Page 47 of Rough Around the Hedges

“We all make mistakes.”

“Ouch. You wound me, Rose. Was it that bad?”

Thank God he couldn’t see my face right now. “The night? No. My decision making at the time? Yes. Now stop hounding me.” I pushed at his shoulder and turned around, heading back into my shed yet again.

“Okay.”

I paused and looked back over my shoulder. “Huh?”

“Okay,” Oliver repeated. “I’ll do what you want. But swap two of those evenings for one weekday. I can make that work.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “I assume you have a very good reason for asking for it, so I’ll humour your request.”

“Wow.” I hung the fork back up and closed the distance between us, touching my hand to his arm as I leant in. “In that case, Oliver de Havilland, the Duke of Hanbury, I hope you have a taste for submission, because I’m going to make you my bitch.”

11

OLIVER

Little Errand Boy

If I’d known what she meant when she said those words, I never would have agreed.

To be honest, I’d genuinely considered the fact that Rose meant to make me her sexual sub, and I was momentarily baffled by the thought that I’d be all right with that. Her time constraints for weekends seemed a little wild, but so was our one-night stand, so maybe marathon sex was her thing.

But no.

Sadly.

Kind of.

As thrilling as the idea of Rose making me her sexual ‘bitch’ might have been for the few seconds I’d seriously considered it, the reality was far bleaker.

And, well. More realistic. As reality tended to be.

Which explained exactly why I was hauling two-hundred-litre bags of compost from her van to a nursery’s back garden as if I was some kind of delivery boy.

On the day where I’d agreed to her absurd compensation agreement, she immediately issued me with a one-week notice to help her out, after which she’d dropped off the face of the Earth.

If there was anything more terrifying than Rose Matthews running her mouth, it was Rose Matthews going ghost-mode.

My fear was not unfounded, given the first thing she’d told me to do today was take off my shirt and swap it for something easier to work in. I was woefully unprepared for manual labour, but in my defence, she’d hardly mentioned what she was going to have me do.

Now, I understood.

She wanted me to be her little errand boy.

“That’s it, Micky,” Rose said gently. “Be careful of the roots, okay?”

“The white fins?” Micky said, tilting his head and peering at the mess of roots on the plant in his hand. “Looks like a jellyfiss.”

Rose laughed—a soft, airy laugh that was unlike anything I’d heard come out of her mouth before. “It does look a bit like a jellyfish, doesn’t it? But they’re fragile, too, so you must be very careful not to hurt them.”

“Otay.” Micky nodded his head and tentatively put the plant down in the hole Rose was holding open. “Like this?”

“Just like that, then we carefully scoop the soil back into the hole.” Rose guided him to fill the hole back in. “You know how you give your grandpa’s old cat gentle pats on the head?”

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