Callum leaned his elbows on the table. ‘That’s true. We do.’
‘Which I totally understand, given … you know, who you are and everything.’
Callum drank some wine. Ava watched him.
‘We don’t let just anyone into our private places.’
‘Of course not. It must be hard to know who to trust.’
He thought for a moment and then his eyes gleamed with an idea. ‘Would you like to see it?’
‘Seriously?’ Ava’s heart thudded. ‘You would give me a tour of The Meadows?’
‘Yes.’ Callum lifted a glass and motioned for her to do the same. The crystal glasses tinkled together. ‘I’ll pick you up at ten tomorrow.’
Chapter Eight
‡
Everything about The Meadows was swoon worthy. The moment Ava stepped out of Callum’s car the next morning, she got tingles all over.
The driveway was a gently winding gravel trail with plane trees on either side forming a cooling canopy, leading to an imposing Georgian home that was totally hidden from the street, its stone wings a pale pink in the morning light. There was a topiary hedge lining the back verandah and a wisteria vine growing elegantly over the portico by the back entrance. Every part of it was proof of a wealth she had never imagined. The house surely had to be the size of four normal family homes. And the grounds? Who knew how expansive they were?
Ava’s flat shoes crunched the gravel underfoot and when Callum shut the car door behind her, the sound echoed in the courtyard. She barely took a step before she gazed around the property, trying to take it all in. There was a low stone wall running the length of the wing nearest to them and botanical perfection everywhere she looked. It made her heart sing. She rested her hands on top of her head to stop the top of it exploding.
‘This is so beautiful,’ she murmured. There was a cool, calm, peaceful quiet all around them, as if they’d driven through the gates and been transported into the lush countryside. She could understand why Callum had wanted to replicate his peaceful solitude out at the beach, having grown up somewhere as private as this.
‘Do you want to have a look inside first?’ Callum’s keys jangled in his hand.
‘No, not really.’ She smiled. ‘It’s the grounds I’ve come to see.’
‘Okay,’ he smiled warmly and with a sense of pride she hadn’t seen in his face when he’d shown her his beach house. ‘The gardens, then the house.’
To Ava, this was better than winning the lottery. She was here, free to roam, in one of the most exquisite private gardens in Australia, with carte blanche to go wherever she wanted. She toed off her shoes and stepped on to the perfectly mowed lawn, letting the grass tickle her feet. It felt like a luxurious carpet as she stepped across it, cool in the shadows of the huge plane trees.
Callum was so lucky to have grown up here, she thought, surrounded by spectacular gardens and this peace and solitude in the bustling city. She breathed in the air, so verdant and clean, and all the tension that had stiffened her shoulders and clenched her throat on the way there disappeared. She felt at home in the garden. Free and alive and part of it and renewed. It appeared to be perfect, as if an army of loyal manservants with tiny scissors had gone through there just hours before snipping every wayward blade of grass, collecting every dropped Jacaranda blossom from the carpet of the lawn and shushing every city noise but the bird song.
Ava crossed the green expanse, slowly, deliberately, trying to take in each leaf, each trunk, each shrub and blossom, and pulled her smartphone from her handbag. When she remembered where she was, and the privacy with which the Malone family did everything, she looked back at Callum, who’d stopped a little way behind her. When she realised he was watching her, his hands in his pockets, his eyes inscrutable behind his sunglasses, she tried not to let it mean anything.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ Ava showed him her phone.
‘Of course not,’ Callum replied and there was a little shake of his head and a smile on his lips that looked like peace and happiness and, oh, how it hit her like an arrow to the heart.
‘They’re only for me,’ she added. ‘So I can remember all this.’
‘Let me take one of you.’ When Callum strode towards her and took the phone from her hand, she tried not to notice the zap she felt where his fingers grazed hers. He aimed the phone at her, stepped back and she smiled and it felt big and warm and as natural as the gardens all around her. How could she not be happy here, in this place, with Callum?
Her handed the phone back to her, distractedly, without a word and while he continued to watch her, Ava took pictures of all that she could see, hoping to record this day so she could be forever inspired by its beauty. She turned a corner and right ahead of her, out of the canopy of the trees, a patch of lawn was lit by the warming sun as if it were a stage. She headed over, threw herself down on the grass, dug her heels into it, and turned her face to the warmth. She splayed her arms out above her head and just breathed.