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He’d left her alone so she could study without distraction.

He’d found out everything he could about her.

He knew she had a stepfather and a younger stepbrother living in a house her mother had bought with cash twenty-five years ago. He knew from Gert that Ari wasn’t welcome in her childhood home any more and that whenever she returned to Barcoo, the small Outback town she’d grown up in, she stayed with Gert.

No known father, dead mother, and yet somehow Ari had clung to the notion that if she worked and studied hard enough, she could make her own way.

Stubborn, resilient, driven, independent. She’d resisted his money, his gratitude, and made light of his kisses. She didn’t want his help, even though it would give her a leg-up when it came to realising her dreams and securing financial independence. She didn’t trust other people not to take away everything she’d strived for—he thought that might be one of the reasons she’d pushed him away, but when he pumped Gert for more information on Ari’s upbringing, the older woman would only say so much. Ari’s mother had married a bad ’un who’d chipped away at her confidence and self-respect until she was a shell of the woman she’d once been. Ari had copped the lash of her stepfather’s belt and had the internal and external scars to prove it. Love had been scarce and trust non-existent. Gert had warned him against hurting Ari and he’d promised he wouldn’t.

He wanted to make her life’s journey easier.

Playboy, the media called him. Younger brother to dangerous, brooding, ex-con billionaire Judah Blake. Second son of a titled aristocrat—the feckless, charming spare, and once upon a time he’d done his very best to live up to that reputation.

He was the one who’d laughed and splashed his cash while beautiful women smiled prettily.

He was the one who’d wryly introduced those same women to unmarried billionaires and barons who were higher up the food chain than him. He’d crossed them off his maybe list as he’d watched them make their plays.

He’d met Jenna and thought she might be different. She hadn’t wanted his money, she’d wanted his might, his reputation, his goals to align with hers, and when they hadn’t she’d set out to destroy him.

He’d become even more jaded about relationships after that. He rarely trusted others to do right by him.

But this woman... Ari.

Maybe he could trust this one and in doing so get her to trust him. They already had a solid foundation—forged in a dust storm in a tent.

‘I got your landscape plans for the eco lodges,’ he said as she came to a halt in front of him. He would have searched her eyes for any sign of welcome if his eyesight had allowed for it, but she wasn’t close enough for that and broad brushstrokes were all he had to work with. ‘You added water.’

‘I did.’

‘It’ll bring the wildlife and scare city people stupid.’

There was a smile, even if it happened to be a small one. ‘You said the lodges were for scientists and ecologists. Surely they’ll cope.’

‘You’d think. Experience suggests otherwise.’

‘Then don’t use the plans.’

‘I was thinking more along the lines of revise and resubmit.’ She was in a mood and he couldn’t tell if he was the reason for it, showing up like this uninvited. But he was an excellent mood-booster, and if that was to be his role this evening so be it.

When he’d been younger, he’d often had to coax his sister-in-law, Bridie, out of her house. And Gert could be curt, but Reid had always been able to get her laughing.

‘How did your exam go?’ he asked. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe she needed to unload, in which case he could lend an ear.

She shrugged, and her perfect mouth turned down. ‘Terrible.’

Okay. ‘Care to share?’

‘I really don’t want to talk about it.’

There went his opportunity to showcase his masterful listening skills.

‘So what do you want to do this evening? Because I’m here to make it happen.’

It wasn’t as if silver-spoon billionaire Reid, with his genius IQ and revolutionary engine designs, would have any experience with failure. And even if she was underestimating his imagination, she still didn’t want to talk about her exam. ‘You came.’

‘I said I would. I’m a man of my word.’

Also way too easy on the eye, in his moleskin trousers and polished leather boots. He wore a collared chambray shirt, frayed at the neck, with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. He wore his battered Akubra hat with the arrogance of long familiarity. He knew who he was.