Hired by the Brooding Billionaire

by Kandy Shepherd

  ‘Sure, Declan,’ she said. ‘Call me Shelley. But never Michelle. That’s my full name and I hate it.’

  ‘Shelley it is,’ he said.

  She buzzed with barely harnessed energy. ‘I’ll start clearing some of the overgrowth today—show your nosy neighbours you mean business. But first I really want to have a good look at what we’ve got here. Can you show me around?’ She put down her leather tool bag.

  His first thought was to tell her to find her own way around the garden. But that would sound rude. And he wanted to correct the bad first impression he’d made on her. Not only because he was her employer. But also because if he was going to base a character on her, he wanted her to stick around. He had to stomp down again on the feeling that he would enjoy seeing her here simply because she was so lovely. She was out of bounds.

  ‘There’s not a lot I can tell you about the garden,’ he said. ‘It was overgrown when I bought it.’

  ‘You can leave the plants to me. But it’ll save time if you give me the guided tour rather than have me try to figure out the lay of the garden by myself.’

  He shrugged. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Is there a shed? Tools? Motor mower?’

  ‘I can show you where the shed is—from memory there are some old tools in there.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Let’s hope they’re in working order, though I do have equipment of my own, of course.’

  ‘I bought this house as a deceased estate,’ he said. ‘An old lady lived here for many years—’

  ‘So I was half right,’ Shelley said, her mouth tilting in amusement.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I imagined an eccentric old lady living here—a Miss Havisham type. You know, from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.’

  ‘I am aware of the book,’ he said dryly. He hadn’t expected to be discussing literature with the gardener.

  ‘Or a cranky old man.’ Her eyes widened and she slapped her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh. I didn’t mean—’

  ‘So you encountered a cranky younger man instead.’

  She flushed, her smooth, lightly tanned skin reddening on her cheekbones.

  ‘I’m sorry, that’s not what I—’

  ‘Don’t apologise. I do get cranky. Bad mannered. Rude. Whatever you’d like to call it. Usually after I haven’t had any sleep. Be forewarned.’

  She frowned. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  ‘I work from my home office and I’m online until the early hours, sometimes through the night.’

  ‘No wonder you get cranky if you don’t get enough sleep.’

  He would bet she was an early-to-bed-and-early-to-rise type. Wholesome. That was the word for her—and he didn’t mean it as an insult.

  ‘I catch up on sleep during the day,’ he said.

  ‘Like a vampire,’ she said—and clapped her hand over her mouth again. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.’

  ‘You don’t have to apologise for that either. I actually find the idea amusing.’

  ‘I’m sorry— There I go apologising again. What I meant to say is that I sometimes speak before I think. Not just sometimes, lots of times. I’ve been told I need to be more...considered in what I say.’

  ‘So far you haven’t offended me in any way.’ She was so earnest he was finding it difficult not to smile at how flustered she’d become.

  ‘I’ll stay out of your way as much as possible, then.’

  ‘That might be an idea,’ he said. Then wondered why he didn’t like the thought of her avoiding him. He’d been living on his own for a long time and he liked it that way.

  Reclusive. Aloof. Intimidating. The labels had been hurled at him often enough. By people who had no idea of the intensity of the pain that had made him lock himself away. People who expected him to get over something he’d never be able to get over. Never be able to stop blaming himself for.

  ‘What do you do that makes you work such unsociable hours?’ Shelley asked.

  Unsociable. That was the other label.

  ‘I’m an independent producer of computer games.’ Then there was his other work he preferred to keep secret.

  ‘Really?’ She dismissed his life work with a wave of her hand. ‘I don’t have time for computer games. I’d rather be outside in the fresh air and sunlight than hunched in front of a computer or glued to a phone.’

  He glared at her. More out of habit than intent.

  She bit her lower lip and screwed up her face in repentance. ‘Oh, dear. I’ve done it again. Now I’ve really insulted you.’

