’ he said. The strict exercise regime he followed let him eat whatever he wanted.

He realised he was still holding her hand—and he didn’t want to let it go. She seemed in no rush to relinquish his grip either.

‘Tell me the type of treats you like so I can keep you in mind when I’m baking,’ she said with her generous smile, leaning closer, so close he breathed in her sweet, flowery scent. ‘If it isn’t in my repertoire, I’ll find a recipe.’

It was a thoughtful offer. But right now there was only one treat that was tempting him. Before he could rustle up a reason why he shouldn’t, he leaned across and kissed her. Her lush, lovely mouth was soft and full under his.

She stilled at first, startled, then relaxed against him, her lips parting for his with a soft murmur as he traced their warm softness with his tongue.

He had not kissed a woman other than Lisa since he was nineteen. The feel of Shelley’s mouth under his was both familiar and different at the same time. The thought of Lisa was both poignant and fleeting—then his mind was filled only with Shelley and how much he wanted to keep on kissing her. She tasted of cinnamon and apple with a fresh tang of mint as her tongue tangled with his.

As she kissed him back this kiss became unique, special like nothing he had ever experienced. Shelley. Beautiful Shelley.
It was all about her.

Her mouth was soft and warm and generous, their hands still linked on the table between them. It started as a gentle, exploratory kiss but very soon escalated into something more passionate as she kissed him back with equal ardour.

They strained towards each other—awkward on bar stools but she didn’t seem to care and he certainly didn’t—he just wanted to be as close to her as he could possibly be.

But she was the one to break the kiss, her face flushed, her eyes bright.

‘That was a surprise, Declan,’ she said. He could see a pulse beating rapidly at the base of her throat. ‘Of the nice kind.
Very
nice, actually.’

He took a deep breath in an attempt to steady his breathing.

‘Much more than nice,’ he said.

His thoughts were filled with Shelley. But he felt disloyal that he hadn’t given thought to his late wife. Yet from nowhere came the insistent message:
Lisa would approve
. If he had been the first to go, would he have expected her to lead such a desperately lonely life?

But he wasn’t ready to move on to someone else—might not ever be ready.

‘You know this can’t lead to anywhere,’ he said, his voice husky. ‘I have nothing to give you. Nothing. It...it all drained away when—’

Shelley put her finger on his mouth to silence him.

Her face was flushed, her voice throaty when she finally spoke. ‘It was just a kiss. A very nice kiss but just a kiss. Does it have to lead anywhere?’

‘I guess not,’ he said, somewhat taken aback. Shelley was so different from the predatory women on the hunt for the wealthy widower.

It hadn’t entered his head that Shelley might not be interested in him.

‘Men are more trouble than they’re worth.’
Her earlier words echoed through his brain.

Her mouth was pouty and swollen from his kiss—which made him just want to kiss her again.

‘I’m aware you might not be ready for...for anything serious.’ Her stumble made him realise that perhaps she wasn’t as indifferent to him as it might appear. ‘And I don’t want to risk opening myself to...heartbreak. I’ve just got over an almighty dose of that.’

He hadn’t been planning on
heartbreak
. In fact that was just what he wanted to avoid. Not just for himself but for her too.

‘The guy in Melbourne?’

She nodded. ‘He was dishonest and he—well, he was a liar and completely untrustworthy and... Never mind, you don’t want to hear the details.’

She was right. He didn’t want to hear about her with another man. But was he ready to win her for himself?

‘It’s been two years, Declan. Lisa would not expect you to grieve for ever.’
Now it was his mother’s words borrowing his brain.

‘I have plans,’ Shelley continued. ‘I don’t want heartbreak and angst and all that stuff that seems to come with relationships—or they do for me anyway—to get in the way of achieving my goals.’

‘Plans?’ he said.
Goals?
He realised he might be guilty of underestimating Shelley. Had he given a thought to her life beyond his garden and her unwitting role as muse?

‘Serious goals I’ve put on the back burner for years—derailed by relationships gone wrong.’

‘I’d like to hear those goals.’

‘Let me start,’ she said. ‘I want to visit some of the great gardens in Europe. Gardens that have had such an influence on the way people design gardens even here on the other side of the world. Some say the English perennial border isn’t suited to most parts of this country—I’d love to see it at home in England. Then there’s Monet’s garden at Giverny, near Paris—who doesn’t want to see that?’

Declan could think of far more interesting things than a garden to see in France but he was too stunned to interrupt her flow of words.

‘And the Gardens of the Alhambra in Spain.’ She smiled. ‘Lots of fountains.’

He cleared his throat. ‘When do you go?’

‘As soon as your garden is done. Four more weeks, according to our agreement. Then I’ll be flying off to Europe.’

‘When will you be back?’

