about to cry. She wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction.
They were going to feast on her vegetables. Her vegetables would give them the strength and stamina to make their own entertainment. Wasn’t that what Bel said? Make their own fucking entertainment, and why not? The woman was his wife. And Francie was nothing more than the hired help. The stupid hired help, who didn’t have enough brains to stay away from her gorgeous boss! Make that her arsehole boss, she mentally corrected herself. She bit back a sob and grabbed a tray of basil seedlings from the incubator. Cook wanted a couple of new basil plants for the kitchen. Bel had it in her head that basil was the herb of eternal youth and had practically been grazing on the stuff recently.
‘Excuse me, have you seen Dan?’
Francie spun around and nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of the unexpected man standing so close behind her. She dropped the tray, and seedlings and compost exploded on to the floor.
That was it. That was the straw that broke the gardener’s back. She’d babied those seedlings along for weeks now, keeping them safe and warm and trauma-free, then this happens. She burst into tears.
‘Oh God! Oh God! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. Please don’t cry. Here, let me help you.’
But it was suddenly like the dam had burst. She had endured all these weeks of wanting Dan so badly, all these weeks of knowing that no matter what he said, no matter how hot their wank sessions were, at the end of the day it wasn’t her bed he shared. Then there were all the weeks of feeling guilty because while he stayed faithful to Bel, she didn’t care. She would have fucked him in a New York minute. And she liked Bel. That was a part of the problem. Bel was OK. Bel was wonderful. Still, she would have fucked him if he’d asked. But he didn’t. And it all bubbled over in one upturned tray of basil seedlings.
‘Here, sit down. Please don’t cry. I’ll take care of it,’ the man was saying, guiding her away from the mess on the floor. ‘There, there. It’ll be OK. Basil seedlings are tough. They’ll be OK, just please stop crying. Can I get you some water? Aspirin, maybe? Anything?’ He didn’t wait for her to answer. Instead he guided her to the stool near the staging table and settled her gently on to it. Then he knelt, scooped the spilled compost into the tray and began to replant the seedlings one by one. ‘There, you see? It’ll be OK. You see, no damage, just a little spill. Not even one broken stem. Don’t worry, these will be just fine.’
Even through the tears she recognised the untidy nails of a fellow gardener. It wouldn’t have mattered if his hands had been meticulously scrubbed and manicured, she would have known by the careful way he rescued the little basil plants, taking them gently by their stems and placing them back in the compost.
‘There, you see? Good as new.’ He placed the tray on the table next to the basket of veg. ‘Lovely veg, by the way,’ he added. ‘The courgettes are exquisite. Did you grow them?’ He picked up the one that had been shoved up her cunt only minutes before and she burst into tears again. A courgette! She had actually been reduced to fucking a courgette.
‘Oh dear. Oh God. I’m so sorry.’
She scrabbled off the stool to make a run for it, anywhere but here, someplace where she could hide her humiliation. ‘Wait! Don’t run off like that.’ He slipped an arm around her and caught her before she could flee. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. Please at least give me a chance to apologise.’
‘No, no. It’s not you,’ she sobbed against his shoulder. ‘You have nothing to apologise for. You’re doing great, wonderful, actually. It’s me. I’m so stupid. So absolutely stupid.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I know stupid when I see it, and you’re not it.’ He tightened his arms around her and she felt good solid muscle in the embrace. God, how long had it been since she felt good solid male muscle? She slipped her arms around his neck. He was tall and, as he tightened his embrace, he practically lifted her off her feet. Tall and strong, she thought, as the muscles low in her belly gave a little quiver.
One large hand began to stroke her mussed hair. She hadn’t worn it back today because Dan liked it loose, but Dan never touched it. This bloke was touching it, gently, tenderly, the same way he’d touched her seedlings. Her nipples beaded to a tight, nearly painful press against the rise and fall of his chest. She could feel the heat of his breath against the top of her ear, breath which seemed to have accelerated a bit. He continued, ‘In fact, if that veg garden I walked past is your doing, then I’d say you’re anything but stupid. You’re an artist. I’m in awe.’
Then she did the unthinkable. She curled her fingers in his thick brown hair and pulled his face down to hers. A little sigh of surprise escaped his throat, but he didn’t resist. Still standing on tiptoe, she brushed her lips across his. Not only did he not resist, but he returned the favour, cupping her cheek in his large hand and lifting her off her feet with the arm that now encircled her waist. The brush of lips became a full-fledged assault, tongues sparring, lips crushing, breath coming in harsh little gasps. And it wasn’t just the mouth. It was the overall effect of a real body, a real live male body barely able to contain the erection she could now clearly feel through his jeans. And just from the rub up, it made the courgette seem rather inadequate.
‘I don’t know you nearly well enough for this,’ he said when he finally came up for air. But before she could apologise for her unacceptable behaviour, his mouth was up for round two. This time, he lifted her bodily on to the staging table, her legs falling open on either side of him, her dress scrunching until rough denim raked the moist satin gusset of her knickers.
‘You’ve rescued my seedlings and fondled my courgette. That’s good enough for me,’ she breathed against his mouth.
She was just getting ready to open his fly and free Simba when Cook called from the garden path.
‘Francie? Francie, are you there?’
They barely managed to straighten themselves and look like they were engaged with the seedlings when a heavy-set woman in a pink track suit huffed through the greenhouse door all aflutter and already in full conversation mode. ‘There you are, Francie. Ms Bel says I’m not cooking enough vegetables. That silly massage therapist of hers says she should eat more, can you believe it? If the woman eats any more vegetables, she’ll be taking up residence in the toilet. Last I heard diarrhoea wasn’t an anti-ageing treatment, but what do I know? I’m just the cook. Oh, hello.’ She addressed the man next to Francie with a smile of approval, and smoothed her always frizzy hair with a flutter of her hand. ‘And who might you be?’
‘I might be Simon, Simon Paris. I’m here to see Dan … er … Mr Alexander, about the Renaissance garden he’s planning.’
‘He and Ms Bel just got home a few minutes ago.’ Cook nodded towards the big house rising above the shrubbery and trees. ‘You can walk back with me if you’d like.’
‘If you give me a second, I’ll pot up a couple of basil plants for you to take back with you,’ Francie said, when she’d caught her breath.
‘Oh, lovely, lovely,’ the woman said. ‘I’ll just have a wander around, see what’s ready, and get some ideas for next week’s menus.’ She turned on her heels and disappeared into the veg patch.
Before Francie knew what was happening, Simon found the dibber and the nesting terracotta pots she had planned to use for the basil then brought them to where the rescued plants perched on the table looking no worse for their tumble. ‘You OK?’ He asked, as she busied herself transplanting the seedlings, trying to salvage what little dignity remained to her.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Fine. Sorry about that. Just not a good day and, well, I’m a bit sensitive about my seedlings.’
‘I can understand that,’ he said, filling the pots with the mix of compost and grit she’d made up for the seedlings earlier. His hands were large and rough and clearly used to hard work. It was only then, only after she’d managed to regain some composure that she had time to properly take in the rest of the package. His faded but clean T-shirt bore