by Ally Blake
There was a pause. A pause in which she held her breath, waiting for him to sign off the call, yet hoping he would not. Not yet.
Then he said, “I think this might be the longest time you’ve gone without asking when I’m coming home.”
“When are you coming home?” she asked, her voice deadpan.
His laugh was a deep sexy rumble. And then he hung up.
Nora kept the phone cradled in her hands as if it might help keep the warm fuzzy feelings tucked all around her.
Crushes were nice, she decided. Now, when she thought of Ben—and she thought of him far more often than was in any way sensible—she knew that he was many things. Wry, generous, conflicted, strong-minded, too handsome for his own good, a workaholic. A man who’d dedicated his life to getting people out of trouble. A man, she was beginning to believe, who was rather lonely out there in the big city.
A confidant.
A friend.
But still, it was just a crush...
Dear Reader,
I dedicated this book to a concept that has been bandied about quite a bit these past months: home.
Working from home. Being stuck at home. Forced to stay at home. Unable to go home. Home has loomed large in our lives of late and rarely with a positive spin.
But for me, my home is a sanctuary. It’s my happy place. It’s my bliss. During these strange times, I have made every effort to keep it that way, steadfastly, deliberately, as my young family and I snuggled in together to see out the storm.
Nora, our heroine, has never really had a home and made it her mission to keep it that way. She won’t miss it if she’s never had it! Our hero, Bennett, on the other hand, is all but convinced he’s made a new home for himself on the other side of the world from where he grew up. It takes a big, beautiful, worn-around-the-edges terrace house in Melbourne to show these two very different, very stubborn, people how wrong they both are.
Wherever you are in the world, snuggle in, as Nora and Ben discover what it means to truly feel at home.
Love,
Ally
The Millionaire’s Melbourne Proposal
Ally Blake
Australian author Ally Blake loves reading and strong coffee, porch swings and dappled sunshine, beautiful notebooks and soft, dark pencils. Her inquisitive, rambunctious, spectacular children are her exquisite delights. And she adores writing love stories so much she’d write them even if nobody else read them. No wonder, then, having sold over four million copies of her romance novels worldwide, Ally is living her bliss. Find out more about Ally’s books at allyblake.com.
Books by Ally Blake
Harlequin Romance
A Fairytale Summer!
Dream Vacation, Surprise Baby
The Royals of Vallemont
Rescuing the Royal Runaway Bride
Amber and the Rogue Prince
Hired by the Mysterious Millionaire
A Week with the Best Man
Crazy About Her Impossible Boss
Brooding Rebel to Baby Daddy
Harlequin KISS
The Rules of Engagement
Faking It to Making It
The Dance Off
Her Hottest Summer Yet
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
At its heart this is a story about home—not only the roof beneath which you sleep at night, but the city, the people, the music, the memories, the sensations, the spaces that make you feel safe, and comfortable, and most yourself. So, I dedicate this book to whatever it is out there that makes you feel most at home.
Praise for
Ally Blake
“I found Hired by the Mysterious Millionaire by Ally Blake to be a fascinating read... The story of how they get to their HEA is a page-turner. ‘Love conquers all’ and does so in a very entertaining way in this book.”
—Harlequin Junkie
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Excerpt from Second Chance to Wear His Ring by Hana Sheik
CHAPTER ONE
FACE TILTED TO the bright spring sky, Nora Letterman absorbed her daily dose of Melbourne sunshine as she moseyed her way along the beaten-up Fitzroy footpath.
A tram rattled past, rails screeching, sparks shooting skyward from the wires overhead, drowning out the music playing through Nora’s earbuds. She danced out of the way of a smiling couple as they all squeezed between a lamppost and a young girl walking four small fluffy dogs.
As moments went, it was pretty perfect, actually; one of a zillion lovely mental keepsakes she’d tuck away for when she left this little pocket of wonderfulness behind.
Which she would do. Any day now.
The eighteen months she’d spent there were the longest she’d stayed in one place. Ever. And she loved it dearly. But at her core, Nora was footloose and fancy-free. It even said so, in faded, scrawling script on the inside of her right arm, alongside a delicate dandelion, petals breaking away and drifting with the breeze.
“Nora!”
Nora looked back over her shoulder as Christos the fruiterer threw her a mandarin, which she swiped out of the air. Spinning to walk backwards, she put a hand over her heart.
Christos called, “The Tutti Fruiti website is such a hit, Nora. Lots of compliments from customers, which I accept on your behalf. Are you sure I can’t pay you in fruit?”
“Not unless the phone company accept payment in kind,” Nora called back.
Christos grinned. Then he shot her a salute before turning to flirt with the next customer.
Cheeks full with smiling, Nora meandered on, absorbing the cacophony of sensory delights that made this patch of Fitzroy infamous: incense and coffee, flowers and pre-loved clothes, street art and graffiti, multicultural foods and the lingering scent of smoked herbs that might or might not be legal.
