Hired by the Brooding Billionaire (5 page)

‘The shed is over there at the north end of the garden,’ he said.

Without another word he started to stride towards it. Even with her long legs, Shelley had to quicken her pace to keep up.

The substantial shed looked to be of a similar age to the house and was charmingly dilapidated. The door had once been painted blue but was peeling to reveal several different paint colours dating back to heaven knew how long. A rose—she couldn’t identify which one immediately—had been trained to grow around the frame of the door.

If the shed were hers, she wouldn’t paint that door. Just sand and varnish it and leave the motley colours exactly as they were. It would not only be beautiful but a testament to this place’s history.

As if.

She was never likely to own her own house, garden or even a shed. Not with the exorbitant price of Sydney real estate. Worse, she had loaned Steve money that she had no hope of ever getting back. Foolish, yes, she could see that now—but back then she had anticipated them getting engaged.

One day, perhaps, she might aspire to a cottage way out of town somewhere with room for not just a shed but a stable too.

In the meantime, she was grateful to Lynne for letting her share her tiny apartment in return for a reasonable contribution to the rent. All her spare dollars and cents were being stashed away to finance that trip to Europe.

Come to think of it, this shed looked to be bigger than Lynne’s entire apartment in nearby Double Bay.
‘Double Pay,’
her sister joked.

The door to the shed was barred by a substantial bolt and a big old-fashioned lock. It was rusted over but still intact. Even the strength in Declan’s muscled arms wasn’t enough to shift it. He gave the door a kick with a black-booted foot but it didn’t budge.

He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Where the hell is the key? I’ll have to go look inside for it.’

He was obviously annoyed she was keeping him from his work but she persevered.

‘I’d appreciate that. I’d really like to see what’s in there.’

She hoped there would be usable tools inside. While she had a basic collection, she was used to working with equipment supplied by her employer. She didn’t want to have to take a hire payment from her fee.

He turned again to head towards the house.

‘Sorry,’ she said.
There went that darn sorry word again.
‘But one more thing before you go. Is there...well, access to a bathroom? I’ll be working here all day and—’

‘At the side of the house there’s a small self-contained apartment,’ he said. ‘You can use the bathroom there. I’ll get you that key too. A door leads into the house but that’s kept locked.’

‘Are you sure? I thought maybe there was an outside—’

‘You can use the apartment,’ he said, in a that’s-the-end-of-it tone.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘Take a walk around the garden while I go hunt for the keys,’ he said. ‘I might be a while.’

She watched him as he headed towards the back entrance of the house. Did he always wear black? Or was it his form of mourning? It suited him, with his dark hair and deep blue eyes. The black jeans and fine-knit sweater—cashmere by the look of it—moulded a body that was strong and muscular though not overly bulky. If he spent long hours at a computer, she wondered how he’d developed those impressive muscles.

She realised she’d been staring for a moment too long and turned away. It would be too embarrassing for words if her employer caught her ogling the set of his broad shoulders, the way he filled those butt-hugging jeans.
He was very ogle-worthy.

She put her disconcerting thoughts about her bereaved boss behind her as—at last—she took the opportunity to explore the garden. Slowly scanning from side to side so she didn’t miss any hidden treasures, she walked right around the perimeter of the garden and along the pathways that dissected it.
It was daunting but doable.

Dew was still on the long grass and her trousers and boots got immediately damp but she didn’t care. Sydney winter days were mild—not like the cold in other places she’d lived in inland Victoria and New South Wales where frost and even snow could make early starts problematical and chilblain-inducing. The cold didn’t really bother her. Just as well, as she’d set her heart on finding a job in one of the great gardens of the stately homes in England, where winters would be so much more severe than here.

The scent of the daphne haunted each step but she didn’t immediately find where it was growing. She would have to search for that particular gem under the undergrowth. There was no rush. She had time to get to know the idiosyncrasies this particular landscape would present to her.

Every garden was different. The same species of plant could vary in its growth from garden to garden depending on its access to sunlight, water and the presence of other vegetation. She suspected there would be surprises aplenty in a garden that had been left to its own devices and was now coming into her care.

A flash of purple caused her to stop and admire a lone pansy blooming at the base of a lichen-splashed stone wall. She marvelled at the sheer will to survive that had seen a tiny seed find its way from its parent plant to a mere thimbleful of hospitable soil and take root there. It didn’t really belong there but no way would she move it.

Not only had she learned to expect the unexpected when it came to Mother Nature, she had also learned to embrace it.

Declan Grant was unexpected, unexplained.
She batted the thought away from where it hovered around her mind like an insistent butterfly. He was her boss. He was a widower.
He wasn’t her type.

