Hired by the Brooding Billionaire

* * *

With the winter evening closing in, Shelley walked confidently up the pathway to the house, even though it was shrouded in shadow from the overgrown trees. The first thing she would do if she got this gig would be to recommend a series of solar-powered LED lights that would come on automatically to light a visitor’s path to the front door. Maybe he wanted to discourage visitors by keeping them in the dark.

She braced herself to deal with Declan Grant. To be polite. Even if he wasn’t. She wanted to work on this garden. She had to sell herself as the best person for the job, undercut other gardeners’ quotes if need be. She practised the words in her head.

But when Declan opened the door, all her rehearsed words froze at the sight of his outstretched hand—and the shock of his unexpected smile.

Okay, so it wasn’t a warm, welcoming smile. It was more a polite smile. A professional, employer-greeting-a-candidate smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Even so, it lifted his face from grouch to gorgeous. Heavens, the man was handsome. If his lean face with the high cheekbones and cleft in his chin didn’t turn a woman’s head his broad shoulders and impressive height surely would.

She stared for a moment too long before she took his proffered hand, his hard warm grip—and was suddenly self-consciously aware of her own work-callused hands. And her inappropriate clothes.

He was attractive—but that didn’t mean she was attracted to him. Apart from the fact he was a total stranger and a potential employer, she liked to think she was immune to the appeal of very good-looking men. Her heart-crushing experience with Steve had ensured that. Too-handsome men had it too easy with women—and then found it too easy to destroy their hearts.

No. It was not attraction, just a surge of innate feminine feeling that made her wish she’d taken more care with her appearance for this meeting with Declan Grant.

After work, on a whirlwind visit back to the tiny apartment in Double Bay, she’d quickly showered and changed. Then swapped one set of gardening gear for another—khaki trousers, boots and a plain shirt without any place of employment logo on the pockets. When she’d told her sister she was going to see the potential client in the mysterious overgrown garden in Darling Point, Lynne had been horrified.

‘You’re not going out to a job interview looking like that,’ Lynne had said. ‘What will any potential employer think of you?’

‘I’m a gardener, not a business person,’ Shelley had retorted. ‘I’m hardly going to dress in a suit and high heels or pile on scads of make-up. These clothes are clean and they’re what I wear to work. I hope I look like a serious gardener.’

Now she regretted it. Not the lack of suit and high heels. But jeans and a jacket with smart boots might have been more suitable than the khaki trousers and shirt. This was a very wealthy part of Sydney where appearances were likely to count. Even for a gardener.

She’d got in the habit of dressing down in her male-dominated work world. Gardening was strong, physical work. She’d had to prove herself as good as—better than—her male co-workers. Especially when she had long blond hair and a very female shape that she did not want to draw attention to.

But Declan looked so sophisticated in his fine-knit black sweater and black jeans, clean-shaven, hair brushed back from his forehead, she could only gawk and feel self-conscious. Yes, her clean but old khaki work clothes put her at a definite disadvantage. Not that he seemed to notice. In fact she got the impression he was purposely not looking at her.

‘Let’s discuss the garden,’ he said, turning to lead her into the hallway that had seemed so dark behind him in daylight.

She tried to keep her cool, not to gasp at the splendour of the entrance hall. The ornate staircase. The huge chandelier that came down from the floors above to light up the marble-tiled floor. Somehow she’d expected the inside of the house to be as run-down and derelict as the garden. Not so. It had obviously been restored and with a lot of money thrown at it.

She followed him to a small sitting room that led off the hallway. It was furnished simply and elegantly and she got the impression it was rarely used. Heavy, embroidered curtains were drawn across the windows so she couldn’t glimpse the garden through them.

He indicated for her to take a seat on one of the overstuffed sofas. She perched on its edge, conscious of her gardening trousers on the pristine fabric. He sat opposite, a coffee table between them. The polished surface was just asking for a bowl of fresh flowers from the garden to sit in the centre. That was, if anything was blooming in that jungle outside.

