Secret Billionaire on Her Doorstep

by Michelle Douglas

  He didn’t want her feeling unsafe around him.

  ‘Sometimes you remind me of Frances.’ The words dropped into the silence that surrounded them. ‘And it catches me off guard.’

  It was the truth, but it wasn’t what that moment had been about. Still, it would provide him with some kind of excuse, at least. And hopefully help her feel at ease again.

  She froze—head tilted back, bottle of beer to her lips. Nothing moved except her eyes as they returned to his. Eventually she lowered the bottle, but she didn’t speak.

  ‘It’s in the way you raise your eyebrows. Especially when you quirk just one of them.’ He huffed out a laugh. ‘Exactly like you’re doing now.’

  She lifted a hand to her eyebrow, as if committing the mannerism to memory.

  ‘You have a rather precise way of moving your hands... And your chin,’ he added with a frown, the resemblance only striking him now, ‘is the same shape as Frances’s.’

  ‘It’s the same shape as my mother’s too.’

  She traced it with her fingers and he tried not to imagine following the action with his own hand, then tilting it so he could lower his mouth over hers and—

  He pushed away from the bench. At her questioning glance he gestured across the room. ‘The sofa’s more comfortable.’ He needed to sit.

  His sofa was a deep, L-shaped affair, but before he could plant himself in the far corner the little dog had beaten him to it.

  ‘That’s a little bold, Barney,’ she scolded, scooting across to lift him onto her lap. ‘Owen might not want you sitting on his sofa.’

  Owen took the seat furthest away, aware now of her fragrance. She smelled like spring flowers. Or maybe that was because his courtyard was filled with a profusion of the spring blooms his mother had planted.

  ‘I don’t mind him being on the sofa.’

  She glanced around and huffed out a sigh. ‘But he’s not yours, is he?’

  It was more of a statement than a question, and things inside him pulled tight. He was a dog person. What was it about his apartment that gave her the idea he wasn’t?

  ‘No dog bed or food bowls or dog toys,’ she continued, and his shoulders loosened. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know who he belongs to, by any chance?’

  He shook his head. ‘What made you think I would?’

  She told him how she and Barney had become acquainted.

  ‘He must be local,’ he agreed, curbing the temptation to reach over and fondle the dog’s ears. It would bring him too close to Callie. ‘He looks well cared for.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Right.’ He stood. ‘Lost dogs are usually found within the first hour of going missing. I suggest we walk the nearby streets to see if anyone is searching for him.’

  ‘Excellent plan!’

  They returned to his apartment an hour and a half later, none the wiser and with Barney still trotting obediently on the length of cord Owen had dug out of the bottom of a drawer. They flopped down onto his sofa, nursing bottles of water.

  ‘He can stay with me until I find his owner.’ Callie glanced at Barney and then at Owen. ‘I get the feeling you’re a dog person too?’ He nodded, and her eyes lit up. ‘You work from home, right?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  These days he volunteered as little information about himself as possible. He’d been too trusting, too open, with Fiona, and it wasn’t a mistake he meant to repeat.

  ‘Your office is huge. So I just thought...’ She shrugged. ‘I figured it meant you worked from home sometimes.’

  ‘Sometimes I do.’

  He refused to meet her eyes. He had to go into the office occasionally. When he had meetings with clients, or his team of programmers, but it was rare. He left the day-to-day running of the company in the capable hands of his office manager. Ninety-five per cent of his work he did in the comfort of his own home.

  ‘Then we can share custody of Barney, if you like. I’m doing some research at the New York Public Library. It’d be great if I could leave him with you for a few hours each day when I do that.’

  ‘Sure, why not?’

  Lissy had been on to him for ages to get a dog. Barney would provide the perfect trial run. Maybe he could use Barney as an enticement to get Lissy to come and stay one weekend soon...

  He reached across and tugged gently on Barney’s ear. ‘How’d you feel about that, Barney Boy? We can have some guy time. You can kick back over a bowl of kibble while I slave over a hot computer.’

