Hired by the Brooding Billionaire (8 page)

Of course she would be perturbed. He had no right to ask about her personal life. She would be quite within her rights to tell him to mind his own business.

He could not deny his relief that she wasn’t going out with a man. But if it wasn’t a date, why and where was she going?

He forced his voice to sound casual, unconcerned. ‘Lunch with a friend? It’s quite okay for you to stay as long as you like. I know what hours you’ve been putting in out there in the garden.’

Her mouth twisted downward. ‘Nothing as nice as lunch with a friend, I’m afraid. I have to look for somewhere to live. I share with my sister but she’s just got engaged and her fiancé wants to move in.’

‘There’s no room for you?’

‘No. It’s a tiny apartment.’ She sighed. ‘Now I’m heading off to inspect a place in Edgecliff. Along with all the other people desperate to find somewhere with reasonable rent close to the city. I want to stay in this area.’ She held up both hands with fingers crossed. ‘So wish me luck.’

She turned on her high-heeled boot. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

Declan followed her to the door, opened it for her, watched her start down the steps. ‘Stop,’ he called after her.

She turned. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll miss the inspection time if I don’t leave now. I have to find parking and—’

‘Don’t go. You don’t need to. You can stay here, in the apartment.’

He didn’t know what had possessed him to make that offer. It was all kinds of crazy. To have her actually living on the premises would do nothing for his resolve to keep things between them strictly on an employer-employee basis. He should rescind the offer immediately.

‘You already have the key,’ he said. ‘Just move in.’

* * *

Shelley was so taken aback she stood with one foot on the bottom of the step, the other on the pathway.

‘Are you serious?’ she asked.

He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘You need a home. The apartment is empty. It makes sense.’

‘But I... I shouldn’t... I couldn’t—’ Excitement fluttered into life only to be vanquished by caution.

‘It’s there for staff. You’re staff.’

‘Yes, I am, but...’

How to express her feelings that she was scared of living in such close proximity to him? She found him too attractive to be so near to him twenty-four-seven. Now she could go home, go out, try and forget the Rapunzel incident and how it had made her feel. Living here, knowing he was on the other side of a wall, might not be so easy.

As far as she knew Declan lived alone in the enormous house. A team of cleaners had come in on the last two Tuesdays and stayed half the day. The delivery van of an exclusive grocery store had also swept up the gravel drive several times. But no one else had come, not during the day anyway.

His house would become not just her place of employment, but also her home. Just her and him—the man who sent shivers of awareness through her no matter how she tried to suppress them.

Right now he towered four steps above her, dark, brooding and yet with something in his eyes that made her think he would be hurt if she knocked back his offer of the apartment.

The apartment that would solve her problem of where to live.

A solution that might bring more problems with it than it solved.

He shrugged again. ‘Of course, if you’d rather live in a cheap apartment in Edgecliff...’

‘No. Of course I wouldn’t. I’d love to live in the apartment. It’s beautiful. The poshest staff quarters in Sydney, I should imagine. Your lucky housekeeper—she must have been thrilled when she saw how it was decorated.’

He fell silent for a moment too long. ‘It was prepared for our nanny,’ he said. ‘The wonderful woman who used to be my nanny when I was a child. But...but she never moved in.’

‘Oh,’ she said.
Classic Shelley foot-in-mouth moment.
He looked so bleak that if he had been anyone else, she would have rushed to hug him. But she stayed put on the step.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

The history of her working relationship with Declan would be punctuated by endless repeats of the word
sorry
. ‘I need to think before I speak.’

‘You weren’t to know,’ he said. He shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. ‘So what’s it to be? Yes or no?’

‘I want to say yes but I need to know what the rent is first. I... I might not be able to afford it.’

No
might
about it. She almost certainly
wouldn’t
be able to afford the rent and the realisation brought with it a fierce regret. She would love to live in that apartment.

‘No rent,’ he said.

‘But—’

‘No buts.’ The words were accompanied by a dark, Declan scowl.

