Romance for Cynics Read online

TWO

  The shears slipped from Lucy’s hand and clattered to the path, thankfully missing her steel-capped boots, which had cost a small fortune.

  She stared at Cash in disbelief. ‘You’re crazy—’

  ‘Just hear me out, okay?’ He held up his hands. Yeah, as if that would stop her from knocking some sense into him. Figured. The smart, gorgeous, funny ones were always certified lunatics.

  ‘My business is in danger of losing some major clients and I need a mega-positive PR injection.’ He pressed his temple, as if staving off a headache. She knew the feeling. ‘GR8 4U Public Relations is the best in Melbourne and they’re running a week-long fundraiser, which would be perfect for my business’s needs, but the catch is I need to be part of a couple.’ He nodded at her. ‘And that’s where you come in.’

  She laughed, great hysterical peals she couldn’t stop once she started.

  ‘It’s not that funny,’ he said, eyeing her with a beguiling blend of wounded pride and little-boy-lost.

  ‘It’s freaking hilarious.’ She clutched her sides and huddled over a little, drawing in deep breaths to stop the giggles. ‘You’ve probably got a host of bimbos on speed dial and you think I should be your fake girlfriend?’

  The chuckles started again and she would’ve had a hard time stopping them if Cash hadn’t placed a finger against her lips to quiet her.

  As a silencing technique, it worked a treat. Because the moment he touched her, laughter was the furthest thing from her mind, considering she had to muster indignation or annoyance or something to stop from doing what she’d like to: kiss that finger.

  She swatted his hand away and he continued. ‘All the women I know would be unsuitable. They want a commitment or a wedding ring. That’s why you’d be perfect.’

  As she opened her mouth to argue he said, ‘You don’t like me.’

  ‘That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all day.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Believe me, if I had other options I’d take them but my business is everything to me and I can’t afford to lose it.’

  ‘With a place like this, surely you’ve got a few million or ten stashed away for a rainy day?’ She gestured at the house, a two-storey French Provincial style mansion sprawled across a double block on Williamstown’s foreshore, where real estate prices were sky-high. ‘Why don’t you dip into that?’

  His lips compressed into a thin, angry line. ‘I need the positive PR more than the money.’

  If this wasn’t about his business losing clients and money, there must be one hell of a good reason why he’d approached her, a woman he barely knew, to pose as his girlfriend for a week.

  ‘Why?’ She pinned him with the usual glare she reserved for their brief meetings. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  His gaze shifted to stare over her shoulder, focused on the intense blue of Port Phillip Bay on a perfect summer’s day. ‘I work with famous people whose egos are as big as the pay cheques they want me to invest for them. My reputation is everything. And if that’s tarnished in any way...’

  She raised her eyebrows, encouraging him to continue. He shook his head and his pained expression almost made her feel sorry for him. Almost. ‘One of Melbourne’s hottest actresses didn’t take too kindly to my refusing her offer of...uh, side benefits to our business arrangement.’

  The unexpected jab of jealousy took her by surprise, as did the begrudging respect. Not many red-blooded guys would turn down taking things further with the sort of woman she knew Cash did business with.

  ‘Anyway, she’s spreading rumours. Bad ones. And I can’t go on the record in the media without adding fuel to the fire and looking like a callous bastard, so I need to tackle this a different way.’

  ‘And you think having a fake girlfriend for a week will do the trick?’ She smothered her chuckle when he glared at her. ‘Seriously, I need to get back to work—’

  ‘There’ll be a significant financial incentive.’

  And just like that, Lucy’s respect for the crazy yet gorgeous Cash plummeted. ‘You want to pay me to be your girlfriend?’

  He puffed up as if she’d insulted him. ‘Well, there has to be something in it for you, right?’

  His assessing gaze slid over her, leaving her skin prickling. ‘It’s not like you’d do it out of the goodness of your heart.’

  She snapped her fingers. ‘That’s right, considering I don’t even like you.’