  He eased back, doing his best to ignore the scent of spring and the impulsive restlessness it sent surging through his veins. So, the New York Public Library...? What was she researching?

  He watched as Callie rubbed the little dog’s neck and shoulders, and laughed when Barney groaned his delight, kicking his back legs.

  ‘It might be worth putting some posters up around the area to help track down his owner. I could take Barney’s picture, make a poster, run a few copies off... What do you think?’

  ‘That’s a great idea. Someone has to be fretting about him, and we ought to spread the word. First thing tomorrow I’ll ring around the local vets. They might know who he is.’

  Her face grew serious again and the silence stretched, making Owen’s nape prickle.

  ‘You do know you still haven’t answered the first of my earlier questions?’

  He scratched a hand over his face.

  ‘Why do all the residents here hate me, Owen?’

  ‘They don’t hate you. They’re just worried. Worried you’re going to evict them or hike up their rents and force them out.’

  ‘I see.’

  She folded her arms and Barney leapt off her lap to pad over to the warm patch of sun outside, where he proceeded to stretch out as if on a minibreak at Waikiki Beach.

  ‘Really strategic move, being rude to me, though... Right? That’s the perfect plan to have me warming to everyone and feeling sympathetic and benevolent.’

  He bit back something rude and succinct. How did he explain the motley crew that made up the residents of this apartment block?

  ‘Joan in Number Six is a victim of domestic violence. Her now ex-husband is in prison for assaulting her. He contravened a restraining order—wasn’t supposed to be within a hundred yards of her.’

  She flinched.

  ‘Stuart in Number Four turned to drugs and alcohol as a teenager, due to childhood sexual abuse. He’s clean now, but it’s a constant struggle for him. He works part-time and is on a disability pension. He sees a therapist several times a week.’

  She swallowed.

  ‘Ana from Number Three—her parents were illegal immigrants. When her father was extradited back to Ecuador he was murdered. She and her mother, who is nearly crippled with arthritis, are fighting to stay in the country.’

  ‘Okay, okay...’ She waved her hands in front of her face. ‘I get it. Everyone here has had a tough time.’ She pulled in a breath. ‘Change—any kind of change—will be frightening for them.’

  ‘They have zero expectation of receiving kindness from strangers, Callie. It’s not what they’ve been taught to anticipate.’

  Behind the startling blue of her eyes, he could see her mind turning over.

  ‘Frances took each of them in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She offered them a safe place and cheap rent, just like she did for your mother?’

  His gut twisted. Now came the moment of truth. If Callie really was a gold-digger she’d hike up the rents. She could get ten times what everyone here was paying. She could price them out and force them out.

  His back molars ground together. He wouldn’t let that happen. If he had to, he’d subsidise the tenants’ rents. Not that he had any intention of telling her that. The people here had been through enough for one lifetime. Frances had wanted to giv
e them a safe place to shelter and rebuild their lives. He’d continue that legacy for as long as he could.

  ‘I’ve no intention of changing things for the foreseeable future, Owen.’

  His heart hammered against his ribs. ‘What are your plans for the foreseeable future?’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘WOW, YOU MUST be really good at your job!’ Callie couldn’t help but be impressed with all the high-end equipment in Owen’s home office.

  ‘Or just a tech nerd.’ He didn’t glance up from manipulating an image of Barney on the screen for the promised poster.

  ‘You said you create apps?’ At his nod, she added, ‘Would I be familiar with anything you’ve worked on?’

  His gaze remained glued to his screen, but he named a couple of apps that had her eyebrows shooting up towards her hairline.

  ‘Wow! If you worked on those then no wonder you have an office at home like this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He swung around, his tone clipped.

  She blinked. ‘I just meant it’s clear your company will do whatever it can to keep you happy...so you’ll keep working for them.’

  With a curt nod he turned back to the computer.

