Читать книгу The Australian Affairs Collection - Margaret Way - Страница 56

CHAPTER SIX

SHELLEY WAS BECOMING Declan’s guilty pleasure. From the windows of his office that took up most of the top floor of the house, he could watch her unobserved as she worked in the garden below.

Her energy and output were formidable as she systematically went about getting his garden back into shape. Right now she was on her hands and knees weeding a garden bed in the mid-morning sunshine. They’d had a discussion about the use of herbicides and come to the mutual decision to use an organic-based poison only when needed for the toughest of the garden invaders.

Garden invaders. He was taken by the term, wondered if he could use it for Princess No-Name’s game. Not that young male gamers were likely to be interested in gardens—but invaders, yes.

However the pros and cons of spraying weeds were not on his mind as he watched Shelley below in the garden. He admired the way she performed such mundane tasks as weeding or pruning with such strength, grace and rhythm. The play of her muscles, the way she stretched out her arms and long legs and massaged the small of her back after she’d been working in the one place for any length of time all appealed.

Now she was kneeling and he tried to ignore the way her shapely backside wiggled into his view when she leaned forward to locate and pull weeds.

Dammit—when had gardening ever been sexy?

He pushed the answer to the question he had posed himself to the back of his mind. Since Shelley had become his gardener.

She’d been here two weeks and he was more and more impressed by her. Her professionalism. Her knowledge. Her unfailing good humour. And that was on top of her beauty. Was she too good to be true? He kept contact with her to a minimum but he was super aware of her all the time she was on the property.

Too aware.

He had to remind himself he had vowed not to let another woman into his thoughts. Guilt and constant regret dictated that.

Even though he’d been told over and over again he was not responsible for Lisa and his daughter’s deaths, he blamed himself. He should have responded quicker when Lisa had told him she was getting rapidly increasing contractions. Not begged for ten minutes to finish the intricate piece of code he’d been writing. Ten minutes that could have made a difference.

His fault.

His own, obsessed workaholic fault.

Selfish, self-centred and single-minded. He and Lisa hadn’t quarrelled much—they’d had a happy marriage—but when they had, those were the accusations she had hurled at him. The anger had never lasted more than minutes and she’d laughed and said she hadn’t meant a word of it. But he knew there was some truth there.

Because Lisa had told him she wasn’t ready to have children. Had wanted to spend a few more years establishing her career in marketing before they started a family. He’d cajoled, wheedled, begged her to change her mind. Because he’d wanted at least three children to fill up the many empty bedrooms of this house. Children who would grow up knowing how loved and wanted they were.

And look what had happened.

Lisa’s death cast a black shadow on his soul. And Alice...he could hardly bear to think about Alice, that tiny baby he’d held so briefly in his arms, whose life had scarcely started before it had ended.

Their deaths were his fault.

He didn’t deserve a second chance at happiness.

Down in the garden, Shelley leaned back on her heels and reached into the pocket of her sturdy gardener’s trousers and took out her mobile phone. He hadn’t heard it ring from where he was but she was obviously taking a call. He was near enough to see her smile.

As she chatted she looked up at the house, the hand that wasn’t holding her phone shading her eyes. She couldn’t possibly see him from here. He didn’t want her to think he was some kind of voyeur. Just in case, he stepped back from the light of the window into the shadows of his office.

The furnishings in his shades-of-grey workspace were dominated by a bank of computer monitors. This was where he lived, his bedroom in the turret above.

Separate from the computers was a large drawing board he had set up to catch the best light from the window. He’d done some preliminary work on Princess No-Name on the computer. Design software could only do so much.

Now he’d gone back to sketching her with charcoal on paper. The old techniques he’d learned from his artist grandmother. Pinned up on a corkboard above the drawing board were sketches of various angles of the princess warrior’s head, her arms, the curve of her back. On the sketchpad was a work in progress of her—okay, of Shelley—looking over her shoulder with her hair flowing over her neck.

But the old ways had their limitations too. What fun he could have using motion-capture software to animate his princess warrior character. But to do that he would have to ask Shelley to model for him. To dress her in a tight black spandex suit that revealed every curve. To attach reflective sensors to her limbs and direct her to act out movements from the game.

