The Millionaire's Makeover

“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 of cactus, some of it probably a hundred years old. Rowena had identified prickly pear, several species of agave, ocotillo, barrel cactus and half a dozen other species. The plants twisted together like some bizarre maze. Dead husks rattled on the ground, painful spines reached out to snag the unwary. There would be birds’ nests in there, insects of all kinds and snakes…

“You mentioned bulldozers a minute ago,” Ben Radford said. His voice held a thoughtful note.

They were both standing quite still. San Diego, Oceanside and La Jolla were each less than an hour’s drive away, along with the urban sprawl that marched farther in from the ocean year by year. Here, beyond the vineyards and nursery plantations closer to the coast, the old Spanish-land-grant ranch sat poised at the foot of the mountains, surrounded by air you could really breathe. The house seemed more a part of the earth than a human creation. There were cattle grazing in the distance and horses inhabiting the old stables, and it was very peaceful.

“I wasn’t serious,” Rowena said quickly.

“Why not?” He frowned at her. He wasn’t the kind of man to accept setbacks or contradictory opinions.

“Because we don’t know what’s beneath all this,” she explained, knowing she wouldn’t have much opportunity to convince him. “It would be a crime to come in with heavy machinery. There could be a treasure trove destroyed in the process. Old household items that would belong in a museum, and heirloom plant strains that might be very hard to find now. Do you see these powdery silver-white patches on the prickly pear?”

“They look like damp erupting behind whitewash in a mildewed basement,” he said.

“They do, but take a bit of it and crush it in your fingers.”

He reached out and did so, then looked up at her in astonishment at the brilliant crimson red that had stained his skin. “That’s amazing. What is it?”

“Cochineal. Those white patches are colonies of living creatures—a kind of scale insect. They store the red pigment in their bodies. Before the Spanish arrived in Mexico, the Mixtec Indians farmed these insects on the cactus and used them to make dye. There were periods when it was almost as precious as gold. It was used as a food coloring, too, for a long time, in jams, medicines, candy.”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“You’ve probably eaten it.”

“That’s fascinating.”

“This might sound strange,” Rowena went on slowly, “but I have a feeling that the whole garden could provide the same experience as you’ve just had with the cochineal. Nothing to get excited about at first glance, but if you take a closer look, if you approach with delicacy, you discover its magic. I’d hate to bring in a bulldozer, Mr. Radford—”

“Call me Ben,” he ordered. “I won’t need to tell you that again, I hope.”

“Ben,” she repeated, and that warning thunk hit her stomach again, more powerfully than ever. Why did she like the idea of calling him Ben? “Um, I hope you won’t. And, uh, Rowena, for me. Or Rowie.” Why had she added that? It was the nickname her sister called her by, and sometimes Mom and Dad. A client had no need to know it.

He was still looking at the crimson stain on his fingertips, and he had incredible hands—strong and lean and smooth. Sure hands, the way almost everything about him seemed sure.

Oh, except for that one very telling moment when he’d mentioned his divorce.

She could smell the aura of soap and coffee and clean male skin that hovered around him and it did something to her, quickened the blood in her veins and muddied her thoughts in a way that was unsettling but—like her outburst a few minutes ago—exhilaratingly new.