  ‘I didn’t take it as an insult,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Do you invent games? That could be fun.’ Her attempt to feign interest in gaming was transparent and somehow endearing.

  ‘I have done,’ he said. ‘Have you heard of the Alana series?’

  She shook her head and strands of her hair escaped her hat. They glinted gold in the morning sunlight. ‘I played some game with a little purple dragon when I was younger but, as I said, I’d rather be outside.’

  ‘Yet you read?’

  ‘Yes. And these days I listen to audio books if I’m working on a job on my own. I spend a lot of time by myself in this line of work. If I’m in a team it’s different, of course.’

  ‘Seems like a good idea,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, don’t think I don’t give one hundred per cent to the job. I do. And your garden is so interesting to me I’ll be fully engaged. I dare say I won’t get to finish another book until I complete my work here.’

  ‘I wasn’t criticising you,’ he said. ‘If you want to listen to books or music that’s fine by me. As long as you get the work done and don’t disturb me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. She glanced at her watch. ‘I’m aching to see the rest of the garden. Tell me, is there a fountain there? I so want there to be a fountain.’

  He smiled. Her enthusiasm was contagious. ‘There is a fountain. But it doesn’t work.’

  She fell into step beside him as he headed around the side of the house. Her long strides just about matched his. ‘The pump for the fountain is probably broken. Or clogged. Or there could be a leak in the basin,’ she said.

  ‘All possibilities just waiting there for you to discover,’ he said.

  She completely missed the irony of his words. ‘Yes. I’m so excited to get it working again. I love water features. They add movement to a garden, for one thing. And attract birds.’

  He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I hadn’t realised that. About water adding movement. But when you think about it, it makes sense.’

  ‘A garden isn’t just about plants. There are so many elements to consider. Of course, being a horticulturalist, plants are my primary interest. But a garden should be an all-round sensory experience, not just visual.’

  She stopped, tilted her head back and sniffed. ‘Scent is important too. There’s a daphne somewhere in this garden. I can smell it. It’s a small shrub with a tiny pink flower but the most glorious scent. It blooms in winter.’ She closed her eyes and breathed in. ‘Oh, yes, that’s daphne, all right.’ She sighed a sigh of utter bliss. ‘Can you smell it?’

  Declan was disconcerted by the look of sensual pleasure on Shelley’s face, her lips parted as if in anticipation of a kiss, her flawless skin flushed, long dark lashes fanned, a pulse throbbing at the base of her slender neck. She was beautiful.

  He had to clear his throat before he replied. ‘Yes, I can smell it. It’s very sweet.’

  She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. How had he not noticed her lovely, lush mouth?

  ‘They’re notoriously temperamental,’ she said. ‘Daphne can bloom for years and then just turn up its toes for no reason at all.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Ten minutes in Shelley’s company and he was learning more about gardening than he ever wanted to know. ‘The name of the old lady who owned this house before me was Daphne.’

  He thought Shelley was going to clap her hands in delight. �
�How wonderful. No wonder there’s daphne planted here. It’s great to have a plant to echo someone’s name. I often give friends a rose that’s got the same name as them for a present. A ‘Carla’ rose for a Carla. A ‘Queen Elizabeth’ for an Elizabeth.’ She paused. ‘I don’t know if there’s a rose called Declan, though. I’ll have to check.’

  He put up his hand in a halt sign. ‘No. Please. I don’t want a Declan plant in this garden.’

  ‘Okay. Fair enough. I don’t know that Declan is a great name for a rose anyway. Fine for a man. Excellent for a man, in fact...’ Her voice dwindled. She looked up at him, pulled a self-deprecating face. ‘I’m doing it again, aren’t I?’

  ‘Declan is not a good name for a rose, I agree.’ She should be annoying him; instead she was amusing him.

  ‘I... I’m nervous around you,’ she said. ‘Th...that’s why I’m putting foot in mouth even more than usual.’ She scuffed the weed-lined path with her boot. It was a big boot; there was nothing dainty about this warrior woman.

