The Bosses

COLLECTION

August 2019

Forbidden Nights with the Boss

September 2019

Becoming the Boss

October 2019

Seduced by the Boss

November 2019

Flirting with the Boss

January 2020

Desired by the Boss

February 2020

Claimed by the Boss

March 2020

Taming the Boss

April 2020

Ruled by the Boss

About the Authors

RITA® Award-winning author LEAH ASHTON never expected to write books. She grew up reading everything – from pony books to cereal boxes at breakfast. One day she discovered romance novels – and one day, much later, wondered if she could write one too. Leah now writes happy ever afters for heroines who definitely don’t need saving. When she’s not writing, Leah loves all day breakfast, rambling conversations and laughing until she cries. She really hates cucumber. And scary movies.

JENNIFER LEWIS has always been drawn to fairy tales, and stories of passion and enchantment. Writing allows her to bring the characters crowding her imagination to life. She lives in sunny South Florida and enjoys the lush tropical environment and spending time on the beach all year long. Please visit her website at jenlewis.com

USA TODAY bestselling author CATHERINE MANN has books in print in more than twenty countries with Mills & Boon Desire, Mills & Boon Romantic Suspense and other imprints. A six-time RITA® finalist, she has won both a RITA® and Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award. Mother of four, Catherine lives in South Carolina where she enjoys kayaking, hiking with her dog and volunteering in animal rescue. For more information visit: catherinemann.com

Desired by the Boss

Behind the Billionaire’s Guarded Heart

Leah Ashton

Behind Boardroom Doors

Jennifer Lewis

His Secretary’s Little Secret

Catherine Mann

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90608-5

DESIRED BY THE BOSS

Behind the Billionaire’s Guarded Heart © 2017 Leah Ashton Behind Boardroom Doors © 2012 Harlequin Books S.A. His Secretary’s Little Secret © 2016 Catherine Mann

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Behind the Billionaire’s Guarded Heart

Back Cover Text

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

Behind Boardroom Doors

Back Cover Text

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

His Secretary’s Little Secret

Back Cover Text

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

About the Publisher

Behind the Billionaire’s Guarded Heart

Leah Ashton

Falling for her mysterious boss...

When Australian heiress April Molyneux is left brokenhearted, she looks for a new start in London. Determined to stand on her own two feet, she finds herself working for the reclusive yet sexy billionaire Hugh Bennell.

Hugh likes his life—and his emotions—uncomplicated, but meeting glamorous April changes everything. Hugh doesn’t do relationships, and April wants to keep the independence she’s worked so hard for. But with these sparks flying...resistance might be futile!

For Jen – who writes beautiful messages in cards,

talks with her hands, and giggles at all my jokes.

Thank you for all your help with this book, and for

your belief in my writing.

You’re fabulous, Jen. I miss you.

PROLOGUE

THE SUNSET WAS PERFECT—all orange and purple on a backdrop of darkening blue. Just the right number of clouds stretched their tendrils artistically along the horizon.

The beach, however, was not so perfect.

It had been a warm Perth day, so April Molyneux hadn’t been alone in her plans for a beachside picnic dinner. Around her, people congregated about mounds of battered fish and chips on beds of butcher’s paper. Others had picnic baskets, or brown paper takeaway bags, or melting ice cream cones from the pink and white van parked above the sand dunes.

There were beach towels everywhere, body boards bouncing in the waves, children building sandcastles, women power walking along the beach in yoga pants, gossiping at a mile a minute. Then a football team jogged by, shirtless and in matching deep purple shorts.

April wanted to scream. This was not what she’d planned.

This was not a private, romantic, beachside tête-à-tête.

Evan lay sprawled on their picnic blanket, his back turned away from April as he scrolled through his phone.

Today was their wedding anniversary. Three years.

#anniversary #threeyears #love #romance

Right now April felt like dumping the contents of the gourmet picnic box she’d ordered all over his head—sourdough baguettes, cultured butter, artisan cheeses, muscatels and all.

‘Do we have to do this?’ Evan asked, not even looking at her.

‘You mean spend time with your wife on your anniversary?’ Her words were sharp, but April’s throat felt tight.

The sea-breeze whipped her long blonde hair across her eyes, and she tucked it back behind her ears angrily. She sat with her legs curled beneath her, a long pale pink maxi-dress covering her platinum bikini. She stared daggers at Evan’s back. His attention was still concentrated on the screen of his phone.

‘You know that isn’t what I meant.’

She did. But she’d spent weeks leading up to today, posting photos of their wedding to her one point two million followers.

#anniversary #threeyears #love #romance

She’d organised for the Molyneux family jet to take them up north, up past Broome. She’d found the perfect—perfect—private beach. She’d had the stupid picnic box couriered up from Margaret River, and she’d had her assistant organise a gorgeous rainbow mohair picnic blanket, complete with a generous donation to the Molyneux Foundation.

And then Evan had called from work as she’d been packing her overnight bag. He’d asked if they could cancel their trip. He didn’t really feel like going, and could they stay home instead?

Coming to this beach had been the compromise.

It wasn’t even about the beach, really. Just the photo.

All he needed to do was smile for the camera and then they could go home and eat their fancy picnic in front of the TV. Or order pizza. Whatever. It didn’t matter. And Evan could eat silently, then retreat to his study and barely talk to her for the rest of the evening.

Just as he did most nights.

Again, April’s throat felt tight.

Finally Evan moved. He shifted, sitting up so he could face her. He took off his sunglasses, and for some reason April did too.

For the first time in what suddenly felt like ages he looked directly at her. Really intensely, his hazel eyes steady against her own silvery blue.

‘I don’t think we can do this any more,’ he said. Firmly, and in a way that probably should have surprised her.

April pretended to misunderstand. ‘Come on—it’s just a stupid photo. We need to do this. I have contractual obligations.’

For product placement: The mohair blanket. The picnic box. Her sunglasses. Her bikini.

Donations to the Molyneux Foundation were contingent on this photograph.

Evan shook his head. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

They’d started marriage counselling only a year after their wedding. They’d stopped trying for a baby shortly afterwards, both agreeing that it was best to wait until they’d sorted things out.

But they hadn’t sorted things out.

They’d both obediently attended counselling, made concerted efforts to listen to each other...but nothing had really changed.

They still loved each other, though. They’d both been clear on that.

April knew she still loved Evan. She’d loved him since he’d asked her to his Year Twelve ball.

To her, that had been all that mattered. Eventually it would go back to how it had used to be between them. Surely?

‘I’ll always love you, April,’ Evan said, in a terribly careful tone that she knew he must have practised. ‘But I don’t love you the way I know I should. The way I should love the woman I’m married too. You deserve better, April.’

Oh, God.

The words were all mashed together, tangled up in the salty breeze. All April could hear, repeated against her skull, was: I don’t love you...

His lips quirked upwards. ‘I guess I deserve better, too. We both deserve that love you see in the movies, or in those books you read. Don’t you think? And it’s never been like that for us.’

He paused, as if waiting for her to say something, but she had nothing. Absolutely nothing.

‘Look, I would never cheat on you, April, but a while ago I met someone who made me think that maybe there was a bigger love out there for me, you know?’ This bit definitely wasn’t practised—his words were all rushed and messy. ‘I respected you too much to pursue her. I cut her out of my life and I haven’t been in contact with her. At all. I promise. But I can’t stop thinking about her, and I...’

His gaze had long ago stopped meeting hers, but now it swung back.

He swallowed. ‘I want a divorce, April,’ he said with finality. ‘I’m sorry.’

She could only nod. Nod and nod, over and over.

‘April?’

Her throat felt as if it had completely closed over. She fumbled for her sunglasses, desperate to cover the wetness in her eyes.

‘Let’s just take this stupid picture,’ she said, her words strangled.

His eyes widened, but he nodded.

Awkwardly, they posed—only their shoulders touching. April took the photo quickly, without any thought at all...but amazingly the beach in the photo’s background was perfectly empty just for that millisecond as she pressed the button on her phone.

To her followers it would seem perfect.

A private beach, a handsome, loving husband, a glorious sunset...

Silently she cropped the image, then added her caption and hashtags.

Three amazing years with this guy! #anniversary #threeyears #love #romance

But she deleted the last hashtag before she posted it:

#over

Hugh Bennell’s gaze was drawn to the black door at the top of the grey stone stairs. The paintwork and brass door hardware all looked a bit dull—and not just because the sun was only just now rising on this rather dreary London morning. A handful of leaves had gathered where a doormat should be, and a single hopeful weed reached out from beneath the doorstep.

He’d have to sort that out.

But for now he simply wheeled his bike—lights still flashing from his pre-dawn ride—straight past the steps that led to the three-storey chocolate and cream Victorian end-of-terrace, and instead negotiated a matching set of steps that led downwards to his basement flat.

Inside, the cleats on the base of his cycling shoes clicked on the parquet flooring, and his road bike’s wheels squeaked noisily. He hung the bike on its wall hanger, immediately across from the basement front door. Above it hung his mountain bike, and to the right of that was the door to one of his spare bedrooms.

That door was painted white, and the paintwork still gleamed as fresh as the day he’d had the apartment painted. He noted that the brass knob still shone—in fact his whole house shone with meticulous cleanliness, just as he liked it.

Hugh settled in at his desk after a shower, his dark hair still damp. The desk was right at the front of his apartment, pushed up against the window. Above him foot traffic was increasing as London got ready for the workday. From his viewpoint all he could see were ankles and feet—in heels and boots and lace-up shoes. The angle was too acute for anyone passing to see him—he’d checked, of course—so he could leave his blinds open, allowing natural light to filter across his workspace.

He placed his mug of tea on the coaster immediately to the right of his open laptop. Beneath that lay the day’s to-do list, carefully formulated and handwritten the previous evening.

He’d always loved lists, even as a young kid. He remembered his mum’s bemusement when he’d stuck a list above his bedside table to remind himself what to pack for school each day of the week. He’d found it calming to have it all written out—a much better alternative, he’d thought, to his mother’s panicked realisations at the school gate and her frantic delivery of forgotten sports shoes at morning break.

‘A neat freak with lists!’ His mum had laughed. ‘How could you possibly be mine?’

To the bottom of his list for today he added Paint front door and polish brass.

He was certain the team at Precise thought his penchant for paper lists eccentric for a man who owned and ran a multi-million-dollar mobile app empire—but then, the team thought him eccentric for many more reasons than that.

A reminder popped up on his screen for a nine a.m. appointment, and he clicked through to sign in for the online meeting. Already four of the five other attendees were logged in, their faces visible via their webcams in a grid to the right of screen.

But in Hugh’s box there was only the generic grey silhouette—he never chose the video option, and he kept the camera at the top of his laptop taped over just in case.

Because, for Hugh Bennell, maintaining his privacy was non-negotiable.

He was in control of exactly what he revealed to the world.

His laptop dinged as the final attendee arrived.

‘Looks like everyone’s here,’ Hugh said. ‘Let’s get started.’

CHAPTER ONE

Six weeks later—London

APRIL FELT GOOD.

She was thirty-two, and her first ever job interview was today.

Sure, she’d been interviewed for the couple of internships she’d had back at uni, but they didn’t count. Today was her first real-life I actually really, really want this job interview.

That was significant.

She smiled.

Around her, the Tube train was packed. Everyone looked completely absorbed in their own world—reading a book, swiping through a phone, gazing out of the window into the blackness of the tunnel.

Nobody noticed her. Nobody realised how momentous this day actually was.

Since her disastrous wedding anniversary there’d been weeks of numbness for April. There’d been shock, then anger, then the awfulness of telling her mum and her sisters, Ivy and Mila. There’d been weeks of meetings with lawyers and endless discussions about property settlement. There’d been tears and wine and long conversations.

Time had seemed to go on and on. Especially at night, when she’d been alone in her ridiculously too big concrete-and-angles home. Mila had stayed a few nights to keep her company—but she had her own life and a partner to worry about. Her mum had stayed every night for a fortnight, determinedly focusing on the practicalities of lawyers and legal details. Ivy had brought her son, Nate, to visit regularly—although she had been mortified when the toddler had accidentally pushed a salad bowl off the table, shattering it into millions of pieces.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ April had reassured her. ‘It’s one less thing we need to decide who gets to keep.’

At first, sorting out the things that she and Evan had bought together had seemed vitally important. Maybe it was the focus it had given her—or maybe there was more of her ruthless businesswoman mother in her than she’d thought.

But as the weeks had worn on, and she’d spent more time staring at her ceiling, not sleeping, all their stuff had begun to feel meaningless.

As it probably should for a woman with a billion-dollar family trust that she held with her sisters.

So Evan could have everything. Of course he could have everything.

I don’t love you...

April didn’t sugar-coat what Evan had said. He’d wrapped it up in superfluous words to blunt the blow, but that didn’t hide the reality: Evan didn’t love her. He’d never loved her—at least not the way April had loved him.

In those endless nights she’d analysed that relentlessly.

How could she not have known?

I don’t love you.

You.

Who was she, if not married to Evan?

The feminist within her was horrified that she could even ask herself this question. But she did. Again and again:

Who was she?

This woman Evan hadn’t loved enough. This woman who had been oblivious to the end of her marriage.

Who was she?

She was thirty-two, single and had never worked a day in her life.

Her home had been a wedding gift from her mother.

Everything she’d ever bought had been with a credit card linked to the Molyneux Trust. She had been indulged by a family who probably didn’t think her capable of being anything but a frivolous socialite. Why would they? She’d applied herself to nothing else. Her days had been filled with shopping and expensive charity luncheons. Her evenings with art gallery openings and luxurious fundraising auctions. She’d spent her spare time taking photos of herself and posting them online, so millions of people could click ‘like’ and comment on her fabulous perfect life.

What a sham. What a joke.

She hadn’t earned a cent of the fortune she’d flouted to the world.

And her husband hadn’t loved her.

She was a fraud.

But no more.

April smoothed the charcoal fabric of her pencil skirt over her thighs. It wasn’t designer. In fact it had probably cost about five per cent of the cost of her favourite leather tote bag—which she’d left back home in Perth.

She’d left everything behind.

She’d booked a one-way ticket to London and opened up a new credit card account at her bank—politely declining the option to have the balance cleared monthly by the Molyneux Trust. From now on she was definitely paying her own way.

She’d also located her British passport—a document she had thanks to her mother’s dual citizenship of both Australia and the UK.

Only then had she told her family what she was doing.

And then she’d ignored every single one of their concerns and hopped onto her flight the next day.

Now here she was. Three days in London.

She’d found a flat. She’d bought reasonably priced clothes for the first time in her life. She’d researched the heck out of the environmental sustainability consulting firm where she was about to have an interview.

Oh—as she noted her long ponytail cascading over the shoulder of her hound’s-tooth coat—she’d also dyed her hair brown.

She felt like a different person. Like a new person.

She even had a new name, of sorts.

The name that was on her birth certificate and her passport: April Spencer.

Like her sisters, she’d made the choice to use her mother’s surname within a few years of her father leaving them. But she’d never bothered having it formally changed.

Turned out that had now come in handy.

Today she didn’t feel like April Molyneux, the billionaire mining heiress whose life had collapsed around her.

Today she was April Spencer, and today she had a job interview.

And for the first time in six weeks she felt good.

As Hugh probably should’ve expected, it had rained through the remainder of September and then most of October. So it was a cool but clear November morning when he retrieved the tin of black paint from beneath his stairs and headed out from his basement to the front door of the main house.

It was just before sunrise, and even on a workday Islington street was almost deserted. A couple walking a Labrador passed by as he laid out his drop cloth, and as he painted the occasional jogger, walker or cyclist zipped past—along with the gradually thickening traffic.

It didn’t take long to paint the door: just a quick sand-down, a few minor imperfections in the woodwork to repair, then a fresh coat of paint.

Now it just needed to dry.

The door had to stay propped open for a few hours before he could safely close it again. He’d known this, so he’d planned ahead and dumped his backpack—which contained his laptop—in the hallway before he’d started work. Now he stepped inside, his work boots loud on the blue, cream and grey geometric tessellated tile entryway.

He yanked off his boots, grabbed his laptop out of his bag and then on thick socks padded over to the grand staircase ahead of him. To his left was the first of two reception rooms on the ground floor—but he wasn’t going to work in there. Instead he settled on a stair third from the bottom, rested his laptop on his jeans and got to work.

Or at least that was the plan.

Instead his emails remained unread, and the soft beep of instant message notifications persisted but were ignored.

Who was he kidding? He was never going to get any work done in here.

It was impossible when his attention remained on insignificant details: the way the weak morning sunlight sauntered through the wedged-open door to mingle with the dust he’d disturbed. The scent of the house: cardboard packing boxes, musty air and windows closed for far too long. The light—or lack of it. With every door but the front door sealed shut, an entryway he remembered as bright with light seemed instead gloomy and...abandoned.

Which, of course, it was.

He hadn’t stepped foot in here since the day he’d moved into the basement.

Back then—three years ago—it had been too hard. He hadn’t been ready to deal with this house.

Hugh stood up, suddenly needing to move. But not out through the front door.

Instead he went to the internal door only a few steps away and with a firm grip twisted the brass knob and yanked the door open.

He hadn’t realised he’d been holding his breath—but he let it out now in a defeated sigh. As if he’d expected to see something different.

But he’d known what was in here.

Once, this room had been where his mother and her second husband had hosted their guests with cups of tea and fancy biscuits.

That would be impossible now. If any antique furniture remained, it was hidden. Completely. By boxes. Boxes that filled the room in every direction—stacked neatly like bricks as tall as he was—six foot and higher.

Boxes, boxes, boxes—so many he couldn’t even begin to count.

Hugh reached out to touch the nearest box. It sat on a stack four high, its plain cardboard surface slightly misshapen by whatever was crammed within it.

Some of the many boxes that surrounded it—beneath, beside and beyond—were occasionally labelled unhelpfully: purple treasures...sparkly things.

Others—the work of the woman Hugh had employed to help his mother—had detailed labels and colour-coded stickers: a relic of Hugh’s attempts to organise his mother’s hoard into some sort of system.

But his mother had resisted—joyfully creating ridiculous categories and covertly shuffling items between boxes—and in the end her frustrated assistant had correctly informed Hugh that it was an utter waste of time.

Which he’d already known—but then, what option had he had?

Doctors, specialists, consultants...all had achieved nothing.

How could they? When his mother knew exactly what she was doing?

She’d been here before, after all. Before Len. When it had been just Hugh and his mum and her hoard. And her endless quest for love.