Her experience with men had been of the boring—she’d broken their hearts—and the bad boys—they’d broken hers. She suspected Declan was neither. He was a man who had obviously loved his wife, still revered her memory.

Her thoughts took a bitter twist. He was not the kind of man who cheated and betrayed his wife. Not like Steve, who had pursued her, wooed her, then not until she’d fallen deeply in love with him had she found out he was married.

Steve’s wife had confronted her, warned her off, then looked at her with pity mingled with her anger when she had realised Shelley had had no idea that her lover was married.

Shelley still felt nausea rise in her throat when she remembered that day when her life based on a handsome charmer’s lies had collapsed around her. She’d felt bad for the wife, too, especially when the poor woman had wearily explained that Shelley hadn’t been the first of Steve’s infidelities and would most likely not be the last. Even after all that, Steve had thought he could sweet-talk his way back into her affections, had been shocked when she’d both literally and figuratively slammed the door in his face.

The only vaguely comforting thing she’d taken away from the whole sordid episode in her life was that she’d behaved like an honourable ‘other woman’ when she’d discovered she was a mistress not an about-to-be fiancée. Not like the other type of ‘other woman’ who had without conscience seduced her father away from his family.

Now she swallowed hard against the remembered pain, took off her hat and lifted her face to the early-morning sun. Then she closed her eyes to listen to the sounds of the garden, the breeze rustling the leaves, the almost imperceptible noise of insects going about their business, the gentle twitter of tiny finches. From high up in the camellias came the raucous chatter of the rainbow lorikeets—the multicoloured parrots she thought of as living jewels.

Out here in the tranquillity of the garden she could forget all that had hurt her so deeply in the past. Banish thoughts of heartbreak and betrayal. Plan for a future far away from here.
‘You might have more luck with the English guys.’
She hadn’t known whether to laugh at Lynne’s words or throw something at her sister.

But she didn’t let herself feel down for long—she never did. Her spirits soared at the privilege of working in this wonderful garden—and being paid so generously to do it.

Getting used to working with a too-handsome-for-comfort boss was something she would have to deal with.

CHAPTER FIVE

D
ECLAN
LOCATED
THE
keys to both the shed and the apartment without too much difficulty. But the tags attached to them were labelled in Lisa’s handwriting and it took him a long moment before he could bear to pick them up. He took some comfort that she would be pleased they were at last being put to use.

Before he took the keys out to Shelley, he first detoured by the front porch and grabbed her leather tool bag from where she had left it. He uttered a short, sharp curse it was so heavy. Yet she had carried it as effortlessly as if it were packed with cotton wool. No wonder her arms were so toned.

He lugged it around to the back garden.

No Shelley.

Had she been put off by the magnitude of the task that faced her and taken off? Her old 4x4 was parked on the driveway around the side of the house and he might not have heard it leave. He felt stabbed by a shard of unexpected disappointment at the thought he might not see her again. He would miss her presence in his garden, in his life.

Then he saw sense and realised there was no way she would leave her tool bag behind.

He soon caught sight of her—and exhaled a sigh of relief he hoped she didn’t hear.

His warrior-woman gardener had hopped over the wall and jumped down into the metre-deep empty pond that surrounded the out-of-commission fountain. There she was tramping around it, muttering under her breath, her expression critical and a tad disgusted as though she had encountered something very nasty. Her expression forced from him a reluctant smile. In her own mildly eccentric way, she was very entertaining.

For the first time, Declan felt a twinge of shame that he had let the garden get into such a mess. The previous owner had been ill for a long time but had stubbornly insisted on staying on in her house. Both money and enthusiasm for maintenance had dwindled by the time she had passed away. When he and Lisa had moved in, he had organised to get the lawns mowed regularly. But even he, a total horticultural ignoramus, had known that wasn’t enough.

In fact he had mentioned to his wife a few times that maybe they should get cracking on the garden. Her reply had always been she wanted it to be perfect—compromise had never been the answer for Lisa—and she needed to concentrate on the house first.

Her shockingly unexpected death had thrown him into such grief and despair he hadn’t cared if the garden had lived or died.
He hadn’t cared if
he
had lived or died.
But now, even from the depths of his frozen heart, he knew that Lisa would not have been happy at how he had neglected the garden she had had such plans for.

Grudgingly he conceded that maybe it was a good thing the neighbours had intervened. And a happy chance that Shelley Fairhill had come knocking on his door.

Not that he would ever admit that to anyone.

She looked up as he approached, her face lit by the open sunny smile that seemed to be totally without agenda. Early on in his time as a wealthy widower he had encountered too many smiles of the other kind—greedy, calculating, seductive. It was one of the reasons he had locked himself away in self-imposed exile. He did not want to date, get involved, marry again—and no one could convince him otherwise no matter the enticement.