In the anonymity of a big, professional studio—perhaps.

In the intimacy of his office? No way. Much too dangerous.

Further back from the window, though still in the good light, was his easel, where he had started a preliminary painting of the character in acrylic paint. The painting formed the only splash of colour in the monotone room where he spent so much time alone.

The painting was pure indulgence; this kind of image would not be easily scanned for animation. He hadn’t painted for years, not since before he was married. But his newly sparked creativity was enjoying the subtle nuances of colour and texture the medium was able to give Princess No-Name.

Shelley’s warrior strength and warm blonde beauty had kick-started his imagination but her connection to nature was what was now inspiring him to create his new character. He’d found himself researching the mythical Greek, Roman and Celtic female spirits of nature and fertility. Gaia. Antheia. Flora. The Green Woman. Mother Nature.

He was painting his Shelley-inspired warrior heroine in a skin-tight semi-sheer body stocking patterned with vines and leaves. The gloves that hugged her arms to above her elbows were of the finest, palest green leather. She strode out in sexy, thigh-high suede boots the colour of damp moss. As contrast, he’d painted orange flower buds in various stages of unfurling along the vines.

It would be only too easy to imagine Shelley wearing the exact same outfit. He drew in his breath at the thought of it.

But he could not go there.

Better he reined in his imagination when it came to thinking too closely about Shelley’s shape.

He had purposely used Princess Alana’s body as a template for Princess No-Name. Shelley’s slim, toned arms were there, yes. But he did not want to focus on her breasts, her hips, her thighs to the extent it would take to draw them. That could be misconstrued.

She was his muse—that was all.

His imagination filled in his princess warrior’s glorious mane of hair with fine brushstrokes. If only Shelley would let her hair down for him.

He modelled his new creation’s face on Shelley’s strong, vibrant face—with her lovely lush mouth exaggerated into artistic anime proportions. Her eyes were the exact same nutmeg as Shelley’s, with added glints of gold and framed by the kind of long, long lashes that owed more to artifice than nature.

His princess was inspired by Shelley, but she was not Shelley—he had to keep telling himself that. His new warrior was a distinct character in the unique style of his bestselling games. She would be a worthy successor to Princess Alana.

A name flashed into his head. Estella. He thought the name probably meant star—bright and shining and bold. Yes. It was perfect. Princess Alana. Princess Estella. It fitted. And gave a vague nod to ‘Shelley’.

Maybe her weapons could be ninja throwing stars—sharp and deadly. No. Too obvious, and far too vicious for his Princess Estella.

Wonder Woman had her golden lasso of truth. Maybe Estella could have a magical lariat to incapacitate and capture. But not kill. He didn’t want Princess Estella taking lives. He kept on painting, working in a fluorescent green lariat looped around her shoulder.

He stepped back, looked at his work with critical, narrowed eyes. Estella was gorgeous; she would make an awesome warrior heroine. But there was something lacking; he needed to add a unique characteristic to make her stand out in the sea of gaming heroines. He hadn’t got it right yet.

He needed to spend more time with Shelley.

Purely for inspiration, of course. There must be no doubt it was for any other reason. Other than to oversee the ongoing work in the garden.

So why did the thought of that flood him with excited anticipation that went far beyond the boundaries that restricted employer and employee? Or artist and muse?

Declan had been so engrossed in his work, several hours had gone by without him realising. He glanced down to the garden to see Shelley talking to a man—a tall, well-built man with blond hair. He pulled up abruptly, paintbrush in hand. Who the hell was he?

Then he realised the guy wore the same kind of khaki gardening gear as she wore. He must be the horticulturalist she’d asked could she call in to help with getting rid of some large trees she said had no place in the garden.

The man was standing near her. As Declan watched he brought his head close to Shelley and said something that made her laugh. Echoes of her laughter reached him high up in his room.

Declan’s grip tightened on the paintbrush. He didn’t like seeing her with another man. Was this guy a boyfriend? A lover? He realised how very little he knew about his beautiful gardener. How much he wanted to know.

He was shocked at the feeling that charged through him, like a car with a dead battery being jump-started after long disuse by a blast of electric current.

Jealousy.