  Sick of the distraction, and ultimate stuff-up of her time management for the day, she picked up the shears. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll find some other poor sucker—uh, I mean eternally grateful, simpering female to pander to your every whim for a week.’

  He folded his arms, unimpressed by her flippancy. ‘So you won’t do it?’

  She snapped the shears twice in response.

  ‘There’s nothing I can give you to sweeten the offer?’

  She didn’t like the way her stomach fell at his smooth tone. ‘Nope. Not a thing. Not even if you promised to walk through Melbourne in a pair of my shorts, or gave me carte blanche to remodel this entire garden from start to finish.’

  Actually, she could be tempted by that. Not the shorts thing. The garden. It was something she’d thought about often while doing the basic maintenance.

  A garden like this deserved to be loved and made to shine. Mowing the lawn and keeping the hedges trimmed was a travesty, considering the underlying beauty.

  How many times had she mentally planned a complete redesign? Loads, because she liked to daydream while she worked. Liked to envisage her landscaping business gaining notoriety so she could work on some of the city’s many beautiful gardens.

  Ironic, that one of the things that mattered to her most these days—her job—was born from her disastrous marriage.

  The sprawling garden surrounding Adrian’s Toorak mansion had been incredible. She’d spent many hours there, first entertaining, later losing herself in tending to it to block out the ever-increasing evidence that her husband was a lying, cheating scumbag.

  She’d buried herself in books too, doing a horticultural science course to foster her love of all things green, and by the time the divorce had come through Lucy’s Landscaping had been a thriving business for a year.

  She liked maintaining pristine gardens of the wealthy clients she’d once called friends. They trusted her and she ignored their pitying glances and overt condescension. Gardening paid the bills and made her happy. Nothing else mattered, apart from Gram, the woman who’d given her courage to leave Adrian in the first place.

  Calculated interest sparked Cash’s eyes. ‘What if I said you could re-landscape the entire place?’

  Damn her traitorous heart for leaping at the prospect. ‘Do you know how much that would set you back?’

  His lips curved. ‘I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.’

  ‘Thirty grand.’

  To his credit, he didn’t blink. Typical millionaire.

  ‘I need you as my girlfriend, Lucy,’ he said, taking a step closer. Too close. The scent of his spicy shower gel mingling with the nearby Daphne to make her swoon a little. ‘Please?’

  With his big blue eyes fixed on her and that devastatingly sexy smile, Lucy wondered how many women had actually managed to say no to Cash Burgess.

  She bet she’d be the first.

  ‘Sorry, can’t do it.’ She made a grand show of glancing at her watch. ‘And if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for an appointment.’

  Before he could respond, she tucked the pruning shears into the tool belt around her waist and pushed the lawnmower towards her trailer as fast as her legs could carry her.

  Because for one tension-fraught second, with that silent plea in his steady gaze, she’d almost said yes.

  * * *

  Lucy had barel
y kicked off her boots at her grandmother’s back door and entered the kitchen when she knew something was drastically wrong.

  Gram baked every morning. If Lucy gardened to forget her husband, Gram baked to remember hers.

  She supplied local cafés and schools and the local homeless shelter. Baking was Gram’s thing. So to enter the kitchen Lucy had grown up in to find Gram sitting motionless at the dining table with a stack of documents spread before her? As unforeseeable as Cash’s girlfriend-for-a-week proposal.

  ‘Gram, what’s wrong?’ Lucy pulled up a chair next to her grandmother and reached for her hand, its icy clamminess making foreboding slither through her.

  Gram shook her head, the tears trickling down her cheeks as terrifying as her dazed stare fixed on the documents.

  Lucy reached for the top one, surprised when Gram’s fingers clamped on her wrist and dug in with surprising strength.

  ‘Don’t.’

  That one word held so much sorrow and pain and devastation, Lucy felt tears burn her eyes.

  ‘Gram, please, you’re scaring me—’

  ‘I could lose everything,’ Gram murmured, pushing the papers away so fast they scattered on the kitchen floor. ‘I loved your grandfather but by goodness he was a selfish bastard.’

