Australia's Maverick Millionaire

Of course he was biased in the extreme. But she was liked by everyone and she felt she would have been even if her name hadn’t been Templeton.

They picnicked on the delicious food Aunt Lisa had packed into her state-of-the-art picnic basket—little chicken and mushroom pies, scotch eggs, ham quiche or sandwiches, washed down with cold sparkling apple juice followed by some lovely, fudgy brownies if they had room. They did. Baby Ella, eighteen months old, sat happily in her stroller, staring adoringly at her mother with her radiant blue eyes. Afterwards Clio and Tulip lay back on the grass, eyes closed, talking about all the things nine year old girls talked about—school friends, movies, pop idols, the new bike Tulip had graduated to, her ballet lessons. Aunt Lisa casually read a book, Ella gurgled her pleasure in the beautiful day.

Before they returned home they took a leisurely walk around the park, admiring the brilliantly plumaged parrots and lorikeets that thronged the trees. At one point Aunt Lisa’s mobile rang. She and Tulip continued on walking while Aunt Lisa turned away to answer her phone.

That’s when it happened.

The stroller with a plump, wriggling toddler in it moved slowly but very worryingly off the path. Without its brake applied, it began a slow downward slide over the grass, picking up speed so its progress eventually turned into a freewheeling hurtle. A tree or a shrub might have stopped its progress, but there were none in the way. The slope was not significant yet the stroller with Ella in it was taking a dead straight path to the water, covering the not-inconsiderable distance to the lagoon in heart-shaking seconds, before plunging into the deep emerald depths and disappearing out of sight.

Aunt Lisa, turning back in alarm, dropped her mobile, screaming her unspeakable terror. Some residents said afterwards they heard her screams half a mile away. Tulip, heart in her mouth, fainted, her slight body swooping to the grass. Clio stood paralysed, knowing when her limbs unlocked she would have to take a header into the lagoon to save Ella. She was a good swimmer, but like everyone else she had never ventured into the lagoon, said to be fathomless at the centre. But this was a life-and-death situation.

She gathered herself, mumbling a prayer, only at that precise moment, out of nowhere, a tall, athletic boy with a thick shock of hair that glinted gold in the sun suddenly materialized. He was moving as fleetly as a young lion loping down the grassy slope before diving so cleanly into the lagoon scarcely a ripple broke the surface.

People were charging across the reserve now, not quite knowing what was happening but ready to offer any help that was needed. No one was ever free of the fear of crocodiles. Everyone knew Aunt Lisa. She was a Templeton after all. Everyone knew about adorable Baby Ella. But where was Ella? They had the answer in moments. A roar of relief split the air as Josh’s golden head, dripping water and green gunk, broke the glassy surface. He had one arm firmly wrapped around Ella.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, God. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Josh.

It was her turn now to race down the slope. She was fully prepared to dive in to help Josh, only he shouted at her fiercely to stay back that mortified tears sprang to her eyes.

A woman, an off-duty nurse, took charge of Ella, checking her before putting her into her frantic mother’s arms. Next the nurse attended to Tulip, who had come round. She was sitting up, but was ghastly pale. Two strong men were on hand to pull Joshua out of the water, though his expression registered he was fully capable of getting out himself. That was the moment an elderly woman screamed and they all became aware a terrible weapon of destruction was coming at speed from the far end of the lagoon, its infamous notches of eyes and nostrils just visible above the waterline. The crocodile was nowhere as big as Snowy had claimed, probably a female, but it could have taken boy and little girl with no trouble at all.

Josh Hart fell back panting onto the grass, golden arms and legs spread-eagled. She had never in her life spoken more than two words to him but Clio found herself dropping onto the grass beside him. “Did you know the croc was there?” she asked, not daring to touch his tanned, outflung arm.

His fine nostrils flared. “Don’t be stupid, little girl.” He turned his golden-blond head to stare at her, blue eyes ablaze. “There are always crocs around. Snowy did warn you complacent idiots,” he added, adult-like scathing judgement plain on his beautiful, utterly superior face. He might try all he liked to be wicked. She knew he would never pull it off with her.

“But the council men checked,” she offered in protest. When had they checked?

“Well, they got it wrong, didn’t they?” His brilliant eyes burned into her.

“It’s my little cousin, Ella, you saved.”

“I know.” His answer was short and dismissive.

She flushed at the hostility he gave off in waves. Did he hate her?

“You’re Clio Templeton, aren’t you?” he said unexpectedly. “The town’s little sweetheart, its princess.”

His sarcastic tone was no proof against her eternal gratitude. “And you’re a hero,” she said simply. Then, greatly daring, she bent to kiss his cheek. “I’ll never forget what you did today, Josh Hart.”

A look of intense wariness and some other emotion she couldn’t quite catch came into his dazzling blue eyes. “Yes, you will.”

“Never!” She stood up, nine years old, long slender legs, tall for her age, her gleaming sable hair cascading down her back, admiration in her huge dark eyes. “I know a lot of things they say about you are true, Josh Hart, but you’re brave. I’m proud to know you.”

He laughed, such a strange laugh. “Hush now, princess,” he said, and one-armed himself to his feet. “They’re calling for you.”

