The CEO (The Millionaire Malones Book 2) Read online

  Callum chuckled. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Mind if I go down and have a look?’

  Callum directed her to the door and the outside stairs—more goddamn stairs—and then left her to it. Fifteen minutes later, her notebook filled with all the measurements she needed, her phone filled with pictures to guide her memory, she headed back inside.

  And when she saw what Callum was doing, she almost slid across the room in her socks.

  Chapter Seven

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  There were two white dinner plates set at one end of the long wooden table, a silver wine bucket with an opened bottle in it and two sparkling wine glasses. A delicious scent filled the air and that’s when Ava realised she hadn’t eaten since a rushed bowl of muesli at breakfast, thanks to the soil to the wrong address delivery debacle, and her stomach rumbled traitorously.

  It was all so perfect and romantic and for a moment—hell, for a minute at least—she let herself envy the woman all this was for. An image flashed in her mind: perhaps it was the glamazon in the kaftan with the champagne. Or someone in a suit, fresh from her Important Job crushing a third-world economy or buying and selling things on the Stock Exchange. Or perhaps she was a young soap starlet or a gap-toothed supermodel.

  And then another entirely different emotion surfaced. Whose heart was he breaking tonight? Because that’s the kind of man he was, right?

  She was confused. If she was honest with herself, Callum had never seemed like the serial heartbreaker type. He’d always struck Ava as a solid, dependable, protective man. He’d held doors open for Lulu. Taken her away to exotic locations for holidays: Bali, Paris, the Maldives, New York and Rio.

  And if he was such a serial womaniser and heartbreaker, how come he was the one all alone while Lulu had moved on with the very normal Michael? His suddenly single status had catapulted him right to the top of Sydney’s eligible bachelor list, not that Ava ever paid much attention to that kind of gossip. He was a catch: handsome as hell; a house like this; and clearly in possession of kitchen skills, judging by the smell of something irresistible.

  She blew out a breath and pressed a hand to her stomach to stop it rumbling. Then she tugged off her work socks, now gritted with dirt from walking around in his numerous dirt gardens, and walked across the room. ‘I’ve got all I need, Callum,’ she called. ‘I’ll get back to you with some preliminary sketches in the next few days and then we’ll take it from there.’

  ‘Thanks, that sounds good,’ he called from the stove, where he seemed to be doing something elaborate to food in a sizzling wok. ‘Take a seat.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I said, take a seat. Dinner’s ready.’

  Ava gripped her socks hard and the grit that was caught up in the fibres pressed against her fingers. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Please tell me you like to eat.’ He looked back at her over his shoulder and smiled. He was probably used to that smile getting him whatever he wanted. Bastard. It probably worked.

  ‘Oh, I like to eat,’ Ava reassured him. ‘But I don’t want to intrude.’

  ‘You’re not intruding. Turns out I have enough food for two and more than enough wine. Since you’re already here, maybe we can discuss what you have in mind for the gardens.’ Callum turned off the stove and tipped the contents of the wok onto a white platter.

  ‘Sure.’ As Ava watched him, her traitorous heart began to pound in her chest.

  When had a consultation turned into chatting?

  When had chatting turned into talking?

  And when exactly had talking turned into dinner?

  Her appetite warred with her good sense. She spent half her life covered in dirt and the other half schmoozing. She considered this schmoozing. And he was a client after all.

  Callum wiped his hands on a tea towel, and looked her up and down. She noticed, and judging by the lift of his eyebrows, he noticed that she noticed. ‘The bathroom’s up the hallway to the left if you want to clean up.’

  He reached a hand up and worked his index finger between the leather strap of her bag and her shoulder. She stiffened. He lifted it from her and held it in his hand. She didn’t know what the hell she smelled like—probably sweat and soil and fertiliser—but up this close to him, she realised he smelled good. There was pine and citrus and something else in the mix, which obviously meant that when he’d gone up to his bedroom to change, he spritzed himself with some aftershave. Why did she like the idea that he had? A close inspection of his jaw revealed that he hadn’t shaved though, and Ava’s eyes drifted to his mouth, his full lips, one end of which were tugged up in a half smile.