‘But—I mean
not but
. I mean...
if
I don’t pay rent I—’

‘This is staff accommodation. You’re staff. End of story.’

‘I have to pay my own way.’ She had never been able to accept a gift that might have been tied with invisible strings.

‘If you insist on a monetary transaction I will rescind my offer.’

She had no doubt he meant it. ‘No! Please don’t do that. I’ll work on Saturdays. For free. Well, not free. My labour in return for accommodation.’

‘There’s no need for that. However if you insist—’

‘I insist. When can I move in?’

‘Whenever you want.’

‘Saturday. This Saturday. I’ll start the extra work next Saturday.’

‘It’s a deal,’ he said. ‘Just remember not to use the door into the house—it’s the one in the kitchen.’

‘Of course not. I don’t have a key, anyway.’

‘The key you have operates both doors.’

‘I’ll respect your privacy,’ she said. ‘I promise.’

He nodded.

‘I don’t have a lot of stuff to move in,’ she said, bubbling with excitement now that she could accept the reality of the situation. ‘Most of my possessions are stored with my grandmother at Blackheath in the mountains. I hope you don’t mind if my sister gives me a hand to move in.’

‘So long as I don’t have to meet her,’ he said.

‘I’ll make sure of that,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Declan.’

He acknowledged her thanks with another nod.

She looked down at her smart outfit. ‘Now I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go,’ she said. ‘I just might drive on down to Double Bay and treat myself to a café lunch.’

She bit down firmly on words that threatened to spill and invite him to join her for lunch. The fact that he was her boss didn’t stop her. There was no law that said work colleagues couldn’t share a bite to eat—she did it all the time.

No. She didn’t voice the invitation because it would sound perilously close to asking him on a date.
And that was never going to happen.

She thanked him again and walked down the pathway, happy with the unexpected outcome of her meeting with Declan. She had a beautiful home until her contract here came to an end and she flew away to fulfil her dreams.

For her heart’s sake she just had to keep well clear of Declan in the hours that were hers to spend as she pleased.

CHAPTER EIGHT

D
ECLAN
DID
NOT
want to meet Shelley’s sister. Or her sister’s fiancé, who was helping with the move. Meeting her family would be a link he did not want to establish. But he felt compelled to watch—perhaps to make it seem real that Shelley was going to be living here from today on.

With typical Shelley efficiency, she’d arrived early in the morning with her crew. Feeling uncomfortably as if he was spying on them, he watched from his office window. A tall, very slender young woman with short brown hair, who must be the sister, and a red-headed guy helped Shelley bring in her stuff.

Just a few boxes and suitcases appeared to constitute her possessions. Shelley herself had a laptop computer slung over her shoulder and some clothes still on their hangers to take in.

It was still a shock to see her out of her gardening gear. Today she wore faded, figure-hugging jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and the ugliest running shoes he had ever seen—practical, no doubt, but a shocking contrast to the sexy, stiletto-heeled boots she’d worn earlier in the week. Or Estella’s thigh-high boots.

Could the bespoke shoemaker in Italy where he bought his shoes make a pair of moss-green suede boots in Shelley’s size?

He pushed the crazy thoughts aside. Both of ordering the green boots—and of imagining Shelley wearing them, and very little else.

Shelley’s helpers were in and out of the apartment within an hour. He wondered if she had so few possessions because she didn’t want them or because she couldn’t afford them.

He realised he was paying her over the odds for the gardening work. And he didn’t begrudge her a cent of it. A horticulturalist was not the highest paid of jobs, which seemed at odds with the incredible depth of knowledge Shelley seemed to have. Again he thanked whatever lucky chance had sent her to him.

His only regret was he could not ask her to pose for him. Princess Estella had stalled on him, still missing that final extra detail that might make her viable as the character on which he could base a new game. But he had to put the thought of Shelley posing for him alone in his eyrie office out of his fantasies. Especially when he spent way too much time thinking about her—as a beautiful woman who attracted him, not as a mere muse.