With Len she’d finally had the love she’d searched for for so long. A love that had been powerful enough to allow her to let go of all the things she’d collected in the years since Hugh’s father had left them. Things she’d surrounded herself with and held on to so tightly when she’d been unable to possess the one thing she’d so badly wanted: love.

Without Len his mother had believed that her hoard was all she’d had left. And, despite still having Hugh, despite his desperate efforts, it hadn’t been enough.

He’d been helpless to prevent the hoard that had overshadowed his childhood from returning.

Hugh closed his eyes.

There was so much stuff in this room that if he walked another step he would walk into a wall of boxes.

It was exactly the same in almost every room in the house—every living space, every bedroom. Except the kitchen, halls and bathrooms—and that was only because of the staff Hugh had employed and his mother’s reluctant agreement to allow them into the house each day.

So that was all he’d managed: to pay people to keep the few bits of empty floor space in his mother’s house clean. And to clear a safe path from her bedroom to the front and back doors in case of a fire.

Really, it was not all that different from how it had been when he’d been ten. Except this time he’d had loads of money to outsource what he’d only barely managed as a kid.

And this place was a hell of a lot bigger than the tiny council flat he’d grown up in.

He opened his eyes, but just couldn’t stare at those awful uniform boxes any more.

Back in the entry hall, Hugh grabbed his laptop and backpack, ready to leave...but then he stilled.

The new paint on the door was still wet. He wasn’t going anywhere.

But he also wasn’t going to be able to work—it would seem that three years had done nothing to ease the tension, the frustration and the hopelessness that those damn boxes elicited within him.

Even waiting another three years—or ten—to deal with them wasn’t going to make any difference.

They’d still represent a lot more than they should.

They needed to go. All of them.

This house needed to be bright and light once again. It needed to breathe.

So he sat back down on the bottom step of the grand old staircase, knowing exactly what he was going to do.

It was time.

It had started with confusion at the supermarket checkout.

‘Do you have another card?’ the checkout operator had asked.

‘Pardon me?’ April had said—because, well, it had never happened to her before.

It had, it seemed, happened several times to the not particularly patient operator—Bridget, according to her name tag. She’d studied April, her gaze flat, as April had tried what she knew to be her correct PIN twice more.

And then, as April had searched hopelessly for an alternative card—she’d cut up every single card linked to the Molyneux Trust back in Perth—Bridget had asked her to move aside so she could serve the next in a long line of customers.

April had dithered momentarily: was she supposed to return the Thai green curry ready-meal, the bunch of bananas and bottle of eye make-up remover to the shelves before she left?

But then the weight of pitying stares—possibly only imagined—had kicked in, and April had exited the shop as fast as she’d been able, her sneakers suddenly unbelievably squeaky on the supermarket’s vinyl flooring.

Now she was at home, still in her gym gear, on her butter-soft grey leather couch, her laptop before her.

For only the second time in the four weeks since she’d been in London she logged in to her internet banking—the other time being when she’d set up her account at the bank. Her fully furnished flat didn’t come with a printer, so she’d have to scroll through her credit card statement onscreen.

But it was still easy to see the reason for her mortification at the checkout—she’d maxed out her credit card.

How was that even possible?

She’d been so careful with her spending—more so as each still jobless week had passed.

She hadn’t bought any new clothes for weeks. She’d stopped eating at cafés and restaurants, and had instead become quite enamoured with what she considered a very English thing: convenience stores with huge walls of pre-made sandwiches in triangular plastic packaging. And microwaveable ready-meals for dinner.

They must only be costing a few pounds a meal, surely?

She had joined the gym, but that had seemed very cheap. And fortunately the flat came with Wi-Fi, so she hadn’t had to pay for that.

So where had all her money gone?

Five minutes later she knew.

With pen and paper, she’d documented exactly where her money had been spent.

Her rent—and four weeks’ deposit—was the biggest culprit. Only now did it dawn on her that even if she did get one of the many, many jobs she’d been applying for, her starting salary would barely cover her rent. With absolutely nothing left over for sandwiches in plastic triangles.

She flopped back onto her couch and looked around her flat.

It was small, but—if she was objective—not that small. And it was beautifully furnished. Expensively furnished. Her kitchen appliances were the same insanely priced brand she’d had back in Perth. Her small bathroom was tiled in floor-to-ceiling marble.

She even had a balcony.

But she couldn’t afford a balcony. She couldn’t afford any of this.

Because she didn’t have any money. At all.

Not for the first time in four weeks, she wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake.

The first time had been after she hadn’t got the first job she’d been interviewed for.

Now, several job interviews later—and many more applications that had led to absolutely nothing—her initial optimism astounded her. She literally had a degree, an internship and then almost ten years of nothing.

Well—not nothing. But nothing she was about to put on her CV. A million followers and a charitable foundation that she’d established herself could possibly sound impressive to some HR departments. But they weren’t relevant to the environmental officer roles she was applying for.

And, just as importantly, they would reveal her real name. And she just couldn’t do that.

Although it was tempting at times. Like tonight. How easy it would be to still be April Molyneux and organise the reissue of one of the many credit cards linked to her insane fortune? By this time tomorrow she could be eating all the Thai green curry she wanted.

She could even upgrade to a far more impressive flat.

April pushed herself up and off the couch, to search for something to eat in her lovely kitchen.

Her fridge was stocked only with expensive Australian Riesling, sparkling designer water—also expensive—a partially eaten wheel of camembert cheese—expensive—and the organic un-homogenised milk that she’d bought because she’d liked the pretty glass bottle it came in—probably also more expensive than it needed to be.

April felt sick.

Was she really so disconnected from the reality of what things cost?

Her whole life she’d known she was rich. But she’d thought she still had some sense of the reality of living in the real world: without a trust fund, without the mansion your mum had bought for you.

She’d liked to think she’d projected some sort of ‘everywoman’ persona to her Instagram and Facebook followers. That despite the good fortune of her birth that she was really just like everybody else.

She poured herself a bowl of probably overpriced granola and used up the rest of her fancy milk, then sat back in front of her laptop.

Earlier today, before heading to the gym, she’d scheduled the next couple of days’ worth of social media posts.

April Spencer might be in London, but April Molyneux—to her followers, anyway—was still in Perth, effortlessly adjusting to her new single life.

Before she’d dyed her hair she’d made sure she’d honoured every single product placement agreement she’d signed, and had posed for months’ worth of photos. She’d taken even more selfies, with all manner of random backgrounds—she’d come up with something to caption them with as she needed to.

Plus she still took random photos while here in London—the habit was too ingrained for her to give it up completely. She just made sure her hair and anything identifiably London wasn’t in any of the photos. So the book she was reading...the shade she’d painted her toenails...that kind of stuff. All was still documented, still shared, interwoven with her blonde April photos and carefully coordinated with her assistant back home—thankfully still paid for by the Molyneux Foundation.

So her social media life carried on. Her followers continued to grow.

And what were they seeing?

She scrolled down the page, taking in her last few years of photos in a colourful blur.

A blur of international holidays, secluded luxury Outback retreats, designer shoes, amazing jewellery, beautiful clothes, a gorgeous husband and attractive—wealthy—friends.

They were seeing an unbelievably privileged woman who had absolutely no idea what it was like to exist in the real world.

April slapped her laptop screen shut, suddenly disgusted with herself.

And ashamed.

The whole point of all this—the move to London, her quest for a job, living alone for the first time in her life—had been about finding herself. Defining who she was if she wasn’t Evan’s wife. Or one of the Molyneux heiresses.

But so far all she’d achieved was a self-indulgent month during which she’d patted herself on the back for ‘living like a normal person’ but achieved absolutely nothing other than a new, reasonably priced wardrobe.

She knew her mum, Ivy and Mila all assumed this was just a bit of a game to her. They assumed that once she did eventually get a job she’d supplement her income with Molyneux money. On reflection, no one had pointed out the now damned obvious fact that she couldn’t afford this apartment.

And, unlike April, they would know. Mila had never used her Molyneux fortune: she knew exactly how far a dollar or a pound could stretch. And Ivy had dedicated her life to building up the Molyneux fortune—so she knew, too.

She couldn’t even be annoyed with them. Up until tonight, and that stupid, sad ‘declined’ beep at the cash register, they’d been right.

They’d been right to think that their pampered middle sister couldn’t cut it in the real world.

And, if she was brutally honest, she hadn’t even been trying. She’d thought she had, but people in the real world didn’t have no income for a month—and no savings—and then casually take their time applying for some mythical perfect job while living in a luxury apartment.

She flipped her laptop open again.

She needed to find a job. Immediately.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE HAD A nice voice, Hugh thought.

Unquestionably Australian. Warm. Professional.

She didn’t sound nervous, although she did laugh every now and again—which was possibly nerves. Or possibly not. Her laugh was natural. Also warm. Pretty.

Hugh’s lips quirked. How whimsical of him. How unlike him.

Currently, April...he glanced down at the printed CV before him...April Spencer was answering the last of his four interview questions.

Rather well, actually.

He leant back in his chair, listening carefully as her voice filled the room, projected by the speakers hooked up to his laptop.

This was the third interview his recruitment consultant had organised, although the other two applicants had been quite different from April. One an art curator, another an antique specialist.

Both complete overkill for the position. He’d been clear with the consultant, Caro, that his mother’s collections were not of any monetary value—although Caro had made some valid points that knowledge of antiques and curation skills might still be of use.

But still... He felt as if employing either skill-set would be pretending that all those boxes were something more than they actually were. Which was a hoard. A hoard he wanted out of his life.

‘...so I feel my experience working for the Molyneux Foundation demonstrates my understanding of the importance of client privacy,’ April said as she continued her answer. ‘I regularly dealt with donors who requested their names remain absolutely confidential. At other times donors wished for their donation—whether it be product, service or otherwise—to be announced at a date or time suitable to their company. In both scenarios complete discretion was essential.’

‘But your role at the foundation, Ms Spencer, was as social media coordinator,’ Hugh prompted, scanning her CV. ‘Why would you have access to such sensitive information?’

There was the briefest pause. ‘It’s quite a small foundation,’ April said, her tone confident. ‘And I worked closely with the managing director. It was my job to schedule posts and monitor comments—I needed to know what to announce, and also what comments to remove in case anyone gave one of our generous benefactors away.’

From the notes Caro had provided, it seemed April’s work with the Molyneux Foundation had been the reason she’d been put forward. Hugh had made it clear that a proven ability to maintain strict confidentiality was essential for this position.

‘And you’re available immediately?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ April said.

Hugh nodded at the phone. ‘Right—thank you, Ms Spencer,’ he said. ‘A decision will be made shortly.’

Then he ended the call.

After the interview April left the small meeting room and returned to the recruiter’s office.

It had all been rather bizarre. She’d come in this morning expecting to be assigned to an interview for something similar to her two jobs so far—both short-term entry level social media roles to cover unexpected leave—and yet she’d been put forward for a job unpacking boxes, with a phone interview to take place almost immediately.

Across from her, at her large, impressive desk, sat Caroline Zhu, the senior recruiter at the agency April had been working for since her supermarket debacle three weeks earlier.

‘I’m sorry,’ April said. ‘I don’t think the interview went particularly well.’

Terribly, actually. She felt she’d answered the questions well enough, but Hugh Bennell had barely said a word. Certainly not a word of encouragement, anyway.

‘Possibly,’ Caro said, in the no-nonsense voice that matched her jet-black no-nonsense ponytail. ‘But unlikely. It’s been several years since Mr Bennell has required my services, but I’m certain his interview technique has not changed. He is not one for superfluous conversation.’

April nodded. Yes, she’d got that.

It fitted, she supposed—her frantic internet searching in the short period of time she’d had before her interview had revealed little about Hugh Bennell. She knew of Precise, of course—practically everyone with a smartphone would have at least one app from the company. April, in fact, had about six, all related to scheduling, analytics and online collaboration. But, unlike other international tech companies that were synonymous with their founders, Hugh Bennell was no more than a name on the company website—and the subject of several newspaper articles in which a string of journalists had attempted to discover the man behind such a massive self-made fortune.

But all had failed.

All April had learnt from those quickly skimmed articles was that Hugh had grown up in council housing in London, the only child of a single, hard-working mother. As soon as he’d left university it had been as if he’d wiped all trace of himself from public record—she’d found no photos of him, and his Wikipedia entry was incredibly brief.

It was strikingly unusual in this share-everything world.

Mysterious, even.

Intriguing, actually.

‘You’ll know soon enough,’ Caroline continued. ‘In my experience, Mr Bennell makes extremely swift decisions.’

‘Are you able to tell me a bit more about the position?’

Caroline raised an impatient eyebrow. ‘As I said, the information Mr Bennell provided is limited. He has a room full of a large number of boxes that require sorting and disposal. Not antiques. Nothing dangerous. He requires someone trustworthy and hardworking who can start immediately. That’s all I can tell you.’

‘And you thought I was suitable because...?’

‘Because you’re keen to work as much as possible for as much pay as possible. You were quite clear on that when we first met.’

True. After some judicious reimagining of her work experience—she’d repositioned herself as April Spencer, Social Media Manager at the Molyneux Foundation, which was technically true—she’d turned up at the best-reviewed temp agency within walking distance of her overpriced flat at nine a.m. the Monday after her credit card had been declined.

She’d been absolutely—possibly over-zealously—clear in her goals. To work hard and earn as much money as she could. In fact, she’d even found a night job, stacking shelves at a supermarket near her new home.

She needed her credit card debt cleared pronto. She needed money yesterday.

Fortunately Caroline Zhu had seemed to consider her desperation-tinged enthusiasm a positive.

The phone rang in pretty musical tones.

‘Ah, here we go,’ Caroline said, raising her eyebrows at April. She picked up the phone, had the briefest of conversations that ended with, ‘Excellent news, Mr Bennell. I’ll let the successful applicant know.’

She hung up and turned back to April.

‘Just as I thought,’ Caroline said. ‘I’m rarely wrong on such things. Mr Bennell has selected you as his preferred candidate. You start immediately.’

‘Unpacking boxes?’

‘For a mouthwatering sum an hour.’

‘I’m in,’ April said with a grin.

Caroline might have let slip the slightest of smiles. ‘You already are. Here’s the address.’

Hugh Bennell’s house was beautiful.

It felt familiar, actually—she’d stayed with her mum and sisters at a similar house for Christmas, many years ago. It was the year she and her sisters had campaigned for a white Christmas and, like so many things in her childhood and adult life, it had just happened.

She straightened her shoulders, then knocked on the front door.

She’d been told Hugh Bennell would be meeting her—which had surprised her. Surely the boss of a company like Precise had staff to deal with a lowly employee like herself?

But then, she’d supposed he also had staff to interview lowly employees like herself—and he’d already done that himself.

If anything, it just added to the general sense of mystery: mysterious boxes for her to unpack, complete with a mysterious billionaire CEO who was mysteriously hands-on with the recruitment of unskilled labour.

It was late morning now. She hadn’t had time to change, so she still wore what she now considered her ‘interview suit’. Her shoes were freshly polished, and her hair was looped in an elegant low bun that she was rather proud of. Her stylist back in Perth would be impressed.

The liquorice-black door opened.

And revealed a man.

A tall man. With dark hair, dark stubble. Dark eyes.

Dark eyes that met her own directly. Very directly.

Momentarily April felt frozen beneath that gaze.

So this is what a mysterious tech billionaire looks like.

Jaw-droppingly handsome.

She blinked. ‘Good morning,’ she said, well practised from years of socialising at every event anyone could imagine. ‘I’m April Spencer. Are you Mr Bennell?’

He nodded. ‘You got here quickly.’

‘I did,’ she said. ‘The agency emphasised the urgency of this placement.’

Silence. But, despite her usually sparkling conversational skills, April didn’t rush to fill it. Instead she simply stood still beneath Hugh Bennell’s gaze.

He was still looking at her. Unreadably but intensely. It was a strange and unfamiliar sensation.

But not entirely uncomfortable.

There was something about him—the way he stood, maybe—that created a sense of calm. And of time.

Time to take a handful of moments to study the man before her—to take in the contrast of his black hair and olive skin. To admire the thick slashes of his eyebrows, the sharpness of his cheekbones, the elegance of his mouth.

He was more interesting than gorgeous, she realised, with a slightly crooked nose and an angular chin. His too-long hair and his stubble—forgotten, she was sure, rather than fashionable.

But it was that sum of those imperfect parts that made a darkly, devastatingly attractive whole.

And definitely not what she’d been expecting.

Whatever she’d thought a mysterious billionaire who deliberately shunned the spotlight would look like, this was not it.

He was also nothing like Evan.

That realisation came from left field, shocking her.

April blinked again. What was she doing?

‘Please come in,’ Hugh Bennell said. As naturally as if only a beat of time had passed.

Maybe it had?

April felt flustered and confused—and seriously annoyed with herself.

She’d just met her new boss. She needed to pull herself together.

She was probably just tired from the long hours she’d been working.

But did tiredness explain the way her gaze documented the breadth of her new boss’s shoulders as she stepped inside?

Nope.

There was no way she could pretend she didn’t know what the fireworks in her belly meant. It had just been a long time since they’d been associated with anyone but her husband.

And a pretty long time since she’d associated them with Evan.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a second.

No. No. No, no, no.

She had not flown halfway around the world to turn into a puddle over a man. Over her boss. No matter how mysterious.

That certainly wasn’t why she was working two jobs and sharing a room in a truly awful shared house.

She’d come to London to live independently. Without her mother’s money for the first time in her life and without Evan for the first time since she was seventeen.

And she needed this job. She certainly needed the very generous hourly rate.

She didn’t need fireworks, or the heat that had pooled in her belly.

‘Miss Spencer?’

April’s eyes snapped open. ‘Sorry, Mr Bennell.’

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

He did have gorgeous eyes. Thoughtful eyes that looked as if a million things were happening within them.

‘Of course,’ she said with a deliberate smile.

He inclined his chin, somewhat sceptically. ‘I was just saying that we’ll run through your responsibilities in the kitchen.’

She nodded, then followed him down the narrow hall beside the rather grand if dusty staircase.

As they walked April did her absolute best to shove all thoughts of fireworks or heat firmly out of her mind—and her body. Frustratingly, Hugh’s well-worn, perfectly fitted jeans did nothing to help this endeavour.

Neither did the unwanted realisation that—for the first time since Evan had told her he didn’t love her and her sparkling life had been dulled—she felt truly alive.

April Spencer was beautiful.

Objectively beautiful. As if she’d stepped off the pages of a catalogue and into his mother’s house.

For a while he’d stood and just looked at her, because he’d felt helpless to do anything but.

