Page 1 of Marrying the Gardener (The Bachelor Brothers #3)

?

Unexpected. But I’ll take it.

Kaleb

Ever since Crisis’s friend has been coming around the Bachelor estate, my vision’s run shockingly red .

Crimson Nightingale.

An heiress. An angel.

She is, by far, the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. And I’ve had more experience laying eyes on women than I tend to admit to given my particular past.

Sometimes, when Crimson visits my eldest brother’s fiancée, I see her long red waves catch the sun while she passes me working in the gardens near the main manor.

Taking her mercilessly out of my sight, her heels click—swift and steady—from her car, up the stairs, and into the home I’ve never quite come back to.

I can’t stop myself from watching her in the spare moments I’m allowed. She’s a candle. A blaze. A roaring fire.

And I’m a moth. Drawn effortlessly into the sphere of her gravity.

The sway of her body. The confidence in her pleasant smile. The warmth in her brown eyes.

On occasion, those beautiful eyes of hers take the sun prisoner and flash like gold. On occasion…I am helpless in her presence.

So it’s probably a good thing she doesn’t much acknowledge my existence.

According to Viktor, the Nightingales became business partners shortly after I left home at fifteen. At fifteen, I couldn’t take our parents’ abuse, their expectations, any of it anymore, so I stole all the cash in my mother’s purse and started walking.

I did not stop until I was several towns beyond Sunset, West Virginia. I did not stop until an older woman was pulling up to me in a sports car, smiling sharply, and saying, You’ll do .

My “work” began just weeks after I left home. Madame D’Clancy cleaned me up, put my gangly limbs in a suit, and had me waiting tables at her ladies’ club. Even now, I can call up the low-lights, the red lips, and the come hither smiles vividly. Those days linger in my skull like…home.

In the pit of a city, on the precipice of the illegal, I was treated more like a person when I was doubling as an object.

Thankfully, I was fifteen, so the more objectifying activities that the other male waiters offered weren’t on the table for me.

Because I was fifteen…and a minor…

For three years.

And then?

Then I wasn’t.

Then I was taller, and broader, and knew where the real money was.

So, with Madame D’Clancy’s blessing, I began escorting. Parties. Bars. Double dates. Lies. Just for funs . Comfort. Kisses. Nothing more. Never anything more.

Okay. Fine.

Sometimes more…

Once or twice, more .

But never as part of the price. Because, for starters, that’s illegal. And whether I felt more at home in the red light district than I did in my own childhood house or not, there’s a huge difference between selling my companionship and selling my body.

I just…

Honestly?

I’ve just really, really got a thing for redheads.

Always have.

And if Crimson stays in my future, I always will…

“Kaleb?” Vivia, the voluptuous beauty hanging on my arm tonight, is burdened with extravagant red curls…

and a crippling sense of loneliness. It happens, often, in social circles as high as hers.

Daddy’s Girls find themselves playing more with money than with people, so it leaves them with lots to spare in the way of purchasing my company for events.

Feeling alone in a crowd, after all, isn’t only for the middle class. And never knowing if someone likes you or your political status makes it that much worse.

Setting a lovely twining lock of red back, I murmur, “Yes, beautiful?”

She brightens—seen, heard, not quite as alone anymore.

“Can we…get out of here? Maybe?” Her lashes—red—flutter, and visions of what she’s suggesting bombard me.

It’s almost midnight. She’s bought my company at this summer soirée until midnight.

I could, so easily, nip at her ear, whisper that fact, and explain how I don’t do what she’s suggesting while on the clock .

Then I could kiss her cheek and ask her to wait just a few more minutes…

But.

I won’t.

Because the seductive sway of Crimson’s hair isn’t the only thing in my brain.

She’s infected my blood vessels with everything she is, everything she does, every second I’ve ever been blessed with a glimpse of her.

I’m addicted to the way she drives her car up to the home I returned to seven years ago, when my parents died and Viktor brought me back.

I’m stuck on the way she tosses her thick red waves as she exits her vehicle.

I’m entranced by the way her smile plays on her lips as she takes to the front steps in her high, high heels, which do marvelous things to her long, long legs.

She’s freckled. Just…everywhere.

Her face. Her shoulders. Her ankles. The tops of her often-bared feet.

If I’m perfectly honest with myself, I’m not interested in going any further with my work contracts unless by some miracle they’d involve finding more of the freckles on specifically Crimson’s skin.

“Sorry, beautiful,” I say, gently. “I’m not legally allowed to include those services.”

Her eyes sadden, and she strokes a nail down my tie. “It’s almost midnight.” She kisses the corner of my mouth. “I’ll make it worth your time. You can even pretend you’re paying me.”

What an odd thing to say.

I have four brothers, a new sister-in-law, and another on the way. Company is the last thing I need to pay for. The only thing my lousy parents did right was giving me built-in friends, whose care transcends years apart.

After seven years —after I bailed on our family—Viktor still made finding me his first priority the moment it was safe for me to come home.

