If you’re single you harbour hopes that a secret admirer will finally declare his undying love while trying not to turn a pale shade of green as your BFF’s partner lavishes her with gifts and flowers.

For confirmed romance cynics like Lucy and Cash, Valentine’s Day can be summed up in a few words: over-commercialised claptrap for gullible fools!

So what happens when these two cynics must fake a relationship for a week in the lead-up to the big day?

Will true love win over the most hardened hearts?

I had so much fun having Lucy and Cash deal with a variety of romantic situations designed to taunt and challenge.

The outcome?

This confirmed romantic is not telling.

You’ll need to read the book to find out!

Happy reading!

Nicola

www.nicolamarsh.com

Romance

for Cynics

Nicola Marsh

www.millsandboon.co.uk

NICOLA MARSH

has always had a passion for writing and reading. As a youngster she devoured books when she should have been sleeping, and later kept a diary whose contents could be an epic in itself!

These days, when she’s not enjoying life with her husband and sons in her home city of Melbourne, she’s at her computer, creating the romances she loves in her dream job.

Visit Nicola’s website at www.nicolamarsh.com for the latest news of her books.

This and other titles by Nicola Marsh are available in eBook format at www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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This one is for my dedicated readers and fellow romantics who believe true love will always triumph.

May all your happily-ever-afters be a heartbeat away.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Excerpt

ONE

‘This is a screw-up of monumental proportions.’ Cashel Burgess flung the daily newspaper on his desk and glared at the offending print.

Maybe if he stared at it hard enough this whole damn mess would disappear.

As if.

‘That’ll teach you for dating beautiful bimbos.’ Barton Clegg, an old college buddy who had the power to get him out of this godforsaken mess, pointed at the picture in the paper. ‘She’s a stunner all right, but Cash?’ Barton made a gesture resembling grabbing him by the balls and twisting. ‘She’s got you by these, mate.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ Cash pushed away from his desk, stood and resumed pacing, something he’d been doing way too much of since he’d learned the starlet he’d given financial advice to over a long lunch was concocting some twisted version of what had happened between the veal scaloppini and tiramisu.

‘Why did you call me over?’

‘Damage control.’ Cash stopped pacing and stabbed a finger at the paper. ‘You know I lost a packet when that overseas bank went under. And now this. If I lose clients over some slighted woman’s concocted BS...’ Cash shook his head. ‘The PR firm you work for is the best in the business. I need you to boost my profile to overshadow this crap.’

He turned the newspaper over before he did something crazy. Like stab a letter opener through the woman’s heart.

Bart shook his head. ‘We’re not taking on new clients at the moment, you know that.’

Cash frowned and stared down his soon-to-be former best friend. ‘You owe me after I got your ass out of trouble the night the dean bailed you up following that butt-out-the-back-window-of-the-uni-bus prank.’

Bart grinned like a goofball. ‘Those were the days.’

Cash rolled his eyes. ‘You’re a putz.’

‘A putz that’s going to get you out of a fix, apparently.’ Bart swivelled on the ergonomic chair. ‘I can put in a good word for you but it won’t do any good...’

A frown momentarily creased Bart’s brow before he snapped his fingers and leaped from the chair. ‘There is a way the firm can take you on. Guaranteed.’

Relieved he’d found a way out of this mess, Cash nodded. ‘Whatever it is, I’ll do it.’

A knowing grin spread across his friend’s face. ‘Sure?’

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Cash perched on the edge of his desk. ‘As you so delicately implied, that woman has my balls in a vice, so yeah, I’ll do anything.’

‘Fine. Then all you need to do is find yourself a girlfriend for a week.’

‘What the—?’

‘The firm’s running a massive fundraiser in the lead up to Valentine’s Day. A week-long love-in, where couples do a bunch of mushy stuff together, get filmed, soundbites get posted on the firm’s website and people vote for the most romantic couple.’ Bart’s smug grin widened. ‘You wanted positive PR. What could be better than raising a stack of cash for a good cause while being viewed by millions? Oh, and make sure your girlfriend is clean and wholesome, the opposite of your usual arm candy.’

Speechless, Cash gaped at his friend. ‘Are you freaking crazy? Where the hell do I find a girlfriend for a week?’

Bart waved away his concern. ‘Minor details.’ He strolled towards the massive French windows overlooking the sprawling lawn of Cash’s Williamstown mansion. ‘I’m sure you’ll figure something out.’

Cash’s fingers curled into fists. This couldn’t be happening. Bad enough he’d lost a bundle after following a bad investment tip from one of the best in the business, an old college mentor.