He’d looked at her chocolate-brown hair, at her porcelain skin and her crystal blue eyes. At her lips—pink, and shining with something glossy. At her fitted clothes and the long coat cinched in tight at her waist.

He’d expected a backpacker. Someone younger, really. Someone he could actually imagine lifting and shifting boxes.

This woman was not it.

This woman was poised and utterly together. Everything about her exuded strength and confidence. As if she was used to commanding a room. Or a corporation.

Not rummaging through boxes.

It just didn’t fit.

He’d let her in, but then he had turned to face her—to question her.

He needed to know who she was and what she was doing here.

But when he’d turned her eyes had been closed.

He’d watched her for a second as she’d taken deep breaths. In through her nose. Out through her mouth. And it was in that moment—while that knowledgeable gaze had been hidden—that he’d sensed vulnerability. A vulnerability that had been completely disguised by her polish and her smile.

And so, instead of interrogating her, he’d asked her if she was okay.

And instead of calling the agency back, asking for someone more suitable, he’d led her into the kitchen and handed her a confidentiality agreement to sign.

That moment of vulnerability had long gone now, and the woman in his mother’s kitchen revealed nothing of whatever he’d seen.

But he had seen it. And he of all people knew that people were rarely what they first appeared. He’d spent most his life hiding all but what people absolutely needed to know.

So for now he wasn’t going to question April Spencer.

But he did acknowledge her incongruity, and he didn’t like that this project to clear his mother’s house already felt more complicated than he wanted it to.

April laid his pen on top of the signed paperwork. ‘All done, Mr Bennell,’ she said with a smile.

‘Call me Hugh,’ he said firmly.

‘April,’ she said, with eyes that sparkled.

He was again struck by her beauty, but forced himself to disregard it. The attractiveness of his employees was none of his concern.

He nodded briskly, and didn’t return her smile. ‘You’ll be working alone,’ he said, getting straight to the point, ‘and I’ve provided guidelines for how I want items sorted. It should be self-explanatory: paperwork containing personal details is to be saved, all other papers to be shredded and recycled. Junk is to be disposed of. Anything of value should be separated for donation. I’ve provided the details of local charities you can contact to organise collection.’

April nodded, her gaze on the printed notes he’d left for her.

‘Is there anything other than papers you want kept?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he said.

Maybe louder than he’d intended, as her head jerked upwards.

‘Okay,’ she said carefully. ‘And how do I contact you if I have any questions?’

‘You don’t,’ he said. ‘I’m not to be disturbed.’

Her glossy lips formed a straight line. ‘So who can I contact?’

He shrugged dismissively. ‘You won’t need to contact anybody. It’s all made very clear in my instructions. Just send me an email at the end of each day with details of your progress.’

‘So you know what’s in the boxes? Caroline implied that you didn’t, which is why you need me to sort through them.’

Hugh shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

April met his gaze. ‘So you trust me to go through a whole room of boxes and make all the decisions myself?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s all junk. You aren’t going to stumble across a hidden fortune, I promise you.’

She looked unconvinced.

‘And besides—it’s not a room. It’s the whole house.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Pardon me?’

He ran a hand through his hair. He just wanted this conversation to be over and to be out of this place. This stuffed full, oppressive house which this woman only complicated further.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Three floors. Leave any furniture where it is. Don’t lift anything too heavy. I’ve left you a key and the security code. I expect you to work an eight-hour day.’ He stopped, mentally running through any further extraneous details he should mention. ‘If there’s an emergency—only an emergency—you can call me. My number is listed in the documentation.’

‘That’s it?’ she said.

‘That’s it,’ he said.

‘Great,’ she said. ‘Where do I start?’

‘I’ll show you,’ he said.

Minutes later they stood before a wall built with pale brown cardboard.

‘Wow,’ April said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.’

Hugh had.

‘Did you buy the place like this?’ she asked.

‘Something like that,’ he said, needing to leave. Not wanting to explain.

She’d work it out soon enough.

‘I’ll get this sorted for you,’ April said, catching his gaze.

He already had one foot in the foyer.

She spoke with assurance—reassurance?—and with questions in her eyes.

But Hugh didn’t want to be reassured, and he certainly didn’t want her questions. He hated the way this woman, this stranger—his employee—thought he needed to be somehow comforted.

He’d barely said a word since they’d entered this room—what had he revealed?

‘That’s what you’re here for,’ he said firmly.

Nothing more.

Now he could finally escape from the boxes, and his breath came steadily again only as he closed the front door behind him.

CHAPTER THREE

TWO DAYS LATER April sat cross-legged amongst a lot of boxes and a lot of dust.

She was dressed in jeans, sneakers and a floppy T-shirt—her jumper having been quickly removed thanks to the excellent heating and the many boxes she’d already shifted today—and yet another box lay ready for her attention. Her hair was piled up on top of her head, and the local radio station filled the room via her phone and a set of small speakers she’d purchased before she’d realised she had absolutely no money.

But she was glad for her previous financial frivolity. This massive house was creaky and echoey, and she’d hated how empty it had felt on her first day, when she’d been sorting through boxes wearing a pencil skirt, heels and a blouse with a bow—in total silence.

Bizarre how such an overflowing house could feel so empty, but it did.

Music helped. A little.

Now, on day three of her new job, already many boxes lay flattened in the foyer. The shredder had disposed of old takeaway menus and shoe catalogues and local newspapers. And she’d labelled a handful of empty boxes for donations. Several were already full with books and random bits and pieces: a man’s silk tie, a mass-produced ceramic vase, eleven tea towels from the Edinburgh Military Tattoo—and so much more. It was nearly impossible to categorise the items, although she’d tried.

But much of the boxes’ content was, as Hugh had told her, junk. The packaging for electronic items, without the items themselves. Gossip magazines from ten years ago, with British reality TV stars she didn’t recognise on the covers. Sugar and salt packets. Pens that didn’t work. Dried-out mascara and nail polish bottles.

It was all so random.

Initially she’d approached each box with enthusiasm. What was she going to learn about the person who’d packed all these boxes from this box?

But each box gave little away.

There was no theme, there were no logical groupings or collections, and so far there was absolutely nothing personal. Not even one scribble on a takeaway menu.

Hugh hadn’t given anything away, either.

It was hard in this house, with all its mysterious boxes, not to think about the rather interesting and mysterious man who owned them all.

Were they his boxes?

April didn’t think so. That morning in the kitchen, those clear but sparse directions and neat instructions had not indicated a man who collected such clutter. There was something terribly structured about the man: he exuded organisation and an almost regimented calm.

But that had changed when he’d shown her this room. The instant he’d opened the door he’d become tense. His body, his words. His gaze.

It had been obvious he’d wanted to leave, and he had as soon as humanly possible.

So, no, the boxes weren’t his.

But they didn’t belong to a stranger, either—because the boxes meant something to Hugh Bennell.

Her guess was that they belonged to a woman. The magazines, toiletries... But who?

His wife? Ex-wife? Mother? Sister? Friend?

So—with enthusiasm—April had decided to solve the mystery of the boxes.

But with box after box the mystery steadfastly remained and her enthusiasm rapidly waned.

On the radio, a newsreader read the ten o’clock news in a lovely, clipped British accent.

Only ten a.m.?

Her self-determined noon lunchbreak felt a lifetime away.

April sighed and straightened her shoulders, then carefully sliced open the brown packing tape of her next box.

On top lay empty wooden photo frames, one with a crack through the glass. And beneath that lay two phone books—the thick, heavy type that had used to be delivered before everyone had started searching for numbers online.

The unbroken wooden frames would go to the ‘donate’ box, and the phone books into the recycling. But as she walked out into the foyer, to add the books to the already mountainous recycling pile, a piece of card slipped out from between the pages.

April knelt to pick it up. It was an old and yellowed homemade bookmark, decorated with a child’s red thumbprints in the shape of lopsided hearts.

Happy Mothering Sunday!

Love Hugh

The letters were in neat, thick black marker—the work of a school or kindergarten teacher.

And just like that she’d solved the mystery.

She started a new category: Hugh.

She wasn’t making a decision on that bookmark, no matter what he said.

She’d let him know in her summarising email that evening.

The email pinged into Hugh’s inbox shortly before five p.m. As it had the previous two days at approximately the same time, with the same subject line and the day’s date. Exactly as he’d specified—which he appreciated.

She did insist on prefacing her emails with a bit of chatter, but she’d stuck to his guidelines for updating him on her progress.

Which was slower than he’d hoped. Although he didn’t think that was April’s fault—more his own desire for the house to be magically emptied as rapidly as possible.

That option still existed, of course. He’d researched a business that would come and collect all his mother’s boxes and take them away. It would probably only take a day.

But he just couldn’t bring himself to do that.

He hated those boxes—hated that stuff. Hated that his mother had been so consumed by it.

Despite it being junk, despite the way the boxes weighed so heavily upon him—both literally and figuratively—it just felt...

As if it would be disrespectful.

Hi Hugh,

I’ve found a bookmark today—photo attached—and I’ve put it aside for you. If I find anything similar I’ll let you know.

Otherwise all going well. About two thirds through this room...

Hugh didn’t read the rest. Instead he clicked open the attachment.

A minute later his boots thumped heavily against the steps up to his mother’s front door. It was freezing in the evening darkness—he hadn’t bothered to grab a coat for the very short journey—but the foyer was definitely a welcome relief as he let himself in.

April was still in the kitchen, her coat halfway on, obviously about to leave.

‘Don’t panic—I didn’t throw it out,’ she said.

‘Throw what out?’ he asked.

He hadn’t seen her since that first morning, and she looked different in jeans and jumper—younger, actually. Her cheek was smudged with dust, her hair not entirely contained in the knot on top of her head.

‘The bookmark,’ she said. ‘I’ll just go grab it for you.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t.’

She’d already taken a handful of steps, and now stood only an arm’s length before him.

‘Okay,’ she said. She inclined her chin in a direction over his shoulder. ‘It’s in a box out there. I’ve labelled it “Hugh”. I’ll just chuck anything in there that I think you should have a look at.’

‘No,’ he said again. ‘Don’t.’

Now she seemed to realise what he was saying. Or at least she was no longer wilfully ignoring him. He knew how clear he’d been: with the exception of any paperwork that included personal details, April was to donate or trash everything.

‘Are you sure?’

Hugh shrugged. ‘It’s just a badly painted bookmark.’

Up until a few minutes ago he’d had no recollection of that piece of well-intentioned crafting, so his life would definitely be no lesser with it gone.

‘I wasn’t just talking about the bookmark,’ April said. ‘I meant anything like that. I’m sure more sentimental bits and pieces are going to turn up. And what about photos? I found some photo frames today, so I expect eventually I’ll find—’

‘Photos can go in the bin,’ he said.

Hugh shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. Again, he just wanted to be out of this place. But he didn’t leave.

April was watching him carefully, concern in her clear blue gaze. He was shifting his weight from foot to foot. Fidgeting. He never fidgeted.

He wasn’t himself in this house. With all this stuff. Now that the boxes had necessarily flowed into the foyer behind him the clutter was everywhere.

April had left an empty coffee mug on the kitchen sink.

Now he skirted around her, making his way to the other side of the counter, grabbed the mug and opened the dishwasher. It was empty.

‘I’ve just been hand-washing,’ April said. ‘I can wash that before I go—don’t worry about it.’

Hugh ignored her, stuck the plug in the sink and turned on the hot water. Beneath the sink he found dishwashing liquid, and squirted it into the steaming water.

As the suds multiplied he was somewhat aware of April shrugging off her coat. He had no idea why it was so important for him to clean this mug, but it was.

‘You can go,’ he said, cleaning out the coffee marks from inside the mug. He realised it wasn’t one of his mother’s—it was printed with the logo of a Fremantle sporting team he didn’t recognise and had a chip in the handle. It was April’s.

He rinsed the mug in hot water and placed it on the dish rack.

Immediately it was picked up again—by April.

She was standing right beside him, tea towel in hand, busily drying the mug.

He hadn’t noticed her move so close.

She didn’t look at him, her concentration focused on her task. Her head was bent, and a long tendril of dark hair curled down to her nape.

This close, he could see the dust decorating her hair, a darker smudge creating a streak across her cheekbone.

She turned, looking directly at him.

She was tall, he realised, even without her heels.

Today her lips weren’t glossy, and he realised she probably wasn’t wearing make-up. Her eyelashes were no longer the blackest black; her skin wasn’t magazine-perfect.

She didn’t look better—or worse. Just different. And it was that difference he liked.

That she’d surprised him.

He hadn’t been able to imagine her unpacking boxes—but she looked just as comfortable today as she had in her sharp suit. And her gaze was just as strong, just as direct.

He realised he liked that, too.

It should have been an uncomfortable and unwanted realisation. Maybe it was—or it would be later. When his brain wasn’t cluttered with boxes and forgotten bookmarks and had room for logic and common sense...and remembering who he was. Who she was.

Boss. Employee...

For now, he simply looked at the surprising woman beside him.

‘I know this is your mum’s house,’ she said. ‘I get that this must be difficult for you.’

Her words were soft and gentle. They still cut deep.

But they shouldn’t—and his instinct was to disagree. They’re just boxes. It’s just stuff. It’s not difficult in any way at all.

He said nothing.

‘Do you want me to come back tomorrow?’

Had she thought he might fire her over the bookmark?

He nodded sharply, without hesitation. Despite how uncomfortable her kind words had made him. Despite how unlike himself she made him. How aware he was of her presence in this room and in this house. How aware he was of how close she stood to him.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave my mug, then.’

He didn’t look at her as she stepped around him and put the coffee mug into an overhead cupboard.

By the time she’d shrugged back into her coat, and arranged her letterbox-red knitted scarf he’d pulled himself together.

‘See you tomorrow,’ she said, with a smile that was bright.

And then she was gone, leaving Hugh alone with a sink full of disappearing bubbles.

April’s roommate was asleep when she got home from stacking shelves at the supermarket, so she went into the communal living room to call her mum.

For once the room was empty—usually the Shoreditch shared house tended to have random people dotted all over the place.

Evidence of the crowd of backpackers who lived here—three from Australia and two from South Africa—was scattered everywhere, though. Empty beer bottles on the cheap glass coffee table, along with a bowl of now stale chips—crisps, they were called here—and a variety of dirty plastic plates and cups. One of the other Aussie girls had had a friend dossing on the couch, and his sheets and blankets still lay tangled and shoved into a corner, waiting for someone magically to wash them and put them away.

Which would happen—eventually. April had learnt that someone would get sick of the mess, and then do a mad tidy-up—loudly and passive-aggressively.

On a couple of occasions in the two weeks she’d been here it had been her—a lifetime of a weekly house-cleaning service meant she definitely preferred things clean, even though she’d had to look up how to clean a shower on the internet. She’d then realised that her relatively advanced age—she was the oldest of the group by six years—meant that everyone expected her to be the responsible, tidy one who’d clean up after everyone else.

And that wasn’t going to happen.

She was too busy working her two jobs and trying to stay on top of her April Molyneux social media world to add unpaid cleaner to the mix. So she’d coordinated the group, they’d all agreed on a roster...and sometimes it was followed.

So April ignored the mess, cleared a spot on the couch and scrolled to her mum’s number on her phone.

‘Darling!’

It was eight a.m. in Perth, but her mum was always up early. She’d finally retired only recently, with April’s eldest sister Ivy taking over the reins at Molyneux Mining. But so far her mother’s retirement had seemed to involve several new roles on company boards and a more hands-on role in the investments of the Molyneux Trust.

So basically not a whole lot of retirement was going on for Irene Molyneux. Which did not come as a surprise to anyone.

‘Hi, Mum,’ April said. ‘How’s things?’

‘Nate is speaking so well!’ Irene said. ‘Yesterday he said “Can I have a biscuit, please?” Isn’t that amazing?’

Irene was also embracing the chance to spend more time with her two-year-old grandson. After five minutes of Nate stories, her mum asked April how she was doing.

‘Good,’ she said automatically. And then, ‘Okay, I guess...’

‘What’s wrong?’

And so April told her about the bookmark, and her new boss’s crystal-clear directive. She didn’t mention the details, though—like the sadness she’d seen in Hugh’s eyes in the kitchen. His obvious pain.

Her mother was typically no-nonsense. ‘If he isn’t sentimental, it isn’t your role to be.’

But that was the thing—she wasn’t convinced he didn’t care. Not even close.

‘I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right.’

‘Mmm...’ her mother said. ‘You can always quit.’

But... ‘It pays almost double what I was earning at my last placement.’

‘I know,’ Irene said.

Her mum didn’t say anything further—but April knew what she was thinking. She was torn between supporting April in her goal to pay off her credit card and live independently—a goal she’d supported once she’d been reassured April wasn’t going to end up homeless—and solving all her problems. With money.

Which was understandable, really. Her mother had, after all, financially supported April her entire life. And April honestly had never questioned it. She was rich—it was just who she was. Her bottomless credit cards had just come with the territory.

But, really, the only thing she’d ever done that really deserved any payment was her work for the Molyneux Foundation. And besides a few meetings she’d probably spent maybe an hour or two a day working for the foundation—with a big chunk of that time focused on making sure she looked as picture-perfect as possible in photos.

It had been a cringe-worthy, shamefully spoiled existence.

‘You understand why I need to do this, right? All of this: living here, living on my money, living without the Molyneux name?’

‘Yes,’ Irene said. ‘And you know I admire what you’re doing. And I’m a little ashamed of myself for being so worried about you.’

This was cringe-worthy too—how little her family expected of her. Her fault as well, of course.

‘But that’s my job,’ Irene continued. ‘I’m your mum. I’m supposed to worry. And I’m supposed to want to fix things. But, if I put that aside, here’s my non-mum advice—keep the job. Keep working hard, pay off your debt and move out of that awful shared house. It’ll make me feel better once you’re living in your own place.’

‘Yes, Mum,’ April said, smiling. ‘I’ll do my best.’

And then she remembered something she’d been thinking about earlier.

‘Hey, Mum, did you keep that type of stuff? Stuff that we all made at school—you know, gifts for Mother’s Day? Finger paintings? That sort of stuff?’

Irene laughed. ‘No! I’m probably a terrible person, but I remember smuggling all that stuff out to the bin under cover of darkness.’

They talked for a while longer, but later, when April had ended the call and gone to bed, her thoughts wandered back to that faded little bookmark Hugh had once given to his mother.

Was she just being sentimental? She wasn’t sure how she felt about her mum not keeping any of her childhood art—but then, had it bothered her until now? She hadn’t even noticed. Maybe Hugh was right—maybe it was just a badly painted bookmark.