‘Come on in, the water’s fine,’ Shelley called with her softly chiming laugh.

Declan looked down to see the inch or so of dirty water that had gathered in one corner of the stained and pitted concrete pond. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,’ he said with a grimace he couldn’t hide.

He intended to stand aloof and discuss the state of the pond in a professional employer-employee manner. But, bemused at his own action, he found himself jumping down into the empty pond to join her.

‘Watch your nice boots,’ she warned. The concrete bottom of the pond was discoloured with black mould and the dark green of long-ago-dried-out algae.

Declan took her advice and moved away from a particularly grungy area. The few steps brought him closer to her.
Too close.
He became disconcertingly aware of her scent—a soft, sweet floral at odds with the masculine way she dressed. He took a rapid step back. Too bad about his designer boots. He would order another pair online from Italy.

If she noticed his retreat from her proximity Shelley didn’t show it. She didn’t shift from her stance near the sludgy puddle. ‘How long has this water been here?’ she asked.

‘There was rain yesterday,’ he said, arms crossed.

Sometimes he would go for days without leaving the temperature-controlled environment of his house, unaware of what the weather might be outside. But yesterday he’d heard rain drumming on the slate tiles of the roof as he’d made his way to his bedroom in the turret some time during the early hours of the morning.

Shelley kicked the nearest corner of the pond with her boot. Her ugly, totally unfeminine boot. ‘The reason I ask is I’m trying to gauge the rate of leakage,’ she said. ‘There are no visible cracks. But there could be other reasons the pond might not be holding water. Subsidence caused by year after year of alternate heating and cooling in the extremes of weather. Maybe even an earth tremor. Or just plain age.’

She looked up to him as if expecting a comment. How in hell would he know the answer?

‘You seem to know your stuff,’ he said.

‘Guesswork really,’ she admitted with a shrug of her shoulders, broad for a woman but slender and graceful.

‘So what’s the verdict?’ he asked.

‘Bad—but maybe not as bad as it could be if it’s still holding water from yesterday. Expensive to fix.’

‘How expensive?’

He thought about what she’d said about a fountain bringing movement to a garden. The concept as presented by Shelley appealed to him, when first pleas and then demands from the neighbours to do something about the garden never had.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘We might have to call in a pool expert. Seems to me it’s very old. How old is the house?’

‘It was built in 1917.’

Thoughtfully, she nodded her head. ‘The fountain is old, but I don’t think it’s
that
old. I was poking around the garden while you were inside. It has the hallmarks of one designed around the 1930s or 40s. I’d say it was inspired by the designs of Enid Wilson.’

‘Never heard of her.’

Gardening had never been on his agenda. Until now. Until this warrior had stormed into his life.

‘Enid Wilson is probably Australia’s most famous landscape designer. She designed gardens mainly in Victoria starting in the 1920s and worked right up until she died in the1970s. I got to know about her in Melbourne, although she did design gardens in New South Wales, too.’

‘Really,’ he drawled.

She’d asked him to tell her to button up if she rabbited on. Truth was, he kind of liked her mini lectures. There was something irresistible about her passion for her subject, the way her nutmeg eyes lit with enthusiasm.
She was so vibrant.

She pulled a self-deprecating face. ‘Sorry. That was probably more than you ever wanted to know. About Enid Wilson, I mean. I did a dissertation on her at uni. This garden is definitely based on her style—she had many imitators. Maybe the concrete in the pond dates back to the time it was fashionable to have that style of garden.’

‘So what are your thoughts about the pond? Detonate?’ he said.

‘No way!’ she said, alarmed. Then looked into his face. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’

‘I’m kidding you,’ he said. His attempts at humour were probably rusty with disuse.

‘Don’t scare me like that,’ she admonished. ‘I’m sure the fountain can be restored. It will need a new pump and plumbing. I don’t know how to fix the concrete though. Plaster? Resin? A pond liner? Whatever is done, we’d want to preserve the sandstone wall around it.’

He looked at the fountain and its surrounds through narrowed eyes. ‘Is it worth repairing?’ Could anything so damaged ever come back to life to be as good as new?
Anything as damaged as a heart
?

‘I think so,’ she said.

‘Would it be more cost-effective to replace it with something new?’ he asked.

She frowned. ‘You mean a reproduction? Maybe. Maybe not. But the fountain is the focal point of the garden. The sandstone edging is the same as the walls in the rest of the garden.’

‘So it becomes a visual link,’ he said. He was used to thinking in images. He could connect with her on that.

She looked at the faded splendour of the fountain with such longing it moved him. ‘It would be such a shame not to try and fix it. I hate to see something old and beautiful go to waste,’ she said. ‘Something that could still bring pleasure to the eye, to the soul.’