  ‘I need to wash my hands,’ she said, distractedly.

  Automatically, Ava brought them together in front of her to study the dirt that always lingered there, and she hadn’t realised how close their bodies were. Her fingers brushed against his flat belly. She held her breath. Callum looked down.

  ‘You do,’ he said.

  ‘It’s an occupational hazard,’ she said on a whisper, thrillingly aware of how close he was. ‘I always have dirty hands.’

  ‘What’s that saying?’ he asked, his voice low and teasing now. ‘Dirty hands, warm heart?’

  ‘I think that’s cold hands, warm heart.’

  Callum clearly decided to look for himself. He grasped her fingers in both hands, and lifted them closer to his face to look. His thumbs rubbed over her nails, her cuticles, her knuckles. His fingers smoothed their way into the middle of her palm. It was so soft and felt so intimate and then, right there and then, she was on fire. Her hands were right in line with his pecs, just a push away, and goddamn how she wanted to splay her hands there and lean into him; snake her arms around him and pull him into her, push herself against his body and open her mouth to him.

  ‘Yep. Cold hands,’ he said.

  This had to stop. Right this second. Ava tried to pull her fingers from his grasp, but he held on.

  ‘I like that you get your hands dirty,’ he said, his voice low and deep. ‘It shows you have a passion for your work.’

  He’d seen through her after all. She had a passion for something and it damn well wasn’t underground sprinkler systems.

  When she lifted her eyes to his face, Callum was looking at her, his own narrowed and his brow creased.

  She slipped her fingers out of his hands and, this time, he let her.

  ‘I’ll go wash up,’ she said.

  *

  After Ava had cleaned up, removed the smear of mud from her forehead that she’d clearly missed when she’d checked herself in her car’s rear view mirror when she’d arrived, she found herself back at Callum’s table, tucking into a crunchy Asian salad and devouring the most delicious salt-and-pepper squid she’d ever tasted. She’d managed to cool off a little and collect herself. The splash of cold water to her face had been enough to douse the flame in her cheeks, but the burning and throbbing she felt between her legs was determined to keep on doing its girl thing and torment her all through the meal. Sitting opposite Callum Malone was definitely not the recipe for dampening down her hormonal dance party.

  ‘I didn’t quite believe you when you said you like to eat.’ His eyes went to her near-empty plate and then settled on her mouth.

  ‘I never lie about food. This is heavenly,’ she groaned as she scooped up another serving from the white platter between them, where the glistening squid pieces were nestled in fluffy white rice.

  ‘Why thank you,’ he said with a smile in his voice. ‘More wine?’

  Ava covered her glass. ‘No, thanks. I have to drive. But don’t let me stop you. Where’d you learn to cook like this?’

  Callum half-filled his own glass, took a sip and looked up to the ceiling. ‘Reality TV.’

  Ava couldn’t contain her laughter, which came out in a splutter and a snort. ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘Not kidding,’ he said, his face splitting in a grin. ‘When I come home, when I eventually walk through that door, I need to put the
day and business and all that shit behind me, so I cook. I get down and dirty with those TV chefs.’

  ‘Let me guess. Nigella?’

  Callum raised one eyebrow and it was almost the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. ‘Damn straight.’

  ‘I get that,’ Ava said with a wicked grin of her own. ‘I think even I would turn for her.’

  Callum lifted his wine glass and took a huge sip before clearing his throat. ‘So, what about you. Where did you learn the garden business?’

  ‘University, then ten years with a major firm here in Sydney.’

  ‘Do you like working for yourself?’

  ‘Yeah, I do. The fringe benefits are awesome,’ she said as she tucked in to more of the squid.

  Callum laughed and Ava sensed a small unravelling, a loosening of the distance that had always existed between them. She looked over her shoulder to the big windows and to the fading light in the evening sky. Something had changed, as if she’d walked through his door tonight and discovered he was a completely different person to the one she thought he was. She’d never seen him act like this around Lulu, playful and fun, loose and relaxed, although it was true to say she’d always been too busy being haughty and distant to ever see anything else. If she’d been able to talk with Callum like this when he was her brother-in-law, she may have liked him a whole lot better and been in love with him a whole lot less.