‘Who knows? I’m booking an open-return ticket. My father was born in England and I can stay for as long as I like. What I really, really want to do is work as a horticulturalist in the gardens of one of the grand stately homes in England.’ Her eyes shone with enthusiasm. ‘I apply for every job I see—they advertise through agencies on the internet—and I’m hoping one of them will stick.’

‘Sounds exciting,’ he said lamely.

He realised that since he had nearly kissed her in his garden when he had unwound her hair, the thought had been quietly ticking away in the back of his mind that one day, if he was ever able to move on, Shelley might be the one. It was a shock to find she had no intention of being here, of giving him time to come to terms with the change her presence in his life might entail.

‘So, you see, you’re a grieving widower—and I totally understand that, I can’t imagine how dreadful it’s been for you—and I don’t do meaningless flings.’

She leaned across and kissed him lightly on the mouth. Even it had impact, sending want coursing through him.

‘So, lovely as that kiss was, I don’t think we should do it again.’

Declan was too speechless to respond.

Shelley got up from her stool. ‘I have to get going to meet my sister. I can pick up the pie dish when you’re done with.’

‘Let me see you out,’ he said, getting up to follow her.

She put up her hand to halt him. ‘No need.’

She strolled out, and suddenly the room seemed very, very empty indeed.

* * *

Shelley stood outside the house near the fountain, lit up by the sensor lights that had come on automatically when she had stumbled out of Declan’s back door. She hoped the cool evening air would bring her to her senses. She shivered and tugged her cream sweater tightly around her shoulders. Her mouth ached from both the effort of continual smiling and appearing nonchalant—and the unaccustomed dissembling. She wasn’t a liar. Yet she had lied and lied and lied to Declan.

‘It was just a kiss’
was the first lie. She touched her fingers to her mouth, shuddering as she remembered the powerful effect of his lips on hers, his tongue exploring the soft recesses of her mouth, the desire that had ignited and raced through her body. It was so much more than a mere pressing of two mouths together. Of awakened passion.

But the biggest lie of all was that she didn’t want him kissing her again. There was nothing she wanted more than to be in his arms and kissing him.
More than kissing him.

But the lies had been necessary. Because they were overwhelmed by the one big truth.
She didn’t want to risk heartbreak.
And everything Declan did, what he said, pointed to massive heartbreak down the line if she let down the guard on her emotions.

Her wounds from Steve were still too raw and painful to risk opening them again. She still hadn’t completed that long climb back out of the black pit of distrust that her father’s betrayal and rejection of her love had flung her into.

Dating decent—if unexciting—men had set her on the first rungs of finding her way back out until Steve had kicked the ladder out from under her in spectacular fashion. Coming back to Sydney and away from anything that reminded her of Steve had started her recovery.

She had to protect herself from falling down again. Denying that Declan’s kiss had affected her was one way to do it.

Although, in doing so, she was actually lying to herself.

CHAPTER TEN

S
HELLEY
LOOKED
LONG
and hard at the door in her kitchen that, she now knew, led straight through into Declan’s kitchen. The door she had promised never to use. The key was in her hand. All it would take would be to slide it into the lock and—

She put the key—which she had attached to a pewter horseshoe key ring—back down on the countertop with a clatter.

It was five-thirty in the morning. She had been awake since four o’clock. Tossing and turning and unable to get thoughts of Declan from her mind. How it had felt to kiss him. To want so much more than a kiss. More than he could give.
More than it was wise to want.

She looked at the key again gleaming on the countertop.
Tempting her.

At four a.m. it had been way too dark to go out and start work in the garden. She’d tried to read a book—a new one on Enid Wilson she’d ordered from a specialist gardening bookstore—but could not concentrate. Television offerings at that time of morning had not been able to engage her interest either.

So she had baked muffins. Banana and pecan muffins with a maple-syrup glaze. She could have made a pie—she had apples aplenty arranged in a fruit bowl on the table. But both of her pie dishes—enamel ones given to her by her grandma—were not here. One was with Lynne and Keith. The other was with Declan still, from when she had last seen him three days ago.

Would it be a terribly bad thing to sneak into his kitchen, retrieve the pie dish and leave an offering of some warm banana muffins on the countertop for him?

She wanted that pie dish. She wanted it
now.
She was helping Lynne with the catering for her engagement party on Saturday night. Pie was on the dessert menu. The problem could easily be solved by asking Declan for the pie dish. But she didn’t want it to look like a pathetic excuse to see him.

He did not want to see her; that was obvious. But he was here in the house. Last night she had seen the light on in the window high on the second floor she assumed was his office. With that preternatural awareness of his presence she had developed, she knew he was there even without the light as proof.

She picked up the key again. It turned easily in the lock.