He would not like to be the person who extinguished that light in her eyes. Yet he did not want to get too involved, either. He scuffed his boot on the gravel that surrounded the pond. ‘Okay. So we’ll aim for restoration.’

‘Thank you!’ Those nutmeg eyes lit up. For a terrifying moment he thought she would hug him. He kept his arms rigidly by his sides. Took a few steps so the backs of his thighs pressed against the concrete of the pond wall.

He hadn’t touched another woman near his own age since that nightmare day he’d lost Lisa. Numb with pain and a raging disbelief, he’d accepted the hugs of the kind nursing staff at the hospital. He’d stood stiffly while his mother had attempted to give comfort—way, way too late in his life for him to accept. The only person he’d willingly hugged was Jeannie—his former nanny, who had been more parent to him than the mother and father he’d been born to. Jeannie had held him while he had sobbed great, racking sobs that had expelled all hope in his life as he’d realised he had lost Lisa and the child he had wanted so much and his life ever after would be irretrievably bleak.

He wasn’t about to start hugging now. Especially with this woman who had kick-started his creative fantasies awake from deep dormancy. Whom he found so endearing in spite of his best efforts to stay aloof.

‘Don’t expect me to be involved. It’s up to you,’ he said. ‘I trust you to get it right.’

‘I understand,’ she said, her eyes still warm.

Did she? Could she? Declan had spent the last two years in virtual seclusion. He did not welcome the idea of tradespeople intruding on his privacy.
Only her.
And yet if he started something he liked to see it finished. When it was in his control, that was. Not like the deaths he’d been powerless to prevent that had changed his life irrevocably.

‘Call in the pool people,’ he said gruffly. ‘But it’s your responsibility to keep them out of my hair. I don’t want people tramping all over the place.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ she said. ‘Though harnesses and whips might not be welcomed by pool guys. Or other maintenance workers we might have to call in.’

He released another reluctant smile in response to hers. ‘I’m sure you’ll find a way to charm them into submission.’

As she’d charmed her way into what his mother called Fortress Declan. He realised he had smiled more since he’d met her than he had in a long, long time.

She laughed. ‘I’ll certainly let them know who’s boss,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve had to fight to be taken seriously in this business. If anyone dares crack a blonde joke, they’ll be out of here so fast they won’t know what hit them.’

He would believe that. A warrior woman. In charge.

He clambered out of the empty pond. Thought about offering Shelley a hand. Thought again.
He did not trust himself to touch her.

Turned out he wasn’t needed. He’d scarcely completed the thought before agile Shelley effortlessly swung herself out of the pond with all the strength of an athlete. He suspected she wasn’t the type of woman who would ever need to lean on a man. Yet at the same time she aroused his protective instincts.

‘Are we sorted?’ he said brusquely. ‘You deal with the pond. I’ve got work to do.’

He actually didn’t have anything that couldn’t be put off until the evening. But he didn’t want to spend too much time with this woman. Didn’t want to find himself looking forward to her visits here. He’d set an alarm clock this morning so he wouldn’t miss her. That couldn’t happen again.

He pulled out the keys from his pocket. ‘I’ll open the shed for you. Then I’m disappearing inside.’

To stay locked away from that sweet flowery scent and the laughter in her eyes.

* * *

Like much of this property outside the house, the shed was threatening to fall down. Declan found the lock was rusty from disuse and it took a few attempts with the key before he was able to ease the bolt back from the door of the shed.

Unsurprisingly, the shed was a mess. It was lined with benches and shelves and stacked with tools of varying sizes and in various states of repair. Stained old tins and bottles and garden pots that should have been disposed of long ago cluttered the floor. The corners and the edges of the windows were festooned in spider webs and he swore he heard things scuttling into corners as he and Shelley took tentative steps inside.

Typically, she saw beyond the mess. ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s a real old-fashioned gardener’s shed with potting benches and everything,’ she exclaimed. ‘Who has room for one of these in a suburban garden these days? I love it!’

She took off her hat and squashed it into the pocket of her khaki trousers. That mass of honey-blond hair was twined into plaits and bunched up onto her head; stray wisps feathered down the back of her long, graceful neck. The morning sunlight shafting through the dusty windows made it shine like gold in the dark recesses of the shed.

An errant strand came loose from its constraints and fell across her forehead. Declan jammed both hands firmly in the pockets of his jeans lest he gave into the urge to gently push it back into place.

He ached to see how her hair would look falling to her waist. Would it be considered sexual harassment of an employee if he asked her to let it down so he could sketch its glorious mass? He decided it would. And he did not want to scare her off. She stepped further into the shed, intent on exploration.

‘Watch out for spiders,’ he warned.