Subtle dark make-up emphasised the beauty of her eyes, and the lush sensuality of her mouth was deepened by lipstick the colour of ripe raspberries.
For a too-long moment he stared at her, struck dumb with admiration—and an intensely masculine reaction that rocked him.
‘You wanted to see me?’ she asked, with a puzzled frown.
He could not keep his eyes off her.
He had to clear his throat before he spoke. ‘Yes. Come in,’ he said as he ushered her through the door.
‘I hope there’s nothing wrong,’ she said with a quiver in her voice.
‘Of course not,’ he said.
But everything had changed.
He needed time to collect his rapidly racing thoughts.
He led her through the grand entrance hall, her heels clicking on the marble floor, to the small reception room where he’d first interviewed her. Light slanting through the old lead-light windows, original to the house, picked up the gold in her hair. She brought the sunshine with her.
Immediately they were in the room she went straight to the window. ‘What a beautiful view of the garden,’ she said. ‘It’s starting to take shape. In a few weeks that wisteria arch will be glorious. I’ve trimmed it but it will need a good prune when it’s finished flowering. You have to cut it back well and truly before the buds form for...for the next season’s flowering.’
Her words trickled to a halt and she didn’t meet his eye. Did she sense his heightened awareness of her as a woman, his ambivalence? She moistened her lovely, raspberry-stained lips with the tip of her tongue. The action fascinated him.
The full impact of his attraction to her hit him like a punch to the gut. He fisted his hands by his sides. He’d been kidding himself from the get go.
This wasn’t about Princess Estella.
It was about Shelley.
It had always been about Shelley—warm-hearted, clever, down-to-earth, gorgeous Shelley. Even in the drab uniform with her charmingly eccentric interest in rusty old rakes and broken-down fountains she had delighted him from day one.
He could no longer kid himself that his attraction to Shelley was because she sparked his creative impulse. She sparked male impulses a whole lot more physical and urgent. She was a beautiful woman and he wanted her in a way he had not imagined wanting another woman after his wife had died.
He could not ask her to pose for Estella.
No way could he invite her to spend hours alone with him in his studio while he sketched her. It would be a kind of torture. That idea had to be trashed.
But he found he had to say something else to justify him calling her into the house. ‘I wanted to tell you I had a note from the neighbour thanking me for getting rid of the ficus benjamina.’
Now that full-beam smile was directed at him.
‘It wasn’t to...fire me or anything?’
‘Of course not.’ How could she possibly think that? He realised that under her brightness and bravado lay a deep vein of self-doubt. That although she seemed so strong she was also vulnerable. It unleashed a powerful urge to protect her.
‘That’s a relief,’ she said. ‘I was racking my brains to think of what I’d done wrong.’
He had to clear his throat of some deep, choking emotion to speak. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong.’
He ached to take her into his arms and reassure her how invaluable she was, how special. But that was not going to happen. He recognised his attraction to her. That did not mean he intended to act on it.
He now could admit it to himself. Admit the truth that welled out from his subconscious and into his dreams. Now, when he was battling the insomnia that had plagued him since the night his wife had died, in those few hours of broken sleep it wasn’t Lisa’s face that kept him awake. It was Shelley’s.
And that felt like betrayal.
‘That’s great news about the neighbour,’ she said. ‘Makes it all worthwhile, doesn’t it? And, hey, you spoke Latin. Uh, instead of computer speak. That I don’t speak at all. I mean, I can use a computer, of course I can, but I—’
‘I get it,’ he said. There she went—rabbiting on again. He found it charming. He found her charming. And way too appealing in every way.
He realised she was nervous around him. Was he looking particularly forbidding today?
She twisted the strap of her handbag in her hands. ‘Thank you for telling me that but, if that’s all, I have to go. As I said, I need to take a longer lunch hour today.’
‘A date?’ he blurted out without thinking.
Jealousy speared him again. Who was the lucky guy who would be seeing her dressed up like this?
‘Not a date,’ she said with a perturbed frown.
Of course she would be perturbed. He had no right to ask about her personal life. She would be quite within her rights to tell him to mind his own business.
He could not deny his relief that she wasn’t going out with a man. But if it wasn’t a date, why and where was she going?
He forced his voice to sound casual, unconcerned. ‘Lunch with a friend? It’s quite okay for you to stay as long as you like. I know what hours you’ve been putting in out there in the garden.’
Her mouth twisted downward. ‘Nothing as nice as lunch with a friend, I’m afraid. I have to look for somewhere to live. I share with my sister but she’s just got engaged and her fiancé wants to move in.’
‘There’s no room for you?’
‘No. It’s a tiny apartment.’ She sighed. ‘Now I’m heading off to inspect a place in Edgecliff. Along with all the other people desperate to find somewhere with reasonable rent close to the city. I want to stay in this area.’ She held up both hands with fingers crossed. ‘So wish me luck.’
She turned on her high-heeled boot. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
Declan followed her to the door, opened it for her, watched her start down the steps. ‘Stop,’ he called after her.
