Worth Every Risk (Hawkston Billionaires #3)

1. ARIES

1

ARIES

I n the back of the black cab, racing through the streets of London’s most exclusive postcodes, I take out the note Mum gave me when I left last night. At the top, in handwriting that’s more spindly than it used to be, she’s written Aries’ London To Do List. It’s a very short list, and I’ve already read it about a thousand times.

1. Live

2. Dream

3. Live the Dream

4. Fall in love

I roll my eyes at the last one and scrunch up the piece of paper, clutching it in a tight fist. I’d throw it away—I’m here to work, after all, not fall in love—but one day, much sooner than I’d like, Mum’ll no longer be here, and I’ll want to keep every scrap of paper she ever wrote on. If I throw this away, I’ll have recurring nightmares about it. I flatten the crumpled paper against my thigh, fold it up neatly like the treasure it is, and slide it back into my wallet.

The taxi rolls to a stop outside a huge white Palladian mansion that’s set back from the street beyond a set of intimidating cast-iron gates. Holy hell, it’s a palace . I jump out before I lose my nerve. The driver opens the boot and lifts out my enormous suitcase, setting it next to me on the pavement. He nods at the monolith. "You’ll be all right to get it up to the house?"

I can’t tell if his concern is on account of the size of my case, which is so big I could probably fit inside it if I curled up really small, or the fact that I’ve directed him to a building that’s so unlikely a destination for an ordinary girl like me it might as well be Buckingham Palace. From the way his wary gaze keeps darting to the mansion, I suspect it’s the latter, which is doing nothing to settle my nerves.

“I’ll be all right.” I keep my voice light and friendly as I check the back pocket of my jeans with a light tap. Yes , the piece of paper with the housekeeper’s number is still there.

Once the cab driver is gone, the nerves I’ve been striving to control bubble in my stomach like a pot of boiling water that could overflow at any moment.

Deep breath. You can handle this.

But— shit —the house is bigger than any I’ve ever been inside, other than those National Trust properties Mum used to take me to visit when I was younger. I didn’t realise people lived in houses this big in central London. No wonder Mr and Mrs Hawkston were offering such an enormous salary for a nannying job. It was much more than any other role I looked at.

I take another deep, fortifying breath, and drag my suitcase up to the pedestrian gate, which is just as solid and intimidating as the one meant for cars. There’s a large post box and a sign in aggressive capital letters that reads NO JUNK MAIL, and another that says BEWARE OF THE DOG.

I press the buzzer and wait, aware that I’m in the sights of the camera. I feel a little self-conscious. Is anyone watching me?

No one answers. I check my watch. It’s just before midday on Saturday. I’m a bit early, but not much. The housekeeper, Mrs Minter, expressly said she would be in to show me around and help me settle in.

I pull the piece of paper with her number from my pocket and dial it on my phone. It rings out. I dial again, just to double-check I have entered the right number. Same result.

I try to stave off the panicked thoughts that rise up. What if she changed her mind? What if they don’t need a nanny anymore? What if it’s me they don’t want?

I peer through the gate. A man wearing noise-cancelling headphones is pushing a lawn mower over the grass. He’s so large that the machine looks like a toy in his hands. A pair of worn jeans hang from his hips, revealing the waistband of his boxer shorts. A plaid shirt hangs open over a broad chest, and beneath it, a white t-shirt hugs his pecs.

Thick dark hair arches off his forehead, plastered back with what I assume is sweat. It’s a sweltering June day, which I hear is unusual even down south. Up where I’m from, on the west coast of Scotland, it’s unheard of. This man is wearing far too many clothes for the weather, and as if he realises it at the same moment I do, he stops what he’s doing and peels his shirt off, tossing it onto the driveway.

I can’t take my eyes off him, because what I had assumed was a t-shirt is actually a tank top, and this man is ridiculously ripped, like he should be chopping wood in a forest with his bare hands, not mowing a lawn in West London. What does he do in his spare time? Nope, don’t go there.

If I’m going to keep this job, as the nanny to Mr Hawkston’s four-year-old daughter (and I really want to, because that little girl, Lucie, was adorable when we spoke on the video call), then I can’t be hitting on the gardener. But I’m not made of stone; the man is gorgeous. He might be the best-looking man in the whole world, or at least in my world.

Hope flurries in my belly, scattering my nerves. Not only am I going to be working alongside an absolute specimen of a man, but if he’s on the other side of this gate, then the chances of me getting through it just skyrocketed.

