The Girl he Never Noticed

by Lindsay Armstrong

  Scout, who’d been a bit awestruck when she’d first met Cam Hillier, had completely lost her reserve now, Liz noted. And that led her to think, still with some amazement, about the two sides that made up her employer: the dictatorial, high-flying businessman, and the man who was surprisingly good with little kids.

  ‘This is the only room where it seemed like a good idea to start from scratch,’ she said as they stood in the doorway of the veranda lounge, which was glassed in conservatory-style, with a paved area outside and views of the valley. It was the focal point for guests for morning and afternoon tea. As such, it got a lot of use—and was showing it.

  Cam had already approved the upgrading of two guest bedrooms, the new plumbing she’d ordered for some of the bathrooms, the new range she’d ordered for Mrs Preston, and he’d waved a hand when she told him about the linen, crockery and kitchenware she’d ordered.

  ‘I got a quote and some sketches and samples from an interior decorating firm,’ she told him, ‘but I thought you’d like the final say.’

  ‘Show me.’

  So she displayed the sketches, the pictures of furniture and the fabric samples.

  Cam studied them. ‘Got a pin?’

  She frowned. ‘A pin?’

  ‘Do you always repeat what people say to you?’ he enquired.

  ‘No,’ she retorted.

  ‘You seem to do it a lot with me.’

  ‘That’s because you consistently take me by surprise!’ she countered. ‘What on earth—?’ She paused and stared at him. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to choose one with a pin?’

  He laughed at her expression. ‘It’s not sacrilege, and since I don’t have a wife to do it for me, what’s left? Or why don’t you choose?’

  ‘Because I don’t have to live with it. Because I’m not…’ She stopped and stared at him as a vision she’d warned herself so often against entertaining raced through her mind.

  ‘Because you’re not my wife? Of course I know that, dear Liz,’ he drawled, and once again couldn’t help a certain tinge of irony.

  She might have missed it yesterday, but Liz didn’t miss it now. She blinked as she became aware of a need to proceed with caution, of dangerous undercurrents between them that she didn’t fully understand—or was that being naïve?

  Of course it was, she chastised herself. She could feel the physical tension between them. She could feel the heat…

  They were standing facing each other, separated by no more than a foot. His shirt was open at the neck and she could see the curly black hair in the vee of it. She took an unexpected breath as she visualised him without his shirt, with all the muscles of his powerful, sleek torso exposed. She felt her fingertips tingle, as if they were passing over his skin, tracing a path through those springy black curls downwards…

  She felt her nipples tingle and she had a sudden, mind-blowing vision of his hand on her, tracing a similar path downwards from her breasts.

  Worse, she was unable to tear her gaze from his—and she had no doubt he’d be able to read what was going through her mind as colour mounted in her cheeks and her breathing accelerated. She was not to know he could also see a pulse fluttering at the base of her throat, but she did see a nerve suddenly beating in his jaw—something she’d seen before.

  She swallowed desperately and opened her mouth to say she knew not what—anything to defuse the situation—but he got in first.

  ‘You are a woman of taste and discrimination, wouldn’t you say?’ His gaze wandered up and down her in a way that she thought might be slightly insolent—why?

  But it did help her regain some composure. ‘I guess that’s for others to decide,’ she said tartly, and for good measure added, ‘If you really want to know, I don’t like any of these ideas.’

  She turned to look around at the veranda room. ‘It’s a room to be comfortable in—not stiff and formal, as these sketches are.’ She gestured to the drawings. ‘It’s not a room for pastel colours and spindly furniture. You need vibrant colours and comfortable chairs. You need some indoor plants. You need—’ She broke off and put her fingers to her lips, realising that in her confusion and everything else she’d got quite carried away. ‘Sorry. That’s only my—thinking.’

  He watched her with a glint of amusement. ‘Do it,’ he said simply.

  ‘What?’ She raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Do what?’

  ‘Liz, you’re doing it again,’ he remonstrated. ‘Decorate it yourself, along the lines you’ve just described to me. I like the sound of it. I won’t,’ he added deliberately, ‘confuse you with a wife.’

