Читать книгу All the Romance You Need This Christmas: 5-Book Festive Collection - Romy Sommer, Georgia Hill - Страница 11

‘She’s asleep,’ Tyler said, reaching through the seats to prod his girlfriend’s arm. ‘Trust me, once she’s out like that she’s dead to the world for the next hour. You can turn off the music from hell.’

‘I like it,’ Lucas lied. ‘It’s festive.’ They’d had a tour of traditional British Christmas pop music over the last quarter of an hour, some Lucas recognised, some he didn’t. He supposed maybe you needed to have grown up with the songs to appreciate them properly. He liked the one about being lonely this Christmas, though, even if it made him wish he would be. Just him and his farm and his dog. TV, whisky and something simple for dinner.

Okay, he’d probably miss the food at Midfield House, if he was honest. But great food he could get at his own restaurant, and the company he could definitely live without.

‘You’re punishing me for something,’ Tyler said. ‘What?’

Lucas frowned at the dark road through the windscreen. ‘Why would I be punishing you?’ They hadn’t spoken in months. The closest they’d got was when he phoned to warn him about the photos and spoken to Dory. He glanced over at her, asleep beside him. She looked surprisingly peaceful and relaxed, given what was waiting for them at the end of their drive.

‘For the photos, maybe?’ Tyler said. He sounded guilty. ‘Or dating my assistant?’

‘Since when have I cared who you date, Tyler?’ Even if Dory could be something of a scandal. The press loved a good seducing-the-help story when it came to their financial or moral leaders. And between the restaurant business and the charitable arm, the Alexander Corporation was both. But Lucas was less bothered about the family and company reputations than he was about spending the next three days listening to his father and Tyler trying to find a way to spin it, while his mother tried to convince him to come back and run the company again.

‘Never.’ Tyler flopped back against the seat. His relief made Lucas nervous. Was there more to this story? What wasn’t Tyler telling him? ‘That’s true.’

‘So why would I be punishing you? Mother, on the other hand…’

‘God, don’t.’ Tyler groaned. ‘This is going to be a disaster, isn’t it?’

‘Probably.’ But then Lucas remembered Dory insisting that Tyler leave work behind to spend time with his family. ‘Maybe not for you, though. She might actually be good for you, this one.’

‘Mum’s going to hate her.’

‘Our mother would hate anyone you brought home,’ Lucas pointed out. Tyler was the beloved angel son. No woman stood a chance.

‘She liked Cheryl,’ Tyler said, and Lucas winced involuntarily at the mention of his ex-wife. Tyler was right. Lucas secretly believed that, if she’d been given a choice, Felicia would have kept Cheryl over him in the divorce.

‘Cheryl was different,’ he said, even though the fact she’d been so exactly the same as the rest of his family was the reason he’d had to divorce her in the end. ‘Mum practically hand-picked her. She’s the daughter of her best friend. She was planning the wedding before our third date. Besides, she was marrying me, not you. That makes a difference.’

‘So you think if I married Cheryl, Mum would suddenly hate her?’ Tyler asked.

Lucas met his brother’s eye in the rear-view mirror, until Tyler glanced away. ‘Are you likely to?’

‘God no!’ Tyler laughed. ‘I mean, I’m with Dory.’

‘Then can we stop talking about my ex-wife?’

‘Absolutely.’

In the silence that followed, Dory’s playlist clicked on to Elvis singing about his Blue Christmas. Lucas was willing to place money that the collective Alexander Christmas would be worse. Elvis should be grateful to be alone.

***

Chris Rea was singing about driving home for Christmas. Hadn’t they already had that one? Dory blinked the sleep out of her eyes and winced as she straightened up in her seat.

‘Where are we?’ she asked, clearing her throat when the words came out croaky.

‘About five minutes from Midfield House,’ Lucas replied. ‘You have good timing. Unlike your boyfriend.’

Nearly there. Nearly time. Her heart kicked up to double speed. They were really going to do this.

Dory peeked between the seats. Tyler obviously wasn’t too nervous about the whole affair. Slumped across the length of the back seat, he was fast asleep, one arm across his face. ‘He’s not wearing his seatbelt.’

‘I’m not going to crash. I wouldn’t worry.’

But she did. Even though she wasn’t actually his girlfriend, only an employee, and even though he wasn’t actually breaking any law in the state of New York… he should still be wearing his damn seatbelt. If they were in Britain, he would be.

Lucas was wearing his, though. At least one of them had a brain.