He has never blamed me for leaving. He has never made me feel like less than a brother.

I’m indebted to him for loving me. Still.

After everything. I am indebted to him for giving me back a home that, while so deeply shadowed, is safe and mine and blossoming more and more each day.

So. I work. Like this. When I can. It’s not the millions the rest of my brothers make, but it is, every once in a while, at least a little something to cover my room and board—as well as my gardening hobby.

I have a place to go back to that is warm and kind. I don’t need to try and find that warmth in other ways anymore.

“Sorry,” I tell Vivia. “It’s almost time for me to go. Do you want to stay here, or should I walk you to your car?”

Pitiful, she accepts the walk, tries to coax me into her passenger seat, then finally leaves me on the outskirts of a mansion still gleaming with nightlife, chatter, and music.

Sighing, I face the building. It’s small compared to my home, but nothing quite lives up to the excellence of the Bachelor estate.

And certainly nothing compares to the gardens I’ve filled with flowers, ivies, and topiaries.

When I’m home, I’m outside.

It’s where the guilt and the worst memories don’t quite reach.

It’s where I can trick myself into feeling useful. As though tending the grounds is penitence for bailing on the only people in this world who have loved me unconditionally.

Maybe my persistent tendency to set myself apart from the rest of my family is why when Crimson Nightingale’s voice reaches me in the driveway outside this mansion, she says, “Sir? Aren’t you the Bachelors’ gardener?”

A shock goes down my spine, and I think I’m hallucinating a moment before I turn to find Crimson stepping out of her sleek red sports car.

Her head tilts, causing the cascade of her hair to brush the bared freckles on one shoulder. She’s garbed in a sleeveless evening gown that ripples around her ankles. A frail strap holds the white fabric around her neck, leaving nothing of mystery where the constellations gracing it are concerned.

Calculation glitters like the gold in her deep brown eyes. “What were you doing with Vivia, a town over, this late at night?”

I could say it’s none of her business. I could arch a brow and wait until she realizes that fact herself. But, instead, I confess the truth, because the first thing I say to the woman I have a crush on might as well be: “I moonlight as an escort.”

It makes sense that the world doesn’t realize I’m a Bachelor brother.

My parents erased me years ago, claiming only four sons.

Due to all the time I spend outside, I’m darker skinned than the rest of my brothers, some of whom are indistinguishable from paper.

Viktor, Lukas, and I all take after our father, but the resemblance isn’t strong.

Despite my build being similar to Viktor’s, I did not go the way of the scruff, and no one would compare me to the tank that is Lukas.

My shoulders might be broad, but I’m a long way off from being jacked.

All that said, who would really think any dark-haired guy around the famous Bachelors is related to the four brother celebrities that show up in the news every other week?

My eldest brother’s fiancée’s best friend, that’s who.

Yet it seems the fact of our blood relation has fallen through the cracks.

I guess that’s how little my name comes up in front of Crimson.

Maybe she doesn’t even know what it is.

Maybe, to her, I’m just a gardener.

It’s painful to think how little I cross this woman’s mind when she’s all that consumes my thoughts morning, noon, and night.

“You moonlight as an escort?” she asks, tone unreadable.

“Yes, Ms. Nightingale,” I say, opting fully for I’m a gardener, your highness .

Stepping toward her, I try not to let my breath catch as I curl a finger in a waving lock of her hair, draw it to my lips, and kiss.

Flicking my eyes up to meet hers, I murmur against the silk, “Do you require my services? You’re arriving awfully late to this shindig.

And all alone, too… I could help with that, if you’d like. ”

She doesn’t flinch, probably because I’m not a threat. I’ve, on occasion, seen this woman babysit the disaster that is Crisis. Things tend to blow up around my brother’s fiancée, but Crimson, somehow magically, disarms the bombs.

She’s quick witted, athletic, perfect . She could disembowel me in an instant with her keys if she so desired.

And I’d probably enjoy it.

“I’m late,” she informs me, regal as royalty, “because I didn’t want to come. Assuming your job is done now that Vivia’s driven off, are you leaving?”

“I was planning on it. I just need to call a cab.” I roll the shining strands of her hair between my fingers, mesmerized. “I won’t if you buy me, though.”

“How much?”

My heart chokes at the mere possibility Crimson Nightingale would be interested in me, but I contain myself and relinquish the beautiful silk of her hair instead of doing something embarrassing.

Like begging on my knees in a parking lot for her to be serious.

“What are you looking for? Companionship at a party you aren’t interested in?

Or to get out of here? Because—” My voice lowers, growing with a need that bridges on desperation.

“—I’m not allowed to charge for that…but for you, darling? I’d plead.”

Her soft laugh engulfs me as it leaves her heart-shaped lips.

While I’m bracing myself for rejection, Crimson Nightingale turns on her heel and says, “Let’s get out of here.”

So—heart hammering frantically—I see myself to the passenger seat of her car.