She turned. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll miss the inspection time if I don’t leave now. I have to find parking and—’
‘Don’t go. You don’t need to. You can stay here, in the apartment.’
He didn’t know what had possessed him to make that offer. It was all kinds of crazy. To have her actually living on the premises would do nothing for his resolve to keep things between them strictly on an employer-employee basis. He should rescind the offer immediately.
‘You already have the key,’ he said. ‘Just move in.’
* * *
Shelley was so taken aback she stood with one foot on the bottom of the step, the other on the pathway.
‘Are you serious?’ she asked.
He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘You need a home. The apartment is empty. It makes sense.’
‘But I... I shouldn’t... I couldn’t—’ Excitement fluttered into life only to be vanquished by caution.
‘It’s there for staff. You’re staff.’
‘Yes, I am, but...’
How to express her feelings that she was scared of living in such close proximity to him? She found him too attractive to be so near to him twenty-four-seven. Now she could go home, go out, try and forget the Rapunzel incident and how it had made her feel. Living here, knowing he was on the other side of a wall, might not be so easy.
As far as she knew Declan lived alone in the enormous house. A team of cleaners had come in on the last two Tuesdays and stayed half the day. The delivery van of an exclusive grocery store had also swept up the gravel drive several times. But no one else had come, not during the day anyway.
His house would become not just her place of employment, but also her home. Just her and him—the man who sent shivers of awareness through her no matter how she tried to suppress them.
Right now he towered four steps above her, dark, brooding and yet with something in his eyes that made her think he would be hurt if she knocked back his offer of the apartment.
The apartment that would solve her problem of where to live.
&n
bsp; A solution that might bring more problems with it than it solved.
He shrugged again. ‘Of course, if you’d rather live in a cheap apartment in Edgecliff...’
‘No. Of course I wouldn’t. I’d love to live in the apartment. It’s beautiful. The poshest staff quarters in Sydney, I should imagine. Your lucky housekeeper—she must have been thrilled when she saw how it was decorated.’
He fell silent for a moment too long. ‘It was prepared for our nanny,’ he said. ‘The wonderful woman who used to be my nanny when I was a child. But...but she never moved in.’
‘Oh,’ she said. Classic Shelley foot-in-mouth moment. He looked so bleak that if he had been anyone else, she would have rushed to hug him. But she stayed put on the step.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
The history of her working relationship with Declan would be punctuated by endless repeats of the word sorry. ‘I need to think before I speak.’
‘You weren’t to know,’ he said. He shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. ‘So what’s it to be? Yes or no?’
‘I want to say yes but I need to know what the rent is first. I... I might not be able to afford it.’
No might about it. She almost certainly wouldn’t be able to afford the rent and the realisation brought with it a fierce regret. She would love to live in that apartment.
‘No rent,’ he said.
‘But—’
‘No buts.’ The words were accompanied by a dark, Declan scowl.
‘But—I mean not but. I mean...if I don’t pay rent I—’
‘This is staff accommodation. You’re staff. End of story.’
‘I have to pay my own way.’ She had never been able to accept a gift that might have been tied with invisible strings.
‘If you insist on a monetary transaction I will rescind my offer.’
She had no doubt he meant it. ‘No! Please don’t do that. I’ll work on Saturdays. For free. Well, not free. My labour in return for accommodation.’
‘There’s no need for that. However if you insist—’
‘I insist. When can I move in?’
‘Whenever you want.’
‘Saturday. This Saturday. I’ll start the extra work next Saturday.’
‘It’s a deal,’ he said. ‘Just remember not to use the door into the house—it’s the one in the kitchen.’
‘Of course not. I don’t have a key, anyway.’
‘The key you have operates both doors.’
‘I’ll respect your privacy,’ she said. ‘I promise.’
He nodded.
‘I don’t have a lot of stuff to move in,’ she said, bubbling with excitement now that she could accept the reality of the situation. ‘Most of my possessions are stored with my grandmother at Blackheath in the mountains. I hope you don’t mind if my sister gives me a hand to move in.’
‘So long as I don’t have to meet her,’ he said.
‘I’ll make sure of that,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Declan.’
He acknowledged her thanks with another nod.
She looked down at her smart outfit. ‘Now I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go,’ she said. ‘I just might drive on down to Double Bay and treat myself to a café lunch.’
She bit down firmly on words that threatened to spill and invite him to join her for lunch. The fact that he was her boss didn’t stop her. There was no law that said work colleagues couldn’t share a bite to eat—she did it all the time.
No. She didn’t voice the invitation because it would sound perilously close to asking him on a date. And that was never going to happen.
She thanked him again and walked down the pathway, happy with the unexpected outcome of her meeting with Declan. She had a beautiful home until her contract here came to an end and she flew away to fulfil her dreams.
For her heart’s sake she just had to keep well clear of Declan in the hours that were hers to spend as she pleased.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DECLAN DID NOT want to meet Shelley’s sister. Or her sister’s fiancé, who was helping with the move. Meeting her family would be a link he did not want to establish. But he felt compelled to watch—perhaps to make it seem real that Shelley was going to be living here from today on.