‘Haven’t we had this song already?’ Dory reached for the iPod. It was set to repeat.

‘We’ve had all of them already. Some of them twice. Interesting mix you have there.’

‘It’s what we’d be listening to if I was at home right now,’ Dory said, homesickness pulling at her stomach again. ‘You could have turned it off.’

Lucas shrugged, and Dory couldn’t help but admire the way his shoulders moved under his sweater, and how he steered the car with the barest touch from the one hand holding it. ‘I figured that with you asleep, your music was the closest I was going to get to finding out about you.’

‘You wanted to find out about me?’ Dory twisted in her seat to get a better look at him. ‘Why?’

He gave her a look that suggested he was re-evaluating her intelligence. ‘Because you’re dating my brother.’

‘And do you always show such interest in your brother’s girlfriends? Because I would imagine that would involve actually calling or staying in touch, something that, as far as I’m aware, you haven’t done much of over the last six months.’ Ha. That showed him.

But Lucas didn’t even have the good grace to look a little guilty at the accusation. ‘He’s not usually dating his assistant.’

Oh yeah. That. Not for the first time, Dory found herself wondering how truly inappropriate Tyler’s new girlfriend had to be for ‘I’m dating my assistant’ to be a better line to potentially have to feed to the family. And, oh God, maybe even the press. How long was he expecting this to drag on for? Who were they going to have to tell?

She really must get better at asking more questions before agreeing to something. This was exactly how she ended up broke and alone in New York in the first place. Ewen said ‘It’ll be fun! An adventure. You’ve always wanted to be more adventurous,’ and she’d moved her whole life, lock, stock and barrel, all the way across the ocean with barely a backwards glance. Sometimes, she wondered if she’d only done it to live up to his expectation of her. Because, really, she hadn’t ever wanted to be more adventurous. She’d been exactly the right amount of adventurous already, thank you.

And now she was here. Pretending to be the girlfriend of one of America’s most eligible bachelors.

Even Ewen would have to admit this was an adventure and a half.

‘Are you…’ She paused, then started again. ‘Will it be a problem, do you think? The assistant thing? If… when people find out?’

‘Depends.’ Lucas, it seemed, was a man of few words. Another way he was utterly different to his brother.

‘On what?’ If she were going to be his pretend-sister-in-law-to-be for the next few days, he’d have to get used to answering questions.

But Lucas just shrugged again. ‘Lots of things.’

Refusing to get distracted by what were, even in the dark of the car, really quite spectacular shoulders, Dory pressed on. ‘Like?’

He sighed. ‘You. Him. Our father. Mother. The press. Whether you get married.’

Dory coughed violently at the last suggestion, suddenly sorry she’d asked. But the noise woke up Tyler, who lurched upright as Lucas took a right turn.

‘What?’ he asked, obviously only half awake.

‘Nothing,’ Lucas said. ‘Dory and I were just discussing your future wedding.’

Of course now he wanted to chat. Dory glanced across. Was he smirking? Damn him. Well, if he thought one embarrassing moment would stop her asking questions this week, he was sadly mistaken.

But Tyler wasn’t really listening, it seemed. He peered out of the window. ‘Are we there?’

‘Just turned on to the drive,’ Lucas confirmed.

‘Drive?’ Dory asked, confused. This was a drive? They’d already been on it for half a mile or more.

‘Mum doesn’t like to get too close to the ordinary people. And Dad likes to hunt in the woods around the house,’ Tyler explained.

‘Trust me, it’s better that they’re out here in the middle of nowhere,’ Lucas added. He stared straight out of the windscreen, but Dory got the impression he could drive this route with his eyes closed.

They driveway grew smoother, and rustic iron street lamps appeared at regular intervals on either side of the road. In the flashes of light, Dory could see the tension in Lucas’s jaw, the way his hands gripped the steering wheel too tight. He really doesn’t want to be here.

Why? She didn’t know much about Lucas beyond what she’d read in articles about the Alexander family after he called. She knew he’d run the company after his father retired until, two years ago, he handed over the reins to Tyler. Since then, no one really knew what he’d been doing, it seemed. Which was strange. Famous, rich, attractive and talented men usually found their way into the headlines one way or another.

The only thing that had been reported about him was his divorce. Was that why he’d left the company? Heartbreak? Dory’s nose wrinkled. It didn’t seem likely. Lucas didn’t seem like the kind of guy to let anything affect his life that strongly unless he chose it himself.