  Liz opened her mouth, but Mrs Preston intervened as she came into the room.

  ‘Liz—excuse me, Mr Hillier—I just wanted to check with you whether the barbecue is going ahead this afternoon?’

  ‘Oh!’ Liz hesitated, then turned to Cam. ‘I was going to have an early barbecue for the kids—round about five this afternoon, in my garden. We’ve done that a couple of times lately and they both really enjoy it. But you might like to have Archie to yourself?’

  ‘What I’d like is to be invited to the barbecue,’ Cam Hillier said blandly.

  ‘So I don’t need to cater for you this evening, Mr Hillier?’ Mrs Preston put in—a little hastily, Liz thought with an inward frown.

  Cam raised his eyebrows at Liz.

  ‘Uh—no. I mean, yes. I mean…’ Liz stopped on an edge of frustration. ‘No, you don’t, Mrs Preston. Please do come to the barbecue, Mr Hillier.’

  ‘If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble, Miss Montrose?’ he replied formally.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said, with the slightest edge that she hoped wasn’t apparent to Mrs Preston. But she knew she was being laughed at and couldn’t help herself. ‘We specialise in sausages on bread.’

  ‘Oh!’ Mrs Preston had turned away, but now she turned back, her face a study of consternation. ‘Oh, look—I can help out, Liz. You can’t give Mr Hillier kids’ food.’

  ‘I was only joking, Mrs Preston,’ Liz said contritely, and she put her arms around that troubled lady. ‘I’ve got—let me see…’ She paused to do a mental run-through of her fridge and pantry. ‘Some prime T-bones, and I can whip up a potato gnocchi with bacon and some pecorino cheese, and a green salad. How does that sound?’

  Mrs Preston relaxed and patted Liz’s cheek. ‘I should have known you were teasing me.’

  ‘But were you?’ Cam Hillier murmured when his housekeeper was out of earshot.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Liz queried.

  ‘Were you teasing her? I can actually see you deliberately condemning me to sausages on bread,’ he elucidated.

  Liz gathered all her sketches and samples before gainsaying a reply. ‘Have you got nothing else to do but torment me?’

  ‘You—’ he pointed his forefingers at her pistol-wise ‘—are supposed to be giving me—’ he reversed his hands ‘—a tour of all the great things you’ve done or plan to do for Yewarra.’

  Liz caught her breath. ‘If—’ she said icily.

  ‘Hang on—let me rephrase,’ he interrupted humorously.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ she flashed.

  ‘Liz!’ He was openly laughing now. ‘Where’s your sense of humour?’

  ‘To quote you—flown out of the window.’ She stopped and bit her lip frustratedly, because the conversation where he’d used that phrase was the last thing she wanted to bring to mind. The day he’d told her that professionalism between them had flown out of the window…

  She was saved by his mobile phone.

  He pulled it out of his pocket impatiently, and spoke into it equally impatiently. ‘Roger, didn’t I tell you not to bother me? What? All right. Hang on—no, I’ll ring you back.’ He flicked the phone off.

  ‘You’ll be happy to know you’re released for the rest of the day, Miss Montrose,’ he said dryly. ‘Something has come up, as they say.’

  ‘Oh? Not bad news?’ she heard herself ask.

  ‘If you call the potentia
l acquisition of another company via some delicate negotiations that require my expert touch bad news, no.’

  Liz blinked confusedly. ‘You don’t sound too happy about it, though.’

  He moved his shoulders and grimaced. ‘It’s more work.’

  ‘Surely—surely you could cut back?’ she suggested. And with inner surprise heard herself add, ‘Do you need another company?’

  ‘No. But it gets to be a habit. I’ll see you at five.’

  Liz stared after him as he strode out of the veranda room and found herself prey to some conflicting emotions. Surely Cameron Hillier didn’t deserve her sympathy for any reason? But was it sympathy? Or a sort of admiration tinged with—? Don’t tell me, she reprimanded herself.

  Surely I’m not joining the ranks of his devoted staff?