With typical Shelley efficiency, she’d arrived early in the morning with her crew. Feeling uncomfortably as if he was spying on them, he watched from his office window. A tall, very slender young woman with short brown hair, who must be the sister, and a red-headed guy helped Shelley bring in her stuff.
Just a few boxes and suitcases appeared to constitute her possessions. Shelley herself had a laptop computer slung over her shoulder and some clothes still on their hangers to take in.
It was still a shock to see her out of her gardening gear. Today she wore faded, figure-hugging jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and the ugliest running shoes he had ever seen—practical, no doubt, but a shocking contrast to the sexy, stiletto-heeled boots she’d worn earlier in the week. Or Estella’s thigh-high boots.
Could the bespoke shoemaker in Italy where he bought his shoes make a pair of moss-green suede boots in Shelley’s size?
He pushed the crazy thoughts aside. Both of ordering the green boots—and of imagining Shelley wearing them, and very little else.
Shelley’s helpers were in and out of the apartment within an hour. He wondered if she had so few possessions because she didn’t want them or because she couldn’t afford them.
He realised he was paying her over the odds for the gardening work. And he didn’t begrudge her a cent of it. A horticulturalist was not the highest paid of jobs, which seemed at odds with the incredible depth of knowledge Shelley seemed to have. Again he thanked whatever lucky chance had sent her to him.
His only regret was he could not ask her to pose for him. Princess Estella had stalled on him, still missing that final extra detail that might make her viable as the character on which he could base a new game. But he had to put the thought of Shelley posing for him alone in his eyrie office out of his fantasies. Especially when he spent way too much time thinking about her—as a beautiful woman who attracted him, not as a mere muse.
However, he now had his duties as not only an employer but a landlord to consider. Once she’d had time to settle in, he would go down to the apartment—now her apartment—and see if there was anything he could give her a hand with. That was not making excuses to see her—it was obligation.
But before he could do so, he saw her heading out—and had to smother a gasp of stunned admiration. She was obviously going horseback riding. Shelley the equestrienne wore tight cream breeches that hugged every curve of her enticing behind, and a black, open-neck shirt that emphasised her slim, toned arms. She wore shiny black leather knee-high riding boots and carried a black velvet riding helmet under her arm, along with a leather riding crop.
Shelley had mentioned she rode horses as a teenager, jumping over snakes in typical warrior manner. Seemed as if she rode them still. But where? Certainly not around here, just minutes away from the heart of the city.
Who knew horseback riding gear could look so hot?
But then Shelley looked good in anything she wore—even the drab khaki. He wouldn’t let his mind travel any further along the path that might have him speculating on how she would look in nothing at all.
He watched her as she paused to look at the fountain, now under repair, then continued around the corner of the house to where she parked her so-old-it-was-practically-an-antique 4x4 in the driveway. The multi-car garage was filled with his collection of expensive sports cars that rarely got an airing these days.
But he was not just watching in admiration of how well she wore equestrienne mode. His stalled creativity was also firing back into life.
Now he knew exactly what was needed for Princess Estella.
A horse.
He turned back to his drawing board, his brain firing with so many ideas his hand holding the charcoal could scarcely keep up with his thoughts. As i
t always did when he was driven by creativity, time seemed to come to a halt as he got lost in the world of his imagination. Hours, days could go past.
He sketched Princess Estella astride a magnificent white horse with a flowing mane and tail that echoed the Warrior Princess’s glorious tresses.
But it was still not enough.
He paced up and down, up and down, coming back to the drawing board again and again. It was good but still not right.
Then it hit him. Estella was fantasy. Shelley was earthy, warm, reality.
Shelley rode a horse. But Estella was not bound by human and earthly constrictions.
Princess Estella would ride a unicorn.
Again he went back to his drawing board. It wasn’t difficult to transform the horse into a unicorn. He added a silver horn to the centre of its forehead. Made its eyes look less horse, more mythical creature whose gaze gleamed with knowledge and wisdom. Attributes that would help the warrior princess in her epic battles for good.
This time when he finished and stood back to look at his work he was buzzing.
Gorgeous Princess Estella with her long limbs and sensual curves was a young man’s fantasy. But it was more than that. He was convinced Estella and her magical unicorn would appeal to female gamers as well. Hadn’t even outdoor-orientated Shelley admitted to playing a girly dragon game?
He wished he had someone to share his jubilation with. But he had distanced himself from his friends since his bereavement. Only his mother hadn’t given up on him—which never failed to bemuse him as she had scarcely been a presence in his childhood.
His online colleagues these days were working with him on games that had little to do with entertainment and everything to do with education. They would have no interest whatsoever in Princess Estella and her unicorn.
It was with Shelley he wanted to share Estella. To let her know how she had inspired him. But he couldn’t. Not now. Not when he had gone this far without letting her in on the secret that she was his muse.
Hired by the Brooding Billionaire Page 8