But having some scorned woman spreading gossip and innuendo about him because he’d knocked her back? That was something else. She was damaging his reputation in an industry where reputation was everything.

He gave financial advice to the stars. Australia’s elite actors and musicians came to him when they wanted to invest their money. And he’d built a considerable fortune from it.

He liked money. Liked the comfort derived from seeing cold, hard cash accumulate in the bank, providing security and reliability. Two things he’d never had growing up.

With the threat of his cash source drying up, Cash had turned to Bart. His mate’s solution sounded easy enough but he couldn’t exactly pull a girlfriend out of thin air.

Bart wolf-whistled. ‘Hey, what about her?’

‘Who?’

‘The hottie in the obscenely tight shorts.’

Cash crossed to the window, where Bart had his nosed pressed against the glass like a hormonal teenager.

‘Lucy? You’re kidding, right?’

Lucy Grant, his gardener, would be the last woman he’d ask to be his fake girlfriend for a week.

The woman despised him.

Not that she’d ever said or done anything overt, but she gave off an air of untouchability that made him want to ruffle her.

So he’d tried. Several times. Whenever they crossed paths, he’d flirt with her. Deliberately taunting, trying to get a rise out of her.

Nada.

Her hands-off aura intrigued him a little, but he hadn’t given her aloofness much thought. Except those odd times he’d been taking a business call and found himself at this very window, copping a very nice eyeful of firm ass, long legs and B-cups in a tight tank top.

Watching Lucy stride as she mowed his lawn or bend over as she clipped hedges made working from home that much more pleasurable.

In fact, he timed his rare workdays from home with her fortnightly gardening visits. Maybe she’d crack one of these days and give him a smile? Doubtful, considering the death glare she’d shot him this morning when they’d crossed paths on the back patio.

‘Why not?’ Bart peeled his nose away from the window with reluctance. ‘The firm only has room for one more couple and they’re closing applications today.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘I put in a good word for you and you’re in. Guaranteed.’

‘You’re nuts,’ Cash said, his gaze unwittingly drifting to where Lucy stood near the front gate, pruning with her usual efficiency.

For all he knew, Lucy had a hubby and a string of dirt-smudged rug-rats at home. Though she didn’t wear a ring...not that it meant anything. Probably took it off for safety reasons while working.

Cash shook his head. ‘I don’t know the woman.’

‘No time like the present to get to know her.’ Bart glanced at his watch. ‘I need to head back to the office and I need your answer now. You in?’

Tension knotted the muscles in Cash’s neck. The last thing he felt like doing was parade around for seven days acting like a lovestruck fool.

But his business was everything. He’d worked too long and too hard to let it suffer because of circumstances beyond his control.

He’d approached Bart because he needed positive PR. But Valentine’s Day? Seriously?

‘Three...two...one...’ Bart made a buzzing sound and Cash nodded.

‘Fine. I’ll do it.’

Bart smirked as he shrugged into his suit jacket. ‘So who’s the lucky lady going to be?’

‘Leave that to me,’ Cash said, mentally scrolling through his list of female friends and coming up empty.

Half of them he’d dated and would never go there again. The other half wanted more and would see this week of lovey-dovey crap as a full-blown declaration.

Uh-uh. He needed someone without any romantic illusions.

Someone without any view to the future.

Someone without cunning, ulterior motives or the urge to shackle him to a ball and chain.

As he walked Bart out and Lucy acknowledged him with a curt nod, he knew.

He needed someone like Lucy.

* * *

‘Damn it.’ Lucy’s pruning shears slipped and she hacked off a chunk of ivy leaf violet when Cash appeared at the front door.

The guy had that effect on her. The ability to raise her hackles and make her want to chop something off—not of the flora variety.

Not his fault entirely, that she had a healthy disregard for millionaires in slick suits. It was a personal aversion, one she’d honed to a fine art nine years ago.

And Cash seemed more charming than most, with his ready smile and quick wit. But that was what put her on guard: his ability to flirt without trying, his easy-going approach when she knew it would be a practiced façade presented to the world.

Go-getters like him wouldn’t get anywhere if they were that laid-back all the time. And she knew enough about her number one client Cashel Burgess, courtesy of Google, to assume he would be a tiger in the boardroom.

Self-made millionaire by the time he was twenty-eight. High IQ, skipped a year at high school. Economics degree. MBA. Impressive jobs at elite actuary firms before opening his own financial advisory business to the stars.