Afterwards Clio felt as though lightning had been crackling all around them.

She was destined to feel it every time she laid eyes on him.

CHAPTER ONE

WHEN did falling in love begin? Josh pondered as he drove through the starry night.

When one was thirteen years old and a beautiful little girl with long gypsy dark hair and huge lustrous dark eyes bent down to kiss his cheek? When he’d had to swallow painfully hard against a great welling spring of barely remembered emotion? When he’d caught a dazzling glimpse of happiness, a meaning, and a purpose in life? No one outside his tragic mother had ever kissed him or moved his heart. But Clio Templeton had pulled him out of his deep emotional void that unforgettable day. In a way it had transformed him. Made up for a lot of the deprivation he had suffered. Only nine years old but little Clio Templeton had penetrated a shield so thick and strong he had thought no one could get through it. That was until she’d put her rosebud mouth very gently to his water-slicked cheek.

Clio Templeton, the only person in the world to make a breakthrough in the harrowing years since his mother had left him. He didn’t believe to this day his mother had overdosed deliberately. She had loved him. And he had loved her. They had been two against the world. He had no idea who his father was, a callous man at any rate. Maybe he could go the same way. He had to physically resemble the man who had fathered him, because his mother, Carol, had been dark haired, hazel eyed and petite of stature. Whoever his biological father had been, his mother had never revealed his name. And this was the man who had destroyed her dreams, then her life, leaving him a desolate orphan.

So that was his history. His mother had died. He had been left alive with all chance of normal life slipped away. He had been left to cope with life from age five. Total incomprehension. Grief. Loneliness. Extreme isolation. They had even renamed him, picking someone from the Bible. His given name had sounded too foreign. With the years came the terrible anger. He had seethed with it. Not burying it deep. It had all been there on show. As he had grown, his body had become solid muscle. He had eventually shot up to six-three. A formidable height. A formidable body. Back then he might have been a young lion escaped from the zoo. So that was God’s great plan for him, was it? he had reasoned. A probable life in prison? He no longer believed in a God. Why would he? Shunted from one home to another, juvenile detention, he had seen it all, some of it much too shocking to speak of.

He’d had to rise above his past, every rotten episode. But the monumental effort had made him depressingly hard, separating him from other people. No chinks in his armour. He knew a lot of the good people in the town backed off him. They didn’t have the understanding to realize what he’d been through. Probably wouldn’t believe it anyway. They after all had led charmed lives. The tropical town of Templeton was as physically beautiful and prosperous as anywhere in the Promised Land.

By the time he arrived at the Templeton mansion, the cul-de-sac that fronted the estate and the sweeping driveway was parked with luxury cars, the most expensive of them all belonging to Jimmy Crowley. Hell, Crowley was only a year older than he was. The car would have suited rich Granddaddy Crowley better, the old scoundrel, raw, ugly, powerful, but Jimmy was struggling to get across that he too could also become a man of substance. He had to be because Jimmy, along with his family, had convinced themselves Clio Templeton was Jimmy’s. Who else could it be but the most beautiful girl in the world? God knew, Josh didn’t disagree with that.

When he climbed out of his metallic grey Porsche, the scented summer air wrapped around him—frangipani, oleander, gardenia, the rich white ginger blossom and the king jasmine. He found himself gasping with the sheer pleasure of taking in the mingled fragrances. Just about every beautiful tropical flower and plant was represented in the gardens. There was no shortage of space. The Templeton mansion occupied twenty acres of prime real estate even the Templetons would be hard pressed to buy these days. The splendour of the gardens was known state wide. They were opened to the public from time to time. Leo’s mother had had constructed a huge eight-acre manmade fresh-water lake—no crocs to cause concern—with an amazing waterfall spilling over extraordinary big boulders that had been found in the area or brought in. The water supply came from a dam sited well away from the house. No one looking at the lake would ever know it was artificial. The verges were surrounded by luxuriant natural grasses and bullrushes, huge stands of the pure white arum lily, Japanese water iris and groves of tree ferns. The lake was a focal point for the magnificent grounds.

He looked towards the house. The scale of the place over the years had become little short of heroic. There was a certain absurdity to that, seeing that these days only two people, Leo and his granddaughter, lived there. Leo’s wife, Margaret, had died ten or more years back. The long-time housekeeper, Meg Palmer, and her husband, Tom, Leo’s man Friday, had their own very comfortable and private bungalow in the grounds.

The mansion lit up was a sight to take the breath away—vast, white, tropical colonial style with touches of South East Asia that were evident in the fine timber fretwork that was featured throughout the grand residence. The festive season was coming on. Leo liked to entertain. In no time it would be Christmas, with the Templeton big annual Christmas Eve party, not that Christmas meant anything to Josh. He had no one. There had been women in his life, of course. Sex eased many tensions but real emotion evaded him. There was no woman he had wanted to allow into his daily life; no one could thaw his heart or navigate his quiet but perilous moods. Sometimes he thought he had no choice but to remain forever a loner. He knew it could happen.