I wave. “Hey. Hey there.”

He looks up, wipes his forearm across his forehead, and takes his headphones off.

A confused expression passes over his face and he glances back towards the house as if to check I’m not talking to someone else.

“Yes, you,” I yell, with another wave.

He stalks towards me but keeps his gaze on the ground. He does not look friendly; his glower alone is menacing but, paired with his large, muscular body, it’s all I can do not to turn and run. He raises one arm to push a lock of hair back off his forehead, making his bicep bulge even more.

When he reaches the gate, he drags his eyes up my body slowly, taking his time about it and glaring like I’ve interrupted him from something incredibly important. How important can cutting grass really be? Not that I want to dismiss his job or get in his way, but it’s not far to the gate; letting me inside will only take a minute, tops.

Whatever his problem is, I’d rather be on good terms with everyone I work with, so I flash him a big smile and offer him my hand, sticking it through the metal bars. "Hi there. I’m Aries. The new nanny."

He glances down at my hand, and for some unknown reason, I start waggling my fingers, like Thing from The Addams Family . Ugh. So uncool. His eyes flick up to mine, and there’s a ferocity in his gaze that makes me feel like I’ve just stuck my hand into the lion’s cage at the zoo. I want to yank my hand right back again. Instead, I grit my teeth and leave my hand dangling, fingers still waggling. I’m pretty sure I’ve lost control of them. Come on, Aries. Get your shit together. Just because this man is freakishly handsome, it’s no excuse for acting like an idiot.

He wipes his hand on the back of his jeans and clasps mine in his. It’s warm, slightly damp and calloused, like he works with them a lot. And it’s massive. My hand is completely swallowed by his. At least my fingers can’t move anymore.

I’m suddenly struck, full force, by the pure masculinity of the man before me, and any concern about my fingers, other than the fact he’s touching them , ceases to matter. It’s like he’s emanating pheromones. They’re in his sweat and pooling out in the air between us, causing heat to rush my body.

“Aries,” he repeats, dropping my hand.

Is that a question? People normally think my name is odd, but the blank expression on his face is unnerving. By now, I’d have expected some sort of human reaction. A greeting. A smile. But this guy's giving me nothing. Maybe if I opened up his chest, I would find only grinding metal and computer circuits. And a dash of hot pheromones to fool us into believing he’s real .

His face is a bit perfect. Maybe I’m not far off the mark with this robot idea.

“Like the Zodiac sign,” I offer, hoping he might latch onto this tidbit and start making conversation.

Fat chance .

He blinks at me. “Right,” he says slowly, and for some reason, it feels like a response to me rather than my name. As though I’m the oddity. “You look young. How did you get the job?”

I frown. Why is he asking? Is it any of his business? My thoughts are a swirling mess—I’m too befuddled by his face—but one thought wins out. What if all the previous nannies have been older, and when Mr and Mrs Hawkston see me, they won’t want me because I look too young? My stomach clenches, but somehow I manage to sound calm when I say, “Same way most people do. I applied. I had a couple of video interviews with Mrs Minter. She said Mrs Hawkston wasn’t available, so she took the interview.”

He stares for a moment. “How old are you?” Oh, God. Really? I must be the youngest nanny they’ve ever had. I need to lighten the mood before I start panicking about being under thirty.

“Didn’t anyone tell you it’s rude to ask a woman her age?” My tone is teasing, but not even a glimmer of a smile cracks through his veneer. Awkward silence descends, and beneath his stony gaze that shows no sign of shifting, I blurt the answer. “I’m twenty-six, but my mum had me covered in SPF50 as soon as I popped out of the womb. Fair skin, you know.”

I thrust my arm further through the bars, clenching my fist and brandishing my pasty, freckled forearm so he can see it. His eyebrow shoots up, his lips curving in distaste. Safe to say my appreciation for this man is not reciprocated, but the pure disgust he’s displaying is unwarranted.

“All right, Mister,” I begin, my voice hovering somewhere between annoyed and jocular. “Just because your forearms are perfect and tanned from all this outdoor work you’re doing, it doesn’t excuse that repulsed expression on your face.”

He looks even more perturbed after my outburst, and I feel a flash of guilt at having taunted him. He clearly can’t take a joke. His arms hang at his sides, but he flexes his fingers, causing the muscles and tendons in his forearms to stand out in perfect formation. I want to touch them.

