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