But that was the thing—the way Hugh had reacted...the way he’d raced to see her immediately, and the way he’d washed her Dockers mug as if the weight of the world had been on his shoulders...

It felt like so much more.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘HUGH?’

‘We must’ve lost him.’

‘Should we reschedule? We can’t make a decision without him.’

Belatedly Hugh registered what the conference call voices were saying.

He’d tuned out at some point. In fact, he could barely remember what the meeting was about. He glanced at his laptop screen.

Ah. App bug fixes. And something about the latest iOS upgrade.

Not critically important to his business, but important enough that he should be paying attention.

He always paid attention.

The meeting ended with his presumed disappearance, and his flat was silent.

He pushed back his chair and headed for the kitchen, leaning against the counter as his kettle boiled busily.

He’d left his tea mug in the sink, as he always did. He reused it throughout the day, and chucked it in the dishwasher each night.

Why had he cared about April’s mug?

He was neat. He knew that. Extremely neat. The perfect contrast to his mother and her overwhelming messiness.

Although, to be fair, his mother hadn’t always been like that.

At first it had just been clutter. It had only been later that the dishes had begun to pile in the sink and mounds of clothes had remained unwashed. And by then he’d been old enough to help. So he’d taken over—diligently cleaning around all his mum’s things: her ‘treasures’ and her ‘we might need it one days’, her flotsam and jetsam and her ‘there’s a useful article/recipe/tip in that’ magazines, newspapers and books.

But he wasn’t obsessive—at least not to the level of compulsively cleaning an employee’s coffee mug.

It had been odd. For him and for April.

He didn’t feel good about that.

He didn’t know this woman at all.

That had been deliberate. He hadn’t wanted to use the Precise HR Department, or reach out to his team for recommendations of casual workers, university students or backpackers—he hadn’t wanted anyone he knew or worked with to know about what was he was doing.

But the fact was someone needed to know what he was doing in order to actually do it—and that person was April Spencer.

And so she knew about his mother’s hoard and would know it better than anyone ever had. Even him.

That sat uncomfortably. Hugh had spent much of his life hiding his mother’s hoard. It didn’t feel right to invite somebody in. Literally to lay it all out to be seen—to be judged.

His mum had loved him, had worked so hard, and had provided him with all she could and more on a minimal wage and without any support from his father. She didn’t deserve to be judged as anything less than she had been: a great mum. A great woman.

Her hoard had not defined her, but if people had known of it...

The kettle had boiled and Hugh made his tea, leaving the teabag hanging over the edge of his cup.

April had offered to leave yesterday.

But he’d rejected her offer without consideration, and now, even with time, he knew it had been the right decision.

If it wasn’t April it would be someone else. At least April wasn’t connected to his work or anyone he knew. Anyone who’d known his mother.

She was a temporary worker—travelling, probably. She’d soon be back in Australia, or off to her next working holiday somewhere sunnier than London, and she’d take her knowledge of his mother’s secret hoard with her.

His phone buzzed—a text message.

Drinks after work at The Saint?

It was a group message to the cyclists he often rode with a few mornings a week. He liked them. They were dedicated, quick, and they pushed him to get stronger, and faster.

He replied.

Sorry, can’t make it.

He always declined the group’s social invitations. He liked riding with them, but he didn’t do pubs and clubs. Or any place there was likely to be an unpredictable crowd—he never had, and in fact he’d never been able to—not even as a child. He avoided any crowd, but enclosed crowds—exactly as one might find in a pub—made him feel about as comfortable as a room full of his mother’s boxes.

He actually wasn’t sure which had come first: Had he inherited his crowd-related anxiety from his compulsive hoarder mother, or had his hatred of bustling crowds stemmed from the nightmares he’d once had of being suffocated beneath an avalanche of boxes?

It didn’t really matter—the outcome was the same: Hugh Bennell wasn’t exactly a party animal.

Fortunately Hugh’s repeated refusals to socialise didn’t seem to bother his cycling group. He was aware, however, that they all thought he was a bit weird.

But that wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation for him—he’d been the weird kid at school too. After all, it hadn’t been as if he could ever invite anybody over to his place to play.

Want to come over and see my mum’s hoard?

Yeah. That had never happened. He’d never allowed it to happen.

His doorbell rang.

Hugh glanced at his watch. It was early afternoon—not even close to the time when packages were usually delivered. And he certainly wasn’t expecting anybody.

Tea still in hand, he headed for the door. It could only be a charity collector, or somebody distributing religious pamphlets.

Instead it was April.

She stood in her coat and scarf, carrying a box.

A box labelled ‘Hugh’.

Hugh’s eyes narrowed when he saw her.

April knew she wasn’t supposed to be down here, but she just hadn’t been able to simply send an email.

He wore a T-shirt, black jeans and an unzipped hoodie, and he held a cup of tea in one hand. He was barefoot and his hair, as she’d come to expect, was scruffy—as if he’d woken up and simply run a hand through it. Yesterday he’d been smooth-shaven, but today the stubble was back—and, as she’d also come to expect, she really rather liked it.

Hugh Bennell seemed to be in a permanent state of sexy dishevelment, and she’d put money on it—if she had any—that he had no idea.

But now was not the time to be pondering any of this.

‘Ms Spencer?’ he prompted.

Ms Spencer—not April. He definitely wasn’t impressed.

She swallowed. ‘I’m resigning,’ she said. ‘I didn’t just want to put it in an email.’

A gust of wind whipped down from the street and through the doorway. Despite her coat, April shivered.

Hugh noticed.

He stepped back and gestured for her to come inside.

April blinked—she hadn’t expected him to do that. She had a suspicion he hadn’t either, although his gaze remained unreadable.

Somehow as she stepped past Hugh, slightly awkwardly with the large box, she managed to brush against him—just her upper arm, briefly against his chest. It was the most minimal of touches—made minuscule once combined with her heavy wool coat and Hugh’s combination of T-shirt and hoodie. And yet she blushed.

April felt her cheeks go hot and her skin—despite all the layers—prickled with awareness.

How ridiculous. Really only their clothing had touched. Nothing more.

She forced her attention to her surroundings, not looking anywhere near Hugh.

His basement flat was compact and immaculate. Two bikes hung neatly on a far wall, but otherwise the walls were completely empty. In fact the whole place felt empty—there wasn’t a trinket or a throw cushion in sight. The only evidence of occupation was the desk, pushed right up against the front window, and its few scattered papers, sticky note pads and pens were oddly reassuring in their imperfection.

They were standing near his taupe-coloured couches, but Hugh didn’t sit so neither did she.

Her blush had faded, so she could finally look at him again. Even if it was more in the direction of his shoulder rather than at his eyes. His knowing eyes?

She refused to consider it.

‘Anyway,’ April said, deliberately brisk, ‘I found some more things today. A couple of photos of you and your mum and a birthday card.’

She shook her head sharply when Hugh went to speak. She didn’t want to hear his spiel again.

‘And, look...maybe I should’ve chucked them out, as you’ve insisted. But then I found one of those old plastic photo negative barrels—you know? And it had a lock of baby’s hair in it.’

She met his gaze.

‘A lock of hair, Hugh. Yours, I think. And then I was done. I’m not throwing that out. That’s not my responsibility, and it’s definitely not my decision.’

She carefully put the box on Hugh’s coffee table.

‘So there’s the box with your things in it. You can throw it straight in the skip if you want, but I couldn’t.’ She turned around as she straightened, meeting Hugh’s gaze again. He gave nothing away. ‘I’ve finished that first reception room, and I’ve organised for the charity donations to be collected tomorrow.’

Still in her coat and scarf, she felt uncomfortably warm—and not entirely because of the central heating.

‘I’d better get going.’

‘No notice?’ Hugh asked.

His tone was calm and measured. He definitely wasn’t blushing, or paying any attention when April did.

She was being ridiculous.

‘No,’ April said. ‘I didn’t see the point. Clearly I’m unsuitable for the position.’

‘What if I made the position suitable?’ he said, not missing a beat.

‘Pardon me?’

‘What if I said you didn’t have to make all the decisions any more?’ He spoke with perfect calm.

‘So I can have a “Hugh” box?’

He nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘And you’ll come sort through it each day?’

Now he shook his head. ‘No. I’ll come and throw it in the skip each day. But at least you wouldn’t have to.’

No. That still didn’t feel right. April wasn’t sure she could let that happen...

Wait. It wasn’t her call. It so wasn’t her call.

And that was all she’d asked for—not to be the decision-maker.

The job paid well. And it wasn’t very difficult—now Hugh had removed the requirement to throw out intensely personal items.

And she still had her credit card debt, still had a manky shared house to move out of.

It was a no-brainer.

And yet she hesitated.

The reason stood in front of her. Making her belly heat and her skin warm simply with his presence.

His oblivious presence, it would seem.

In which case...what was she worried about?

She knew she didn’t want to walk straight from Evan and into another relationship, and that certainly didn’t seem to be on offer here.

Hugh was looking at her with his compelling eyes, waiting not entirely patiently for a response. He did not look like a man who enjoyed waiting.

April smiled.

It had been fifteen years since she’d been single. It was probably normal that her hormones were being slightly over the top in the vicinity of a demonstrably handsome man.

It was nothing more.

‘Deal,’ she said.

She had nothing to worry about.

But then Hugh smiled back—and it was the first time she’d seen him smile both with his divine mouth and with his remarkable eyes.

Probably nothing.

On the following day there was nothing to put into the ‘Hugh’ box.

So April emailed Hugh with her daily update, put on her coat, went home to her still messy shared house and ate soup that had come out of a can while her housemates drank wine that came out of a box. Later, when her housemates headed out to a bar, April walked around the corner to her local supermarket and stacked more cans of soup—and lots of other things—until the early hours of the morning.

The next day, at the Islington end-of-terrace house, April brewed a strong coffee in her Dockers mug, running her thumb across the chip on the handle as she always did. She then placed it on the marble benchtop just where the light hit it, artistically—or as artistically as a coffee mug could be placed—and took a photo.

Really need this today! #workinghard #ilovecaffeine #tooearly

Then she scheduled the post for shortly after Perth would be waking up.

She knew she’d get lots of questions about what she was working so hard on—which was the point. And she’d be vague, and everyone would assume it was something super-exotic—like a fundraising gala event or a photo shoot.

Not unpacking boxes in a grand old dusty house in London.

April smiled.

Part of her wanted to tell her followers exactly what she was doing. To tell them that she actually hadn’t been doing totally fine after Evan had left her, that she’d run away from everyone who loved her and for the first time in her life had realised how privileged she actually was.

But the rest of her knew she had commitments. Knew that the Molyneux Foundation’s sponsors hadn’t signed up for her to have an early midlife crisis.

And mostly she knew that she wasn’t ready to make any big decisions just yet.

She still hadn’t really got her head around the fact that she was single.

Of course she’d looked at other men since she’d starting going out with Evan. She’d even had men flirt with her—quite often, really. Possibly because of her sparkling personality—more likely because of all the dollar signs she represented.

But, regardless whether she’d thought some guy was hot, or if some guy had thought she was hot—or just rich—it hadn’t mattered. She’d been with Evan. So she’d been able to acknowledge a handsome man objectively and then efficiently deflect any flirting that veered beyond harmless.

Because she’d always had Evan.

She’d always loved Evan.

And now that she didn’t have Evan, meeting another man wasn’t on April’s radar. It hadn’t even been on her radar as something not to do—she hadn’t even thought about it. It had been too impossible.

Until she’d met Hugh. And then it hadn’t. It hadn’t felt impossible at all.

But it still was, of course.

Totally impossible. As she’d reminded herself in Hugh’s flat, she wasn’t going to walk from a fifteen-year relationship into another. And—and this scenario felt far more likely—she definitely wasn’t going to walk from one rejection straight into another one.

There were lots of things she had learnt she could cope with: having no money, working two jobs—two labour intensive jobs, no less—living in a shared house at age thirty-two and having her family on the other side of the world.

But she knew utterly and completely that she couldn’t cope with another man rejecting her.

I don’t love you.

How could those words still hurt so much?

She didn’t miss Evan. She understood that their relationship had reached its inevitable conclusion. She definitely didn’t want to be with him any more.

But... I don’t love you.

And he never had.

That pain didn’t just go away.

Hugh was already boiling the kettle in his mother’s kitchen when April arrived the next morning.

Her gaze flicked over him as she walked into the room, her bag slung over her long coat, her scarf in shades of green today.

‘Good morning,’ she said, in that polished, friendly tone he was becoming familiar with. She was good at sounding comfortable even when she wasn’t.

He could see the questions in her gaze and the instant tension in her stride as she walked towards the bar stools tucked beneath the marble counter.

‘Morning,’ Hugh said as she dumped her bag on a chair and then shrugged out of her coat. ‘I thought I’d help move those heavy boxes.’

Her email last night had explained that she’d found some boxes that would need two people to lift them. He’d considered contacting the temp agency to recruit someone, and then had realised that to do so would be preposterous. He was thirty-six, fit and he lived ten metres away. He could move the damn boxes. They were, no matter how much he seemed needlessly to over-complicate them, just boxes. He didn’t have to deal with any of the stuff inside them.

She nodded. ‘Great!’ she said, although he couldn’t tell if she meant it. ‘I thought you’d just organise someone to come and help me.’

‘I did,’ he said, then pointed towards his chest. ‘Me.’

Her smile now was genuine. And lovely. He’d thought that every time he’d seen her smile. It was another reason he’d considered calling the temp office. But similarly—just as the boxes were only boxes—a smile was only a smile. It, and his admiration of it, meant nothing more.

‘It shouldn’t take long. I could probably do it myself, but I’d hate to drop one of the boxes and break something.’

The kettle clicked as it finished boiling.

‘Doesn’t matter if you do,’ Hugh said. ‘But still—ask me to help move anything heavy, regardless. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.’

April blinked as if he’d said something unexpected. ‘Okay,’ she said.

They took their coffee into the second reception room.

As always, the cluttered space made Hugh feel stiff and antsy—as if he could run a marathon on the adrenalin that shot through his veins.

So far April had cleared only a small section of this room. Once it had been his mum and Len’s TV room. They’d sat on the large, plush couch, their legs propped on matching ottomans, dinner balanced on their laps.

The couch was still there—one arm visible amongst the bevy of boxes.

The heavy boxes were near the window. They were much bigger than the boxes that had filled the first room—probably five or more times their size—and stacked only two high.

It was the top boxes that April wanted to be lifted down.

Coffee placed carefully on the floor, it was easy for the pair of them to lift the boxes: one, two...

For the third, they both had to reach awkwardly around it, tucked away as it was between the heavy curtains and another wall of boxes.

In doing so their fingers brushed against each other, along the far side of the box.

Only for a second—or not even that long.

Barely long enough to be noticed—but Hugh did.

Her hand felt cool and soft. Her nails glossy and smooth beneath his palm.

His gaze darted to April’s, but she was too busy lifting the box to pay any attention at all.

Or too busy deliberately looking busy.

He suspected the latter. He’d noticed her reaction in his flat when she’d so briefly brushed against him. Her cheeks had blushed pink in an instant.

He’d reacted, too.

It was strange, really, for his blood to heat like that from such an innocent touch.

He hadn’t expected it.

Not that he hadn’t continued to notice April’s attractiveness. It would be impossible not to. She was beautiful in a classic, non-negotiable way—but beauty was not something Hugh should be paying much attention to when it came to a woman working for him.

So he’d made sure he hadn’t.

Except for when she’d stood beside him at the sink a few nights ago, when his thoughts had been jumbled and unfocused. Then the shape of her neck, of her jaw, the profile of her nose and chin...

Yes, he’d noticed.

But, more, he’d noticed her empathy. And her sympathy. Even if he had welcomed neither.

Nor welcomed his attraction to her.

He didn’t want complications. Right now—getting this house cleaned out—or ever.

His lifestyle was planned and structured to avoid complications.

Even when he dated women it was only ever for the briefest of times—brevity, he’d discovered, avoided the complications that were impossible for him: commitment, cohabiting, planning a future together...

Relationships were all about complications, and to Hugh complications were clutter.

And he was determined to live a clutter-free life.

But today contact with April’s skin had again made his blood heat and his belly tighten.

He should go.

They’d moved the box to where April had directed, so Hugh headed for the door.

‘Don’t forget your coffee,’ April said.

He turned and saw she held the two mugs in her hands—the one for him printed with agapanthus.

He should go—he could make his own coffee downstairs. There was nothing to be gained by staying, and as always he had so much on his to-do list today.

But he realised, surprised, that the boxes that surrounded him weren’t compelling him to leave. At some point the tension that had been driving him from this house had abated.

It was still there, but no longer overpowering. Nor, it seemed, was it insurmountable.

So he found himself accepting his mug from April. A woman who, with no more than her smile and against all his better judgement, had somehow compelled him to stay.

He hadn’t been supposed to stay.

April had honestly expected Hugh to take his coffee and head on down to his basement apartment.

But instead he’d taken his mug and approached the first box she’d planned to go through—its top already sliced open, the flaps flipped back against the thick cardboard sides.

For a moment it had looked as if he was going to start looking through the box. He’d stepped right up beside it, his spare hand extended, and then he had simply let it fall back against his jean-clad thigh.

Now he brought his mug to his lips, his gaze, as usual, impossible to interpret.

‘You really don’t like these boxes,’ April said. Her words were possibly unwise—but they’d just slipped out.

Hugh Bennell intrigued her. And not just his looks—or his touch, however accidental. But who he was and what all these boxes meant to him.

The boxes, of course, intrigued her too.

He shot a look in her direction, raising an eyebrow. ‘No.’

And that was that. No elaboration.

So April simply got to work.

Hugh walked a few steps away, propping his backside against the only available arm of the sofa. Boxes were stacked neatly on the seat cushions beside him.

This box was full of clothes. A woman’s. April hadn’t come across women’s clothes before, and the discovery of the brightly coloured silks and satins made her smile and piqued her interest.

She held a top against herself: a cream sheer blouse with thick black velvet ribbon tied into a bow at the neck. It was too small for April—smaller even than the sample size clothing she’d used to have sent to her by designers before she’d given up on starving herself.

‘Was this your mum’s?’ April asked, twisting to face Hugh.

She absolutely knew it wasn’t her place to ask him, but she just couldn’t not.

It was too weird to be standing in this room with Hugh, in silence, surrounded by all this stuff that meant something to him but absolutely nothing to her. And she was the one sorting through it.

Hugh didn’t even blink. ‘All clothing is to be donated,’ he said.

‘That wasn’t why I was asking,’ April said.