  She soldiered on past the awkwardness. ‘I guess the beauty of working from home is you can ditch the power suits and work in jeans and a tee.’ Although Owen didn’t strike her as a power suit kind of guy... ‘Or even your PJs, if you want.’ Though Owen might be one of those guys who wore nothing at all to bed.

  Her cheeks grew suddenly hot and her palms clammy.

  His lips twisted. ‘I bet you like a guy in a power suit.’

  There was an edge to the question that raised her hackles. ‘Mmm, you bet... What woman doesn’t, right? I mean it’s dreamy.’

  She wondered if she’d overdone it, but he swung back to his computer with a scowl. ‘The commute is mmm, dreamy too.’

  There was clearly something about her that made him want to snipe at her. And vice versa. Grief on his part, maybe? And the shock of being thrust into this seemingly alternative reality on hers? This ruffling and needling and poking at each other should feel stressful, fraught...nerve-racking. It didn’t, though. It felt enlivening...energising.

  For a moment earlier she’d even thought Owen had wanted to kiss her. It had sent a thrill of something gloriously reckless powering through her veins and—

  Don’t even go there.

  She wasn’t getting involved with anyone at the moment. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to start a relationship, so what was the point?

  Fun? The word had some of the hardness inside her wanting to soften and thaw, but she refused to let it. That kind of fun would distract her from working on the things that really mattered—work and stability. The distraction might look tempting, but it wasn’t worth it. Not in the long run.

  She tossed her head and forced herself back to the conversation. ‘The downside of working from home, of course, is not having workmates,’ she said.

  She missed her work colleagues. Not Dominic and the Head of Faculty—she didn’t miss them one little bit. But the rest of the staff in the history department had been a fun bunch. They’d welcomed her, advised her, and on occasion challenged her. They’d taught her so much about becoming an efficient researcher and a good teacher. She missed them. She missed her students too. She’d hate to work from home like Owen did.

  She glanced down to find cool grey eyes assessing her. He leaned back in his chair, the poster evidently forgotten. ‘You miss the people you work with, Callie? I’m guessing you’re not a computer nerd. What is it that you do?’

  ‘Did,’ she corrected. ‘Past tense. I was a junior history lecturer at a university back home.’

  ‘You were fired?’

  ‘Nothing so dramatic. I was “let go”.’ She made air quotes. ‘My contract wasn’t renewed.’

  His eyes gentled. ‘Downsizing?’

  ‘The powers that be are always trying to downsize the arts.’ Not that she’d really been a victim of downsizing. She’d been a victim of sexism and an old-style boys’ club mentality. It wasn’t a mistake she’d make again.

  She glanced around his office. ‘It must be nice to be so good at something and to be valued for it. I envy you.’

  ‘I’m sure you were very good at what you did.’

  She’d thought so too. She’d thought she was safe. ‘Maybe if I’d been better at it I wouldn’t have been let go.’

  ‘We both know that workplace politics comprise so much more than a worker’s individual worth, Callie.’

  ‘Truer words...’ she quipped, refusing to dwell on her sense of injury and the stinging injustice of it all. She’d keep her eyes firmly fixed on the main prize. ‘Currently I’m between jobs, but there are prospects on the horizon—’ good prospects ‘—and I’m quite sure work colleagues will feature in my future.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘What about you? Don’t you miss having work colleagues?’ she asked as he turned back to the screen. ‘Though I suppose you’re an island complete unto himself.’

  His lips twitched, and she had the oddest feeling she could stare at those lips all day.

  ‘I might not go into an office on a daily basis, but I’m not a hermit. I have online meetings, brainstorming sessions with other programmers. And outside of work this apartment block is a little community in itself.’

  One she was currently excluded from. Being excluded sucked. She needed to do something to change that.

  ‘I also see my family and friends regularly,’ he said.

  She held up a piece of sporting memorabilia—a pewter man swinging some kind of bat mounted on a shiny walnut base. ‘And who do you attend ballgames with?’

