“I can work whenever he needs me to. How many staff live on-site?”
The wariness in Benjamin’s regal gaze returned. “Around fifteen, and they work varied hours, so there’s always someone around.”
Irritation flared in the depths of Dante’s soul. He bit it back but couldn’t stomach another bland nod. He turned away from Benjamin and eyeballed the compact bungalow that was apparently his. It had a purple front door and a decked patio. How is this my life?
“Here are your keys.” Benjamin handed over a brass chain. “If you lose them there’s a charge, but we keep spares in the office . . . locked up, of course.”
“Don’t you think if I was going to steal things it would be from the big house with all the antiques?” The words escaped Dante before he could stop them. He softened them with a genial smile—the one Luis had always said made him look like a tyrannical lizard.
Benjamin’s eyes widened, a rabbit in headlights—or a rich boy caught in the glare of his own sweeping judgement. “You’re not allowed in the main house.”
Dante said nothing. He was good at that too—awkward silences that made other people squirm and make mistakes.
Benjamin shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Inside, his age had been hard to gauge, but with the sun exposing his smooth skin and patchy hipster stubble, it was clear he was barely twenty-five. Cute. Kind of. Dante preferred bigger men, in every sense of the word. Powerful men who could hold him down and show him how to do all the things he’d never done.
“I apologise,” Benjamin said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. Believe me, no one is happier you’re here than me, so I’m sorry if I’m coming across as a judgemental prick.”
The curse word sounded strange with Benjamin’s refined voice wrapped around it, and the abrupt one-eighty spun Dante’s head. He turned into the sun, glad the spring rays blocked out most of Benjamin’s face. “You’re not. I was genuinely curious.”
“Fair enough. Don’t tell Sid I was obnoxious to you, though. He gives me enough grief about being a privileged idiot.”
Dante was starting to appreciate Sid. He sounded like he had a vibe Dante recognised, and after three hours alone in the wild, Dante’s soul craved the familiar, even if it came from a grumpy old man.
“Right, that’s me,” Benjamin said. “I need to get back to the office. When you’ve put your bag inside, you’ll need to follow the path past the greenhouses and to the lake. Walk around the water until you come to the pavilion. The orchard is behind there.”
Dante tracked Benjamin’s gaze to the greenhouses a good hundred metres away. The lake was double that.
So much space.
Anxiety formed a bubble in his gut. He ached for the buzz of a loaded joint to chase it away, but buying weed was against his licensing conditions, and despite everything Benjamin had said, he hadn’t seen anyone so far who seemed the type to carry, and making new friends was an alien concept.
“Did you hear me?” Benjamin touched Dante’s arm.
Dante flinched.
“Sorry,” Benjamin said. “You were staring into space.”
You don’t say. Dante sidestepped Benjamin’s outstretched arm. “I was looking for the orchard. What did I miss?”
“Just an admission that you were right when you said Sid didn’t want help, but he needs it. His physical abilities aren’t what they used to be, and we love him, which is why we hired you.” Benjamin paused, measuring his words. “Your personal officer at the prison said you were adaptable and good at reading complex situations. You’ll need those skills here if you’re going to make things work with Sid.”
What if I can’t? What if he hates me and you do too? What happens to me then? Dante spotted movement on the horizon. A tall figure had emerged from the copse of trees beyond the lake carrying a stack of large boxes. The man looked too young to be the mysterious Sid, but he caught Dante’s attention all the same. “I can do that,” he said absently. “Whatever Sid needs, I’m here.”
Benjamin nodded his approval and walked away, leaving Dante to turn his back on the strong dude lighting up the view and drift to the redbrick bungalow that was now his home.
He unlocked the lilac front door and stepped inside.
The air smelled of incense and cleaning products. Dante let the door swing shut behind him and took a tour of his surroundings. The living space was open plan—one large room with a tiny kitchen and a couch positioned in front of a TV. An open door led to a shower room and a bedroom furnished with a chest of drawers and a single bed.
Dante set his bag on the bed, oddly relieved it was small and nothing like the opulent king-size monstrosity he’d left behind in London and more like the bunk in his prison cell. He sat down, breathing in the calm of the quiet room, but the silence got to him before he’d taken two breaths and propelled him to his feet.
He barrelled through the bungalow until he was outside again. Fresh air hit him like it had when he’d left HMP, but it felt different now. Harsher. Brighter. As if it exposed his many, many flaws for the whole world to see.
Dante scanned the paved area outside the cluster of bungalows. There was no one around, and somehow that felt worse. Call Luis. Even if he calls you a cunt, at least you’ve heard it before. But he didn’t call Luis. And he wouldn’t.
Not yet.
He abandoned the bungalow and followed Benjamin’s directions to the lake. When he reached the water, the orchard was closer than he’d thought. Apple and cherry trees had shed their blossoms and they covered the ground like fallen snow. Dante crouched and snapped another picture. It felt as ridiculous as it had the first time, but he did it anyway, over and over, documenting the blush-pink confetti until mud-spattered boots spoiled the view.
Dante straightened slowly, preparing himself to meet the gruff old man he’d been hearing about second-hand all morning.
Beard.
Weathered face.
Maybe a woolly hat.
But instead of Captain Birdseye, Dante found himself caught in a snare of wildflower blue, and far from weathered, the face that stared him down was as young as his own. Chiselled and rugged, with masculine lips twisted in the kind of smirk that held only wry humour, no venom. “Dante Pope?”
Dante brought himself fully upright, levelling a couple of inches shorter than the same man he’d seen hoisting heavy boxes on his strong shoulders just ten minutes ago. “Uh. Yeah. That’s me.”
“I know it is. I saw your picture.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Polite, ain’t it?”
“If you say so. Who are you?”
The man’s smirk softened to a friendly grin that did nothing to calm the humming sensation he’d started in Dante’s veins. “I’m Sid.”
Dante swallowed stiffly. Instinct born of something he didn’t want to think about compelled him to step back and reclaim his personal space, but he didn’t move. He stayed where he was, breathing the scent of earth and fresh-cut grass and trying to match the lean hunk of amiable muscle with the difficult, struggling man Benjamin had implied Sid the Gardener to be.
And failing, because it didn’t add up.
Dante ran his gaze over Sid again, taking in his straw-coloured hair, golden skin, and sparkly blue eyes. With his light brown beard and strong frame, the man was the picture of health. He had a wide smile and dirt on his hands. Lots of dirt, smeared over the kind of hands Dante wanted all over his—