He moved in A-list circles, often gracing the social pages and gossip columns in Melbourne media. Par for the course, considering he always had a busty blonde actress on his arm. She half expected to see the entire female cast of Melbourne’s top-rating soap opera stroll out of his house the mornings she worked here, but surprisingly she’d never seen a woman do the walk of shame out of his enviable mansion. Perhaps he spirited them away out the back.

No, she didn’t trust guys who behaved one way in public and another in private. Which was why she preferred ignoring him when they crossed paths every two weeks.

She knew her aloofness was why he deliberately went out of his way to seek her out. He saw her coolness as a challenge. She didn’t let it bother her. If anything, she notched her haughtiness up further. No way in hell would she ever let down her guard, because then she might have to face reality: that a small part of her was super attracted to the whole casually mussed brown hair, piercing blue eyes, chiselled jaw, dimpled smile thing he had going on.

Unfathomable. And wrong on so many levels, considering she’d vowed to never go for a suit again.

Must be her dating drought making her secretly lust after her boss. Maybe she should say yes the next time the guy at the hardware shop asked her out?

Cash’s visitor slid into a Porsche and backed out of the drive with a jaunty wave in her direction. She managed a terse nod in response and gripped the pruning shears, ready to resume work.

However, rather than heading back into the house, Cash started down the path towards her.

Crap.

They’d already done their usual him-flirt-her-avoid dance this morning so what did he want now? An encore?

She opened the shears then snapped them shut with a loud metallic clink that carried clear across the garden and she could’ve sworn she saw Cash falter, wince or both. Probably wishful thinking but she did it again for good measure.

‘Is that a warning?’ he said, eyeing the shears with a mix of wariness and amusement.

The corners of her mouth twitched against her better judgement. ‘No, but it could be if you keep hassling me while I’m trying to work.’

He smiled and the impact of those lips curving hit her somewhere in the vicinity of her solar plexus. ‘Why don’t you put the DIY castrating tool down so we can talk?’

This time, she couldn’t stop the laughter spilling from her lips. ‘About?’

‘Wow.’ He clutched his heart and staggered a little. ‘You’re gorgeous when you smile.’

‘And you’re full of it.’ She waved the shears in his direction. ‘What do you want?’

He flinched. ‘Not that.’

Damn, she loved sparring with a quick-witted guy. And if she were completely honest with herself, she missed it. Missed the fun of swapping banter with a guy who could fire back.

‘I’m busy—’

‘I really need to talk to you.’ His sincerity scared her as much as his overt flirting. ‘Would you like to come inside for a drink?’

‘No thanks.’ She shook her head. Bad enough bumping into him outside. No way would she set foot inside his place and risk pining for what she’d once had.

She’d put her past behind her a long time ago but she’d be lying if she didn’t admit there were times when she missed the luxury, the wealth, the glamour. ‘What’s up? Is it my work—?’

‘No, nothing like that.’ He huffed out a breath and for the first time since she’d started working for the tycoon six months ago via referral, he appeared uncertain and unsure. And damn, if that hint of vulnerability didn’t make him all the more appealing.

‘I have a problem I need your help with.’ A frown appeared between his brows. ‘Actually, it’s more than a problem. More like an impending catastrophe.’

Her curiosity was piqued. ‘Unless it has something to do with your jasmine wilting or your compost needing mulching, not sure what I can do to help.’

His frown eased as his mouth lost its pinched quirk. ‘This isn’t a gardening matter.’

‘Then I’m not sure what I can do—’

‘I need a fake girlfriend for a week and you’d be perfect.’

TWO

The shears slipped from Lucy’s hand and clattered to the path, thankfully missing her steel-capped boots, which had cost a small fortune.

She stared at Cash in disbelief. ‘You’re crazy—’

‘Just hear me out, okay?’ He held up his hands. Yeah, as if that would stop her from knocking some sense into him. Figured. The smart, gorgeous, funny ones were always certified lunatics.

‘My business is in danger of losing some major clients and I need a mega-positive PR injection.’ He pressed his temple, as if staving off a headache. She knew the feeling. ‘GR8 4U Public Relations is the best in Melbourne and they’re running a week-long fundraiser, which would be perfect for my business’s needs, but the catch is I need to be part of a couple.’ He nodded at her. ‘And that’s where you come in.’

She laughed, great hysterical peals she couldn’t stop once she started.

‘It’s not that funny,’ he said, eyeing her with a beguiling blend of wounded pride and little-boy-lost.

‘It’s freaking hilarious.’ She clutched her sides and huddled over a little, drawing in deep breaths to stop the giggles. ‘You’ve probably got a host of bimbos on speed dial and you think I should be your fake girlfriend?’

