“That’s true. You see, the first property consists of the house where Sir Geoffrey resided until his death. The second property consists of the garden.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Max scoffed. “The house came with the garden when Geoffrey bought it back in the late sixties. I know that for a fact. I’ve seen the deeds. So, I’m sorry to burst Miss Armstrong’s inheritance bubble, but there’s no second property for Geoffrey to gift. I inherit everything, and thiswill,” Max said, scowling at the paperwork on Hugo’s desk, “is nothing more than fiction.”
“You’re both correct and incorrect, Mr Fitzroy. Number 12 Orchard Drive came with a small rear garden when Sir Geoffrey originally purchased the property,” Hugo replied easily. “It was never large enough for his needs however, so, when a neighbouring property was put up for sale in 1976, Sir Geoffrey purchased the land outright. So, while you’re correct that the house did come with a garden, you’re incorrect in this will being fictitious. You’ve seen the deeds for 12 Orchard Drive, Mr Fitzroy, but you haven’t seen the deeds for number13Orchard Drive.”
For a moment, both Max and Bo were rendered silent.
“What does this have to do with Geoffrey’s will?” Bo asked quietly, and she felt Max’s eyes narrow on her again.
“You know exactly what this has to do with Geoffrey’s will,” he muttered bitterly. “Don’t act as though this is a surprise to you.”
“It is a surprise to me,” Bo instantly retorted. “I haven’t evenseenthe will yet.”
Max shook his head at that, crossing his arms over his chest. “I find that incredibly hard to believe.”
“Believe what you want, it’s true,” Bo argued. “I had no idea Geoffrey had left me anything in his will until I walked into this room today. In fact, I still have no idea exactly what it is he’s left me now.”
“That’s easy to rectify,” Hugo interjected, giving her a warm smile. “Ms Armstrong, Sir Geoffrey has gifted you the deeds to number 13 Orchard Drive.”
For a moment, Bo felt both her heart and stomach plummet in her chest. “I’m sorry?” she stammered. “What did you just say?”
“Number 13 Orchard Drive. The garden side of the property,” Hugo replied slowly, carefully enunciating his words. “Sir Geoffrey left it to you. Number 12 Orchard Drive goes to Max, but number 13 . . . it’s all yours.”
Chapter Four
Bo went back to her little summer house — and it truly was her summer house now, in every sense of the word — and stared outside the windows to her garden she now owned.
She was still too stunned to think clearly. Never in a million years had she ever thought Geoffrey would leave her anything, let alone something so valuable as a prime piece of London real estate.
“You’ll be crawling with offers from developers,” Hugo promised her. “Don’t accept any offers straight away though, take time to think it through. And when you do decide to sell, don’t take a penny under three million pounds.”
“Three million pounds?!” Bo had audibly gasped. “But it’s just . . . just a garden.”
“Exactly.” Hugo had nodded knowledgably. “All the houses on Orchard Drive are Grade-II listed, and developers can’t touch them without serious restrictions. Your land never had anything built on it, so it’s ready to go. There’s room for at least nine flats, which a developer could sell for two million each, easily. Make sure you get your cut.”
Staring at the garden now, Bo couldn’t imagine anything worse than nine flats sitting upon it. Geoffrey’s garden, large and sprawling, had a sumptuous lawn of soft green grass, with wildflowers scattered about. Established cherry and apple trees were dotted throughout, with beds for azaleas, dwarf pear trees, lavender and herbs to the side. Her summer house sat at one end of the garden, hidden by a line of hazel trees, while a pond with a running water feature sat at the other. Madelief, Geoffrey’s prized camellia, stood near the azaleas, with leaves the colour of emeralds sitting against the red-brick wall. This garden represented years of Geoffrey’s work and devotion. It encompassed years of effort, years of roughened fingers andworn-down nails. It was a garden where every flower had been earned, where every shrub had been claimed from the clutches of sharp bramble thorns and patches of stinging nettles. This wasn’t just land. No, this was a testament to the man who had quietly shaped it, tended it and left something of himself behind in it. This was hours of patience and love. To think of a developer coming in and flattening it all made Bo’s skin crawl.
There was the money to consider though. All three million pounds of it.
With that kind of money, I’d be free forever,Bothought, a thrill of excitement running through her.No more auditions. No more headshots. No more men looking over every inch of my body for a flaw or imperfection.
Bo wasn’t sure exactly what it was she wanted to do with her life, but she knew it wasn’t acting. Acting had been her mother’s choice for her, and Bo couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been pushed onto a stage to dance or paraded down a catwalk to model.
“You weren’t born this beautiful for nothing. You were born to be admired by others,” her mother always told her, and for a long time, Bo believed her. She’d been a child model and then a teenage beauty queen before making the leap into full-time acting, and it never occurred to her to do anything else. With her mother’s blessing, Bo had dropped out of school for a part in a play and never gone back to finish her education. With her mother’s encouragement, she’d moved to London to chase acting roles that never materialized into anything other than disappointment and a lingering sense of rejection. Now, at twenty-six, she was qualified for nothing. At twenty-six, all she had was her beauty and its ability to foster a superficial sense of admiration from others to depend upon.
It wasn’t enough, Bo realized despairingly.
Maybe it would have been different if she’d loved her chosen career, but she didn’t. She was different to Willa, who got a thrill from acting that Bo never felt. Willa loved to inhabit the lives, thoughts and feelings of others, enjoyed imagining herself as other people and channelling them into being through her body. Bo, on the other hand, always felt slightly awkward pretending to be anyone other than who she was: herself. She hated having to change her voice or manner, just as she hated having to think about how she walked and talked. She hated the false smile she wore to auditions and downright despised the male directors and producers who peered at her body with eyes that were at once both lustful and critical.
Yes, Bo hated everything about the career she’d sleepwalked into and was now too unqualified and unemployable to leave, but with three million pounds in her pocket . . .
With three million pounds, she could do whatever she pleased.
It was no wonder Max had looked at her with undisguised fury as she’d left Cavendish, Crags and Clerkearlier that day. It was no wonder he’d sat with clenched hands and tightly drawn brows as she’d walked past him. He’d woken that morning expecting to inherit everything from the uncle he’d clearly hated, only to learn before lunchtime that he had to share that inheritance with a woman he hardly knew — well, aside from biblically, Bo thought with a nervous swallow. If their roles had been reversed, she would probably have been furious too. The look on Max’s face had been thunderous, so much so that Hugo Crags had passed her his card as he’d seen her to the elevator.
“Mr Fitzroy may decide to challenge the will,” he explained to her. “If he does, give me a call. Sir Geoffrey’s wishes were made very clear to me and it’s my duty to see they’re enacted, and while I couldn’t represent you, I can still give you the details of good lawyers who can.”
Bo couldn’t even think about that possibility right now. Still shellshocked, she decided to put her nervous energy to use in the garden. It was a bright June afternoon, the good weather at odds with the turmoil she felt within. Pulling on her gardening gloves, she dug out her shears and went over to the herb garden, where a patch of brambles was threatening to strangle her thyme bed. She attacked them with a single-minded determination that was surprising even to her, putting the offending weeds to one side to go on the compost heap.
