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