The chuckles started again and she would’ve had a hard time stopping them if Cash hadn’t placed a finger against her lips to quiet her.

As a silencing technique, it worked a treat. Because the moment he touched her, laughter was the furthest thing from her mind, considering she had to muster indignation or annoyance or something to stop from doing what she’d like to: kiss that finger.

She swatted his hand away and he continued. ‘All the women I know would be unsuitable. They want a commitment or a wedding ring. That’s why you’d be perfect.’

As she opened her mouth to argue he said, ‘You don’t like me.’

‘That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all day.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Believe me, if I had other options I’d take them but my business is everything to me and I can’t afford to lose it.’

‘With a place like this, surely you’ve got a few million or ten stashed away for a rainy day?’ She gestured at the house, a two-storey French Provincial style mansion sprawled across a double block on Williamstown’s foreshore, where real estate prices were sky-high. ‘Why don’t you dip into that?’

His lips compressed into a thin, angry line. ‘I need the positive PR more than the money.’

If this wasn’t about his business losing clients and money, there must be one hell of a good reason why he’d approached her, a woman he barely knew, to pose as his girlfriend for a week.

‘Why?’ She pinned him with the usual glare she reserved for their brief meetings. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

His gaze shifted to stare over her shoulder, focused on the intense blue of Port Phillip Bay on a perfect summer’s day. ‘I work with famous people whose egos are as big as the pay cheques they want me to invest for them. My reputation is everything. And if that’s tarnished in any way...’

She raised her eyebrows, encouraging him to continue. He shook his head and his pained expression almost made her feel sorry for him. Almost. ‘One of Melbourne’s hottest actresses didn’t take too kindly to my refusing her offer of...uh, side benefits to our business arrangement.’

The unexpected jab of jealousy took her by surprise, as did the begrudging respect. Not many red-blooded guys would turn down taking things further with the sort of woman she knew Cash did business with.

‘Anyway, she’s spreading rumours. Bad ones. And I can’t go on the record in the media without adding fuel to the fire and looking like a callous bastard, so I need to tackle this a different way.’

‘And you think having a fake girlfriend for a week will do the trick?’ She smothered her chuckle when he glared at her. ‘Seriously, I need to get back to work—’

‘There’ll be a significant financial incentive.’

And just like that, Lucy’s respect for the crazy yet gorgeous Cash plummeted. ‘You want to pay me to be your girlfriend?’

He puffed up as if she’d insulted him. ‘Well, there has to be something in it for you, right?’

His assessing gaze slid over her, leaving her skin prickling. ‘It’s not like you’d do it out of the goodness of your heart.’

She snapped her fingers. ‘That’s right, considering I don’t even like you.’

Sick of the distraction, and ultimate stuff-up of her time management for the day, she picked up the shears. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll find some other poor sucker—uh, I mean eternally grateful, simpering female to pander to your every whim for a week.’

He folded his arms, unimpressed by her flippancy. ‘So you won’t do it?’

She snapped the shears twice in response.

‘There’s nothing I can give you to sweeten the offer?’

She didn’t like the way her stomach fell at his smooth tone. ‘Nope. Not a thing. Not even if you promised to walk through Melbourne in a pair of my shorts, or gave me carte blanche to remodel this entire garden from start to finish.’

Actually, she could be tempted by that. Not the shorts thing. The garden. It was something she’d thought about often while doing the basic maintenance.

A garden like this deserved to be loved and made to shine. Mowing the lawn and keeping the hedges trimmed was a travesty, considering the underlying beauty.

How many times had she mentally planned a complete redesign? Loads, because she liked to daydream while she worked. Liked to envisage her landscaping business gaining notoriety so she could work on some of the city’s many beautiful gardens.

Ironic, that one of the things that mattered to her most these days—her job—was born from her disastrous marriage.

The sprawling garden surrounding Adrian’s Toorak mansion had been incredible. She’d spent many hours there, first entertaining, later losing herself in tending to it to block out the ever-increasing evidence that her husband was a lying, cheating scumbag.

She’d buried herself in books too, doing a horticultural science course to foster her love of all things green, and by the time the divorce had come through Lucy’s Landscaping had been a thriving business for a year.

She liked maintaining pristine gardens of the wealthy clients she’d once called friends. They trusted her and she ignored their pitying glances and overt condescension. Gardening paid the bills and made her happy. Nothing else mattered, apart from Gram, the woman who’d given her courage to leave Adrian in the first place.

Calculated interest sparked Cash’s eyes. ‘What if I said you could re-landscape the entire place?’

Damn her traitorous heart for leaping at the prospect. ‘Do you know how much that would set you back?’

