While her tea steeped, she found a sketch pad on her kitchen table and opened it to a fresh page. She thought back to Callum’s house and his multiple balconies and his empty gardens and began to sketch and plan.
Ava loved her job and she was proud of it, in an upside down rebellious way. Unlike some of the people she did landscaping jobs for, she actually worked for a living. She wasn’t a professional wife or a trust fund kid who dabbled in environmental or charity projects in his or her spare time. She got down and dirty in the dirt. She lugged plants and shovels and a nail gun and bags of fertiliser and created little idylls and oases in this teaming city of nearly five million people. By the time she’d worked her magic, her gardens were far better therapy for her clients than consulting a shrink, she’d always thought. Give a stressed-out executive a place to breathe and relax and they could save a fortune on medical bills and expensive yoga retreats.
She’d studied landscape architecture at university, but her love for landscaping was nurtured in her parents’ vegetable garden. She had always loved the little miracles of gardening: the tomatoes and cucumbers that were a summer staple, and the metres of vine that produced pumpkins and beans and zucchinis. She’d loved digging the dirt over and discovering earth worms, a vindication of the health of the soil she’d planted out. She’d never lost that love for the earth. She’d been lucky enough to turn her passion into a career, and for a decade after university she’d worked for a major commercial landscaping firm and had learnt more than she had ever thought possible.
She took all the experience she’d garnered and turned it into her own business a couple of years ago. She wanted to be her own boss. She needed to do jobs of the heart rather than big commercial designs. And, most importantly, she needed to get her hands dirty again. She didn’t have a garden of her own in her Bondi flat. While she would have loved a place with more than a few potted herbs on her kitchen windowsill, it was all she could afford right now. A single person in Sydney’s real estate market was lucky to have a windowsill.
‘One day,’ she said quietly as she sipped her tea. ‘One day.’
In her dreams.
Chapter Six
‡
‘Thanks for coming.’ Callum closed the door of his office, high above Sydney on the forty-eighth floor of a gleaming office tower, as Chris and Cooper strode in, completely ignoring the expansive views across the Harbour. Without a word, they took up positions on one of a pair of leather sofas, which faced each other across a mahogany coffee table. Sitting at each end, they shared the same expression: unsmiling and sombre.
Callum took a moment to reflect on how they’d got to this point in their lives. Neither of his brothers had felt the tug of duty or responsibility. It was always assumed that Chris, as the oldest, would move effortlessly into the company, but he’d left the country after a falling out with their father, and for a decade had travelled the world, photographing international trouble spots, before coming home a year ago and staying here—once he’d fallen in love with Ellie. As for Cooper, he lived in California now, when he wasn’t roaming the world’s beaches as a surfing legend. What started off as an obsession on Sydney’s Maroubra beach two decades ago had become an international career, with championships, titles, endorsements and fame.
And there was Callum. He’d always been the serious son, the studious one. As soon as he finished his university studies, he’d joined the family firm and learnt all about the business from his father. He’d never left Sydney and, for his sins, was now Chief Executive of Malone Enterprises, in charge of its multi-billion dollar investments and its thousands of employees. Even though he’d officially been running the business for a few years, ever since his father had semi-retired, he felt the burden of it now more than he ever had when their father was alive.
Callum reached for a file full of papers from his desk and strode across the room, making himself comfortable on the sofa opposite his brothers. He laid the papers out on the coffee table and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. He glanced up from the document he’d spent hours studying before his brothers had arrived. ‘If you feel like a beer, there’s some in the bar fridge.’
Chris shook his head. ‘Not for me. I’m staying dry in case Ellie goes into labour. Speaking of which, can we get this done? She had a bad night and some pains this morning, and man …’ he checked his watch. ‘This could all be happening sooner than we thought.’
Callum observed his brother. He looked shit-scared and that was something for a man who’d been shot at by the Taliban while on assignment in Afghanistan.