Australian Boss: Diamond Ring: Australian Boss: Diamond Ring

Brent’s glance moved to the half finished painting. ‘What you have there looks…okay.’

‘Yes, and that’s the problem. Okay is synonymous with “average”. It isn’t good enough.’ Fiona frowned at the painting. ‘I need the real thing.’

He looked from her to the painting and back again. ‘If you can’t fix this it’s going to drive you crazy, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but how do you—?’

‘Know how that feels?’ He shook his head. ‘Because I’ve just spent all morning working on a project and not getting it where I need to because the one part of it that’s vital to the design I can’t perfect until I study rock formations in the mountains. And, as it happens, the rock formations I have in mind are the only place I know of where you’ll find your plants, complete with seed pods. It’s where I spotted the plants before I incorporated them into that landscape design in the first place. They aren’t normally stocked in nurseries. Linc sourced some young plants for me when I needed them.’

‘If you could get me a look at some…’ Without thinking about it, she took his hand in hers and used the base of his shirt to wipe as much of the paint off his fingers as she could. ‘I hope that shirt didn’t have sentimental value. I’ll replace it, of course.’ Her fingers worked at the buttons on the shirt. She got through three of them before he shackled her wrist.

‘Don’t—’ He broke off. ‘You’ll get it all over yourself.’

‘It’s too late to worry about that.’ It was too late to worry about a few things, Fiona realised, including the impact of revealing his chest to her gaze, even if she could only see a little of it. She dropped her glance so he wouldn’t see the expression in her eyes.

He probably liked petite women with dainty feet who didn’t have issues about plants, with or without seed pods on them…‘You should shower. There’ll be residue soaking through onto your skin. At least it’s not the most expensive brand of paint, but I’m sorry it got wasted.’

‘Don’t worry about that, and don’t worry about the shirt.’ Brent hesitated as he searched her face again. ‘You’ve been putting in long hours, trying to get this painting pulled together. I shouldn’t have asked you to produce something on demand for a project you weren’t in on from its conception. I said I wouldn’t let that happen more than once.’

‘It’s all right—’

‘No, it isn’t, but we’ll make it right.’ He wiped his hand on his shirt again. ‘I came in to tell you I’m going into the mountains to study rock formations. Maybe you should come with me, see these seed pods, take photos, draw them, whatever you need.’

‘A day trip.’ A day to spend time with him. No. It wasn’t about that. It was for work, had to be for that reason only. And Fiona had to look at it from that perspective. ‘I’m a professional. I have to be able to produce the goods on demand, without special trips or anything else.’

‘No. You don’t have to be able to do that. I’d never expect that of myself and I don’t expect it of you.’ Brent’s gaze became very focused as he said this. ‘Finish up here in the office while I take my shower. When I’m done, we’re going to swing by your place and my place for clothes and then we’ll go. Bring the work boots you wore on site. They’ll do for the trail I want to take you on.’

‘O-okay.’ What else could she do but agree? And be grateful, Fiona added silently as she glanced once again at her stalled painting.

‘Good.’ Brent gave a nod and turned away to head for the shower. ‘Oh, and we’ll be gone overnight.’

He walked off before she could even collect her thoughts.

An overnight stay in the mountains with her boss…

‘And that’s a square-tailed kite. See it?’ Brent pointed into the branches of a tree to the left on the trail in front of them.

They’d been flora and fauna spotting for the past hour, indulging in guesswork when they didn’t know what they were seeing, though in Brent’s case he recognised most things, right down to a gold and white daisy Fiona hadn’t seen in exactly its type anywhere before.

Fiona had photographed and sketched her seed pods. More importantly, she’d spent time simply studying them. Examining them from every angle, exploring the texture with her fingertips, feeling their weight and the roughness of their shells.

Brent’s response to bush walking like this was very tactile, too. He would stroke his fingers over the spiky leaves on a bush, or stop to carefully examine a bottlebrush or some other native flower. That attention to detail carried through into his work as much as Fiona needed to carry it to her work. Fiona didn’t doubt it was part of the reason his designs were so successful. She shouldn’t wonder if that tactility would carry through into other more personal parts of his life, because those thoughts were adding to her consciousness of him.

His autism made him unique and special, and yet he seemed determined to dislike it and hide its existence from the world if he could.

And Fiona needed to hide the existence of how attracted to him she was. She truly should have turned down the offer of joining him on this trip but, once decided, Brent had been set on the idea, convinced it would be good for both of them. And so far it had been. They were…enjoying themselves. It just worried her how much she struggled to do that without letting her emotions and feelings for him carry her in directions she shouldn’t go.

‘Is it really a square-tailed kite or are you making that up?’ She was proud of the slight teasing tone she produced, the relaxed humour as she went on. ‘I think I’ve heard of those, but I’m a city girl…’

‘It really is one.’ Brent’s mouth quirked up at one corner, as though he understood that edge of humour and enjoyed it.

But their gazes caught in that moment and she lost herself in moss-green irises and in an instant the relaxed state of their interaction changed.

Part of her welcomed that, was fiercely glad that he hadn’t managed to completely lose his awareness of her, after all.

The other part warned her not to think like that. She would only open herself to hurt from him all over again, though she knew he hadn’t set out to hurt her.

Brent’s head twitched to the side. It was only a little twitch in the scheme of things, but his gaze searched hers after it happened and suddenly every feeling she’d had the night they’d run into his father rushed to the surface to join with the rest of her confusion and interest in him that she needed to stifle, yet couldn’t seem to.

‘Families should love each other unconditionally.’ The words burst out of her. ‘There shouldn’t be any question about it. That should simply happen as a matter of course. Your father was very wrong to reject you the way he did. He should have seen that you were unique and special, not less in any way.’

‘Not less, perhaps, but I am different.’ A lookout appeared on the trail to their left. He led the way down to it over steps hewn from dirt and rock and leaned his arms against the chest-high railing to look out over the gorge spread before them. ‘I made a family for myself with Linc and Alex and I’m happy in that.’