  ‘Nervous?’

  ‘I... I find you...forbidding.’

  Forbidding. Another label to add to the list.

  He shifted from one foot to another, uncomfortable with the turn the conversation was taking. ‘I can see how you could think that,’ he said. What he wanted to say was he’d put a force-field around himself and it was difficult to let it down—even to brief a gardener. Especially when the gardener looked as she did—made him react as she did.

  She looked up at him, tilted her hat further back off her face. Her brown eyes seemed to search his face. For what? A chink in his forbiddingness?

  ‘You see, I so want to do this job right,’ she said. ‘There’s something about the garden that’s had me detouring on my walks to and from the station just to see it. I’m so grateful to your neighbours for forcing you to do something about it and employ me.’ She slapped her thigh with a little cry of annoyance. ‘No! That’s not what I meant. I meant I’m so grateful to you for giving me this chance to spend the next few months working here. I... I don’t want to blow it.’

  ‘You haven’t blown it,’ he said. ‘Already you’ve shown me I made the right decision in hiring you for this job.’

  Relief crumpled her features. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously,’ he said. If he was the man he used to be, the man for whom ‘forbidding’ would never have been a label, he might have drawn her into a comforting hug. Instead he started to walk again, heading to the back of the property where the garden stretched to encompass land of a size that had warranted the multimillions he’d paid for it.

  She fell in step beside him. ‘So tell me about Daphne—the old lady who owned the house before you. I wonder if she planted the garden.’

  ‘I have no idea. It was my...my wife who was...was interested in the garden.’

  How he hated having to use the past tense when he talked about Lisa. He would never get used to it.

  ‘Oh,’ Shelley said.

  He gritted his teeth. ‘My wife, Lisa, died two years ago.’ Best that Shelley didn’t assume he was divorced, which was often the first assumption about a man who no longer lived with his wife.

  The stunned silence coming from the voluble Ms Fairhill was almost palpable. He was aware of rustlings in the trees, a car motor starting up out in the street, his own ragged breath. He had stopped without even realising it.

  ‘I... I’m so sorry,’ she finally murmured.

  Thank God she didn’t ask how his wife had died. He hated it when total strangers asked that. As if he wanted to talk about it to them. As if he ever wanted to talk about it. But Shelley was going to be here in this garden five days a week. If he told her up front, then she wouldn’t be probing at his still-raw wounds. Innocently asking the wrong questions. Wanting to know the details.

  ‘She... Lisa...she died in childbirth,’ he choked out.

  No matter how many times he said the words, they never got easier. Died in childbirth. No one expected that to happen in the twenty-first century. Not in a country with an advanced health-care system. Not to a healthy young couple who could afford the very best medical treatment.

  ‘And...and the baby?’ Shelley asked in a voice so low it was nearly a whisper.

  ‘My...my daughter, Alice, died too.’

  ‘I’m so, so sorry. I... I don’t know what to say...’

  ‘Say nothing,’ he said, his jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. ‘Now you know what happened. I won’t discuss it further.’

  ‘But...how can you live here after...after that?’

  ‘It was our home. I stay to keep her memory alive.’

  And to punish himself.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHELLEY DIDN’T KNOW where to look, what to say. How could she have got him so wrong? Declan was a heartbroken widower who had hidden himself away to mourn behind the high walls of his house and the wild growth of his garden. And she had called him Mr Tall, Dark and Grumpy to her sister. She and Lynne had had a good old laugh over that. Now she cringed at the memory of their laughter. Not grumpy but grieving.

  She couldn’t begin to imagine the agony of loss the man had endured. Not just his wife but his baby too. No wonder he carried such an aura of darkness when he bore such pain in his soul. And she had told him he was forbidding. Why hadn’t she recognised the shadow behind his eyes as grief and not bad temper? There’d been a hint of it the night of her interview with him but she’d chosen to ignore it.