Still in her pyjamas, heart in her mouth, she crept into the kitchen of the big house. It was silent, it was creepy, it was almost dark—with only the faint lights on the stove and the computer-controlled fridge to lead her way. She searched for the pie dish in drawers that glided out silently. She found her dish in the third drawer she tried, quite possibly put there by the cleaners.

Mission accomplished.

She eased the plate of muffins down onto the marble countertop so it wouldn’t clatter. Then immediately berated herself for such an idiotic move—and blamed it on her lack of sleep. She doubted Declan would notice the absence of the pie dish. But the sudden appearance of a plate of freshly baked muffins? There would be no doubt who had left them there and that she had trespassed.

She picked them up again, and then the pie dish, and made to tiptoe back to her door and then to her rightful side of it. Then she heard the music. A faint pulsing, driving rhythm coming, it sounded like, from somewhere on this floor.

Curiosity killed the cat—remember that, Shelley
.

Another of her grandmother’s sayings flashed through her mind. Advice that in this case she really should take. But the house was otherwise dark and deserted. She’d been wondering about Declan’s secret life inside this house since the day she’d first met him. She could not resist this particular temptation.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, she tiptoed out of the kitchen and down a very short corridor. She guessed that in the old days this might have led to a scullery or cellar. Just a few silent steps from the kitchen she saw a door with a glass pane at the top—it was only the dim light coming through the glass that let her recognise it.

The music was coming from downstairs. Was Declan there? What would happen if he saw her prowling around where she had no right to prowl?

She could not resist sidling up to the glass panel and looking through.

Not a cellar but a full-size basement gym filled with serious-looking workout equipment.

And Declan was working out.

She nearly dropped her pie dish at the sight of him.

Her breath caught in her throat and her heart started hammering so loudly she could hear it.

Declan, wearing only tight black gym shorts, his upper body completely bare save for a pair of grip gloves. Declan, doing pull-ups on a terrifyingly high multi-step pull-up bar. Declan doing ‘salmon pull-ups’, so called because they involved not just pulling
himself
up to the bar but pushing the actual bar up with him to the next step, like salmon swimming upstream against the current. It took incredible strength in both upper body and abs to master. Strength and willpower and endurance. And courage. One slip and he’d crash to the ground taking the metal bar with him.

Shelley went to the gym when she could. But she had never seen anyone actually do salmon pull-ups.

She watched in awe as, muscles straining, he pulled both himself and the bar to the very top step without pausing. Then, again without pausing, he hooked his legs over the bar and executed a series of sit-ups punching the air as he jack-knifed his body into a sitting position—upside down.

His cut, defined muscles gleamed with sweat as he grimaced with the effort of the unbelievably tough workout he was forcing his body through.

So that was where the muscles came from.

Mesmerised, she could not tear her eyes away from him, even though she knew she risked discovery. This was a guy who described himself as a
geek
?

Declan working out was the sexiest thing she had ever seen. She was getting turned on just watching. Her whole body was taut with hunger for him. With pure and simple lust. She nearly fainted as he turned in mid-air to show his tight, powerful butt, the straining muscles of his broad back.

‘I don’t do meaningless flings.’

Her words of three days ago came back to haunt her.

She wanted him more than she had ever imagined she could want a man.

If she could stumble down those stairs and push herself against all that hot, hard muscle she wouldn’t be thinking about
meaning.
She had to cross her legs at the thought of it.

The force of her desire for him made her tremble and her knees go suddenly weak. She leaned against the door to support herself just as Declan dropped to the ground from the top of the bar to land with total control on a thick, foam mat. He looked up and her breath stopped but he immediately rolled into a series of alternating one-arm push-ups.
He hadn’t seen her.

But she knew the longer she stayed there, the greater the risk of discovery.

Her heart started an even more furious pounding and she found it difficult to breathe. Not just with her overwhelming longing for him but with terror at the prospect of him catching her spying on him.

With one last look at his incredible body, she turned as quietly and as cautiously as she could and tiptoed back to the door that would send her through to her very short-term leased part of the mansion. The staff
downstairs
to his billionaire
upstairs
.

Once safely back in her kitchen, she stood with her back to the connecting door and braced herself against it, urging her heart to slow down, her breath to steady from short, urgent gasps to a more regular pattern.

How could she ever forget how Declan looked working out in that gym?
How much she wanted him?
Wanted this man who had made it so very clear he had nothing to give her.

Actually, when she thought back, even a meaningless fling was not on offer. He had kissed her.
That was all.
But it had been such a wonderful kiss, of course she had thought further to what that kind of kiss could lead to.
Making love with Declan.
If that one kiss had given her so much pleasure, what would—?

She could not go there.
That would be dreaming an impossible dream. Declan was still deeply entrenched in his marriage—even though his wife had passed away two years ago, Declan had not moved on. The only outcome of letting herself fall for him would be heartbreak. And she had had more than enough of that.
She had to keep reminding herself of that.