  ‘So,’ Ava filled her plate with an extra scoop of salad, ‘you mentioned something about a shitty day. Did you have to do something horrible? Like maybe retrench some people or something?’

  ‘That’s what you think I do? Sack people?’

  ‘I read the papers,’ she shrugged. ‘It’s happening everywhere at the moment.’

  ‘Not in my company it’s not.’ Callum pushed his empty plate to the side and leaned his elbows on the polished wood. ‘I met with Chris and Cooper today.’

  ‘The brothers Malone,’ Ava said, smiling at the image in her head of the three of them together in one place. Surely that much handsome caused oestrogen surges within a fifty-mile radius.

  ‘The brothers Malone had to have the discussion about our father’s Will.’

  ‘Oh God. How awful.’ Ava put her fork down. She tried to swallow her guilt. ‘I’m sorry I was flippant.’

  ‘You weren’t to know. We’ve decided to sell our father’s house.’

  Ava gasped. ‘You mean the mansion?’

  Callum nodded. ‘Although, just to set the record straight, we never actually called it that.’

  ‘Sorry. Being flippant again. The Meadows is famous, which I’m sure you know will mean the sale is going to be huge news.’

  Callum rubbed his jaw. ‘I know. And the last thing I want to do is be in the papers for that. But it’s what we have to do.’

  Ava paused and looked at the man sitting opposite her. For someone so young, he’d had so much responsibility on his shoulders for so long. Her biggest financial commitment involved negotiating a car loan with her bank. Callum probably made billion-dollar decisions every day before she ate breakfast, with the jobs of thousands of people depending on him to make the right one. What did that do to a man? She studied his face. Although it was hard to tell at a distance, up this close, with the overhead light shining down on the table between them, she could see shadows under his eyes and fine lines at their corners. At each temple, there was a dusting of grey, and it was hard to tell if the slump in his shoulders was relaxation or the burden of so much responsibility.

  ‘That must have been a hard decision to make. All that history, all those memories.’

  He met her eyes. ‘Not so hard, as it turns out. None of us wants to live there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Chris and Ellie aren’t interested. She spent half her childhood out bush, and he’s spent the past decade living in a tent in whichever war zone was making headlines at the time. Clean sheets and a cold beer are his idea of luxury now.’

  Ava nodded. She understood the simple life. She’d lived the simple life. ‘What about Cooper? He doesn’t want to live there?’

  ‘He calls California home these days.’

  Ava leaned forward. ‘And what about you? You don’t want it?’

  ‘You think I want that kind of life?’ His voice had become quiet and low, with a huskiness that sent her insides firing up again. He really was not at all what she’d expected. Ava was starting to realise she hadn’t really known Callum at all before now.

  ‘I guess not if you’re selling the place. Which is a real pity. The gardens are legendary in my world, you know.’

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘Hell, yeah,’ Ava said. ‘Those rolling lawns down to the waterline, which was obviously why your family called it The Meadows. Clever. The wonderful old magnolias and the towering Norfolk Island pines, all set amongst the art deco gardens. And so secluded. It’s hard to get a good look from the water. Believe me, I’ve tried.’

  Callum frowned at her. ‘You spied on my father’s house?’

  She sure hoped she wasn’t blushing. ‘Well. Let me clarify that. It was all in the name of research. When I was studying at university, someone knew someone with a boat, so we went out on the harbour one day and tried to get as close as we could. But … it was hugely disappointing. It’s impossible to see much of anything from the water.’

  ‘My grandparents designed it that way so the family could have some privacy. The old rich like to be anonymous you know. Wouldn’t want the riff-raff looking over the back fence and seeing what we get up to.’ Callum smiled at a memory. ‘Those rolling lawns you mentioned?’ They were our cricket pitches when we were kids. My brothers and I used to have a competition to see how many of those red leather balls we could hit directly into the Harbour. Six runs for that, obviously, and four runs if you could smack one right into the retaining wall. One time, just before Chris left home, I thundered one down the wicket and he hit the ball so damn hard his bat split in two. The two pieces of it flew into the air like skewers and Coop and I ducked for cover, hoping like hell they didn’t land on our heads.’