  She sat down suddenly with a frown as it occurred to her that the frenetic pace her boss worked at might be a two-edged sword for him. He hadn’t sounded enthusiastic at the prospect of another take-over. He’d admitted it was habit-forming in a dry way, as if to say he did it but he didn’t exactly approve.

  Did he have trouble relaxing? Was he unable to unwind? And if so why?

  She blinked several times as it crossed her mind that she was not the only one with burdens of one sort or another. She blinked again as this revelation that Cam Hillier might need help made him suddenly more accessible to her—closer. As if she wanted to be closer, even able to help.

  But what about what had gone—before she’d felt this streak of sympathy for him? What about the simmering sensual tension that had surrounded them? Where had it exploded from? In the month she’d been at Yewarra he’d given no sign of it during his visits, and she’d been highly successful at clamping down on her feelings. Or so she’d thought…

  So how, and why, had it escaped from the box today, over an interior decorating issue?

  Not that at all. It had been the mention of not being his wife, she suddenly realised. It was the thought of being his wife that had raced through her mind and opened up that flood of pure sensuality for her.

  She looked around, looked at the samples and sketches she’d folded up neatly, and thought of her brief to redecorate the room. But none of those thoughts could chase away the one that underlined them. Why did she feel like a giddy schoolgirl with an adolescent crush?

  The barbecue, although Liz had been dreading another encounter with Cam Hillier, and was feeling tense and uneasy in consequence, was going smoothly—at first.

  She’d loaded the brick barbecue with paper and wood, and ensured the cooking grid was clean. She’d put a colourful cloth on the veranda table, along with a bunch of flowers she’d picked, and she’d lit some candles in glasses even though the sun hadn’t set, to add a festive note to an occasion that the kids loved.

  She’d showered, and changed into a grey short-sleeved jumper and jeans, and—as she usually did on these occasions—she’d devised a treasure hunt through the garden for Scout and Archie. Something they also loved.

  As promised, she’d produced steaks, potato gnocchi and a salad, as well as sausages on bread. There was also a chocolate ice cream log waiting in the freezer.

  Although all set to do the cooking on the barbecue herself, when Cam arrived with Archie Liz found herself manipulated by her boss into releasing the reins after he’d taken one shrewd glance at her. He’d brought a bottle of wine and he poured her a glass and told her to relax.

  She sat down in two minds at first, but the lengthening shadows as the lovely afternoon slid towards evening, the perfume from the garden and the birdsong got to her, and she found herself feeling a little better.

  He was a good cook, and he handled the fire well, she had to acknowledge when the steaks and sausages were ready. Nothing was burnt, and nothing was rare to dripping blood. It was all just right. And not only Scout and Archie, sitting on a rug on the lawn, tucked in with gusto, so did she.

  Then came the chocolate ice cream log, and with it an extra surprise. Liz had stuck some sparklers into it, causing round-eyed wonder in to the kids when she lit them.

  ‘Wow! Now it’s a real party,’ Archie enthused. ‘Don’t be scared, Scout,’ he added, as Scout stuck her thumb in her mouth. ‘They won’t hurt you—promise. Yippee!’ And, grabbing Scout by the hand, he danced around the garden with her until she forgot to be nervous.

  But that wasn’t the end of the surprises—although the next one was for Liz. When the kids had finished their ice cream and quietened down, could even be seen to be yawning, although they tried valiantly to hide it, Mrs Preston and Daisy appeared, with the suggestion that Scout might like to spend the night in the nursery up at the big house tonight.

  Scout said, ‘Yes, please—pretty please, Mummy,’ before Liz had a chance to get a word in, and Archie added his own impassioned plea.

  So she agreed ruefully.

  It was after she’d collected Scout’s pyjamas and was about to head up to the big house that Mrs Preston said, ‘You two relax, now. Oh, look—you haven’t finished the wine!’

  Thus it was that peace and quiet descended on the garden, and Liz found herself alone with Cam and with a second glass of wine in her hand. A silver sickle moon was rising, and there was a pale plume of smoke coming from the barbecue as it sank to a bed of ashes. There were fireflies hovering above the flowerbeds, fluttering their delicate wings.