I retract my hand, just in case it does something crazy like lurch further through the gate in an attempt to do exactly that. “Do you think you could let me in?”

He grunts and presses a button on his side of the gate, releasing the lock with a mechanical clink so he can open it.

“Thanks,” I mutter, fixing my handbag tightly over my shoulder and dragging my huge suitcase up the garden path. I expect him to follow me so he can get on with his mowing, but I don’t hear him move.

I glance back to find him staring at me with a really strange look on his face. It’s as if he’s never seen a woman before, and I’m wondering why a guy who looks like that— tall, muscular, and with a face that strikes a perfect balance between beautiful and manly—would ever have cause to stare at a woman the way he’s looking at me. It’s like I’m an alien or something. After a beat too long, he lets the gate swing closed on its slow-release hinges and paces behind me.

I roll my suitcase up the path, heading towards the five stone steps that lead to a black front door with brasswork so highly polished it gleams like gold. The knocker is so clean that I don’t want to touch it.

First things first though. I have to get my enormous case up the steps.

Standing on the first step, I turn around to haul it behind me, only to find the gardener still staring at me. For someone who appeared so resentful to be disturbed from his work, he sure is taking his time to get back to it.

“Where are you going?” he asks, in a tone that suggests what I’m doing is not only wildly inappropriate, but certifiably insane. What is with this guy?

“What does it look like? I’m going inside. Mrs Minter is expecting me any minute now. I don’t want to make a bad impression.” He scowls and my nerves return in full force. If I can't charm the gardener, what hope do I have with the housekeeper? Or the rest of the family? Shit . My urge to babble takes hold, as it always does when I'm anxious. “I had no idea she lived in a house like this. Have you ever seen a house this big? I haven’t. Well, other than when we went to Dunrobbin Castle on a school trip. That was mega. Huge. Like a fairytale castle. But in cities, I didn’t think there were houses this big. Not really. Guess I never thought about it, actually." I gaze up at the house. “It’s really something, eh? I wasn’t expecting this.”

One of his thick eyebrows arches, a pale white scar running through it. Paired with his grumpy demeanor and unwavering stare, it makes him look a little sinister. Maybe this guy has a dark side . “What were you expecting?” To my surprise, it sounds as though he’s genuinely interested, which calms me a little.

I shrug. “Not sure. I didn’t think about it much.”

He stiffens slightly, then fixes me with those dark eyes that bristle with something I can’t read. “You didn’t Google your employer?”

“Nope. I’ve worked for several families and never googled them. I go by gut feel. You know… my intuition.” He frowns, looking like he doesn’t know what I mean at all, or at least doesn’t approve of it, but I refuse to be put off. “Mrs Minter gave me all the info I needed. I liked her. Lucie I particularly liked. What a sweet kid. The cutest smile. She kept kissing the screen when we spoke online.” I can’t help the broad grin that spreads over my face. I’ve always loved kids. “Apparently there’s a son too, Charlie, but he’s away at boarding school, so I don’t know what he’s like yet. Oh, and the pay! This was the best offer I’ve ever had. Do you reckon they know they’re paying well over the average wage?”

I smirk and wink, waiting for him to smile, or acknowledge that he too is being paid well above the average salary, but all he says is, “If they’re paying more, they’re expecting more.”

A wave of self-consciousness washes over me. Why can’t I keep my mouth shut? He’s probably thinking I’ll exploit the generosity of my new employer by doing the bare minimum, and I can’t let that stand . “I’m going to work hard. I’m very good at my job, even if I do look young. I’ll be worth every penny they pay me.”

He draws back slightly. “Okay.”

When it’s clear he has nothing more to say on the matter, I turn my attention back to trying to heave my suitcase up to the next step, but under his judgmental gaze, I’m getting stage fright. It takes a concerted effort to keep my voice casual when I glance at him and say, “Give a girl a hand?”

“Staff entrance is round the side.” He nods his head towards a path down the side of the house that I hadn’t noticed.

“Oh. Right.” I guess that explains the way he was looking at me earlier, but I can’t help feeling a touch annoyed that he didn’t tell me before I began this lugging-the-biggest-case-in-the-world-up-the-steps endeavour. I blow out a breath and begin the process of getting my bag back down.

The gardener makes a move, quick and nimble, grabbing the case from me. “I’ll take it.”

“Thank you. That’s so kind.” Finally . Maybe he can be a gentleman, after all.