She tossed the shirt into the ‘donate’ box in the centre of the room. Soon after followed a deep pink shift dress, a lovely linen shawl and a variety of printed T-shirts. Next April discovered a man’s leather bomber jacket that was absolutely amazing but about a hundred sizes too big.

Regardless, April tried it on. Felt compelled to.

Was it disrespectful to try it on?

Possibly. Probably.

But Hugh was about to donate it all, anyway. He was the one who insisted it was all junk, all worthless.

Maybe this was how she could trigger a reaction from this tall, silent man?

It was unequivocally a bad idea, but she spent her days unpacking boxes and her evenings stacking shelves. Mostly in silence.

Maybe she was going stir crazy, but she needed to see what Hugh would do.

She just didn’t buy it that he didn’t care about this stuff. So far his measured indifference had felt decidedly unconvincing.

She had to call his bluff.

‘I’m not paying you to play dress-up,’ Hugh pointed out from behind her.

His tone was neutral.

She spun around to show him the oversized jacket. ‘Spoilsport,’ she said with a deliberate grin, catching his gaze.

If he was just going to stand there she couldn’t cope with all this silence and gloom. Her sisters had always told her she was the sunny sister. That she could walk into a room and brighten it with her smile.

It had always sounded rather lame—and to be honest part of her had wondered what that said about her in comparison to clever Ivy or artistic Mila. Was it really such an achievement to be good at smiling?

It had been a moot point in the months since Evan had left, anyway.

Until now. Now, this darkly moody man felt like a challenge for sunny April.

Acutely aware that this might all backfire horribly, but incapable of stopping herself in the awkward silence, she playfully tossed her hair in the way of a supermodel.

‘What do you think?’

What would he do? Smile? Shout? Leave?

Fire her?

Hugh’s shake of the head was barely perceptible.

But...was that a quirk to his lips?

Yes. It was definitely there.

April’s smile broadened.

‘Fair enough,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders and then tossing the jacket into the ‘donate’ box. ‘How about this?’ she asked, randomly grabbing the next item of clothing in the box.

A boat-neck blouse, in a shiny fabric with blue and white stripes. But too small. Which April realised...too late.

Hands stuck up in the air, fabric bunched around her shoulders on top of her T-shirt, April went completely still.

‘Dammit!’ she muttered.

She hadn’t been entirely sure of her plan, but becoming trapped in cheap satin fabric was definitely not part of it.

She wiggled again, trying to dislodge the blouse, but it didn’t shift.

Her T-shirt had ridden up at least a little. April could feel cool air against a strip of skin above the waistband of her jeans.

Mortified, she struggled again, twisting away from where she knew Hugh stood, feeling unbelievably silly and exposed.

‘Stay still,’ he said, suddenly impossibly close. Behind her.

April froze. She was blindfolded by the stupid top but she could sense his proximity. His height. His width.

His fingers hooked under the striped fabric, right at her shoulders. He was incredibly careful, gently moving the fabric upwards. Her arms were still trapped. It was almost unbearable: the touch of his fingers, his closeness, her vulnerability.

She wanted him to just yank it off over her head. To get this over with.

No, she didn’t.

The fabric had cleared her shoulders now, and he moved closer still to help tug it over her arms, where the top was still wrapped tightly.

Now his fingers brushed against the bare skin of her arms. Only as much as necessary—and that didn’t feel like anywhere near enough.

He was so close behind her that if she shifted backwards even the slightest amount she would be pressed right up against him. Back to chest.

It seemed a delicious possibility.

It seemed, momentarily, as she was wrapped in the temporary dark, a viable option.

And then the blouse was pulled free.

April gasped as the room came back into focus. Directly in front of her were heavy navy curtains, closed, obscured by an obstacle course of cardboard boxes.

She spun around.

‘Thank you—’ she began.

Then stopped.

Hugh was still so close. Closer than he’d ever been before. Tall enough and near enough that he needed to look down at her and she needed to tilt her chin up.

She explored his face. The sharpness of his nose, the thick slash of his eyebrows, the strength of his jaw. This close she could see delicate lines bracketing his lips, a freckle on his cheek, a rogue grey hair amongst the stubble.

He was studying her, too. His gaze took in her eyes, her cheeks, her nose. Her lips.

There it was.

Not subtle now, or easily dismissed as imagination as it had been down in his basement apartment. Or every other time they’d been in the same room together.

But it had been there, she realised. Since the first time they’d met.

That focus. That...intent.

That heat.

Between them. Within her.

It made her pulse race and caused her to become lost in his gaze when he finally wrenched his away from her lips.

Since they’d met his eyes had revealed little. Enough for her to know, deep in her heart, that he wasn’t as hard and unfeeling as he so steadfastly attempted to be. It was why she’d known she couldn’t be responsible for the disposal of his mother’s memories.

And maybe that was what had obscured what she saw so clearly now. Or at least had allowed her to question it.

Electricity practically crackled between them. It seemed ludicrous that she hadn’t known before. That she’d ever doubted it.

Hugh Bennell wanted her.

And she wanted him. In a way that left her far more exposed than her displaced T-shirt.

But then he stepped back. His gaze was shuttered again.

‘You okay?’ he asked, his voice deep and gravelly.

No.

‘Yes,’ she said, belatedly realising he was referring to the stripy top and not to what had just happened between them.

Way too late she tugged down her T-shirt, and blushed when his gaze briefly followed the movement of her hands. Then it shifted away.

Not swiftly, as if he’d been caught out or was embarrassed. Just away.

He didn’t look at her again as he went over to the box April had been emptying.

Without hesitation he reached in, grabbing a large handful of clothing and directly deposited it into the ‘donate’ box. Then, with brisk efficiency, he went through the remainder of the box: ancient yellow newspapers to the recycling pile, a toaster with a severed electrical cord to the bin, encyclopaedias with blue covers and gold-edged pages on top of the clothing in the donation box.

April had been boxing books separately, but she didn’t say a word.

The donation box was now full, already packed with yesterday’s miscellanea, and Hugh lifted it effortlessly.

April followed him into the foyer and directed him to where she’d like the box left, ready for the next visit by the red-and-white charity collection truck.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He shrugged. ‘I just want this stuff gone.’

She nodded. ‘I’d better get back to work, then.’

Finally her temporary inertia had lifted, and reality—the most obvious being that it was her job to empty these boxes, not Hugh’s—had reasserted itself.

Although amidst that reality the crackling tension between them still remained.

April didn’t know what to do with it.

Hugh seemed unaffected, but April knew for certain that he wasn’t unaware.

‘These clothes aren’t my mum’s,’ he said suddenly. ‘I have no idea who they belong to. I have no idea what most of this stuff is, or why the hell my mum needed to keep it all so badly.’

April nodded again. His tone had hardened as he spoke, frustration fracturing his controlled facade.

‘She was more than all this stuff. Much more.’ He shook his head. ‘Why couldn’t she see that?’

Hugh met her gaze again, but April knew he’d asked the most rhetorical of questions.

‘I’ll get this stuff out of your house,’ she said. She promised.

‘Her house,’ he clarified.

And then, without another word, he was gone.

CHAPTER FIVE

HUGH HADN’T SLEPT WELL.

He’d woken late, so he’d been too late to join the group he normally rode with on a Wednesday, so instead he’d headed out alone. Today that was his preference anyway.

Because it was later, traffic was heavier.

It was also extremely cold, and the roads were slick with overnight rain.

London could be dangerous for a cyclist, and Hugh understood and respected this.

It was partly why he often chose to ride in groups, despite his general preference for solitude. Harried drivers were forced to give pairs or long lines of bikes room on the road, and were less likely to scrape past mere millimetres from Hugh’s handlebars.

But other times—like this morning—his need to be alone trumped the safety of numbers.

Today he didn’t want the buzz of conversation to surround him. Or for other cyclists to share some random anecdote or to espouse the awesomeness of their new carbon fibre wheels.

When he rode alone it was the beat of his own pulse that filled his ears, alongside the cadence of his breathing and the whir of the wheels.

Around him the cacophony of noise that was early-morning London simply receded.

It was just him and his bike and the road.

Hugh rode hard—hard enough to keep his mind blank and his focus only on the next stroke of the pedals.

Soon he was out of inner London, riding down the A24 against the flow of commuter traffic. He was warm with exertion, but the wind was still icy against his cheeks. The rest of his body was cloaked in jet-black full-length cycling pants, a long-sleeved jersey, gilet and gloves.

Usually by now the group would have begun to loop back, but today Hugh just kept on riding and riding, heading from busy roads to country lanes, losing track of time. Eventually he reached the Surrey Hills and their punishing inclines, relishing the burning of his lungs and the satisfying ache of his thighs and calves.

But midway up Box Hill, with his brain full of no more than his own thundering heartbeat, he stopped. On a whim, abruptly he violently twisted his cleats out of his pedals and yanked hard on the brakes until his bike was still. Then, standing beside his bike, he surveyed the rolling green patchwork of the Dorking valley as it stretched towards the South Downs beneath a clear blue sky. Out here, amongst woodland and sheep-dotted fields, London was thirty miles and a world away.

What was he doing?

He didn’t have to check his watch to know he’d missed his morning teleconference. He’d miss his early-afternoon meetings too, given it would take him another two and a half hours to get home again.

Reception would be patchy up here, he knew, but still, he should at least try to email his assistant—who worked remotely from Lewisham—and ask her to clear his calendar for the rest of the day.

But he didn’t.

He hadn’t planned to ride this far, but he’d needed to. He’d needed to do something to ease the discontent that had kept him awake half the night—much of it spent pacing his lounge room floor.

Hugh didn’t like how he felt. All agitated and uncertain.

He usually lived his life with such definition: he knew what he was doing, why he was doing it, and he always knew it was the right thing to do. Hugh made it his business to plan and prepare and analyse everything. It was why his business was so successful. He didn’t make mistakes...he didn’t get distracted.

His mother’s house had always been the exception.

When she’d died he’d considered selling it. He’d been living in his own place in Primrose Hill, not far away.

But back then—as now—he just hadn’t been able to.

For a man who prided himself on being the antithesis of his mother—on being a man who saw no value in objects and who ruthlessly protected his life from clutter—his attachment to the house was an embarrassing contradiction.

But he knew how much that house had meant to his mum. He knew exactly what it had represented.

For his mother it had been a place of love, after so many years of searching.

And for Hugh it had been where his mother had finally lived a life free of clutter—a life he had been sure she’d lost for ever. For more than a decade she’d been happy there, her hoard no more than a distant memory.

And so he’d kept it.

He’d ended up hoarding his mother’s hoard. There was no other way to explain his three-year refusal to dispose of all that junk.

Even now, as April Spencer attempted to clean out his mother’s house, he couldn’t let it go.

A stranger—April—had seen that.

Why else would she be going to such lengths to save sentimental crap unless she’d sensed that he wasn’t really ready to relinquish it?

And she was right. The original ‘Hugh’ box still remained as April had left it, cluttering up his coffee table in all its ironic glory.

He just hadn’t been able to walk to the skip behind the house and throw it all away. It had felt impossible.

How pathetic.

Yesterday he’d helped April move those boxes in an effort to normalise the situation: to prove to himself that his visceral reaction to them could be overcome. Except he hadn’t considered April. He hadn’t considered his visceral reaction to her.

He hadn’t considered that, while he might be able to dismiss his attraction to her as nothing when he spent only short periods of time with her, more time together might not be so manageable.

Because more time with her meant he’d seen another side of her: a mischievous forthrightness that really shouldn’t have surprised him, given her refusal to follow his original instructions.

And he liked it. A lot.

He’d also liked it—a lot—when she’d got tangled up in that shirt.

He’d liked being so very close to her—close enough to smell her shampoo and admire the Australian tan revealed below her bunched up T-shirt. Close enough to feel her shiver beneath his touch. To hear the acceleration of her breathing.

In those long moments after he’d helped her out of the blouse it had been as intimate as if he’d actually undressed her.

It had felt raw and naked—and incredibly intense. As if, had he touched her, they would’ve both lost control completely. And for those long moments he’d wanted nothing more than to lose control with April Spencer.

But Hugh Bennell never lost control.

And so he hadn’t. He’d taken a step back, even though it had been harder than he would’ve liked.

He’d assessed the situation: April worked for him.

His priority was cleaning out his mother’s house, not fraternising with his employees.

Besides, he suspected his reaction to April was somehow tangled up with his reaction to the boxes. Because it wasn’t normal for him to have such a magnetic pull towards a woman. He was generally far more measured when he met a woman he liked. In fact he always ‘met’ the women he dated online.

It allowed for a certain level of...well, of control, really. He could set his expectations, as could the woman he was speaking too. There was never any confusion or miscommunication, or the risk of having anything misconstrued.

It was incredibly efficient.

But starting with physical attraction...no.

Although it had been difficult to remind himself why as he’d paced his parquet floor at three a.m.

His mind had been as full with thoughts of April as with his continued frustration over the house and all its boxes.

Mostly with April, actually.

The softness of her skin. The way her lips had parted infinitesimally as they’d gazed into each other’s eyes. And that urge to lean forward and take what he knew she’d been offering had been so compelling it had felt inevitable...

No.

And so his bike ride. A bike ride to clear his mind of the clutter his mother’s hoard and April were creating.

It had been a good plan, Hugh thought as he got back on his bike.

A total fail, though, in practice, with his brain still unable to let go of memories of warm skin and knowing blue eyes as he rode back down the hill, alongside the song of a skylark caught up in the breeze.

Mila: OMG Gorgeous!

April: That’s one to save for his twenty-first! :)

April typed her instant messaging response to Ivy’s gorgeous photo of her son, Nate, covered in bubbles in the bathtub. It felt like for ever since she’d spoken to both her sisters together.

April: How are sales going, Mila?

Mila had recently started mass-producing some of her ceramic work to keep up with sales at her small boutique pottery business.

Mila: Pretty good. I’ve experimented with pricing a bit. I’m still not sure how much people value handmade. So far it seems that the hand-glazing is the key, because...

Mila went into quite a lot of detail—as Mila always did when it came to her business—and then posted some photos she’d taken in her workshop.

April had always been proud of Mila—of both her sisters. She’d always admired how Mila had been so adamant that she’d build her business without the financial support of their mother, but until now April had never really had an issue with spending her family’s money herself.

In fact it had taken her until her mid-twenties before she’d realised she should be doing a lot more with her good fortune than attending parties and buying everything she liked on every fashion festival catwalk.

And so she’d started the Molyneux Foundation.

She’d deliberately chosen not to be the face of the foundation because it wasn’t about her. In fact she’d asked her mother to be the patron. But there was no question that it was April driving the foundation. It had become her project and, along with a small team, she’d made sure the foundation had continued to grow—and for every dollar donated to the foundation Molyneux Mining matched it twice over.

April had experimented with a few different ideas for the foundation—a website, later a blog—and by the time Instagram had gained popularity April had known exactly how to monetise it best to help the foundation. She’d had her team reaching out to any company that sold a product she could include in a photo, and she’d carefully curated the images to ensure that she mixed promotional pictures seamlessly in with those that were just her own.

And it had worked. She didn’t think her mum had expected it to take off the way it had when April had talked her into the two-to-one deal, but it was certainly too late now!

She was incredibly proud of all the foundation had achieved, and of her role in that. But she’d still really just considered it a little side project. She was as hands-on as needed, but it was hardly a full-time job. She’d still had plenty of time to shop and socialise—and until Evan had left her it had never occurred to her to live without the Molyneux money.

The Molyneux money to which she had contributed in absolutely no way at all.

And the brittleness of all that—the fact that without the Molyneux money she had literally nothing...no means to support herself...not one thing she’d bought with money she’d actually earned herself—was quite frightening.

Ivy: How’s the new job going?

April: Good. Mostly. Lots of boxes.

She’d love to post a photo to show the magnitude of the hoard to her sisters, but photography was one of the many things expressly forbidden by the confidentiality agreement she’d signed. Along with any discussion of the contents of the boxes.

April: My boss is interesting.

She’d typed that before she’d really thought about what she was doing.

Ivy: Oooh! Interesting-interesting? Or INTERESTING-interesting? ;-) ;-) ;-)

April: Both.

She’d never been good at keeping secrets from her sisters.

Mila: Photo?

April: No. I can’t even tell you his name. But he’s tall. Dark hair, dark eyes. Stubble. What do you call it...? Swarthy?

Mila: I’ve always liked that word

April: But he’s my boss.

Ivy: From an HR point of view, that’s not really a problem unless there is any question of a power imbalance. And I doubt nepotism is an issue in your current role.

Mila: It’s handy having a CEO in the family.

April: I’m not going to do anything about it, anyway.

Mila: WHY NOT?

Ivy: WHY?

April: It’s not the right time. I need to be single for a while. Right? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when your husband walks out on you?

Mila: I don’t have a husband ;-)

Mila did have a very handsome, very successful boyfriend who adored her, however. Everyone knew they’d get married eventually.

April: Not helpful.

Mila: Sorry. Too soon?

Too soon to be teased about her situation?

April: No. I’m not curled up in the corner sobbing or anything.

She welcomed a bit of levity—she had right from the day that Evan had left her.

Plus, she was well past that now. Now she slept easily—no thoughts of Evan whatsoever. Working fourteen-hour days possibly also helped.

Ivy: I think being single for a while is a good idea.

Ivy was always good for keeping things on topic.

Mila: But you can still be single and do interesting things with an interesting man ;-) ;-)

Ivy: Exactly.

There was a long pause as her sisters clearly awaited her response.

This was not what she’d expected. She’d expected words of caution. Now the possibilities had short-circuited her brain.

Mila: April?

April: I don’t know what to do.

Ivy: But you know WHO to do!

Mila: Ha-ha-ha!

April: Can you post some more photos of Nate?

Mila: Boo. You’re no fun.

Ivy had taken the bait, though, and bombarded them with three adorable photos in quick succession. The conversation swiftly moved on, for which April was extremely grateful.

But that night it was Hugh Bennell who crowded her dreams.

April was almost finished for the day when Hugh opened the front door. The charity truck had just left, taking away the latest boxes full of donated things.

It had left the foyer almost empty, with only a neat stack of flattened boxes near the door and the ‘Hugh’ box sitting on the bottom step of the grand stairway.

‘Hello!’ April said, smiling as he stepped inside. She hadn’t seen him since the stripy blouse debacle, but had already determined her approach: regardless of her sisters’ opinion, she was going to remain strictly professional.

Even considering another approach made her...

Well. It didn’t matter. It was too soon after Evan, and Hugh was her boss. These were compelling supporting arguments for professionalism.