It was strange, though. Most of the photos that had run with the story had been the usual staged wedding shots. Man in tux, beautiful brunette in designer dress, lots of smiles. But the man in those photos was barely recognisable as the Lucas who’d showed up at the office to drive them to Midfield House, yet Dory couldn’t quite put her finger on just what was different.

The car started to slow, and Dory stopped wondering about Lucas Alexander and focused instead on wondering what the hell she’d been thinking of agreeing to this.

Pulling on the handbrake, Lucas jumped out to fetch the bags from the boot. Tyler, back in character as the perfect boyfriend, came round to open her door.

‘You ready for this?’ he asked.

‘Not remotely.’ Dory grabbed her iPod from the dock, then swung her legs out of the car, knees together, the way you were supposed to but she never did.

Tyler gave her a quick grin then, unexpectedly, a brotherly kiss on the top of her head. ‘You’ll be awesome. That’s why I hired you, remember?’

‘I don’t remember this being in the job description,’ Dory grumbled.

But it was too late to argue, because just then the front door to Midfield House opened, splashing light out on to the drive and revealing Felicia and Patrick Alexander waiting for them on the steps.

Dory swallowed. Show time.

***

Lucas stared up at his childhood home and wondered, not for the first time, how he’d ever survived growing up there.

‘You’re here!’ His mother came down the steps, arms open wide, welcoming and expectant as only the perfect hostess could be. Lucas hung back as she hugged Tyler, then turned to his new girlfriend. ‘And you must be Dory! Tyler has told us next to nothing about you, naughty boy. We’re looking forward to finding out everything. Now, come on inside before you catch a chill. Come on, Lucas!’ she called back, almost as an afterthought.

‘Son.’ His father gave him a nod as he walked past and Lucas returned it.

‘Dad.’

There. That was all the family tenderness taken care of for one weekend, anyway.

Patrick clapped Tyler on the back as they all lingered in the oversized hallway. Dropping the bags to the floor, Lucas had a sudden, irrational fear that all the holly and ivy decking the curving bannisters might start growing overnight, trapping them all inside this monstrosity of a house for a hundred years, like Sleeping Beauty. He shook the thought away.

‘So, where have you been hiding this beauty then, Tyler?’ Patrick asked. Lucas was pretty sure his dad was going for friendly and welcoming with his smile, but Dory looked uncomfortable under it. Lucas could sympathise. Studied attention from his father had never ended well for him, either.

‘He wasn’t hiding me, exactly. Just… we didn’t… well…’ Dory tripped over her words, obviously trying to soften her accent, and Lucas winced. She was nervous. Of course she was. So why wasn’t her boyfriend helping her out?

‘What Dory is trying to say is…’ Tyler trailed off, obviously having no idea at all what Dory was trying to say. Which was fair. Lucas wasn’t sure Dory had any idea, either.

Lucas rolled his eyes. ‘He hasn’t been hiding her anywhere,’ he said. ‘Leave the poor girl be.’

‘Well, really, Lucas,’ Felicia said. ‘We were only trying to get to know her. Find out all the usual things a parent wants to know. Where they met, who her family are, that sort of thing.’

Dory’s face turned even paler. Under her dark hair she looked positively deathly.

‘Maybe it can wait until dinner?’ Tyler suggested, smooth as ever. ‘It’s been a long drive.’

‘Of course, of course!’ Suddenly Felicia turned accommodating and understanding. ‘You must be exhausted all of you. And the way Lucas takes those corners! Terrifies me.’

‘Actually, he was a very considerate driver,’ Dory said, giving him a small smile. Lucas felt something inside him start to warm against the chill of Midfield House. Might he actually have an ally here, for once?

Felicia, however, looked disbelieving. ‘Really? How unusual.’

‘He knows I get travel sick,’ Dory added, but Felicia only looked more amazed at the explanation. As if she couldn’t imagine her eldest son ever doing such a kindness to a stranger. Or maybe just that it wouldn’t occur to her to do the same, Lucas thought.

‘Why don’t I show you two up to your room,’ Felicia said, ushering them towards the staircase. Dory looked around, lip caught between her teeth, and Lucas picked up her bag to hand it to her.

‘Oh, leave those,’ Patrick said, waving a hand. ‘I’ll get Duncan to take them up.’

Dory clutched her small case close. ‘It’s fine, really. It doesn’t weigh much.’

Tyler, Lucas couldn’t help but notice, left his bag exactly where it was.