‘I apologise for mistaking you for a courier the last time we met,’ he said stiffly. ‘I work from home and still had my head in my workspace.’

Shelley wondered what he did for work but it was not her place to ask. To live in a place like this, in one of Sydney’s most expensive streets, it must be something that earned tons of money. She put aside her fanciful thoughts of him being in witness protection or a criminal on the run. That was when he’d said ‘no’ to the garden. Now it looked likely he was saying ‘yes’.

‘That’s okay,’ she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘It was just a misunderstanding.’ She wanted to get off on the right foot with him, make polite conversation. ‘Did your computer part arrive?’

‘Eventually, yes.’

He wasn’t a talkative man, that was for sure. There was an awkward pause that she rushed to fill. ‘So it seems you’ve changed your mind about the garden,’ she said.

His face contracted into that already familiar scowl. Shelley was glad. She’d been disconcerted by the forced smile. This was the Declan Grant she had been expecting to encounter—that she’d psyched herself up to deal with.

‘The damn neighbours and their non-stop complaints. They think my untended garden lowers the tone of the street and therefore their property values. Now I’ve got the council on my back to clear it. That’s why I contacted you.’

Shelley sat forward on the sofa. ‘You want the garden cleared? Everything cut down and replaced with minimalist paving and some outsize pots?’

He drew dark brows together. ‘No. I want the garden tidied up. Not annihilated.’

She heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Good. Because if you want minimalist, I’m not the person for the job. There’s a beautiful, traditional garden under all that growth and I want to free it.’

‘That...that’s what someone else said about it,’ he said, tight-lipped, not meeting her eyes.

‘I agree with that person one hundred per cent,’ she said, not sure what else to say. Who shared her views on the garden restoration?

Her first thought was Declan had talked to another gardener. Which, of course, he had every right to do. But the flash of pain that momentarily tightened his face led her to think it might be more personal. Whatever it might be, it was none of her business. She just wanted to work in that garden.

He leaned back in his sofa, though he looked anything but relaxed. He crossed one long, black-jeans-clad leg over the other, then uncrossed it. ‘Tell me about your qualifications for the job,’ he said.

‘I have a degree in horticultural science from Melbourne University. More importantly, I have loads of experience working in both public and private gardens. When I lived in Victoria I was also lucky enough to work with some of the big commercial nurseries. I ran my own one-woman business for a while, too.’

‘You’re from Melbourne?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I lived most of my life in the Blue Mountains area.’ Her grandmother had given refuge to her, her sister and her mother in the mountain village of Blackheath, some two hours west of Sydney, when her father had destroyed their family. ‘I went down south to Melbourne for university. Then I stayed. They don’t call Victoria “The Garden State” for nothing. I loved working there.’

‘What brought you back?’ He didn’t sound as though he was actually interested in her replies. Just going through the motions expected of a prospective employer. Maybe she already had the job.

‘Family,’ she said. It was only half a lie. No need to elaborate on the humiliation dished out to her by Steve that had sent her fleeing to Sydney to live with her sister.

‘Do you have references?’

‘Glowing references,’ she was unable to resist boasting.

‘I’ll expect to see them.’

‘Of course.’

‘What’s your quote for the work on the garden?’

‘A lot depends on what I find in there.’

She’d been peering over the fence for weeks and knew exactly what she’d do in the front of the garden. The back was unknown, but she guessed it was in the same overgrown state. ‘I can give you a rough estimate now, but I have to include a twenty per cent variation to cover surprises. As well as include an allowance for services like plumbing and stonemasonry.’

‘So?’

She quoted him a figure that erred on the low side—but she desperately wanted to work on this garden.

‘Sounds reasonable. When can you start?’

‘I have a full-time job. But I can work all weekend and—’

The scowl returned, darkening his features and those intense indigo eyes. ‘That’s not good enough. I want this done quickly so I can get these people off my back.’

‘Well, I—’