No matter how compelling Hugh himself might be, simply by walking through the glossy black door.

April had just sent him her summary email, but was doing a quick sweep-up of the dirt that the charity man had tracked inside before going home.

‘Hi,’ he said, shooting only the briefest glance in her direction before striding for his box. It was the first day since that afternoon in his basement that she’d had anything to add to it, and of course she’d let him know.

Hugh picked up the box in the swiftest of motions and then immediately headed down the hallway—which led through the kitchen, the utility room and then outside to the skip.

April had assumed he’d come and check the box after she’d gone for the day, so she wasn’t really prepared for this.

‘Wait!’ she said, before she could stop herself.

He stopped, but didn’t turn. ‘Yes?’ he asked. His tone was impatient.

She knew she shouldn’t have said anything.

‘Nothing—sorry,’ she said.

There. Professional.

Then, somehow, she was jogging up the hallway. ‘Wait...please.’

Again he stopped immediately at the sound of her voice.

This time he turned to face her.

She’d run up right behind him, so he was really close, with only the open box between them.

She reached inside. She’d found a lot of sentimental things across two boxes today: a large pile of ancient finger paintings and children’s drawings—all labelled ‘Hugh’ with a date in the mid-nineteen-eighties—and all of his school reports, from preschool through to Year Thirteen.

But it was some photos that she picked up now, in a messy pile she’d attempted to make neat. But that had been impossible with the collection of different-sized photos: some round-edged, others standard photo-sized, some cut out small and weathered, as if they’d been kept in someone’s purse.

‘These are from your first days of school,’ she said.

Hugh didn’t even look at them. He shrugged. ‘I don’t care.’

But he wasn’t meeting her gaze, he was just looking—April thought—determinedly uninterested.

‘I don’t believe you.’

That got his attention.

‘I beg your pardon?’ he said, sounding as British as April had ever heard him.

‘I don’t believe you don’t care,’ she said, slowly and clearly. As if there was any chance he’d misunderstand.

His gaze was locked on hers now. ‘I don’t see how that matters.’

April fanned the photos out as if they were a deck of cards. ‘Look,’ she said, giving them a shake. ‘These are photos of you in your school uniform. For each year there’s a photo by yourself, with your school bag. And another with your mum. These are special.’

‘They’re not,’ he said. He nodded at the box. ‘Please put them back.’

April shook her head. ‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No,’ she said firmly, her gaze remaining steady.

It would seem she’d thrown her professionalism out of the window.

She’d get extra shifts at the supermarket if he fired her and the temp agency blacklisted her. Or clean toilets. Whatever. She just couldn’t pretend that she agreed with this.

‘You’re making a mistake.’

His eyes narrowed. His voice was rough. ‘You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.’ He turned away from her and continued down the hallway. ‘I’ll just throw them out tomorrow.’

‘Do you hate her?’ April blurted out the words to his rapidly retreating back.

Faster than she’d thought possible he was back in front of her. Right in front of her. He’d dropped the box at some point and there was now no barrier between them.

His presence crowded her, but she didn’t take a step back.

‘No!’ he said. Not loudly, but with bite. Then he blinked, and belatedly added, ‘That is none of your business.’

His words were calm now, but—again—deliberately so.

‘I know,’ she said, because of course it was true. But she just couldn’t stop. ‘You know, I don’t have any photos of myself with my mum like this,’ she said conversationally. ‘I know that because my sisters went through all Mum’s old photos when I had my thirtieth birthday party, for one of those photo-board things.’ She swallowed, ignoring Hugh’s glower. ‘I have a couple from my first day of school in Year One, but that’s about it. And I have hardly any photos of myself as a kid with my mum. It was different twenty-five years ago—people didn’t take as many photos. And it was usually Mum who took the photos anyway, rather than being in them.’

Hugh didn’t say anything.

‘I’d love photos of me like this with my mum. In fact I have more photos of me as a kid with my dad—again, because Mum was the photographer. And I don’t even like him. But I love my mum.’ She knew she was rambling, but didn’t stop. ‘So it’s all backwards, really.’

‘You don’t like your dad?’ Hugh asked.

April blinked. ‘No. He left when I was five. I hardly saw him, growing up, and I have nothing to do with him now.’

Hugh nodded. ‘My father did something similar,’ he said. ‘I never saw him again.’

He didn’t elaborate further.

‘That sucks,’ she said.

His lips quirked. ‘Yeah.’

‘But your mum obviously loved you?’

She could see his jaw tense—but then relax. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She did.’

‘That’s why she took all these photos.’

The tension was instantly back. ‘The number of photos my mother took—and, trust me, within this house there are thousands—is not a reflection of how much she loved me, April. I’d still know she loved me if she hadn’t taken even one. They’re just things.’

April shook her head vigorously. ‘No. They’re not. They’re memories. They’re irreplaceable. What if you ever have kids? Won’t you want to—?’

‘I’m never having kids. And that is definitely none of your business.’

She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand any of this.

But he’d turned, retrieved the box from the floor. He faced her again, gesturing with the box for April to dump the photos inside.

But she couldn’t. She could not.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked, still holding the photos tight.

For the first time the steady, unreadable gaze he’d trained on her began to slip. In his gaze—just briefly—there flashed emotion. Flashed pain.

‘I don’t have to explain anything to you, Ms Spencer. All I want is for you to empty this house. That’s it. Empty the house. I don’t require any commentary or concern or—’

‘You want an empty house?’ April interrupted, grasping forcefully on to a faint possibility.

He sighed with exasperation. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Well, then,’ she said, with a smile she could tell surprised him. ‘I can work with that.’

‘Work with what?’ His expression was wary.

‘Getting this stuff out of your mother’s house.’ A pause. ‘Just not into a skip.’

‘A storage unit solves nothing. This isn’t about relocating the hoard. I want it gone.’

Again she smiled, still disbelieving, and now she was certain she was right. ‘You’re the CEO of an international software company, right?’ she said.

His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t respond.

‘So why didn’t you think to just scan all this? You could even put it all in the cloud, so you don’t even have a physical hard drive or anything left behind. It would be all gone, the house would be empty, and...’

And you won’t do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life.

But she didn’t say that. Instinctively she knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t give him something to argue with—that he could refute with, You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.

Which would be true. Or should be true. But it wasn’t. And, no matter how weird that was, and how little she knew about this man, she was certain she was right.

When she looked at Hugh Bennell—or at least when he really looked at her, and didn’t obscure himself behind that indecipherable gaze—she saw so much emotion. So much...more. More than she’d see if he didn’t care.

She was sure there were people out there who truly didn’t care about photos and old school report cards and badly drawn houses with the sun a quarter crescent in the corner.

But one of those people was definitely not standing before her.

His gaze wasn’t shuttered now. In fact she could sense he was formulating all matter of responses from disdain, to anger, to plans for her immediate dismissal.

As every second ticked by April began to realise that she was about to be fired.

But that was okay. At least she’d—

‘That is a possibility,’ he said suddenly. As if he was as surprised by his words as she was.

April grabbed on to them before he could change his mind. ‘Awesome! I can even do it for you—it won’t add much time...especially if you can get one of those scanners you can just feed a whole heap of stuff into at once. And maybe I can take photos of other stuff? Like if I find—’

‘I’ll organise the equipment you need.’

He stepped around April, carrying the box back into the foyer. He dropped it onto the bottom step and April added the pile of photos on top.

She wanted to say something, but couldn’t work out what.

‘Hugh—’

‘It’s late,’ he said. ‘You should go home. See you tomorrow.’

Then, just like that, he left.

CHAPTER SIX

THE NEXT AFTERNOON Hugh set up the scanner on the marble kitchen benchtop.

April was just finishing up the second reception room. He could hear the sound of the radio station she listened to above the rustle and thud of items being sorted.

When he’d interrupted her earlier to announce his presence she’d been singing—rather badly—to a song that he remembered being popular when he was back at high school.

She’d blushed when she’d seen him. The pinkening of her cheeks had been subtle—but then, he’d been looking for it, familiar now with the way she seemed to react to him.

He reacted too. As he always did around her. Even when she’d been standing before him, hands on hips, acting as self-designated saviour of old photos, evidence of his lack of artistic ability and irrelevant school reports.

Even then—as he’d struggled with the reality that the distance down that hallway to the skip had been traversed on feet that had felt weighted to the ground with lead—and hated himself for it—he’d reacted to her.

He’d reacted to the shape of her lips, to the way she managed to look so appealing while her hair escaped from its knot atop her head, and to the shape of her waist and hip as she leant against that broom...

And then he’d reacted to her imperious words, admiring her assertiveness even as he’d briefly hated her for delaying him. He’d needed to get that stuff out of the house. Quickly. Immediately. Before he succumbed to inertia like with the other box, which—while no longer on his coffee table—still taunted him from the back of the cupboard in his otherwise spotless spare room.

But then he had succumbed to April’s alternative. At least temporarily.

If it keeps a good employee happy, then what’s the problem? I can just delete it all once she finishes.

That was the conclusion he’d decided he’d come to.

He finished hooking up the scanner to the laptop he’d previously provided for April, then waited as the software was installed.

Footsteps drew his gaze away from the laptop screen.

April stood across from the kitchen bench, smiling again. Sans blush.

She looked confident and capable and in control—as she always did in all but those moments between them he refused to let himself think about.

Again, questions flickered in his brain. Who was she, really? How had she ended up working here?

But that didn’t matter. Their relationship was purely professional.

Really?

He mentally shook his head.

It was.

Belatedly he realised she was holding those damn photos.

‘Shall we get started?’ she asked.

This was when he should go. From her CV, he knew April was computer savvy—she’d work it out.

Instead, he held out his hand. ‘Here, let me show you.’

They sat together, side by side at the kitchen bench, on pale wooden bar stools, scanning the photographs together.

They’d quickly fallen into a rhythm—Hugh fed the photos through the scanner and then April saved and filed them.

Initially she’d attempted to categorise the photos, but Hugh wouldn’t have any of that. So April simply checked the quality of the scan, deleted any duplicates and saved them into one big messy folder.

Based on the decor of his flat, April would bet that Hugh usually carefully curated his digital photos. He’d give them meaningful file names, he’d file them into sensibly organised folders, and he’d never keep anything blurry or any accidental photos of the sky.

But she got why he wasn’t doing that today: he was telling himself he was just going to delete them all one day, anyway.

Was it weird that she could read an almost-stranger so easily? Especially when he was so deliberately attempting to reveal nothing.

Possibly.

Or possibly she was just spending too much time with young backpackers she had nothing in common with, pallets of groceries that needed to be stacked and walls of cardboard boxes? And now she was just constructing a connection with this man because in London she had no connections, and she wasn’t very good at dealing with that?

That seemed more likely.

But, even so, she liked sitting this close to him. Liked the way their shoulders occasionally bumped, when they’d both act as if nothing had happened.

Or at least April did.

What was the reason she’d given her sisters for not...doing anything with Hugh?

Ah. That was right. She was still technically married.

And what would she do anyway? She’d had one boyfriend. Ever. She’d kissed one boy—slept with one man. Evan. That was it. Plus, Evan had pursued her. In the way of high school kids. With rumours that had spread through English Lit that Evan liked April. Like, liked, liked her.

She was ill-equipped to pursue a darkly handsome, intriguing, damaged man.

But what if she turned to him? Right now? And said his name? Softly...the way she really wanted too? And what if he kissed her? How would his lips feel against hers? What would it be like to kiss another man? To be pressed up tight against another man...?

‘April?’

She jumped, making her bar stool wobble.

‘You okay?’

She put her hands on the benchtop to steady herself. ‘Yes, of course.’

He looked at her curiously. Not anything like the way he had that day of the stripy top.

Another of those damn blushes heated her cheeks. It was ridiculous—she was never normally one to blush.

‘In my first day-at-school photos, from Year One, I’m always with my sisters. I’m the middle child. That means I’m supposed to have issues, right?’

She was rambling—needing to fill the tense silence. In addition to never blushing, she never rambled. She had sparkling, meaningless conversation down to an art—she’d been to enough charity functions/opening nights/award galas to learn how to speak to anyone. Intelligently, even.

Not with Hugh.

‘My big sister is a typical first child. Such an over-achiever. I get exhausted just thinking about all she does. Although my baby sister has never really felt like the baby. She’s kind of wise beyond her years—she always has been. But that fits with something I read about third-born children—they’re supposed to be risk-takers, and creative, which totally fits her.’

She paused, but couldn’t stop.

‘You know what middle children are supposed to be? Like, their defining characteristic? Peacemakers. I mean, come on? How boring is that?’

She was staring at the laptop screen and all the photos of cherubic child-sized Hugh.

‘You’re not boring,’ he said.

April blinked, hardly believing he’d been paying attention.

‘Thank you,’ she said. She rotated the latest photo on the screen and dragged it over to the folder she’d created.

‘I can see the peacemaker thing, too. Just not when it comes to my old school photos.’

April grinned. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Especially when I wish I had photos like this. My mum worked really hard when we were growing up. She was often already at work when it was time for us to go to school.’

‘What did she do?’ Hugh asked.

She swallowed. ‘She worked in an office in the city,’ she said vaguely. As CEO of Australia’s largest mining company. The words remained unsaid.

Thankfully, Hugh just nodded. ‘My mum had lots of different jobs when I was growing up. We didn’t have a lot of money, so she often juggled a couple of jobs—you know, waitressing, receptionist...she even stacked shelves at a supermarket for a while, when I was old enough to be alone for a few hours at night.’

This was the longest conversation they’d ever had.

‘I do that!’ April exclaimed. ‘After I get home from this job.’

‘Really?’ he asked. ‘Why?’

April shrugged. ‘So I can get out of the awful shared house I live in in Shoreditch.’

His gaze flicked over her—ever so quickly. April ignored the way her body shivered.

‘Aren’t you a bit old to live in a shared house?’

She narrowed her eyes in mock affront. ‘Well, yeah,’ she said. ‘I’m thirty-two. But I made some dumb decisions with a credit card and I need to pay it off.’

She was choosing her words carefully, keen to keep everything she told him truthful, even if she wasn’t being truly honest with him.

But then, her family’s billions really shouldn’t be relevant. That, after all, was the whole point of this London ‘adventure’. Even if it had made a dodgy flatshare detour.

‘What kind of dumb decisions?’ he asked.

The question surprised her. She hadn’t expected him to be interested. ‘Clothes. Eating out. Rent I couldn’t afford. No job. That kind of thing.’

He nodded. ‘When I first moved out of home I rented this ridiculous place in Camden. It was way bigger than what a brand-new graduate needed, and my mum thought I was nuts.’

‘So you racked up lots of debt, too?’

‘No. I’d just sold a piece of software I’d developed for detecting plagiarism in uni assignments for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, so the rent wasn’t a problem,’ Hugh replied. ‘But I did move out because all that space was really echoey.’

April laughed out loud.

‘And—let me guess—you didn’t move into a shared house?’

His lips quirked upwards. ‘No. I can’t think of anything worse.’

‘You do realise your story has nothing in common with mine, right?’

He shrugged. ‘Hey, we both made poor housing choices.’

‘Nope. No comparison. One of my housemates inexplicably collects every hair that falls out of her head in the shower. Like, in a little container that she leaves on the windowsill. I...’

‘I’ll pay off all your credit card debt if you stop your sentimental junk crusade.’

It wasn’t a throwaway line. He said it with deadly seriousness.

April tilted her head as she studied him. ‘I know—and you know—that if you really wanted this stuff gone it would already be gone. Some random Aussie girl nagging you about it wouldn’t make any difference.’

He slid off his stool, then walked around to the other side of the kitchen bench. She watched as he filled the kettle, then plonked it without much care onto its base. But he didn’t flick the lever that would turn it on.

He grabbed April’s mug from the sink, and another from the overhead cupboard, then put both cups side by side, near the stone-cold kettle.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she asked. She could only guess at whatever was swirling about in his brain. His attention was seemingly focused on the marble swirls of the benchtop.

His head shot up and their gazes locked.

‘No.’

‘Cool,’ April said with a shrug. ‘I don’t need to know.’

Although she realised she wanted to know. Really wanted to.

April slid off her stool, too. She skirted around the bench, terribly aware of Hugh’s gaze following her. She didn’t quite meet his gaze. She couldn’t. Even as thoughts of discovering what was really going on in Hugh’s head zipped through her mind, other thoughts distracted her. About discovering how Hugh might feel if his lovely, strong body—hot as hell, even in jeans and jumper—was pressed against hers. If, say, he kissed her against the pantry door just beside him...

Stop.

This was Ivy and Mila’s influence, scrambling her common sense. It wasn’t how she really felt. She’d never felt like this.

She reached past him, incredibly careful not to brush against him, and switched on the kettle.

She sensed rather than saw him smile—her gaze was on the kettle, not him.

‘Let me help you,’ she said. ‘Stop trying to convince yourself you want something you don’t actually want. At all. Stop pretending.’

Too late, she realised the error of her ‘help him with the kettle the way she’d help him with his stuff’ metaphor. She’d ended up less than a foot away from him.

Or maybe it hadn’t been an error at all.

‘Okay,’ he said. His voice was deep. Velvety.

April looked up and their gazes locked.

It was like the stripy blouse moment all over again. But more, even.

She was suddenly unbelievably aware of her own breathing—the rise and fall of her chest was shallow, fast. And the way her belly clenched, the way her nails were digging into her palms to prevent herself from touching him.

‘I’ll stop pretending,’ he said.

His gaze slid to her lips.

She closed her eyes. She had to, or she couldn’t think.

The way Hugh was looking at her...

‘April...?’ he said, so soft.

Was that his breath against her lips? Had he moved closer so he could kiss her?

She refused to find out.

Instead, she stepped away. Two steps...three.

‘Good!’ she said. ‘Great! Let’s make time to go through the stuff I find each couple of days, okay?’

Hugh wasn’t thinking about the boxes. ‘What?’

April nodded sharply. ‘Okay, I can finish up here. Thanks for your help.’

He was gone a minute later—just as the kettle whistled to say that it had boiled.

Later, as she walked to the supermarket, all rugged up in scarf and coat, Hugh’s words echoed in her brain.

I’ll stop pretending.

But she wouldn’t stop pretending. She couldn’t.

For now she was April Spencer, not April Molyneux.

The thing was she had no idea what was pretend any more.

Hugh sat at his desk, typing a message to an old friend from university.

Ryan had completed the same computer science qualification that Hugh had, although he’d made his money in a completely different field—internet dating. Ryan’s innovative compatibility matching algorithm had been game-changing at the time. But his friend had long since sold the empire he’d built, and now ran an extremely discreet, exclusive online dating agency, using a new—Ryan said better—matching algorithm.