However, he now had his duties as not only an employer but a landlord to consider. Once she’d had time to settle in, he would go down to the apartment—now
her
apartment—and see if there was anything he could give her a hand with.
That was not making excuses to see her—it was obligation.

But before he could do so, he saw her heading out—and had to smother a gasp of stunned admiration. She was obviously going horseback riding. Shelley the equestrienne wore tight cream breeches that hugged every curve of her enticing behind, and a black, open-neck shirt that emphasised her slim, toned arms. She wore shiny black leather knee-high riding boots and carried a black velvet riding helmet under her arm, along with a leather riding crop.

Shelley had mentioned she rode horses as a teenager, jumping over snakes in typical warrior manner. Seemed as if she rode them still. But where? Certainly not around here, just minutes away from the heart of the city.

Who knew horseback riding gear could look so hot?

But then Shelley looked good in anything she wore—even the drab khaki. He wouldn’t let his mind travel any further along the path that might have him speculating on how she would look in nothing at all.

He watched her as she paused to look at the fountain, now under repair, then continued around the corner of the house to where she parked her so-old-it-was-practically-an-antique 4x4 in the driveway. The multi-car garage was filled with his collection of expensive sports cars that rarely got an airing these days.

But he was not just watching in admiration of how well she wore equestrienne mode. His stalled creativity was also firing back into life.

Now he knew exactly what was needed for Princess Estella.

A horse.

He turned back to his drawing board, his brain firing with so many ideas his hand holding the charcoal could scarcely keep up with his thoughts. As it always did when he was driven by creativity, time seemed to come to a halt as he got lost in the world of his imagination. Hours, days could go past.

He sketched Princess Estella astride a magnificent white horse with a flowing mane and tail that echoed the Warrior Princess’s glorious tresses.

But it was still not enough.

He paced up and down, up and down, coming back to the drawing board again and again. It was good but still not right.

Then it hit him. Estella was fantasy. Shelley was earthy, warm, reality.

Shelley rode a horse. But Estella was not bound by human and earthly constrictions.

Princess Estella would ride a unicorn.

Again he went back to his drawing board. It wasn’t difficult to transform the horse into a unicorn. He added a silver horn to the centre of its forehead. Made its eyes look less horse, more mythical creature whose gaze gleamed with knowledge and wisdom. Attributes that would help the warrior princess in her epic battles for good.

This time when he finished and stood back to look at his work he was buzzing.

Gorgeous Princess Estella with her long limbs and sensual curves was a young man’s fantasy. But it was more than that. He was convinced Estella and her magical unicorn would appeal to female gamers as well. Hadn’t even outdoor-orientated Shelley admitted to playing a girly dragon game?

He wished he had someone to share his jubilation with. But he had distanced himself from his friends since his bereavement. Only his mother hadn’t given up on him—which never failed to bemuse him as she had scarcely been a presence in his childhood.

His online colleagues these days were working with him on games that had little to do with entertainment and everything to do with education. They would have no interest whatsoever in Princess Estella and her unicorn.

It was with Shelley he wanted to share Estella. To let her know how she had inspired him. But he couldn’t. Not now. Not when he had gone this far without letting her in on the secret that she was his muse.

He went back to work, this time on his computer. The creation of a character was only the first step in the long process of producing a new game.

CHAPTER NINE

S
HELLEY
HAD
SPENT
both Saturday and Sunday mornings on horseback—the sport she’d loved since she’d been two years old and first begged to be lifted up onto a pony. Horticulture was both her interest and the way she earned her living. Riding a horse was pure pleasure—physical, emotional and spiritual.

A rented horse at a commercial stable could not compare to the joy of riding her own horse. But she was lucky enough to live not too far from Centennial Park, the inner eastern suburbs park that stretched out over four hundred and fifty acres and had extensive horse-riding facilities.