  ‘Don’t drop that—it’s a limited edition. Not cheap.’

  She very carefully placed it back on its shelf. ‘What sort of ballgame...?’

  ‘Baseball. And the fact you had to ask tells me you know nothing about ballgames.’

  ‘Not a thing.’ And, strangely enough, her life didn’t feel the poorer for it.

  ‘And sometimes,’ he continued, ‘when I’m wrestling with the logic of a particularly difficult piece of code, I’ll work at a nearby coffee house.’

  She clapped her hands beneath her chin. ‘Like the one in Friends?’

  He laughed. ‘It looks nothing like the one in Friends. It’s larger...more beaten up...no sofas.’

  ‘It sounds kinda cool.’

  ‘It is. You’d probably like it. Lots of guys in high-powered suits.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sold! Address, please? I’ll make sure to drop by.’

  His hand stilled on the keyboard. Above the photo of Barney that was centred on the page he’d written Found and beneath that he’d written Answers to the name of Barn.

  ‘You want to meet someone while you’re here?’ he asked.

  A temporary fling with a like-minded guy would be the perfect way to drive Dominic from her mind and her heart once and for all—that and the job. Her heart pounded up into her throat. The job... She had to convince the producers of that show that she was the perfect candidate.

  She released her breath and shook her head. ‘I can’t afford the distraction of a fling at the moment.’ She pointed to his screen. ‘It’s Barney. With an E-Y. B-A-R-N-E-Y.’

  He typed E-Y. ‘Distraction from what?’

  She couldn’t work out if he was grilling her or if he was genuinely interested. ‘When I told you I didn’t know what my plans were, I meant about my inheritance and this building.’ Now that she knew he lived here and worked from here, his concern made more sense. ‘But I have a job plan I’m working on.’

  He spun around on his chair. ‘Which is...?’

  She gestured to his spare chair, silently asking if she could sit in it.

  ‘Knock yourself out
.’ He grabbed the pile of files on it and set them on his desk.

  ‘Have you heard of the TV programme Mystery Family Trees? It’s a British TV series that’s proved so popular in the UK they’ve made an Australian version too.’

  His brow creased. ‘The show where they trace a celebrity’s genealogy?’

  ‘That’s the one. Well, they’re now in the process of putting a team together to make an American version of the show.’

  ‘Uh-huh...’

  ‘And I’m an historian.’ She spread her hands and kinked an eyebrow. ‘See where I’m going with this?’

  ‘That mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble one day.’

  But one corner of his own mouth lifted as he said it, and then his gaze lowered to her lips and time seemed to stand still. The murmur of a sighing breeze brushed through her, transporting her somewhere warm and sultry, like a tropical beach. Doors firmly shut inside her cracked open a fraction and—

  Owen snapped away and swung back to his computer. She blinked, the warmth inside her icing over as the present crashed back.

  Keep talking. Don’t let the silence stretch. Pretend nothing happened.

  Nothing had happened. And nothing was going to happen.

  ‘So, my plan is to put together a little video of me uncovering my own family tree to send in with my application.’

  She was sure she didn’t imagine him pushing several inches away on the wheels of his office chair before turning back towards her. The expression in his eyes, though, was alive with interest, and she could almost see him joining the dots.

  ‘So the discovery of your grandmother...?’

  ‘Has opened heretofore unknown doors.’

  ‘And the research you’ve been doing at the New York Public Library...?’

  ‘Has been to trace my family history. Which, I have to say, has been pretty straightforward. I’ve been able to go back five generations. I’ve hunted out locations I can visit to add colour to my personal documentary. And there’s the possibility of a skeleton in the closet, with a younger son mysteriously missing in the eighteen-hundreds—“missing” as in I’ve not been able to find any further records of him yet. I suspect the family shipped him off somewhere to hush up some scandal. I also suspect, given enough time, I can get to the bottom of it.’