  Ava covered her mouth and laughed. ‘Did they?’

  ‘No. Fortunately.’

  Neither of them spoke for a moment, both of them simply smiling at each other. Ava wanted to take this all in. There was still a lot she didn’t know about this man. She’d spent five years trying not to know much about him because she knew what would happen.

  The exact thing that was happening right now.

  The more she found out, the deeper and more hopelessly she fell. Ava dropped her eyes to her plate and realised she hadn’t yet finished her second serving. There were still a few curled pieces of squid on her plate, but she’d suddenly lost her appetite.

  Callum reached over the table and picked up one of the crispy, golden morsels and tossed it in his mouth. ‘So you never got a good look at The Meadows, huh.’

  ‘No. And as far as I know, it’s never been photographed or documented. I scoured the university library and Googled like mad but, no. Nothing. It seems you Malones like to keep a lot to yourself.’

  Callum leaned his elbows on the table. ‘That’s true. We do.’

  ‘Which I totally understand, given … you know, who you are and everything.’

  Callum drank some wine. Ava watched him.

  ‘We don’t let just anyone into our private places.’

  ‘Of course not. It must be hard to know who to trust.’

  He thought for a moment and then his eyes gleamed with an idea. ‘Would you like to see it?’

  ‘Seriously?’ Ava’s heart thudded. ‘You would give me a tour of The Meadows?’

  ‘Yes.’ Callum lifted a glass and motioned for her to do the same. The crystal glasses tinkled together. ‘I’ll pick you up at ten tomorrow.’

  Chapter Eight

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  Everything about The Meadows was swoon worthy. The moment Ava stepped out of Callum’s car the next morning, she got tingles all over.

/>   The driveway was a gently winding gravel trail with plane trees on either side forming a cooling canopy, leading to an imposing Georgian home that was totally hidden from the street, its stone wings a pale pink in the morning light. There was a topiary hedge lining the back verandah and a wisteria vine growing elegantly over the portico by the back entrance. Every part of it was proof of a wealth she had never imagined. The house surely had to be the size of four normal family homes. And the grounds? Who knew how expansive they were?

  Ava’s flat shoes crunched the gravel underfoot and when Callum shut the car door behind her, the sound echoed in the courtyard. She barely took a step before she gazed around the property, trying to take it all in. There was a low stone wall running the length of the wing nearest to them and botanical perfection everywhere she looked. It made her heart sing. She rested her hands on top of her head to stop the top of it exploding.

  ‘This is so beautiful,’ she murmured. There was a cool, calm, peaceful quiet all around them, as if they’d driven through the gates and been transported into the lush countryside. She could understand why Callum had wanted to replicate his peaceful solitude out at the beach, having grown up somewhere as private as this.

  ‘Do you want to have a look inside first?’ Callum’s keys jangled in his hand.

  ‘No, not really.’ She smiled. ‘It’s the grounds I’ve come to see.’

  ‘Okay,’ he smiled warmly and with a sense of pride she hadn’t seen in his face when he’d shown her his beach house. ‘The gardens, then the house.’

  To Ava, this was better than winning the lottery. She was here, free to roam, in one of the most exquisite private gardens in Australia, with carte blanche to go wherever she wanted. She toed off her shoes and stepped on to the perfectly mowed lawn, letting the grass tickle her feet. It felt like a luxurious carpet as she stepped across it, cool in the shadows of the huge plane trees.

  Callum was so lucky to have grown up here, she thought, surrounded by spectacular gardens and this peace and solitude in the bustling city. She breathed in the air, so verdant and clean, and all the tension that had stiffened her shoulders and clenched her throat on the way there disappeared. She felt at home in the garden. Free and alive and part of it and renewed. It appeared to be perfect, as if an army of loyal manservants with tiny scissors had gone through there just hours before snipping every wayward blade of grass, collecting every dropped Jacaranda blossom from the carpet of the lawn and shushing every city noise but the bird song.