  Lucy stared, shock rendering her incapable of speech. Gram had adored Pops, who’d died twelve months ago. And in all the years they’d raised her, she’d never heard Gram utter one bad word about him.

  Lucy had been amazed at how well Gram had handled his death, how pragmatic she’d been. And while she’d seen Gram shed tears at the funeral and afterwards, she’d never seen her look so fiercely angry or blatantly upset.

  Lucy laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

  Gram finally raised grief-stricken eyes to meet hers. ‘I could lose the house.’

  Lucy heard the five words but couldn’t comprehend them. She’d lived most of her life in this house, since her parents had been killed in a car crash when she’d been a toddler.

  This cosy cottage in Footscray, one of Melbourne’s working-class suburbs, had been filled with love and laughter and food. Her friends had flocked once news of Gram’s lamingtons and jam tarts and lemon slices had spread, and her grandparents enjoyed being surrounded by young people as much as she revelled in the attention of being smothered with love.

  Gram had often told her the story of how Pops had surprised her with the house as a wedding present and Lucy loved the romance of it all. Probably why she’d fallen for her own version of Prince Charming, with Adrian whisking her to live in his palace after they’d married. Pity her prince turned into a toad. But Gram had lived here for almost fifty years. How could she lose the only home she’d ever known?

  ‘I don’t understand.’ In fact, Lucy didn’t understand much of what had happened today. Tears blurred Gram’s eyes again and she blinked several times before continuing. ‘I’d hoped to avoid telling you any of this, love, but I don’t know who else to turn to.’

  Lucy gripped Gram’s hand tight. ‘You’re starting to really worry me, Gram. Tell me everything.’

  Gram dragged in a breath and let it out slowly. ‘Your grandfather had a gambling addiction. I didn’t know ’til after he died and the debts started rolling in.’

  For the second time in as many minutes, Lucy stared at Gram, dumbstruck.

  ‘I paid off most of them from our life savings and his small superannuation payout, but now this...’ She picked up the sole remaining document on the table. ‘Your grandfather remortgaged the house to the tune of fifty thousand dollars. And unless I can start making repayments...’

  Gram ended on a sob that galvanised Lucy into action. She wrapped her arms around Gram and hung on for dear life, letting her own tears fall. Tears of betrayal, of sadness, of disappointment.

  Pops had been her idol. The kind of man she wished Adrian had been like. Moral. Upstanding. Dependable.

  To discover it was all a lie was almost as devastating as learning the truth about Adrian’s indiscretions.

  When Gram’s sobs petered out, Lucy gently disengaged. ‘It’s okay, Gram, I’ll help.’

  ‘I’m not taking money from you,’ Gram said, her frown fierce. ‘You’ve got your own mortgage and business. I won’t have you running into financial troubles because of me.’

  ‘Then we’ll sell this place and you can live with me—’

  ‘No. A young woman needs her independence and how will you find your own happiness with an old woman crowding your space?’ Gram’s mouth twisted in a mutinous grimace. ‘I have my pride and I’m not leaving this house ’til I’m taken out in a wooden box.’

  Lucy only just caught her added, ‘Which may be my only option.’

  The thought of Gram doing anything drastic chilled her blood and she grabbed Gram’s upper arms and gave a little shake. ‘I don’t ever want to hear you talking like that. You’re a fighter. You inspired me to fight for what was right with Adrian. You taught me how to survive upheaval and sadness.’

  Lucy swallowed the huge lump of emotion clogging her throat. ‘You’re all I have left.’

  Guilt clouded Gram’s watery gaze. ‘I’m sorry, love, that was a stupid thing to say. ’Course I’d never do anything silly.’

  ‘You better not.’ Lucy glared at her for good measure. ‘So if you’re too bloody stubborn to move in with me and you won’t let me help pay your mortgage, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Got a spare fifty grand lying around?’ Gram joked, trying to alleviate the hopelessness of the situation.