She had a deal with the owner of a beautiful thoroughbred chestnut gelding named Flynn that she rode every weekend. Flynn was loved by his owner, who couldn’t exercise him as much as the horse needed, so it worked out well for both of them.

One day she would have that countryside cottage with enough land for a horse. And a dog. In the meantime she made the best of riding Flynn.

She didn’t know when she’d get to ride him again on a Saturday now she had committed to working in lieu of paying rent. Most likely she’d saddle up very early before she started work.

It was worth adjusting her working hours to live in this apartment, she thought, looking around her with intense satisfaction. Yesterday she’d finished unpacking her stuff. She had her priorities right—she’d first unpacked the kitchen things. Not that she’d really needed to—the apartment kitchen was completely equipped with every tool and gadget she’d ever need, and more. This afternoon she’d decided to christen the top-of-the-line oven and cooktop.

One of the other things she loved to do in her own time was to bake. On the way back from Centennial Park she’d gone shopping and stocked up on everything she’d needed for a bake-fest.

The oven timer went off and she pulled out the two pies she had baked from scratch. There was something particularly satisfying about making pastry—she got a kick from kneading, crimping edges and forming pastry leaves to put on top. She set the pies to cool on a rack and stood for a long moment critically examining them.

Should she or shouldn’t she? She had baked the extra pie with Declan in mind. One for him, the other to share with Lynne and Keith. But she’d assured him she would respect his privacy. Would he consider a text to ask him could she deliver a ‘thank you’ pie a breach of her promise?

While the pies were cooling she showered and washed her hair to get out the smell of horse—she’d groomed Flynn after their ride. She adored the earthy warm smell of the big animals she loved. She suspected Declan might be rather more fastidious.

Once dressed in pink jeans and a pale pink shirt with a cream sweater slung around her shoulders—all gifts from Lynne, who was always trying to get her to dress in a more feminine manner—she texted Declan.

Can I see you?

His reply took a few minutes to come back.

Sure—come to the back door.

She wrapped the pie with its golden, buttery pastry crust in one of the beautiful French tea towels she’d found in a kitchen drawer.

It was only when she stood at his back door waiting for Declan to open it that she seriously began to question the sanity of baking a pie for her boss.

* * *

Declan was surprised to hear from Shelley so late on Sunday afternoon. He was not long awake, having had to catch up on some sleep after the Estella marathon. He’d only just started his workout in the basement gym and normally wouldn’t tolerate interruption.

He threw on a sweatshirt over his bare chest. Perhaps it was an emergency in the apartment that needed his attention, he told himself as justification for breaking his no-interruptions rule. As an excuse for the brightening of his spirits when he’d seen her name flash up on his smartphone.

He was even more surprised to see her at his door bearing the most amazing home-made pie. Apple, he guessed, if the enticing aroma was anything to go by.

She held it out to him on both hands like an offering.

‘I wanted to thank you for letting me live in the apartment it’s fabulous and I can’t believe my luck to be living there,’ she blurted out.

‘You don’t have to cook for me,’ he said and immediately regretted it when her face fell.

‘I wondered if it was...appropriate,’ she said, biting her lower lip. ‘You mentioned you liked mulberries. Mulberries aren’t in season so I couldn’t get you mulberries. I’m hoping apple and raspberry might be acceptable. I had to use frozen raspberries because they’re not in season either but they’re very good and—’

‘Shelley,’ he said. ‘Stop. I’m delighted you made me a pie. It was just...unexpected.’ He took it from her hands. It was warm to the touch. ‘Thank you.’

‘Just out of the oven,’ she said. ‘An oven that’s a very good one, by the way.’

‘Come in,’ he said.

‘Oh, no, I shouldn’t, I—’

‘Please,’ he said. The realisation he had no one to share the creation of Princess Estella with had made him feel...lonely.

He was also surprised to see Shelley all dressed in pink. Pretty, girly pink. She even wore jewellery, a chain holding a silver horseshoe that rested in the dip of her cleavage.
Lucky horseshoe.
He didn’t know why he had assumed she would always dress in mannish clothes. Perhaps he’d forced himself to think too much about Shelley as warrior instead of facing up to his attraction to Shelley as woman.