* * *

Shelley sensed Declan in the garden before she saw him. The vibrations of his feet on the ground? The distant slam of the door as he’d left the house? Or was it her hyper awareness of him?

She loved working in this garden, in two weeks had achieved so much. But the day seemed...empty if she didn’t see him. Even if he came only briefly into the garden to make some quip about her passion for old garden implements. Or to ask if she’d fought off any spiders today. She would update him on her progress and go back to work, not knowing when she’d next see him. On edge until she did.

The days he didn’t come into the garden at all were days she felt oddly let down and went home feeling dispirited. No. Not just dispirited. Verging on depressed. Which was not like her at all.

Today she had even more cause for concern. Her gardening buddy Mark Brown had just called around to assess what equipment he’d need for the job he was helping her with the next day.

‘You mean you don’t know who Declan Grant is?’ he’d asked.

‘He told me he produced computer games,’ she’d replied.

‘You could say that,’ Mark had said. ‘The guy is a gaming god, Shelley, a tech wizard. Every guy in the world my age must have grown up with Princess Alana. And she’s just one of his incredibly popular games.’

‘He might be well known in the gaming world, but I’d never heard of him,’ she said, on the defence.

Mark’s words had made her feel ignorant until she’d reminded herself that when she was younger gaming had pretty much been a boy thing. A boring boy thing. She hadn’t known who Declan Grant was. Declan had blanked at the mention of Enid Wilson. Each to his own.

‘He used to go by the tag of ArrowLordX—I don’t know that he plays with mere mortals these days. He was an indie but sold out to one of the huge companies.’ Mark had looked around him and whistled. ‘This place must be worth millions—pocket change to him, though, the guy’s a billionaire.’ He’d narrowed his eyes. ‘I hope he’s paying you fairly.’

‘M-more than fairly,’ she’d stuttered. ‘He’s a generous employer.’

‘Yeah. The deal you’ve got me is good. I’ll be back tomorrow to earn it.’

She would have liked to introduce Mark to Declan but she was scrupulous about not disturbing her employer, intruding on his privacy. If she needed a response from him she texted him. She from the garden, he in his house. The only time she saw him was when he chose to seek her out.

By the time she looked up to see Declan heading towards her, Mark had gone.

It was lunchtime and she was sitting near a bank of azaleas—already budding up for spring—to shelter from the light wind that had sprung up. As her employer approached she put her sandwich back into the chilled lunchbox she brought with her to work and schooled her face into a professional gardener-greeting-boss expression.

She couldn’t let it show how happy she was to see him. How his visits had become the highlights of her day.

Her boss. A grieving widower. Not for her. She had taken to repeating the phrases like a series of mantras. Now she had to add: her billionaire boss—totally out of her league.

But when she looked up to see him heading towards her she couldn’t help the flutter of awareness deep inside her, the flush that warmed her cheeks. Her knees felt shaky and she stumbled as she got up to greet him.

She’d got used to his abrupt ways, his sly humour that she didn’t always get, the way he challenged her to justify her decisions. But she would never get used to the impact of his tall, broad-shouldered body and his extraordinarily handsome face.

This was the first time she’d seen him dressed in anything but black. His jeans were the deepest indigo—only a step away from black really, but it was a step. His sweater was charcoal grey, open at the neck to reveal a hint of rock-solid pecs and pushed up to his elbows to bare strong, muscled forearms.

‘Don’t get up,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise I was interrupting your lunch.’

‘I haven’t actually started eating,’ she said. She didn’t want to be caught at a disadvantage munching on a cheese and salad sandwich. It would be just her luck to have a shred of lettuce on her tooth when she was trying to be serious and professional around him.

His brow furrowed. ‘Do you usually eat outside? Why don’t you make use of the kitchen in the apartment?’

‘Oh, but I wouldn’t... I couldn’t. I just dash in there to use the bathroom.’

‘Please feel free to use the kitchen too,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said, knowing she wouldn’t. She still felt like an intruder every time she went in there.

Declan put his hands behind his back, rocked on his heels. ‘You were talking to a man earlier,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘He’s the gardener who’s coming to help me tomorrow. His name is Mark Brown. I would have liked to introduce you to him but I didn’t think it was worth interrupting you with a text.’