He huffs, shunts the retractable handle down and picks the bag up using the one on the side instead. The enormous case shifts orientation in one smooth movement. If I had tried that, it would have pulled me right to the floor along with it.

He strides past me up the steps to the front door.

“Wait, don’t we go in the side? You just said that’s the staff entrance.”

He stops and glances over his shoulder at me. "I don’t have the keys to the side door.”

Before I have a moment to query him, he’s off again, and I get the most glorious view of his arse in his jeans as he takes the steps ahead of me. There’s tight muscle in there that begs to be squeezed. His thighs, too, are dense. I can see the shape of his quads through the denim.

Just as I’m thinking how much I’m going to appreciate working here for the next few months—even if the guy is laconic, at least he’s good to look at—he reaches the top step and taps the suitcase down.

There’s a faint clicking noise and my stomach plunges. Oh, shit. The latches fly open and one side falls open, spilling the contents down the pristine stone steps. Balled up socks roll like boulders in a rock-slide onto the path, while the top step is splattered with my underwear and clothes. The gardener stares at the mess with a repulsed look on his face, as though I’ve vomited at his feet.

Thank goodness I put my dildo in the zip pocket.

“Ah!” I scoop up the runaway socks and scamper up the stairs, gathering items as I go. “Shit, sorry. It’s so old, this case. It does that sometimes if you set it down sideways. I should have mentioned it.”

My arms are bulging with clothes, but I can’t get them all, and I really don’t want this man seeing all my crappy, washed-out grey underwear. I should have bought some new stuff, but I figured I’d wait until after my first paycheck. Now, I’m wishing I’d planned in advance.

Oh, holy hell , he’s bending down, picking up my clothes. Helping me. His large hand hovers over a pile of faded knickers, his eyes widening a fraction as he realises what he’s about to grab. I freeze too, and for a few panicked moments everything moves in slow motion until his hand shifts over to a safer pile of t-shirts, and I sweep up the underwear and stuff it deep in the bag.

“You should get a new suitcase,” he says. “What if this happened on the flight?”

God, this guy is a real energy drain . But boy, does he have one luscious voice. It’s like melted chocolate dribbled all over a naked body. Yummy and hot.

“I didn’t take a flight.” My Scottish accent sounds even stronger compared to this gorgeous man’s dulcet English one. “I took the train from Edinburgh. The scenery is better.”

“Hmm.” He busies himself with stuffing clothes back in my bag, and we do that together until everything’s back in.

He lets me click the suitcase shut.

“Thanks,” I say.

“You’re welcome.”

My heart does a funny pitter-patter. Wow . How does he make ‘you’re welcome’ sound like a pickup line? If he didn’t look so grumpy, and his energy wasn’t so uninviting, I’d say he was doing it deliberately. But I suspect it’s accidental. The man is so sexy he’s doing it without effort.

I turn to him, one hand on my hip. “You could be one of those audiobook narrators, you know. You have a voice I could listen to all day. In fact, you should talk more. Waste of a great voice if you don’t.”

The front door clicks and he shunts it open with his shoulder as he heaves my bag inside. I glance around, wondering how he opened it. I didn’t hear a doorbell and there’s no one waiting inside for us. Must have been a keycode or something.

My breath catches at the sight of the inside of the house. The entrance hall is like a gymnasium, it’s so big. But with a marble floor, panelled walls, and modern art in sleek frames. A wide, carpeted staircase spirals up through the house, rising goodness knows how high.

“Audiobooks?” he repeats.

“Uh-huh. You have a voice so hot it could deep-fry a Mars Bar.”

He stares at me like I’m a dog that’s started talking. “You don’t know when to shut up, do you?”

Rude. But I refrain from objection because he has a point, and his comment is so close to sounding like a command— and this man giving orders would be sexy as hell —that a nervous giggle slips out my mouth.

“I’ve been told that. It’s my thing. When I’m nervous, I get verbal diarrhoea. Doesn’t mean it’s not true though. That you have a really… great voice.” I nearly say sexy, but catch myself just in time. I don’t want to come on too hard; I’ve only just met the guy. “You’re also older than you looked from the street. When I saw you through the gate, I was thinking maybe you were thirty. But up close, I can see the lines around your eyes. And you have greys in your hair. Just over the ears. So I’d say…” I stop talking, aware his expression is narrow and there’s something close to disgust in his gaze. Crap. I’ve just analysed his face out loud, which is so much worse than him asking me how old I am.