This had come in handy for Hugh.

Ryan’s system was cutting-edge, and Hugh honestly couldn’t fault it. He’d liked every woman he’d met through Ryan’s system—even if he hadn’t been attracted to them all. Or them to him.

After all—there still wasn’t an app that could guarantee that.

He didn’t date often, but when he did he was very specific. He liked to meet at quiet, private restaurants where it was easy to converse without distraction. He’d go to the movies, or to a show. He didn’t go to bars or pubs—there was too little order and too many people talking. He couldn’t think.

If things went well, after a few dates he might sleep over at his date’s place. But he never lingered long the morning after. Or stayed for breakfast.

Usually, at some point later, he’d be invited to a party, or to a family event.

He always said no.

At such events he would become ‘the boyfriend’. And he didn’t want that.

Understandably, usually things ended then.

A couple of times he’d met women equally happy to avoid a relationship. Those arrangements had lasted longer, until eventually they’d run their course too.

Of course he was always clear that he wasn’t after a relationship, and he was never matched with anybody who specifically wanted to settle down. However, it would seem that the ‘wanting a relationship’ and ‘not wanting a relationship’ continuum was not linear. And everyone’s definition of where they stood along that line varied. Wildly.

So a woman who started off not wanting a relationship might actually want a bit of clarity around her relationship with Hugh. Or an agreement of exclusivity.

And exclusivity, to Hugh, was an indicator of a relationship—not that he had ever dated more than one woman at once, however casually.

So at that point he was out.

He got it that he was weird when it came to relationships. Women always eventually asked him about his stance. But it wasn’t easy for him to define.

He knew, intellectually, that it originated from his mother’s serial dating. She had been quite openly on a quest to find her Mr Right after the disappearance of his deadbeat father. He’d become used to the cycle of hope and despair that each new boyfriend would bring, and he’d decided he had no wish to experience that for himself.

But—and this had been his original theory—the risk of a relationship ending in despair was surely reduced if you approached dating with comprehensive data on your side. If you were matched appropriately—your values, your interests, your goals—then surely you minimised risk.

And this, in his experience, was true. He had never experienced the euphoric highs or the devastating lows of his mother’s relationships. When he dated it was...uncomplicated.

But that was where his stance on relationships became much more about him. Because, despite all this data-matching and uncomplicated dating, he still didn’t want a relationship.

It was a visceral thing. When he woke up in a woman’s bed—he never invited them to his place—his urge to leave was not dissimilar from the way the bloody boxes that filled his mother’s house made him feel.

Trapped.

It all came back to the same thing: to Hugh, relationships were clutter.

Ryan: I’ll send you the link to our latest questionnaire—we’ve tweaked things a little so you’ll need to answer a few more compatibility questions.

Hugh: No problem.

Ryan: Then the system will automatically send you a shortlist. Same as always—if the women you say yes for also say yes then you’re set.

Hugh: Great. Thanks.

But it was weird... He’d been keen to talk to Ryan, but now he was losing enthusiasm. He’d been so sure that it was the six or more months since his last date that had triggered his interest in April. And today he’d almost kissed her.

Hugh: What’s your current success rate with your matching algorithm?

Ryan wouldn’t need time to look this up—he knew his company inside out.

Ryan: Almost one hundred per cent. We rarely have a customer receive no matches.

That wasn’t what Hugh had meant.

Hugh: So one hundred per cent go on at least one date?

Ryan: Yes. And over ninety per cent of users rate their first date experience with a score of eight or above. We’re very proud of that stat.

Hugh: Second date?

Ryan: We don’t track activity beyond the first date.

Hugh: Long-term relationships? Engagements? Marriages?

Ryan: Lots. There are many testimonials available.

He pasted a link, but Hugh didn’t click on it.

Hugh: Percentages?

Ryan: We don’t have that data.

Hugh: Could you guess?

He could just imagine Ryan sighing at his laptop screen.

Ryan: Low. Easily under ten per cent. Under five per cent, probably. Which makes sense when you consider that each user gets matched with multiple people. But anyway our job is the introduction. The rest is up to the couple. But, mate, why the interest? Do we need to update your profile to ‘Seeking a long-term relationship’?

Hugh: No. Just—

He stopped typing.

Just what?

Why was he suddenly questioning the method he’d been following for ten years? Especially when he’d contacted Ryan today to follow that exact method again. Nothing different. No changes.

He finished the sentence:

Hugh: No. Just wondering.

If Ryan had been a close friend—the kind of mate who knew when you were talking out of your backside—he would’ve questioned that. But he wasn’t a close friend. Hugh didn’t have close friends. The habits of his childhood—of keeping people at a distance, and certainly away from his home—had never abated.

Hugh asked Ryan a few more questions—just being social now. About his new house, his new baby...

After several baby photos, Ryan wrote: We should catch up for a beer. Somewhere quiet, of course.

Hugh: Sure.

And maybe they would organise it. But, in reality, ninety-five per cent of their friendship was conducted via video-conference or instant message. And that suited Hugh just fine.

Later, he answered the new compatibility questions.

He hesitated before submitting them.

Why?

Because his subconscious was cluttered with thoughts of April Spencer.

Particularly the way she’d looked at him that afternoon in the kitchen. Particularly the way her lips had parted when she’d closed her eyes.

But Ryan’s algorithm would never match him with April.

April was vivacious and definitely sociable. She had an easy sunniness to her—he found it difficult to imagine that many people would dislike April. He imagined her surrounded by an ever-expanding horde of friends and family, living somewhere eclectic and noisy.

While he— Well, he had a handful of friends like Ryan. A handful he felt no need to expand. No family.

She was a traveller...an adventurer. She must be to be her age and working at this job in London. Meanwhile, he’d lived nowhere but North London. And he rarely travelled—save for those essential meetings when he’d first expanded his company internationally. Now he insisted all such meetings took place via video-conference.

He was intensely private, and unused to having his decisions questioned.

She questioned him boldly, and she’d told him about her family and her absent father without the slightest hesitation.

And somehow he’d revealed more to her than to anyone he could remember.

So, no, they wouldn’t have been matched.

Apart from the added complication of her working for him, their obvious incompatibility could not be ignored.

He was attracted to her—that was inarguably apparent. She was beautiful. It was natural, but it didn’t mean anything. April Spencer was all complications. He didn’t do complicated.

What he needed was a date with a woman who knew exactly what he was offering and vice versa. And who was like him: quiet, private, solitary. No ambiguity. No confusion. Just harmless, uncomplicated fun.

He clicked ‘Submit’.

A minute later he received an email confirmation that his responses had been received.

Now he just needed to wait to be matched.

CHAPTER SEVEN

APRIL SAT CROSS-LEGGED in bed. It was Sunday, and her roommate had headed out for brunch, taking advantage of an unseasonably warm winter’s day.

Loving my new nails! So pretty. What’s your go-to shade for summer? #diymanicure #mint #glam #THEnailpolish

April studied her nails after she’d scheduled her post to appear at about this time the next day, Perth time—eight hours away. She’d painted them the lovely minty green that THE had supplied, along with their generous Molyneux Foundation donation. Her assistant, Carly, had priority-mailed the bottle overnight all the way to London—at a ridiculous cost that April planned to pay back to the Molyneux Foundation. But it had had to be done.

It was getting increasingly complicated as each week went by to be both April Molyneux and April Spencer. To be truthful, she hadn’t really planned this far ahead, and while her absences at social events had so far been attributed to her marriage breakdown, that excuse wouldn’t last for ever.

So far her Instagram account had supported the narrative of a fragile divorcee-to-be with carefully curated images. Yesterday she’d posted one of the photos she’d taken with Carly just before she’d flown to London. In that image—despite her blow-dried hair and designer-sponsored dress, apparently going for dinner with her sisters—she fitted the brief well.

She had looked fragile. Because she had been.

When that photo had been taken she’d been barely a month on from that devastating evening at the beach.

At the time, April hadn’t seen it. Maybe because she’d become used to seeing herself like that in the mirror: her gaze flat, her smile not quite convincing.

She’d been wearing heaps of make-up to hide the shadows beneath her eyes, to give colour to her cheeks. Without it she’d looked like death. And not in an edgy, model-like way. But really crap. Like, my husband has just left me crap.

She didn’t, she realised, look like that now.

When had that happened?

She dismissed the thought. It was more important that it had—that Evan and all he represented no longer dominated her psyche.

She wiggled her nails, liking the way the sun that poured through the windows made them sparkle. She’d flung open the curtains both for better light for her photos and to revel in experiencing actual sun in London.

Her sponsors were also tricky. But Carly was doing well: scheduling long into the future, where possible, and being creative with everything else. After all, it wasn’t essential that April appeared in every photo. She’d even roped Mila into one—with her sister admirably hamming up her mock-serious pose as she’d modelled long strands of stunning Broome pearls. This nail polish was the first product that had definitely required April to model it. It had been specified by the company, and her hands had featured in too many photos to risk that an eagle-eyed follower wouldn’t notice a substitution. Not that she would have considered it anyway...

But April knew that this couldn’t continue for ever.

The thing was, she’d assumed she’d have everything worked out already.

She’d imagined writing an inspirational post—maybe at her desk at her Fabulous Job In London. She’d talk about overcoming life’s challenges. About realising that she needed to stand on her own two feet and chase her dreams.

And she’d write that she’d done it all by herself, without using her family name to leap to the front of the queue.

Ugh.

That would’ve been rather sickening, wouldn’t it? As if someone as privileged as her was in any position to present herself as poster girl for grit and determination.

Well, she certainly couldn’t post a little snapshot of her life right now. It had been an effort to photograph her hands without accidentally including a glimpse of the peeling walls, or the cheap laminate floor, or the battered beds and bedside tables. She’d actually ended up using a pretty plum velvet cushion she’d retrieved from one of Hugh’s ‘donate’ boxes to lay her manicured fingers artistically across—after asking permission from Hugh via email, of course.

Take anything you want, he’d said.

Hugh...

He hadn’t come up to the main house on Friday. There’d been no need with nothing for him to sort through.

Which was for the best, she’d told herself. Firmly.

And yet her realisation that there was no need for her to see Hugh that day had been tinged with both relief and disappointment.

She’d finished up in the front reception room and was now up the stairs, working on the front guest bedroom. It wasn’t quite as packed with boxes as the first two rooms, although it was definitely a marginal thing. The first few boxes had been full of beautiful manchester—a word she’d discovered was actually a term for bedlinen used only in Australia and New Zealand when she’d provided her summary to Hugh and subsequently confused him.

See? She was learning so much from her move to London. April grinned. Just not exactly what she’d expected.

Sitting, as she was, on the cheapest doona—duvet, she’d learnt, in the UK—she’d been able to find at her local supermarket, she questioned her decision not to take one of the beautiful, soft vintage white linen covers she’d found on Friday.

But she couldn’t. As hard as she was trying to live as if she wasn’t, she was an heiress—with a mammoth trust fund. Someone shopping at the local charity shop deserved an expensive doona cover far more than she did.

What was she doing?

In London? Living in this dodgy shared house? Working for Hugh?

Based on her current progress, in another month she would have paid off her credit card. Only another month of two jobs, rice, beans, two-minute noodles and tins of soup.

And then what?

Would she quit her night job? Start applying for jobs back in her own field—or at least her field of study? Eventually move out of this place to some place on her own?

She didn’t know.

If she did that she’d definitely need to shut down her social media profiles. There was no way she could continue to use them for the Molyneux Foundation all the way over here.

The idea felt unexpectedly uncomfortable.

Because, surely, her social media profile represented all that had been excessive in her life? Shouldn’t she be glad to be rid of it? Glad that she’d be leaving that version of herself behind?

But...

It also represented how successful she’d been—how well she’d connected with her followers and how seamlessly she’d incorporated her sponsors. It represented how much money she’d raised for the foundation by being social media savvy and putting all that Molyneux privilege to good use.

She had over a million followers, and she’d worked hard for every single one of them.

It was only logical reasoning to suppose that those followers were unlikely to care about her new, unglamorous life, but that didn’t make the idea of deleting her accounts seem any more appealing.

She wasn’t entirely sure what it said about her, but she wasn’t ready to give her followers up.

Not yet, anyway.

On Tuesday, April found more photos to add to the ‘Hugh’ box.

This time it was a bunch of birthday photos, all stuffed into a large white envelope that had become deeply creased and soft with years of handling.

She carried it downstairs to the kitchen, leaving it on the kitchen bench while she turned on the kettle for her morning tea break.

The photos she’d scanned with Hugh still remained in the ‘Hugh’ box, atop the benchtop. They hadn’t worked out the finer details after he’d left so abruptly, and she hadn’t seen him since. Was she supposed to keep on scanning the photos she found? Or would he? Or would he not even bother now and just keep the photos...?

She should just put them into the box and let Hugh decide.

Instead she found herself pulling up one of the bar stools and settling down with both her coffee and the envelope before her.

Even as she slid the photos out she questioned what she was doing. There was no need to look at the photos, really. And so to do so felt...not quite right. But that was silly, really. It was her job, after all, to go through everything in this house. That was what she was doing.

And so she did look.

Like the images from Hugh’s first days at school, these birthday shots were across all of Hugh’s birthdays. The envelope was chock-full of them—several from every year. The classic ‘blowing out the candles’ shot, breakfast in bed with unwrapped presents and always a photo of Hugh with his mum. The very early ones also featured his father.

His mum, of course, had been stunning. April had thought so when she’d first seen her in those school photos. She’d had dark hair and eyes, like Hugh, but her face had been rounder and her eyes and lips had looked as if they always smiled, not just in photos. She’d worn her long hair mostly loose, and had alternated year to year from having a fringe and growing it out.

These photos were different from the school ones, though, which had all been taken outside Hugh’s kindergarten or primary school. These were taken indoors. And not all in this house, which surprised April.

For some reason she’d assumed this was the house where Hugh had grown up, but the photos showed she was wrong. Silly of her, really, given she’d known his mum hadn’t had much money, and Islington was decidedly posh.

April took a sip from her coffee, and then shuffled back to the beginning again.

Outside, it had started raining, and the occasional fat droplet slapped against the kitchen window.

The first photo had a chubby Hugh sitting on his mother’s lap, reaching out with both hands for a birthday cake in the shape of a lime-green number one. Standing at his mother’s shoulder was—April assumed—his father. A tall man, but narrower in the shoulders than Hugh, he had dark blond hair. He was handsome, but his smile looked uncomfortable.

They sat at a dining table with a mid-nineteen-eighties swirly beige laminate top. Behind them was a sideboard with shelving above it, neatly filled with books, trinkets and brass-framed photographs.

For Hugh’s second birthday the cake photo was again taken at the same table. This time Hugh looked as if he was deliberately avoiding the camera, his gaze focused on something out of the picture. Again, he was with his mum and dad. There were more things now, on the shelves behind Hugh and his parents: more brass-framed photographs, more books. But still neat.

For his third birthday Hugh had had a cake in the shape of a lion, with skinny, long pieces of liquorice creating its eyes, nose and whiskers. There was no dad in this one, and while the table and sideboard were still the same the paint on the walls was now blue, not beige. There was less on the shelves—only a few photos. A new house? Or new paint?

April checked the other photos from his third birthday—yes, definitely a new house. His breakfast in bed was no longer beside a lovely double sash window, but instead one with a cheap-looking frame, probably aluminium.

His mum, though, still smiled her luminous smile.

When Hugh had turned four, the birthday parties had clearly begun.

There was Hugh playing pass the parcel, sitting on top of an oriental-style rug with his friends. Or playing pin the tail on the donkey. This photo was a wider shot, showing Hugh from the side, blindfolded and with his arm outstretched. Beyond him was a small kitchen, where a row of parents stood, some observing their kids, others chatting to each other.

The room was very neat, the kitchen bench clear but for trays of party food. In fact in all these early photos every room was tidy. April knew that careful angle selection could make the messiest room appear tidy, but she didn’t believe that was the case here. There wasn’t one cardboard box, or any pile of useless random things to put inside one, anywhere to be seen.

When had it started?

April flipped ahead through the photos, trying to work it out.

In the end it was that sideboard behind the dining table that told the story.

In front of that blue-painted wall it gained items year on year. At first neatly. More books, more photos, more trinkets, a small vase, a snow globe. But each item had definitely been carefully placed.

By the time Hugh had reached age seven the shelves were stuffed full. So many books jammed in horizontally and vertically. Photos in mismatched frames along the top. A few more trinkets...fat ivory candles. A carved wooden horse.

But still neat. Organised chaos.

By Hugh’s ninth birthday it was just chaos.

Books were randomly stacked with pages outwards. The vase had been knocked over and damaged, but it still remained on its side in multiple pieces. Paper had now appeared on the shelves: envelopes with plastic windows, sheets of paperwork...piles of magazines.

In the background of a blurry photo of kids dancing—musical statues?—April spotted a cardboard box. Just one. Beside it was a stack of newspapers, and beside that a stack of books.

But in the photo of Hugh and his mum together she was still smiling. Her hair was still lovely, her eyes sparkling. Hugh was smiling too, looking up at his mum.

April’s throat felt tight and prickly.

It seemed impossible, given she’d now spent weeks surrounded by the hoard, but until now she hadn’t really thought about the actual compulsive hoarding that must have occurred for this house to be in this state.

Maybe because the house was very neat—for a house full of boxes. And April associated hoarding with those unfortunate people you saw on television documentaries, with rotting food and mountains of rubbish. Vermin. This place wasn’t like that.

But that didn’t mean accumulating all this junk was normal.

April went back to the photos. For Hugh’s tenth birthday there had been no party. Possibly he just hadn’t wanted to have one, but April doubted it.

There weren’t any party photos the year after, or any of the years after that.

Instead it was just pictures of Hugh and his mum and—in the background—more and more boxes...

‘Boxes suck as party decorations.’

Hugh’s voice made April jump.

Her stool wobbled dramatically, and his hand landed firmly at her waist, steadying her.

She was wearing a chunky knitted jumper with a wide neck. The wool was soft against his fingers and the shape of her waist a perfect fit against his palm. But he made sure his hand dropped away the instant the chair was still.

A moment after that April practically leapt from her seat, turning to face him.

‘I didn’t hear you,’ she said, unnecessarily.

Her gaze roamed over him—just briefly. He was wearing his normal uniform of sorts: jeans, T-shirt, hoodie, trainers. Completely unremarkable.

And yet he sensed April’s appreciation. She liked how he looked.