  Truth was, although she was very good at understanding plants—could diagnose in seconds what was wrong with ailing leaves or flowers—she didn’t read people very well. Somehow she didn’t seem to pick up cues, both verbal and non-verbal, that other more intuitive folk noticed. No wonder she had believed in and fallen in love with a man as dishonest and deceptive as Steve had been. She just hadn’t seen the signs.

  ‘Shelley excels at rushing in where angels fear to tread.’ Her grandmother used to say that quite often.

  She was going to have to tread very lightly here.

  ‘So it...it was your wife who realised this garden needed to be set free?’

  He didn’t meet her eyes but looked into the distance and nodded.

  ‘Only she...she wasn’t given the time to do it,’ she said.

  Mentally, Shelley slammed her fist against her forehead. How much more foot in mouth could she get?

  Declan went very still and a shadow seemed to pass across his lean, handsome face and dull the deep blue of his eyes. After a moment too long of silence he replied. ‘The reason I hired you was because you said much the same as she did about the garden.’

  Think before you speak.

  ‘I... I’m glad.’ She shifted from foot to foot. ‘I’ll do my best to...to do what she would have wanted done to the...to her garden.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘She would have hated to have it all dug up and replaced with something stark and modern.’ He took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘No need to talk about it again.’

  Shelley nodded, not daring to say anything in case it came out wrongly. If she stuck to talk of gardening she surely couldn’t go wrong.

  He started to walk again and she followed in his wake. She wouldn’t let herself admire his broad-shouldered back view. He was a heartbroken widower.

  Even if he weren’t—even if he were the most eligible bachelor in Australia—he was her employer and therefore off-limits.

  Then there was the fact she had no desire for a man in her life. Not now, not yet. Maybe never.

  After the disastrous relationship with Steve that had made her turn tail and run back to Sydney from Melbourne, she’d decided she didn’t want the inevitable painful disruption a man brought with him.

  She’d learned hard lessons—starting with the father who had abandoned her when she was aged thirteen—that men weren’t to be trusted. And that she fell to pieces when it all went wrong. She’d taken it so badly when it had ended with Steve—beaten herself up with recrimination and pain—she’d had to
resign from her job, unable to function properly. No way would she be such a trusting fool again.

  As she followed her new boss around the side of the house, she kept her eyes down to the cracked pathway where tiny flowers known as erigeron or seaside daisies grew in the gaps. She liked the effect, although some would dismiss them as weeds. Nature sometimes had its own planting schemes that she had learned to accommodate. If there was such a thing as a soft-hearted horticulturalist that was her—others were more ruthless.

  She was so busy concentrating on not looking at Declan, that when he paused for her to catch up she almost collided with his broad chest. ‘S-sorry,’ she spluttered, taking a step back.

  How many times had she apologised already today? She had to be more collected, not let his presence fluster her so much—difficult when he was so tall, so self-contained, so darn handsome.

  ‘Here it is,’ he said with an expansive wave of his hand. Even his hands were attractive: large, well-shaped, with long fingers. ‘The garden that is causing my neighbours so much consternation.’ He gave the scowl that was already becoming familiar. ‘The garden I like because it completely blocks them from my sight.’

  ‘That...that it does.’

  There must be neighbours’ houses on either side and maybe at the back but even the tops of their roofs were barely visible through the rampant growth. But, overgrown as it was, the garden was still a splendid sight. The front gave only a hint of the extent of the size of land that lay behind the house.

  She stared around her for a long moment before she was able to speak again. ‘It’s magnificent. Or was magnificent. It could be magnificent again. And...and so much bigger than I thought.’

  Declan’s dark brows drew together. ‘Does that daunt you?’

  He must be more competent than she at reading people—because she thought she had hidden that immediate tremor of trepidation.

  ‘A little,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m more exhilarated by the challenge than worried I might have bitten off more than I can chew.’