“Go on…” he says, and I sense he wants to hear what else I have to say as much as he doesn’t.

“I don’t know. Sorry. I’m being really rude. I don’t even know you. Oh, wait…” There’s a pair of my knickers attached to his shoe. How did that happen? I don’t know how I missed them, or how the hell they got stuck there like a bit of loose toilet paper, but before I can question it, I dip to the ground and snatch them.

They don’t move. Shit . He’s got them pinned beneath his huge foot.

I tug them again. “Erm, excuse me…”

The toe of his boot shifts and my panties are free. I stand up to find him looking at me like I’m crazy, and in response, I flick them around my finger and stuff them in my back pocket. “My underwear. Sorry. I mean… not that it’s a big deal. You look like you’ve seen a lot of women’s underwear.”

I am talking absolute rubbish now.

He fixes those dark, humourless eyes on me. “You make a lot of assumptions.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I just say what I see. You’re a really handsome man. Like, freakishly so, actually. If all men around here look like you—”

“Kitchen’s downstairs,” he interrupts. “Mrs Minter will show you around when she gets back. Your room will be up on the top floor with Lucie, so you might as well leave the case here for now.”

“Oh. Okay.” I feel a little dejected at the way he cut me down, and I hold his gaze as I gather the courage to try and rectify the situation. “Look, I think maybe we’ve got off to a bad start. I’m getting the sense that you don’t like me much, and really I’m not that bad. I’m nervous. That’s it, mostly. Sort of. I mean, I like talking. Human beings are interesting, you know?”

“They are. Which is exactly why you should Google your employers in the future. It always pays to be prepared.”

“Right, okay. Will do. I mean, I prefer meeting in person than over a screen, but yeah. Maybe.” For want of something better to do, I stick my hand out to him again. I’m behaving like an idiot, but he doesn’t comment on it, and takes my hand, as if us shaking hands twice in the space of fifteen minutes isn’t really weird and awkward. “I’m glad we’ve met.”

He releases my hand and lets his arm fall to his side, flexing his fingers. “You are?”

“Yes. I don’t know anyone in London. This is the first time I’ve ever been here. I’m completely alone.” I force a smile, which is hard because admitting I’m alone in a huge city doesn't feel like a good thing. And for all I’m trying to break down this man’s exterior, he’s chock full of resistance. If he’d been even a tiny bit friendlier, maybe I wouldn’t have been so nervous, and then I wouldn’t have made such a fool of myself. By this point, what with my pasty forearms and waggling fingers, I’d have had a lesser man at least smirking by now, but I’m not even causing a chink.

I’ll give it one last shot. “I could really use a friend, and I can sense there’s a cool guy that’s worth getting to know underneath the big-burly-gardener-hunk thing you have going on.” I sweep my gaze over him, trying to get a decent read on him. On impulse, I reach out and tap his chest with my knuckle. “I reckon you’ve got a kind and caring soul under there somewhere.” This gains me no reaction other than the furrows between his brows deepening, so I snatch my hand back and change the subject. “Do you live here too?”

A hint of amusement sparks behind those dark eyes. I sense it more than see it, because his face remains stone cold. “Yes.”

“Great. Then we’ll definitely see one another. Do all the staff live in?”

“No. Not all.”

A tense beat of silence fills the large entrance hall.

“Okay, I’ll see you around then…” I leave my sentence hanging, waiting for him to add his name.

“Matt,” he says. “It’s Matt.”

“You can call me Aries. Matt and Aries. That’s nice. Not really the same type of name though, is it? Matt is very ordinary. No offense. At least there’s an edge to Aries. You know, a conversation starter. Icebreaker. ‘Why are you called Aries?’ type thing.”

My babbling has reached epic levels; I blame Matt. I can’t even tell if I’m flustered because he’s so gorgeous, or embarrassed because the responses he’s given me are so minimal I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall. Either way, I’m making a fool of myself.

“I’m not going to ask,” he says, and for some reason, I feel like I’ve propositioned the guy and he’s slapped me away like a mosquito. Itchy heat spreads beneath my clothes.

“Right. Okay. Bye,” I mutter, feeling so awkward that I almost run in the direction of the stairs that lead to the basement. But, despite our bizarre first encounter, I’m already plotting how I’m going to break down the defences of the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.

Maybe this summer might be fun.