Romance for Cynics. Nicola Marsh

I can’t go on the record in the media without adding fuel to the fire and looking like a callous bastard, so I need to tackle this a different way.’

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

      ‘There’ll be a significant financial incentive.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

      She snapped the shears twice in response.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      ‘Thirty grand.’

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

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

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

      She bet she’d be the first.

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

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

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

      * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

      ‘Don’t.’

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

      ‘Gram, please, you’re scaring me—’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Gram dragged in a breath and let it out slowly. ‘Your grandfather