Although hadn’t he known that since he’d helped her out of that stripy top? He’d certainly appreciated how April looked from the moment he’d first seen her.

Today was no different.

She wore light-washed jeans, and her jumper was pale lemon, oversized and slouchy, revealing much of her golden shoulders and a thin silver chain at her neck. Her dark hair was scraped back from her face in a high ponytail. It was neater than normal—probably because it was early in the day, and all those rogue strands hadn’t had the opportunity to escape.

He gave himself a mental shake. It wasn’t important. Wasn’t he supposed to be annoyed with her?

That was what he’d meant to do when he’d walked into the kitchen to find April so absorbed in those photos that she hadn’t heard his approach. He’d meant to ask her, What the hell are you doing?

Although, he reflected, that would have been a dumb question.

She was looking at photos. Duh.

But why? There was no need any more. The photos were his responsibility now. And something about having her look through them felt...almost intimate. Crazy when a few days ago she’d done the same thing with his school photos and he hadn’t cared.

Or at least hadn’t let himself care. He’d still been telling himself the photos were worthless and meaningless to him, after all.

But that hadn’t been true.

So maybe that was why his instinctive reaction was anger—anger that she’d been looking at images he now accepted meant something to him. Just what they meant he could work out later. They were his, and they were private photos. None of her business.

But by the time he’d gone to speak he hadn’t been angry at all.

Boxes suck as party decorations.

‘You stopped having birthday parties,’ April said, reading his mind.

‘Yeah,’ Hugh said.

He stepped closer to the bench, picking up a bundle of the photos she’d been studying with such concentration. He’d dump them in the box to take down to his flat. He would go through the photos later. It had been nice of April to offer to help him, but it wasn’t necessary.

‘I didn’t notice at first,’ he said. ‘You know...all the clutter, I mean. I was a kid. It was just my house. When I was old enough to tidy I kept my room pretty neat, but the rest of the house... I don’t know. Like I said, it was just my house.’

Hugh hadn’t intended to continue the conversation. At all. And yet—he continued.

‘The other kids didn’t notice either. Why would they? Their parents may have, but I wouldn’t have known, and Mum never would’ve cared.’

‘Really?’ April asked with raised eyebrows.

Hugh shook his head. ‘No. At first it wasn’t that bad, and my mum had always been pretty forthright about people accepting each other for who they were. She figured if the house was a bit untidy what was the big deal?’

‘But you didn’t like it?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘And it just got worse. And as kids get older they notice things. I had a friend over one day after school, before it got really bad, and he had a box fall on him while we were playing. He was fine, but I remember his mum talking to my mum in this really low, concerned voice, asking if she was okay and if she’d like some help. My mum didn’t like that. She laughed, I remember, and said she’d just had a busy week and really needed to get all the stuff to the charity shop.’

He was flipping through the photos, but not looking at them.

‘That was a lie. I knew she was never going to do that. Although I suppose maybe she was telling herself that she would one day. I don’t know. But—anyway—my mum never lied. Ever. And that combined with the other mum obviously thinking something was wrong... Well, then I knew something was wrong. So I didn’t have anyone over again.’

April hadn’t moved from where she stood. She just watched him, letting him speak.

‘Things got worse after that. Mum was always really sociable. I remember when I was really little that she’d have these elaborate dinner parties where she’d always try something fancy out of this fat hardcover cookbook she’d get from the library. But they stopped, too. She’d still go out and see her friends—we had a nice neighbour and I’d go and stay with her and watch TV—but the house was just for us. Us and the damn boxes.’

‘That must have been hard,’ April said.

Her words were soft. Kind. That was the last thing he wanted. Kindness. Pity. He didn’t know her. Why was he telling her this?

‘I was fine,’ he said, his words hard-edged. ‘I managed.’

She stepped close to him now and reached out her hand, resting it just below his elbow.

Instinctively he shook his arm free. ‘What are you doing?’

She looked surprised—at her action or his, he couldn’t be sure.

April swallowed. ‘Sorry. I...’ There was a pause, then she straightened her shoulders. ‘I wanted to touch you,’ she said. ‘I thought it might help.’

He shook his head. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’

‘A long time ago?’ she prompted, her forehead wrinkled.

Hugh ran a hand through his hair. ‘I mean since I had to live like that. Mum—’ He hadn’t intended to explain, but he couldn’t stop himself. ‘When she met Len I was in the Lower Sixth, and she got better. She got the help she needed—did this cognitive behavioural therapy stuff, got in a professional organiser—and then, when she married Len, we moved here. She was good for a long time. It only started again when Len died, and—honestly—I did all I could. Everything I could think of to stop it happening again, to stop her filling the emptiness she felt after my father left and Len died with stuff. Objects she could cling on to for ever, that would never leave her—’

Her hand was on his arm again. His gaze shot downwards, staring at it. Immediately she removed her touch.

‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind. It felt good.’

She placed her hand on his arm again.

Her touch through the fabric of his hoodie was light against his skin. Her fingers didn’t grip...they were just there.

‘I’m a hugger,’ April explained, her gaze also trained on her hand. ‘I can’t help it. I hug everybody. Happy, sad, indifferent. Hug, hug, hug.’ She sighed. ‘It’s sucked, really, not having anyone to hug since I’ve been in London.’

‘You want a hug?’ he asked, confused.

Her head shot up and she grinned. ‘No!’ she said. ‘I was just explaining.’ She nodded at their hands. ‘The touching thing. Because I’m guessing you’re not a hugger.’

A rough laugh burst from his throat. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not a hugger.’

Her lips curved upwards again. ‘I thought so.’

He rarely touched anyone except by accident. When would he? He had no family. A handful of friends. He worked remotely. He was resolutely single. And when he dated touch was about sex. Not this—not reassurance or comfort. This was touch without expectations.

It should be strange, really, to find comfort in the touch of a woman he was attracted to. The few times they’d touched before had been fleeting, but charged with electricity. And, yes, that current was still there. Of course it was.

But what she was offering was straightforward: her touch was simply to help him calm his thoughts and to acknowledge the uncomfortable memories he’d just shared.

It was working, too.

His gaze drifted from her hand to the photos he still grasped. On top was a photo taken of him in bed the morning of his tenth birthday. He’d just unwrapped his present: a large toy robot that he’d coveted for months. His mum had used the timer on her camera, propping it on his dresser, and she sat beside him, her arm around him, his superhero pillows askew behind them.

He and his mum were both smiling in the photo, and Hugh smiled now. A proper smile at a happy memory.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

For making him keep the photographs. For listening.

‘My pleasure,’ said April.

Then she squeezed his arm and her touch fell away.

‘Wait,’ he said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HUGH’S VOICE WAS LOW. Different from before.

April went still. Her hand fell back against her thigh, already missing his warmth.

He stepped towards her, close enough that she needed to tilt her chin up, just slightly, to meet his gaze.

He studied her intently. ‘Why did you leave behind all the people you used to hug?’ he asked.

Her gaze wavered.

She put on a smile. ‘Early midlife crisis,’ she said.

Best to keep it simple.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Why are you here? Why are you working for me?’

She shrugged. ‘I told you the other day. Credit card debt.’

He looked her dead in the eye. ‘I don’t believe you.’

Ah. He was echoing her own words...the way she’d been challenging him.

She hadn’t expected the tables to turn.

She twisted her fingers in the too-long sleeves of her jumper...the fabric was all nubbly beneath her fingertips.

She wasn’t used to being secretive. She did, after all, document her life for millions of strangers. But this was different.

Hugh didn’t talk the way he just had about his past very often. Ever, maybe. April knew that—was sure of it. She understood what he’d revealed to her. How big a deal it was for him. So he deserved her honesty—she knew that.

But her reticence wasn’t just about hiding April Molyneux from a man who thought her to be April Spencer—it was more than that. There was something about Hugh—something between them that was just so different. So intense.

Until today they’d only teased the very edges of that intensity, and neither had taken it any further.

They’d both resisted temptation. The temptation to touch. To kiss.

Right now—with these questions, this conversation—it wasn’t as primal as before, although all that continued to simmer below the surface. But it was still a connection. And it still felt raw. As if sharing any part of herself, even her past, was only the start of a slippery slope.

It would lead to more. Much more.

And that was as tempting as it was frightening.

Frightening?

What was she scared of?

She didn’t answer her own question. It didn’t matter. Because she hadn’t come all the way to London to be scared of anything.

‘My husband left me,’ she said.

Silence.

She’d expected him to recoil. Because surely this wasn’t the conversation Hugh Bennell wanted to have with her?

Instead, he nodded. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked simply.

She smiled. Genuinely this time. ‘Yes,’ she said with confidence. ‘Now. Sucked for a bit, though.’

He smiled too.

‘I needed a change. So here I am. Unpacking your boxes and stacking supermarket shelves. Trust me, it’s not as glamorous a midlife crisis as I’d expected.’

‘What happened?’ he asked. Gently.

‘We fell out of love,’ she said. ‘Him first, but me too. I just hadn’t realised it. So I’m okay. Not heartbroken or anything. But it was still sad.’

‘Not heartbroken?’ he prompted.

Her gaze had travelled downwards, along his jaw and chin. Now it flew upwards, locking with his.

‘What do you think?’ she asked.

Her gaze was heated. Hot. Deliberately so.

Nope. Definitely not scared any more.

‘No,’ he said, his voice deliciously low. ‘I don’t think you are.’

And just like that weeks of tension, of attraction, of connection were just—there. No glancing away, no changing the subject, no pretending it didn’t exist.

It was there. Unequivocally.

Oh, God.

His eyes were dark, and intensely focused on her. He’d moved closer again, so that only centimetres separated them, and there was no question about what he wanted to do next.

He leant closer. Close enough that his breath was hot against her cheek and then her ear.

‘I want to kiss you,’ he said, and the low rawness of his voice made her shiver.

How did he know? April thought. That she needed that? That she needed a moment? That despite the crackling tension between them doubts still tugged at her?

Could she trust her instincts after what had happened to her marriage? She’d got it all so very wrong. And, even more than that, could she actually kiss another man?

It had been so long—so very, very long...

‘Kiss me,’ she said, because she couldn’t wait another moment.

Although it turned out she had to.

His lips were at her ear, and he didn’t move them far. Instead he pressed his mouth to the sensitive skin of her neck, at the edge of her jaw. Suddenly her knees were like jelly, but strong hands at her waist steadied her.

The sensation of his lips against her neck and his hands against her body was so good, and April’s eyes slid shut as a sigh escaped from her mouth.

Her fingers untangled themselves from the sleeves of her jumper and reached for Hugh blindly, hitting the solid wall of his stomach and sliding up and around to the breadth of his back.

Hugh dotted her jaw with kisses that were firm but soft. And glorious. But not even close to enough. More than almost anything, she wanted to turn her head to meet his mouth with hers—but she didn’t. Because, even more than she wanted that, she wanted this anticipation to last for ever. This promise of Hugh’s kiss that, she realised, had been growing from the moment they’d met.

But he was definitely going to kiss her now—this mysterious man who was so different to anyone she’d ever met—and the wonder of that she wanted to hold on to. Just a few seconds longer.

By the time his mouth reached hers April felt about as solid as air. His hands pressed her closer, and then her own hands drew his chest against her breasts.

His mouth was hot against hers, and confident.

If she’d been tentative, or if her brain had been capable of worrying about her kissing technique or other such nonsense, his assuredness would have erased it all.

But, as it was, April didn’t feel at all unsure. In fact, Hugh made her feel that this kiss was about as right as anything could get.

His tongue brushed a question against her bottom lip and her own tongue was her crystal-clear answer. Her hands slid up his chest to entwine behind his neck and in his hair, tugging him even closer.

Their kiss was as intense as every moment between them, and as volatile. He kissed her hard, and soft, and voraciously. As if he could kiss her for ever, and as if they had all the time in the world.

But April was impatient.

She took the lead now, kissing him with everything she had and more. More than she’d thought she was capable of: with more passion, less control.

This was raw and passionate and...near desperate.

April wanted to be as close as she could be to him. She wanted him pressed up hard against her. She wanted to feel his solidity and his strength.

She wanted to feel his skin.

Her hands drifted down his back, skimming wide shoulder blades and the indentations of his spine. And then they slid beneath jacket and T-shirt to land at the small of his back. Against smooth, gorgeous, hot skin.

His hands followed a similar path, and his touch made her sigh into his mouth as it moved against her back, her stomach, and then upwards—against her ribs to the underside of her—

Something vibrated and Hugh went still.

He broke his lips away from hers, but not far. She could feel him breathe against her mouth as he spoke.

‘My phone,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Me too,’ she said, all husky.

His smile was crooked. ‘Yeah...’

Then he stepped away, and her skin felt bereft without his touch.

He fished his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans. It appeared to have been a notification vibration, not a call, and he turned slightly to scroll through his phone.

When he turned back to her, he just looked at her for long moments. At her still slightly askew jumper, at her lips that felt swollen, at her eyes that she knew were inviting him to pick up exactly where they’d just finished.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he said, ‘That probably shouldn’t have happened.’

April blinked, her brain still foggy. ‘Why?’

‘Because you work for me. And your husband just left you.’

She shrugged. ‘You definitely didn’t take advantage of me,’ she said. ‘And the husband thing—that’s my problem, not yours. Nothing about what just happened was a problem for me.’

Mila and Ivy’s encouragement fuelled her. For all her misgivings up until their kiss, she didn’t regret it one bit now. She felt amazing: alive, and strong, and sexy and feminine...

‘I don’t want a relationship with you, April.’

Ouch.

It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did.

‘And you thought the desperate divorcee must be keen to jump straight into another relationship?’ Her tone was tart. She didn’t give him time to respond. ‘And also, that if I did, I’d want a relationship with you? That’s rather presumptuous.’

April crossed her arms.

His forehead crinkled as he considered her words. ‘I suppose it is,’ he said. ‘I apologise.’

April nodded sharply. ‘Just to be clear—the last thing I want is a relationship. I was with my ex for a long time—I need to just be me for a while. That being said, I really liked what we just did. I’d like to do it again.’

She didn’t know where this bravado came from. She was practically propositioning Hugh Bennell. In fact, she definitely was. She was propositioning him.

Because that kiss... She’d never experienced anything like it. She’d never felt like this before and heat continued to traverse through her veins simply from the memory of his mouth against hers. His body against hers.

‘I’d like to do it again, too,’ he said. His gaze was steady and his words measured—as if he’d carefully considered her proposal before constructing his answer. ‘But, I’d also like to be clear. I date, but that’s it. I never take it further. I’m never anyone’s boyfriend. I’ll never be someone’s husband. You need to be aware of that before this goes any further.’

April found herself fighting a smile in response to his seriousness. ‘That seems a bit extreme,’ she said. ‘Never? Really?’

‘Really,’ he said.

He didn’t elaborate. He still looked at her with a determinedly serious expression.

‘Well,’ April said, smiling now, ‘I must say my experience of marriage wasn’t ultimately positive, so maybe you’re onto something.’

His lips quirked now. ‘It would seem so.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I can deal with that. No relationships. Deal.’

As she’d told Hugh, it was exactly the right thing for her. Quite honestly, the last thing she wanted was to leap from one relationship into another. But for some silly reason, Hugh’s rejection of anything more with her still stung.

There was another noisy buzz as his phone, now on the kitchen bench, vibrated again.

‘I need to go,’ he said. ‘I have a meeting. Can we do dinner? Tonight? I can email you the details.’

He was in business mode now, as efficient as his instructions and his emails.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘But I only have a few hours before my second job.’

He paused, looking up from his phone. ‘How much extra would I need to pay you so you could quit that job?’ he asked.

‘Ah,’ April said, ‘that sounds like a conflict of interests. I don’t think HR would approve of that.’

‘I own the company,’ Hugh pointed out. ‘And I don’t like rushing dinner.’

‘Well, then, I don’t approve,’ April said firmly. ‘Let’s keep this professional.’

Hugh stepped closer—much closer. He leant down and spoke just millimetres from her lips. ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘except for making out in the kitchen.’

Long minutes later they came up for air, and April lifted her fingers to her thoroughly kissed lips as Hugh finally walked away.

‘Agreed,’ she said, as the front door clicked shut.

The conference call was endless.

Hugh sat back in his chair, letting the wheels roll him back a small distance from his desk.

He’d docked his laptop, so the other attendees’ faces were displayed on the large slender screen before him. Everybody else allowed their faces to be shown, so Hugh could see each of them: the red-headed product manager in Ireland, his gaze focused on his keyboard, the dark-haired user experience manager in Sydney, her attention focused on the slides that the senior developer, also in London, was showing them...

The developer was talking directly into his camera as he discussed some of the technical difficulties his team was currently encountering, his purple dreadlocks draped over his shoulders.

Of course, Hugh’s face didn’t appear.

Hugh still insisted upon that, despite the recommendations of the digital collaboration expert he’d engaged to improve the effectiveness of his widely dispersed team. Yes, he could see how a video feed might—as the consultant had advised—improve both rapport and communication, but no matter how large his company became he was still in charge. Hence—no cameras. For him, anyway.Even now, so many years later, old habits died hard. Because, of course, it wasn’t about him. He didn’t care if his colleagues saw him and his slightly too long hair and three-day-old beard.

It was about his house. Everyone on the conference call was in their home. This meeting had a backdrop of contrasting wallpapers and paint colours, of artwork and photographs, of bookcases and blinds and curtains.

Hugh wasn’t going to contribute his home to that landscape. He didn’t let anyone into his home. In any way. Ever.

Except April.

It seemed April had become the exception to several things.

Such as his structured approach to dating.

It had been timely that he’d received an alert from Ryan’s dating app mid-kiss with April. It should’ve been a reminder that he already had a tried and true approach to meeting women. And that kissing an employee in his mother’s kitchen was not his modus operandi.

Instead, he hadn’t even bothered to open the profile of the woman he’d been so carefully matched to.

After all, he’d just experienced a kiss that made his pulse beat fast and his body tighten simply by the act of thinking about it. It had been all-consuming: a hot, intense phenomenon of a kiss. Which was, after all, the point. He dated. He liked women. He wanted to meet women who liked him. And he definitely wanted that spark of attraction. April ticked each and every one of those boxes. Except the spark was more like a bonfire.

So—why not?

If the parameters were made as clear to April Spencer as he always made sure they were with other women, what was the problem?

Logically, none.

Although somewhere right at the edge of his subconscious doubts did twinge.

But they were easily overcome. At the time he’d simply had to look at April to forget anything but his need to touch her again. Now he just needed to recall the shape of her waist and the heat of her skin beneath his palms.

When he did that there was no need to analyse it further.

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