Sure, there was a chain chemist or two along the strip, an American burger behemoth on the corner, but for the most part the shopfronts were generational, mum and dad stores, or young entrepreneurs stepping out into the fray. People having a go. Which was why she’d fitted in so quickly.
The fact that so many of them had readily snapped up the services of The Girl Upstairs—Nora’s fledgling online creative business—for a website dust-off, virtual assistance, or a vibrant social-media overhaul was yet another reason her time in this place had been so golden.
Gait loose, mind warm and fuzzy, her time her own, Nora slowed outside Vintage Vamp.
Misty, the elegantly boho business owner who’d refused to hire Nora as she believed the internet would cause the downfall of civilisation, mumbled under her breath as she reworked a clothing rail full of brightly coloured kaftans flapping in a sudden waft of breeze.
“Hey, Misty!” Nora sing-songed.
Misty turned, her eyes lit with genuine fondness, before she remembered herself and frowned. “Thought you’d have left us in your dust by now.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “Do you really think I’d go without saying goodbye?”
“Good point, Little Miss Sunshine. Not a chance of that. Now, help me. Do
I retire these things?” Misty waved a hand over the colourful kaftans. “Or leave them here, in memory of our Clancy?”
As one, both women blinked, breathed out hard sighs, then looked across the road, to the row of terrace houses on the far corner.
Some facades were overgrown with weeds, paint peeling, fretwork rusting; the tenants mostly students and artists who had gravitated to the area. Other properties had been meticulously renovated till they were worth an utter mint. But Nora’s and Misty’s gazes were caught on the cream-and-copper-hued terrace house right in the middle.
Neither dilapidated, nor pristine, Thornfield Hall—as it had been lovingly dubbed by its long-time owner—was tidy and appealing. It was also the house in which Nora had been lucky enough to live as the single upstairs tenant for the past year and a half.
Its downstairs sitting room was well known around the area as a safe, warm space for book clubs, widows’ groups, and a widows’ book club. Always open for a quick coffee, a listening ear, a place to grieve, to vent, to go for laughter and company.
Though it had gone quiet in the days since Clancy Finlayson—eighty-something, raucous, divine, and the owner of Thornfield Hall—had fallen ill. She had passed away before any of them had had the chance to ready themselves for the possibility.
“Any news?” Misty asked. “About the new owner?”
Nora shook her head. “Still no word.”
It was all anyone had asked since Clancy had passed.
Knowing Clancy as she had, the house might have been left to some distant relative, or the local puppy shelter.
While Nora had kept Clancy company during her final days at home, she had no more of a clue than anyone else. She’d focussed, as she always did, on the good not the bad, the happiness not the suffering: reading Jane Eyre aloud, telling funny stories she’d picked up in the neighbourhood, playing Clancy’s favourite records, and making sure Clancy’s hair and nails were en pointe.
After Clancy had passed, the lawyers had been frustratingly tight-lipped about it all, citing privacy laws, and Nora didn’t know where else to turn.
Which was how she’d found herself in her current state of limbo, ready to move on but unwilling to walk away and leave the beautiful old house untended, abandoned to fate, local squatters or graffiti gangs.
There was also the fact that she’d promised Clancy as much.
In those quiet, final hours, with Nora no longer able to hold back the ache that had been building inside her from the moment Clancy had announced she was sick—her insides crazing faster than she could mentally patch up the damage—in a rare fit of poignancy she’d promised Clancy that she’d take care of her beloved house till the new owner took over.
Clancy might not have been lucid, might not have heard a word, but Nora had been on the receiving end of enough broken promises in her life, a promise from her was as good as placing her beating heart in someone’s open hands.
So she would stay. Bags packed. Money put aside to cover her interim rent. Ready to hand the house keys to the new owner the moment they showed their face. And only then would she move on, leaving behind nothing but warm feelings and pleasant memories.
After all Clancy had done for her, it was the very least she could do.
Misty cleared her throat and shook herself all over. Pathos was not her natural state of being. “Loved the woman to bits, but I’m never going to move these damn things without her.”
Nora dragged her gaze and thoughts back to the rack of floaty, wildly coloured garments now flapping in a growing breeze, the Melbourne weather having turned on a dime as it tended to do.
“May I?” Nora asked, bringing out her phone to take a photo.
Misty waved a whatever hand Nora’s way.
Nora stood back, found the best angles and took a slew of photos, which she’d edit, filter, tag and post later on her The Girl Upstairs pages, which had gathered followers like lint on felt from near the moment she’d set them up as a showcase for her clients. If a half-dozen kaftans weren’t snapped up within the day she’d eat her shoes.
Thus distracted, she was too slow to move when Misty grabbed a moss-green kaftan with hot pink embroidery and purple fringing and thrust it up against Nora’s person. “You must have it. And when you wear it, you’ll think of Clancy.”