‘Okay,’ she said and followed him inside.

During the major renovation of the house the back had been opened up and a family room and what the architect had insisted on calling a ‘dream kitchen’ had been installed.

‘Wow,’ she said as she unashamedly looked around her. ‘This is an amazing space.’

‘It’s hardly used,’ he said.

‘Shame,’ she said. ‘That’s truly a dream kitchen for someone who enjoys cooking.’

So the architect had got that one right.

Most of the house wasn’t used and was quiet and still with air unbreathed. He couldn’t bear to go into the rooms he’d shared with Lisa. They’d been closed off for two years. He’d never gone into the nursery they’d prepared with such hope. But he wouldn’t let anyone clear it. His life in this house was confined to his top-floor workspace, the turret room and the gym with occasional forays into this kitchen.

And now Shelley had brought a shaft of her particular brand of sunshine with her into this too large, too empty, too sad house.

He carried the pie over to the marble countertop and put it down.

‘I’m going to have a piece right now while it’s warm,’ he said. ‘You?’

She shook her head. ‘I baked another one to share with my sister and her fiancé. I’m having dinner with them tonight.’

Any thought of asking her to join him for dinner—to be delivered from a favourite restaurant he hadn’t actually set foot in for two years—was immediately quashed. It was a stupid idea anyway. He reminded himself it was more important than ever to establish boundaries between them now she was living on site, so to speak.

He took out a plate, a knife to cut the pie and a fork with which to eat it, and served himself an enormous slice. Then pulled up a stool at the breakfast bar. Shelley took a seat two stools away.

‘So I get to eat this pie all by myself,’ he said, circling the plate with his arms in exaggerated possessiveness.

‘You could put half in the freezer,’ said ever-practical Shelley.

‘Believe me, there won’t be half left to freeze,’ he said.

He bit into his first mouthful, savoured the taste. ‘Best pie I ever had,’ he said with only mild exaggeration.

She laughed. ‘I don’t believe that for a minute.’

‘Seriously, it’s delicious.’

‘My grandma’s recipe,’ she said. ‘Trouble with learning to cook from your grandmother is I tend to specialise in old-fashioned treats.’

‘This is a treat, all right,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long time since someone baked for me.’

She looked around the room. ‘So who uses this kitchen?’

‘I do. But only for the most basic meals. I’m useless at anything more complex.’ Declan had never needed to learn to cook. He’d moved out of home at age eighteen, already wealthy enough to eat out or hire caterers whenever he wanted.

Shelley leaned her elbows on the countertop. ‘Was Lisa a good cook?’

He was so shocked to hear her mention Lisa’s name he nearly choked on his pie. But why shouldn’t she? It was a perfectly reasonable question. Shelley didn’t know of his guilt over the deaths of his wife and daughter and his determination to punish himself for their loss.

‘She...she did her best—but we used to laugh at the results more often than not. We ate out a lot. I think she was hoping this kitchen would transform her into a culinary wizard. She used to talk about doing classes but...but she never did.’

‘She... Lisa...she sounds lovely.’ He could tell Shelley was choosing her words carefully.

‘She was. You...you would have liked her and she...she would have liked you.’

He realised it was true. The two women were physically complete opposites; Lisa had been tiny and dark-haired. But there was a common core of...he hesitated to use the bland word ‘niceness’ but it went some way to articulating what he found almost impossible to articulate.

‘I... I’m glad,’ Shelley said. He could see sympathy in her eyes. But not pity. He wouldn’t tolerate pity.

Even two years later he still found it difficult to talk about Lisa. It was as if his heart had been torn out of him when she’d died.

But if he were going to talk to anyone it would be Shelley. There was something trustworthy and non-judgemental about her that made him believe he could let his guard down around her. If only in increments.