‘Is he a friend of yours?’

His question surprised her. But she remembered how concerned Declan was about strangers intruding on his privacy. ‘Yes, he is, actually. We were at uni together in Melbourne and both moved to Sydney at about the same time. He’s a very good horticulturalist. I could have just hired a tree-removal guy but we need to be careful with some of the surrounding plants. Luckily Mark was available. I can vouch for him one hundred per cent.’

‘Lucky indeed,’ he said. His eyes were cool, appraising, unreadable. ‘Is he your boyfriend?’

Shelley stared at Declan, too flabbergasted at first to speak. ‘What? Mark? No!’ She’d often got the feeling Mark would like to be more than friends but she didn’t see him that way.

‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ Declan asked.

Those extraordinary blue eyes searched her face. There was something darkly sensual about him that went beyond handsome. Something she should not be registering.

Boss. Widower. Not for her. Frantically she repeated the mantra in her mind. At the same time her body was zinging with awareness.

‘No. I don’t have a boyfriend. And I... I don’t want a boyfriend.’

‘I see,’ he said, nodding, as his speculative gaze took in her drab, serviceable gardening gear—a tad grubby after a morning spent weeding. She was also sporting protective pads made from foam and hard nylon strapped around her knees. ‘Nothing could be more unattractive or unappealing to a man,’ her sister, Lynne, had chortled when she had first seen Shelley decked out in her knee pads.

‘No. You don’t understand,’ she said to Declan. ‘I don’t want a girlfriend either. I mean, I don’t want a girlfriend ever.’ Foot in mouth again. ‘I like men. I’m not gay. I’m happy being single.’

Was that relief that lightened his eyes? Relief she was single? That she wasn’t gay? Both?

‘No plans for marriage and family?’ he asked, which surprised her.

She shook her head. ‘Plenty of time for that yet. My career is too important to me right now.’

He didn’t reply. Of course, she couldn’t resist chattering on to fill the silence that fell between them. ‘There...there was a boyfriend in Melbourne. It didn’t work out. I’m planning to travel after I finish your job. No point in getting involved with anyone in Sydney if I’m leaving. Men...well, men are more trouble than they’re worth.’ And she just said that to a man. Again she mentally beat her fist against her forehead.

‘I get it,’ he said and she got the distinct impression he was trying not to smile. There was another long pause, which this time she refused to fill. ‘So your friend Mark is coming tomorrow?’ he said finally.

‘Yes,’ she said, jumping on the change of subject. ‘Let me show you what we’ll be doing.’

Declan glanced at his watch. Shelley gritted her teeth. He always seemed to want to be anywhere but in his garden with her. At first she had found it insulting. Now she was beginning to realise it was just his way.

She’d learned now not to ask if she was boring him. Her policy was to take him as she found him. Fact was, though, she liked him way more than she should. She would be very disappointed if he cut short this time with him and headed back indoors.

Not that she would ever let him know that.

‘Come let me show you what happens when people misguidedly plant indoor plants out in the garden,’ she said.

He frowned. ‘I don’t get what you mean,’ he said.

‘You’ll see,’ she said, thankful that he started to follow her and not to stride off back to the house.

She led him to the area of garden near the eastern border with the house next door. ‘These two trees are probably the main points of contention for your neighbours,’ she said. ‘They’re ficus benjamina.’

‘More Latin,’ he said with that quirk of his dark eyebrow she was beginning to find very appealing. ‘Translate, please.’

‘Otherwise known as weeping fig,’ she explained. ‘A very popular potted plant. But planted out in the garden in this climate they can grow to thirty metres in height. Their roots are invasive and damaging.’ She pointed. ‘They’ve already damaged the fence and probably your neighbour’s paving and underground plumbing pipes too. They’re a tree suited to a park, not a domestic garden.’

‘So a giant garden invader?’ he said.

‘Exactly. They have to go.’

Declan indicated the neighbour’s house. ‘He’s already invoiced me for repairs.’

‘Really? A neighbour would do that? Did you pay him?’

He scowled. She would hate to ever see that formidable expression aimed at her. ‘I told you, I want these people off my back. I paid him.’