  She frowned, however. ‘They didn’t have to do that.’

  He grimaced, and went to say something in reply, she thought. But all he said in the end was, ‘They do get on well, the kids.’

  ‘I guess they have quite a bit in common. They’re pretty articulate for their ages—probably because they’re single kids, so they get a lot of adult attention. They have that in common. I think Archie is particularly bright, actually. And quite sensitive.’

  ‘I think he’s certainly appreciated having you and Scout around. He seems…’ Cam paused, then grimaced. ‘I know it sounds strange for a five-year-old, but he seems more relaxed.’

  ‘Except when he gets shoved around—but it hasn’t happened again. I’ve asked Daisy to watch out for it.’

  ‘They’ve probably established their parameters. Their no-go zones.’ He glanced at her. ‘As we have.’

  Liz looked down at her wine and sipped it.

  ‘What would you say if I suggested we move our parameters, Liz?’

  She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, but that would be unworthy, she knew. In fact it would be fair to say their parameters had moved themselves of their own accord, only hours ago.

  ‘I—I thought it was going so well,’ she said desolately at last.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘IT IS GOING well, Liz,’ he said dryly.

  ‘Not if we keep—’ She broke off, floundering.

  ‘Finding ourselves wanting each other? So I wasn’t imagining it earlier?’

  She glinted an ironic little glance at him.

  ‘Dear Liz,’ he drawled as he interpreted the glance, ‘you’re not always that easy to read. For example, I arrived in your garden tonight to find you in chilly mode—prepared to hold me not so much at arm’s length but at one hundred feet down a hole. Or—’ he paused and inspected his glass ‘—prepared to scratch my eyes out if I so much as put a foot wrong.’

  Liz sat up with a gasp. ‘That’s not true!’

  He shrugged. ‘Uptight, then. Which made me wonder.’

  She subsided.

  He watched her thoughtfully. ‘Don’t you think it’s about time you admitted you’re human? That you may have had good cause to freeze off any attraction under the weight of the betrayal you suffered but you can’t go through the rest of your life like that?’

  ‘So…so…’ Her voice shook a little. ‘You think I’m being melodramatic and ridiculous?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, but it is a proposition I’m putting to you. Take courage is what I’m really trying to say.’

  ‘By having an affair with you?’ She said it ou
t of a tight throat. ‘I—’

  ‘Liz, I’m not going to get you pregnant and desert you,’ he said deliberately. ‘But we can’t go on like this. I can’t go on like this. I want you. I know I said I wouldn’t but—’ He stopped frustratedly.

  ‘It will spoil everything, though.’

  ‘Why?’

  She licked her lips. ‘Well, it would have to be sort of clandestine, and…’

  ‘Why the hell should it be? You’re probably the only one around here who doesn’t believe it might be on the cards.’ He lifted an ironic eyebrow at her. ‘Why do you think we’ve been left alone in a romantically moonlit garden?’

  Liz’s eyes widened. ‘You mean Mrs Preston and Daisy…?’

  He nodded. ‘They’ve both given me to understand you and I would be well-suited.’

  ‘In so many words?’ Liz was stunned.

  He shook his head and looked amused. ‘But they never lose an opportunity to sing your praises. Bob’s the same. Even Hamish.’ Hamish was the crusty head gardener. ‘He has allowed it to pass his lips that you’re “not bad for a lass”. Now, that’s a real compliment.’

  Liz compressed her lips as she thought of the gossip that must have been going on behind her back.

  ‘And Scout and Archie are too young to be affected,’ he went on. ‘If you’re happy to go on in your job there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.’

  Liz got up and paced across the lawn, with her arms folded, her glass in her hand.

  He watched her in silence.

  She turned to him at last, her eyes dark with the effort to concentrate.

  ‘Liz,’ he said barely audibly, ‘let go. For once, just let go. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.’ He put his glass down on the lawn and got up. ‘Give me that.’ He took her glass from her and put it down too. Then he put his hands around her waist loosely, and drew her slowly towards him.