The grey light of dawn was starting to filter through the blinds of the apartment. She knew there was zero chance of getting back to sleep now. A quick, very cold shower and then get out into the garden.

She had a big day planned—and a surprise for Declan that he might like, or hate so much she’d never be able to face him again.

* * *

Mid-afternoon and Declan was surprised to get a text from Shelley asking him could he come down to the garden as soon as he could.

From his observation point in his office, he’d noticed a lot of activity in the grounds. A delivery of plants. Lots of digging on Shelley’s part. And the pool guys were there again.

He heaved himself up from his desk. He was tired and grumpy. He hadn’t slept at all the night before. But then what was new about that?

He’d worked right through. Burying himself in work was a better alternative to angsting about Shelley. Thinking about the difference she had made to his life. Not just because of Estella. In fact Estella seemed somehow peripheral now.

He realised now he had used Estella as a block to getting to know the real Shelley, not his imagined version of her. Estella had been self-protection.

There could be no doubt his attraction to Shelley made him see a glimmer of hope in the dark reality of his grief, a thawing of his long-frozen emotions. The kiss had made that very clear.

But the consequences if things went awry were huge—not just for him but for her. Shelley was an exceptional woman in every way—and he didn’t want to hurt her because he’d taken a step towards her too soon.

Perhaps she sensed his ambivalence and that was why she was determined to keep him at a distance, to concentrate on her plans for a career far away from here—and from him.

Before dawn he had gone down to the basement gym and driven his body through a punishing regime. Extended his body to its limits in a gruelling workout so that no thoughts could intrude—just pure physicality.

Even then—on the point of utter exhaustion—he couldn’t sleep. After his workout he had showered in the gym bathroom, then made his way up to the kitchen.

Breakfast was the one meal he was expert at preparing. Protein and lots of it was required after such an intense workout. So why in hell had he been hit by a craving for banana muffins? He’d wanted one so badly he had sworn he could smell them fresh out of the oven right there in his kitchen.

He’d been forced to phone through an order to a local bakery and have banana muffins express delivered. They tasted nothing like how he had anticipated—dry and unpalatable. There wasn’t a crumb of Shelley’s pie left either. He’d bet she’d bake a muffin that would taste a hundred times better than the ones he’d had delivered and that had subsequently landed in the trash.

His unsatisfied craving had made him grumpier than ever. And that was on top of his craving for
her.

Now Shelley wanted to see him to show him something in the garden. Oddly enough, he was looking forward to it. Seeing the garden emerge from the mess it had been was more satisfying than he could ever have imagined. Shelley had vision; there was no doubt about that.

He texted her:
I’ll be down in half an hour
.

She was waiting for him by the fountain—familiar Shelley in her khaki gardener garb. She coloured high on her cheeks when he greeted her—the previous time they’d met he’d been kissing her.

Inwardly he groaned. He wasn’t good at this. The last time he’d dated a woman had been when he’d met Lisa—and there hadn’t been many before her in spite of what Shelley might think.

‘Notice anything?’ she asked cheerfully.

Other than how beautiful you look—even in those awful clothes?

He nodded. ‘There’s water in the pond.’

‘And it’s not leaking away. It’s been in there for forty-eight hours. I think the pool guys nailed it. Well, not literally nailed it, of course. If they had, it would be leaking more than ever, wouldn’t it? I mean...’ Her voice trailed away.

In spite of his grumpiness he smiled; Shelley seemed to always make him smile. ‘I get what you mean.’

He inspected the pond and its surrounds, now all mellow sandstone free of grime and mould.

‘It looks awesome, doesn’t it?’ she said, eyes wide seeking his approval.

Even if it didn’t look awesome, he would say it did just so as not to extinguish that light in her eyes.

‘It’s awesome, all right. What about the fountain—does it work?’

‘That’s why I asked you down here,’ she said with a flourish of her hand. ‘You are formally invited to the grand ceremonial switching on of the fountain.’

She took him around to the back of the far wall of the pond and showed him a small, discreet box housing a switch. ‘The pump is behind there and all safely wired up to low-voltage electricity. All you have to do is turn it on.’ She paused. ‘Go ahead, you do this. It’s your fountain.’

‘But you’re the driving force behind it,’ he said. ‘The honour should be yours. You’ve put so much into it.’

Her smile dimmed. ‘It’s my job, Declan. This is what I do. And when I finish this job there’ll be another garden somewhere else.’

He ducked down to turn on the switch, hoping she wouldn’t see the sudden pain her words caused him.

Standing beside her—and noting how carefully she kept her distance—he watched as the water started to pump through the fountain, shooting up from the top and cascading down the tiers. The water sparkled as sunlight caught it and refracted off the droplets. Now he knew exactly what she meant about adding movement to the garden. And a different element of beauty.
But Shelley was the most beautiful thing in this garden.