One hundred of the town’s richest and most influential citizens had been invited to tonight’s party. It was to raise more funds for neonatal equipment, which didn’t come cheap. The Templetons had actually put up most of the money for the town’s highly accredited hospital. Guests were naturally expected to plunge their hands deep into their pockets. The usual sumptuous buffet would be provided. Leo had insisted he come, though he would have refused had it been anyone else, with the only exception the exquisite Clio.

Not that Clio would have invited him. He and Clio were to stay a safe distance from one another. He had got the message early. Clio was the princess. He was the pauper. Consequently they had not been allowed to grow in any way closer, though he often saw her when he visited Leo. His visits were not so frequent these days. He had reached the point early in life when he was already a millionaire a satisfying number of times over. These days he was the property man. Real estate made fortunes more than anything else short of mining and he had interests in that. The North had been enjoying a tremendous building boom. He had made the most of it, buying up broken-down properties, putting up lucrative apartments, office blocks and a new shopping mall.

Leo had financed him at the beginning. He had paid Leo back with interest. Leo Templeton had made a better life possible for him. He was acutely aware how much he owed Leo, who had stepped in after the “baby Ella” incident to take on a trusteeship, a milder form of guardianship, of him. But Leo’s granddaughter was too rare a creature to be tainted by his squalid past. Whatever residual feeling remained from that day years ago, both hid it so deep it might never be allowed to surface.

Clio had lived with her grandfather since Lyle Templeton, Clio’s father, had remarried a few years back. Clio’s mother had been killed in a yachting catastrophe when two yachts had collided at sea. Clio had been seventeen at the time, devastated by her loss and the bizarre way it had happened. They had been as close as mother and daughter could be.

There was no rapport whatever with the second Mrs. Templeton. Keeley Templeton was many years younger than Lyle, no great beauty like Clio’s mother Allegra, with her aristocratic Italian background, but she had turned herself into a glamour girl with an endless flow of small talk that was good for such functions.

Inside the mansion, the entrance hall, big enough to park several cars, was filled with people who had gone through the receiving formalities and were making their way into the reception rooms. Josh was one of the last to arrive, just as he planned. Leo, still a fine, handsome man but looking frailer every time he saw him, was standing with his beautiful granddaughter, receiving their guests as they arrived. How easy it was to see Clio had been born to wealth and privilege and a mix of only the best genes. Her mother had been a member of a patrician Florentine family.

Lyle Templeton had met Allegra when he had been visiting Italy as part of his Grand Tour. Their meeting place, the iconic Uffizi, where both of them had been contemplating Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus”. Allegra at that time had been a very promising art student and a highly cultured young woman. She had spoken English. He’d had no Italian but they had fallen madly in love. On sight. The classic coup de foudre. Scarred as he was within, Josh knew that could happen. The sight of Clio Templeton even as a nine-year-old was graven into his mind.

“Good to see you, Josh!” Leo beamed as the two men shook hands. Leo’s pleasure was so obvious that quite a few people stopped in the middle of their conversations to wonder why the patrician Leo Templeton had taken this tall, stunningly handsome but definitely edgy young man under his wing. He might have been a gatecrasher such was their disapproval, albeit carefully hidden. No one dared to put that disapproval on plain view. No one wished to offend Leo, of course. No one wanted to offend the likes of Josh Hart.

Now they were facing each other. “Good evening, Josh.” Clio addressed him in her charming voice.

“How are you, Clio?” His eyes consumed her. That was the best part of his blue eyes. They burned, or so he’d been told, but they gave away no hint of his inner emotions. That’s what made him a brilliant poker player.

“I’m very well, thank you.” She tilted her lovely oval face up to him.

She had beautifully marked eyebrows, her dark eyes huge. She looked exquisite, the ideal model for a fine painting. He had learned from Leo that her mother had called her Clio after the subject of one of Allegra’s favourite paintings, Vermeer’s The Allegory of Painting depicting the Muse of History, Clio. With that in mind he had actually taken a side trip from Rome to Vienna to check out the painting in the museum where it was held. All in all he had spent a lot of time in art museums at home and abroad. He had made it his business to educate himself way beyond his Law-Commerce Degree, which Leo had made possible, cramming so much into a few short years, vast amounts of learning and knowledge. It amused him that he was something of a natural scholar. But the beautiful Clio was to be no part of his life. He was excluded from the Templeton ranks.

Tonight she was wearing a long satin dress in a colour that beggared description. It was neither green nor gold but a blend of the two. The plaited straps that held the bodice were knotted over her collarbone. There was another knot beneath the discreetly plunging neckline; a wide black sash showed off her narrow waist. Her wonderful sable hair was arranged with the classic centre parting and drawn back from her honey-skinned face into intricate loops. Three-tiered pendant earrings swung from her ears. He thought the stones were citrine, mandarin garnet and amethyst, probably Bulgari. She looked ravishing, a sheen all over her.

Did the excitement in her presence ever go away? He wanted no other woman but her. The one woman he couldn’t have.

He had only just moved from the receiving line into the living room that was so richly and elegantly furnished it could have featured in Architectural Digest when Keeley Templeton broke away from her group to come towards him with a show of enthusiasm that put him right on edge.