  And in that moment, Lucy remembered where she could get her hands on a sizable amount of cash, almost enough to clear Gram’s debt and keep her house safe.

  ‘Actually, I just might.’

  Gram started, then waggled her finger. ‘Don’t you dare even think of approaching that no-good son-of-a-bitch ex-husband of yours to ask for the money.’

  Lucy snorted. ‘Gram, we’re desperate, but not that desperate. It’s been nine years since I’ve seen Adrian and I intend to keep it that way.’

  ‘Good.’ Gram tilted her head to one side, studying her. ‘Then where are you going to get that kind of money?’

  ‘I’ve got a plan,’ Lucy said, with a sinking heart.

  Sadly, it involved backtracking on her adamant stance to not be Cash Burgess’s fake girlfriend for a week, and seeing if she could coerce him into throwing another twenty grand into the coffers to remodel his garden.

  ‘Is it legal?’

  ‘Barely,’ Lucy said, with a wry grin.

  ‘Luce...’ She’d heard Gram’s warning tone so many times as a teenager, it made her feel gooey inside to hear it now.

  ‘Gram, trust me. You’ll be the first to know what’s going on once I get everything sorted.’

  ‘You’re a good girl, Luce, always have been.’ Gram patted her cheek. ‘I just wish I could’ve preserved the memory of your grandfather for you.’

  Touched by her grandmother’s concern considering the betrayal she must be feeling, Lucy smiled. ‘Nobody’s perfect, Gram. Pops must’ve loved you, and me, very much to try and hide his addiction from us. Does it hurt? You bet. Was he selfish in dumping all this trouble on you? Absolutely. But nothing can taint how much he loved us.’ She took a deep breath. ‘He taught me so much. You both did, and I love you for it.’

  Gram swiped at her eyes again. ‘Damn waterworks. You’ve set me off again.’

  Lucy sniffled. ‘Dry your eyes. I have a hankering for your signature lemon tart when I return so start baking.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To see a man about a plan.’

  And a garden.

  And a pact that would see her pose as Cash Burgess’s girlfriend for a long seven days.

  Desper
ate times indeed.

  THREE

  Lucy spied Cash sitting on the back patio the moment she rounded the side of the house.

  He had a stack of manila folders scattered on the table, an open laptop and a mobile phone. But he wasn’t working. Instead, he stared into space, a frown grooving his brows.

  Gone was the über-confident air he wore like the finest designer suit. He looked like a guy with mega problems.

  She knew the feeling.

  Even now, thirty minutes later, she was still reeling from the news of her grandfather’s gambling addiction.

  Not once had she suspected he had a problem. He’d worked hard his entire life at the local paper-mill factory, had given her and Gram a secure home, food on the table and the occasional holiday to Sydney.

  Hers hadn’t been a Spartan upbringing but they hadn’t been flush with cash either. She wondered later, after her marriage went pear-shaped, if that had been a major attraction with Adrian. Not that she married him for his money. In fact, she hadn’t known the extent of his wealth until they’d been dating a few months and by then she was head over heels. But the money had been a welcome bonus after her frugal family life.

  After he’d retired Pops had played lawn bowls, hung out at the pub with his mates to watch the horse racing on a Saturday arvo and gone into town weekly for lunch with his poker club.

  Now, those outings took on a whole new meaning. Rather than having a beer with his cronies, he’d probably been gambling heavily, losing his hard-earned savings, then borrowing on the house he’d paid off years earlier.

  Poor Gram. Lucy admired her resilience. And her pride. She didn’t blame Gram for not wanting to move in with her. The small outer-city weatherboard house she’d bought after the divorce was cosy on a good day. She loved its quaintness and what the house lacked in size, the garden more than made up for.

  It had been the major attraction when she’d been house hunting and she’d fallen in love with the English cottage garden gone wild and the massive veggie patch.

  The house could’ve been a shack for all she cared once she’d seen the garden but, thankfully, the Californian-bungalow-styled house was perfect for her needs.