‘Lisa was...vivacious. That was the word people used about her. When I was young I was a quiet kind of guy, awkward around girls. Females ran a mile from me when they learned what a geek I was.’

‘I don’t believe that for a minute,’ Shelley said with an upward tilt to her lovely mouth. ‘You’re a very good-looking guy. I imagine you would have been beating girls off with a stick.’ Was that acknowledgement of a fact or admiration? Whatever it was he liked the feeling her words gave him.

‘Not so,’ he said, with a self-deprecating shrug. ‘I probably spent way too long in front of a screen.’

‘But Lisa saw something in you?’

‘Lisa grew up with brothers, knew how to handle boys. She took me out of myself. I was an only child of parents too busy to take much notice of me.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she murmured.

‘They’d decided not to have children. I came as a shock to them.’ He tried to make a joke of it but his bitterness filtered through. ‘I don’t know how many times I heard the words “Declan was our little accident” when I was growing up.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Surely they said it with fondness,’ she said.

‘Perhaps. I didn’t see much of my parents anyway. My mother was too busy defending criminals or doing pro bono work for underprivileged people to realise there might be someone at home who needed her time too. Thankfully she shunted me off to her mother for the school vacations.’

‘The one with the mulberry tree?’

He nodded. ‘The very one. She was an artist and took great delight in passing on her skills to me—to defy my parents, I sometimes think.’

‘And your father?’

‘Let’s just say “typical absentee parent” and be done with it.’

‘I... I feel sad for the little boy you were,’ she said.

‘Don’t be. I put that behind me long ago. Who knows, if I’d grown up in a happy household with a boatload of siblings I mightn’t have got where I did so fast.’

‘That’s a thought,’ she said, but didn’t sound convinced.

‘At least they had the sense to hire a wonderful nanny for me. She more than made up for it.’

Until he’d turned twelve and they’d terminated Jeannie’s employment, citing that a big boy like him didn’t need to be looked after any more. Jeannie had never given up on him, though. She’d stayed an important part of his life.

‘Jeannie was going to live in the apartment to...to help you with...?’

He had to change the subject. ‘Yes,’ he said abruptly. ‘What about you? Sounds like your childhood might have been less than ideal.’

‘It was very ideal until my father decided he preferred another family to us,’ she said. It gutted him to see her face tighten with remembered distress.

‘You and your sister?’

She nodded. ‘And my mum—none of us saw it coming. He met a younger woman with a little boy. She got her clutches into him and that was the end of it. For us anyway.’

‘So why did you have to leave your home?’

‘He’s a real-estate agent. He said our little farm needed to be sold. Then he pulled some tricky deal and moved right back in with her.’

Declan could think of a few words he’d like to use to describe her father but held his tongue. ‘That’s terrible.’

‘He tried to make it up to Lynne and me. Wanted to keep seeing us. I was allowed to keep my pony, Toby, there. He said it was a good way to make me visit.’

By the tight set of her face Declan doubted the tale would have a happy ending. ‘Makes sense,’ he said.

‘Until the day I got there to find she’d sold my beautiful Toby. And my father had done nothing to stop her.’

This time Declan did let loose with a string of curse words. ‘That’s cruelty. How old were you?’

‘I’d just turned fourteen. It’s a long time ago but I still remember how I felt.’

‘Did you get your horse back?’

‘We tracked down the new owner. But...but...’ Tears welled in her beautiful eyes. ‘He’d panicked when they were off-loading him from the horse trailer at the other end. My darling boy must have known what was happening to him wasn’t right. Apparently he reared and thrashed around and...and broke his leg.’ Her voice became almost unintelligible as she fought off tears. ‘It wasn’t the new owner’s fault. They didn’t know Toby was...was stolen. But he...he had to be put down.’

‘And what about your father?’

‘He made me hate him,’ she said simply. ‘And it never really went away.’

Something deep and long unused inside Declan had turned upside down in the face of her grief. To comfort her became more important than the inhibitions he had imposed upon himself.