It was a huge personal milestone, and her whole body still tingled with the triumph of having reached it.
Two years earlier she would have burst into speechless tears, paralyzed by the very thought of a confrontation with a forbiddingly arrogant and successful man like this, no matter how much justice was on her side.
She would have rushed home to hide and not answered the phone for a week, in case it was Mr. Radford calling. She’d have relived the encounter over and over, exaggerating it in her memory until it froze her completely and stopped her from leaving the safety of her home.
This time she’d actually said what she really thought.
She felt a little dizzy, bubbling over with the need to share the victory and to celebrate it somehow. Putting the clingy trousers into a charity rag bin wouldn’t be celebration enough. She decided to call Rox—her identical twin—with a full report as soon as she could. Rox would probably send her champagne.
Losing the chance to work on such a fabulous garden restoration gave her some regrets, true, but it couldn’t be helped. If Ben Radford was this difficult to deal with at their first consultation, he’d be a nightmare further down the track. She should consider this as a lucky escape.
“Wait a minute, Dr. Madison!” he said beside her, just as she was about to push on the rusty iron gate that led out of the courtyard.
She hadn’t realized he’d followed her. He studied her in silence for a long moment, as if deciding how she should be handled. Bomb-disposal experts and pest exterminators probably studied suspiciously ticking packages and enormous wasp nests in the same way. “You’re being too hasty,” he said at last.
“I wasn’t the one rushing us through the consultation.”
“No, but you’re the one bailing out now.”
“With good reason. This project has to mean something to you, or there’s no point in hiring me.” Sheesh, she was going all out today! She’d had no idea it could feel so good. She lifted her chin and stared him down.
To be met with a silence that stretched and stretched.
“You got me at a bad moment,” he said abruptly at last, his dark eyes half-hidden by lowered lids. “I’m sorry.” He sounded seriously uncomfortable, and Rowena guessed that he hadn’t felt the need to apologize for anything in a long time. She had the strong suspicion this was because he very rarely did anything wrong. “You’re right, you are a professional. And this project is important to me.”
“Okay, good,” she murmured vaguely, not knowing how else to respond to such a surprising admission from such a man. Then some devilish part of her that she barely knew existed added, “I hope there’s more.”
“More?”
“More to your excuse.” She dared a smile. “How often might I expect these bad moments, if you contract me for the project?”
Since she was by now quite certain that he wouldn’t, it didn’t matter if she burned her boats. Meanwhile, the satisfying sense of having shattered her past limitations hadn’t yet begun to fade. It was probably the closest she was ever going to get to jumping out of an airplane and going into free fall with a parachute on her back.
“I was on the phone with my ex-wife just before you arrived,” Ben Radford said slowly, “and it was a miserable conversation, as usual. Is that good enough? Divorce is stressful.” He said the D word as if he was never going to get used to the bad taste it left in his mouth. “But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. That was wrong of me.”
His expression remained wooden, distant and severe, which somehow showed his unhappiness more clearly than a grimace of misery would have done.
He continued. “And you’re quite right about any garden designer’s need to know my priorities and tastes if this project is going to be done the way it should be. So can we start again?”
He gave a tight, suffering smile, and something kicked in Rowena’s stomach. The man was tall, well built, dark-haired, good-looking, and she guessed he could have a great deal of personal charm if he ever chose to use it. Evidently, he wasn’t quite ready to use it now.
Still, he had apologized at manful length, she had to concede.
Then realized, good grief, that she was almost disappointed about the concessions he’d just made. What was happening to her? She would have very much liked a good excuse to do some more yelling. It felt…so exhilarating.
Suppressing such an inappropriate emotion, she said a little awkwardly, “We don’t need to start again. I’ve already taken pages of notes.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He smiled again, dark eyes smoky, charm level rising, vulnerability totally gone, hair catching the morning sunlight for a moment as he lifted his head, and this time the kick in her stomach was stronger and held a warning.
Stay cool, Rowena…
A familiar impulse to run and hide began to well up inside her, but she fought it down. She could handle this. Handle him. His charm, his eyes, his wealth, his unsettling moment of honesty about his divorce, the whole package.
And if she couldn’t totally handle it, yet, then she had to practice and learn.
“Back to the barbecue question, then,” she said lightly, smoothing down the lapels of her jacket. “Could I have an answer?”
He rested his hand on the rusted wrought iron of the gate and surveyed the courtyard. A frown tightened on his brow. He didn’t look like an Englishman, with those dark eyes and the natural olive tint to his skin. He didn’t even sound like one, some of the time. He’d been in Southern California for a while, and he had the American vowels to prove it. But Rowena knew that he had come from England, originally, because she’d looked him up on the Internet.
He’d come from a comfortable, classy background and had attended a very expensive school. He’d earned two degrees at Oxford University and married an American bride. He’d made his fortune in the field of biotechnology, sold his company a year ago and moved into new and more-varied business interests. He now owned an art gallery, a Hollywood casting agency and a restaurant, amongst other things.
The Internet hadn’t told Rowena that he was in the middle of an obviously unpleasant divorce.
“I wish I could tell you,” he murmured.
“You don’t know whether you like barbecues?”
“I don’t know whether my liking for the occasional barbecue means we should build a barbecue in this courtyard, if that’s what you’re trying to work out. Look at it!” He gestured at the wild, intimidating jungle in front of them, sounding…daunted? Surely not. He didn’t look like the kind of man who could be daunted by anything. “I’m fascinated by the idea of restoring the place, but can’t begin to imagine how it will work.”
“That’s why you’re considering the possibility of hiring me,” she reminded him.
They both stood in silence, contemplating the sprawling space. It was bracketed at one end by the three sides of the old adobe ranch house, already well on its way to being a showpiece thanks to the injection of Ben Radford’s money and effort.
He was still in the process of restoration, but the rooms that were already finished were spectacular without being overdone, and with a personal touch that had spoken to Rowena immediately as she’d passed through them. Clean lines, unexpected colors, well-chosen antiques, pockets of warmth and coziness that made you want to curl up in them with a good book.
The contrast between the yard and the house was almost shocking.
Barring one or two dusty pathways, the entire expanse—well over an acre—was a towering tangle