His lips curved. ‘I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.’

‘Thirty grand.’

To his credit, he didn’t blink. Typical millionaire.

‘I need you as my girlfriend, Lucy,’ he said, taking a step closer. Too close. The scent of his spicy shower gel mingling with the nearby Daphne to make her swoon a little. ‘Please?’

With his big blue eyes fixed on her and that devastatingly sexy smile, Lucy wondered how many women had actually managed to say no to Cash Burgess.

She bet she’d be the first.

‘Sorry, can’t do it.’ She made a grand show of glancing at her watch. ‘And if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for an appointment.’

Before he could respond, she tucked the pruning shears into the tool belt around her waist and pushed the lawnmower towards her trailer as fast as her legs could carry her.

Because for one tension-fraught second, with that silent plea in his steady gaze, she’d almost said yes.

* * *

Lucy had barely kicked off her boots at her grandmother’s back door and entered the kitchen when she knew something was drastically wrong.

Gram baked every morning. If Lucy gardened to forget her husband, Gram baked to remember hers.

She supplied local cafés and schools and the local homeless shelter. Baking was Gram’s thing. So to enter the kitchen Lucy had grown up in to find Gram sitting motionless at the dining table with a stack of documents spread before her? As unforeseeable as Cash’s girlfriend-for-a-week proposal.

‘Gram, what’s wrong?’ Lucy pulled up a chair next to her grandmother and reached for her hand, its icy clamminess making foreboding slither through her.

Gram shook her head, the tears trickling down her cheeks as terrifying as her dazed stare fixed on the documents.

Lucy reached for the top one, surprised when Gram’s fingers clamped on her wrist and dug in with surprising strength.

‘Don’t.’

That one word held so much sorrow and pain and devastation, Lucy felt tears burn her eyes.

‘Gram, please, you’re scaring me—’

‘I could lose everything,’ Gram murmured, pushing the papers away so fast they scattered on the kitchen floor. ‘I loved your grandfather but by goodness he was a selfish bastard.’

Lucy stared, shock rendering her incapable of speech. Gram had adored Pops, who’d died twelve months ago. And in all the years they’d raised her, she’d never heard Gram utter one bad word about him.

Lucy had been amazed at how well Gram had handled his death, how pragmatic she’d been. And while she’d seen Gram shed tears at the funeral and afterwards, she’d never seen her look so fiercely angry or blatantly upset.

Lucy laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

Gram finally raised grief-stricken eyes to meet hers. ‘I could lose the house.’

Lucy heard the five words but couldn’t comprehend them. She’d lived most of her life in this house, since her parents had been killed in a car crash when she’d been a toddler.

This cosy cottage in Footscray, one of Melbourne’s working-class suburbs, had been filled with love and laughter and food. Her friends had flocked once news of Gram’s lamingtons and jam tarts and lemon slices had spread, and her grandparents enjoyed being surrounded by young people as much as she revelled in the attention of being smothered with love.

Gram had often told her the story of how Pops had surprised her with the house as a wedding present and Lucy loved the romance of it all. Probably why she’d fallen for her own version of Prince Charming, with Adrian whisking her to live in his palace after they’d married. Pity her prince turned into a toad. But Gram had lived here for almost fifty years. How could she lose the only home she’d ever known?

‘I don’t understand.’ In fact, Lucy didn’t understand much of what had happened today. Tears blurred Gram’s eyes again and she blinked several times before continuing. ‘I’d hoped to avoid telling you any of this, love, but I don’t know who else to turn to.’

Lucy gripped Gram’s hand tight. ‘You’re starting to really worry me, Gram. Tell me everything.’

Gram dragged in a breath and let it out slowly. ‘Your grandfather had a gambling addiction. I didn’t know ’til after he died and the debts started rolling in.’

For the second time in as many minutes, Lucy stared at Gram, dumbstruck.

‘I paid off most of them from our life savings and his small superannuation payout, but now this...’ She picked up the sole remaining document on the table. ‘Your grandfather remortgaged the house to the tune of fifty thousand dollars. And unless I can start making repayments...’

Gram ended on a sob that galvanised Lucy into action. She wrapped her arms around Gram and hung on for dear life, letting her own tears fall. Tears of betrayal, of sadness, of disappointment.

Pops had been her idol. The kind of man she wished Adrian had been like. Moral. Upstanding. Dependable.

To discover it was all a lie was almost as devastating as learning the truth about Adrian’s indiscretions.

When Gram’s sobs petered out, Lucy gently disengaged. ‘It’s okay, Gram, I’ll help.’

‘I’m not tak

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