Beneath the sway of the lurid pattern, Nora’s hemp platforms poked out from under her frayed denim flares. If she ever wore such a thing, she’d more likely be thinking she looked like a seventies boudoir lamp.
Nora caught Misty’s eye, and the gleam of commerce within, then handed over the twenty bucks anyway. It was Nora’s mission in life to leave any place, conversation, and moment brighter than when she entered it and if selling a kaftan made Misty feel a little happier, then so be it.
Kaftan draped over her arm, Nora backed away. “Friday night drinks?”
“If you’re still here.”
“If I’m still here.”
With that, Nora waited for a break in the meandering traffic and jogged across the road.
When she reached the front gate of Clancy’s old house, she ambled up the front path; past the Japanese myrtle, to the front patio, its fretwork dripping with jasmine, pale green buds just now starting to show. The elegant facade was a little worn around the edges, but still strong and purposeful, like a royal family who could no longer afford servants, but still wore tiaras to dinner.
Using her key, she jiggled the old lock till it jerked open, then stepped inside.
Dust motes danced in the muted afternoon sunshine pouring through the glass panels in the front door. In the quiet it was easy to imagine Clancy’s Chloé perfume on the air, Barry Manilow crooning from the kitchen speaker, the scent of Clancy reheating something Nora had cooked on the beautiful old Aga.
A slice of sadness, of loss, whipped across her belly, so sudden, so sharp she let out a sound. Her hand lifted to cover the spot but it took its sweet time to ebb.
This... This was the biggest reason why she had to get the house sorted and move on as soon as possible. As strongly as Nora believed in the deliberate collection of happy moments, she’d made a concerted effort in her adult life not to put herself in situations that might bring on sadness, emotional pain, the sense of missing something, or someone.
Connections, friendships, and traditions felt nice, superficially, but they were so dangerous. They made a person feel as if such things might actually last. Shuffled from foster home to foster home as a kid, promises had been made to Nora, hopes raised, then summarily dashed, again and again.
There was no room for hope, or guilt, or expectations, or regret; not if she wanted a happy life. That lesson had been learned, until it was as indelible as any tattoo. And Nora really, truly, deeply wanted a happy life.
And so she woke up smiling, worked hard, kept little in the way of possessions, was nice to people and expected nothing in return, so that when she moved on, no part of her was left behind. Only a fond lustre, like the kiss of the first cool breeze of autumn at the end of a long summer.
The sudden clackety-clack of toenails on the hardwood floor split the silence, then stilled, snapping Nora back to the present.
“Magpie?” she called, her voice wavering just a smidge. “Pie?”
Pie was a bad-tempered, one-eyed, silky terrier; the latest in a long line of dogs Clancy had fostered in the time Nora had lived there. He’d been due to go back to Playful Paws Puppy Rescue around the time Clancy had passed. But after hearing the news, they’d said it was no rush getting him back.
This wasn’t their first rodeo.
So, she was not only stuck looking after a house that wasn’t hers, but also a dog that didn’t much like her. Which mucked with her head more than she liked. This had better get sorted...and soon.
Nora reached slowly into her tote for the baggie of dried meat she’d picked up at the whol
e-foods market. “I got you a little treat, Pie. Want some?”
She earned a distant growl for her efforts, before the flap of the doggie door gave her reprieve.
Stepping deeper inside the house, her foot caught on the mail that had been slipped through the mail slot in the front door.
A couple of department store mailers, Clancy’s subscription to Men’s Health magazine—for the articles, she’d always claimed—and an official-looking envelope. The latter was thick and yellow, the Melbourne address of a London law firm etched into the top left corner.
And it was addressed to Nora.
Heart kicking till she felt it in her neck and in a flush across her cheeks, Nora moved to the steep stairs leading up to her first-floor apartment, and sat, popping her tote and new kaftan beside her. Then she opened the envelope without ado.
As expected, it was news of Clancy’s will, as it pertained to one Nora Letterman.
She knew nothing would be left to her; she’d made Clancy promise after the older woman had made noise about leaving her a sideboard she’d admired. Unless it would fit in her rucksack, it would only be a burden. From what Nora could ascertain from the legalese, Clancy had listened. Apart from a few charitable bequests, the house and everything Clancy owned had been left to one Bennett J Hawthorne.
An answer. Finally!
Though while she felt the expected relief, hot on its heels came a wave of uncomfortable tightness in her belly.
Bennett J Hawthorne. Bennett. It had to be Clancy’s adopted grandson who, from the little Nora had gleaned, had lived with Clancy from when he was quite young.
Poor guy. What rotten news. And to find out his adoptive grandmother was gone while so far away. Actually, where was he again?
The dozen odd times his name had come up someone had always changed the subject, so she’d never heard the story behind his adoption. Since mere mention of Bennett had always made Clancy maudlin, which was the opposite of Nora spreading sunshine wherever she went, and in her experience “family” was as often considered a dirty word as not, she’d happily let it be. And never thought more of it.