She shrugged. Seemed as if whatever he had paid would be water off a billionaire’s back. ‘You shouldn’t hear any more from them once Mark and I get these darn trees out—and all the potato vine twined around them. There’s a big mulberry on the other border fence—we’ll get rid of that too.’

‘A mulberry tree? I never knew we had one. I like mulberries. My grandmother had a mulberry tree and I’d spend hours up its branches.’

She had a sudden flash of a little black-haired boy with purple mulberry stains all around his mouth and mischief in his blue eyes. He must have been an adorable child.

She diverted her thoughts to the adult Declan. ‘The mulberry tree here I want to get rid of is too close to the fence. Don’t worry, there’s another one planted as a specimen tree in the middle of the lawn that we’ll leave. I like mulberries too and it’s not causing any trouble there. It’s a pity I won’t be around when the tree fruits or I’d bake you a mulberry pie.’

Oh, dear heaven, had she actually said that to her boss? She closed her eyes and wished herself far, far away from Declan’s garden.

She opened her eyes and he was still there, tall, dark and formidable. He made a sound in response that sounded suspiciously like a strangled laugh. ‘You bake pies as well as your other talents?’

‘Little Miss Practical, that’s me,’ she said with a self-effacing laugh. ‘My grandmother taught me to cook when we—my mum and my sister—went to live with her after my father booted us out of our home.’

She flushed. ‘Sorry, too much information.’ She looked around her, frantic to change the subject. ‘Whoever designed this garden way back when really was paying homage to Enid Wilson. Fruit trees as part of the garden instead of in an orchard. Thyme everywhere as groundcover. Indigenous plants when they weren’t really fashionable. I think—’

As she started her next sentence a teasing gust of wind snatched off her hat. She clutched at her head in vain to see her hat tumbling along the ground.

She went to chase after it, but Declan beat her to it and picked it up. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said.

It was such an old, battered hat she felt embarrassed he was touching it. He turned it over in his hand and went to put it back on her head. The movement brought him very close.

His mouth. For the first time she noticed his mouth. His full lips, the top lip slightly narrower than the other. The dark growth of his beard already visible at lunchtime.

Lots of testosterone.

The thought came from nowhere and paralysed her. She stood dead still, wondering what might come next, scarcely able to breathe, her heart thudding too fast.

His eyes looked deep into hers and she couldn’t read the expression in their deep blue depths. He tossed the hat aside. Then reached down and around to the back of her head.

She’d got ready in a hurry that morning and had piled her hair out of the way with only the aid of a single claw-grip clip to keep it in place. With one deft movement Declan had it undone. Her heavy mass of hair untwisted and fell around her shoulders and her back, all the way to her waist. She felt as if he’d undressed her.

With a hand that wasn’t quite steady, she went to push away the long layers that fell across the front of her face but Declan slid it away with his. Slowly, sensuously he pushed his fingers through her hair then ran his hands over her shoulders to come to rest at the small of her back where her hair reached.

‘Beautiful,’ he murmured in a low, husky voice.

Shelley didn’t know whether he meant her or her hair or something else entirely. Shivers of pleasure tingled through her at his touch. She felt dizzy, light-headed and realised she’d been holding her breath. As she let it out in a slow sigh, she swayed towards him, her mouth parting not just for air but for the kiss she felt was surely to follow. His head dipped towards her. She didn’t know that she wanted this. Wasn’t sure—

Abruptly he dropped his hands from her waist. His expression darkened like the build-up of black cloud before a storm.

‘This shouldn’t have happened,’ he said in a voice that was more a growl torn from the depths of his being.

Shocked, she struggled to find her voice. ‘I... I...’

‘Don’t say it,’ he said, his voice brusque and low. ‘There’s nothing to be said.’ He stepped back with savage speed. ‘My...my apologies.’

With that he turned on his heel and strode away from her, leaving her grateful for the support of the sturdy trunk of the doomed fig tree.

Still trembling, she watched him, his broad shoulders set taut with some emotion—anger?—as he turned the bend in the sweep of lawn marked by the wall with the tumbledown urn and out of sight. He couldn’t wait to get away from her.

What the heck had that been about? And what did it mean for her relationship with her secretive, billionaire boss?