‘Right.’ Felicia looked as though she was searching for her usual aplomb while dealing with this strange woman Tyler had brought home. ‘Well, I’ve put the two of you in the green room, off at the end of the East Wing. You’ve got your own en-suite, of course. And I thought you might like a bit of privacy.’

Lucas stared at the ceiling and tried very hard not to imagine what his mother thought they were going to do with that privacy.

‘That’s… great. Thank you.’ Dory sounded like she wasn’t quite sure what to make of that either.

Tyler, however, frowned. ‘The Green Room? Who’s in the Blue Room then?’

‘The Franklins, tomorrow night, for the party. I promised it to them last year, so they can stay for breakfast, Christmas morning. Now, come on, or you’ll never get settled before dinner.’

As the three of them disappeared up the stairs, Dory lugging her case behind her, Lucas told himself that the strange lurch in his stomach was merely a result of being left alone with his father again, not the news that his ex-parents-in-law would be joining them tomorrow.

He didn’t bother asking where he was sleeping. Ever since his divorce, he’d been banished to the tiny bedroom above the kitchen, the one Felicia would never use for party guests. Lucas didn’t mind. He got more privacy there than even Dory and Tyler would get in the Green Room. And, most importantly, easy access to the leftovers after everyone else had gone to bed.

‘Well, then,’ Patrick said. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll be very long up there. Why don’t we go and get the pre-dinner cocktails started.’

More than anything in the world, Lucas wanted a cold beer, rather than some complicated drink with ingredients he couldn’t pronounce. But his father had already disappeared through the doorway into the library, so he followed anyway. He had plenty of time to get settled into his room, after all. His three-day sentence had only just begun.

***

‘I do hope you’ll find it suitable,’ Felicia said, as she flung open the double doors to the Green Room. ‘I did worry it might be too small…’

‘Oh no,’ Dory assured her, staring around the suite. It was bigger than her flat. Possibly bigger than the entire downstairs of her parents’ house, actually. ‘There’s plenty of room for us here.’

‘Well, I’ll leave the two of you to get settled. Tyler knows where everything is, after all. Come on down for a drink when you’ve changed, Dory. Tyler, Duncan will bring your bag up shortly.’

‘Changed?’ Dory asked, as the doors swung shut behind Tyler’s mother. ‘I have to get changed for dinner?’

Tyler flopped on to the huge double bed that took over the centre of the room. ‘It’s a thing. They like to dress for dinner.’

Dory looked down at her perfectly chosen, festively evergreen dress. ‘I am dressed. In a dress, and everything.’

‘You are.’ Tyler gave her an apologetic smile. ‘But could you just…’

‘Change.’ Dory sighed. ‘You owe me cocktails at the airport on my way home for this, you know.’

‘I know.’

‘And we haven’t discussed sleeping arrangements yet.’

‘Don’t suppose there’s any way I can convince you that this bed is big enough for two?’

Dory didn’t even bother answering that one as she rummaged through her case, looking for something smart enough for dinner with the Alexanders that wasn’t the one posh frock she’d brought for the Christmas Eve party.

In the mirror, she could see Tyler still lying on the bed, eyes closed. ‘You better not muss up my covers.’

‘You know, the sofa in here is probably very comfortable,’ Tyler said. ‘And you’re shorter. You’d fit on it better.’

Navy dress in hand, Dory turned to face her boss. ‘Exactly who is doing whom a favour here?’

‘Yeah, yeah. I’m on the floor tonight. I know.’ With a groan, Tyler sat up.

Dory held up the dress. ‘Will this do?’

Tyler squinted at it. ‘Did you bring jewellery?’

‘Some.’

‘Then yeah, probably.’ He paused. ‘I really do appreciate you doing this, you know.’

‘I know.’ Dory dropped to sit on the bed beside him. ‘Are we going to tell them about the whole assistant thing? Or just wait and see if Lucas drops us in it?’

‘He won’t.’ Tyler sounded completely confident in that fact. And, surprisingly, so was Dory. She’d only known him for a handful of hours, but she already trusted Tyler’s brother. Weird.

‘So we don’t tell them?’

Tyler hesitated. ‘Only if it comes up. Okay?’

‘Like if they ask me what I do for a living?’

‘Like if they ask you if you’re my assistant.’

Ah. That seemed rather less likely, but since it got Dory out of a difficult conversation, she wasn’t complaining. They were already lying to his entire family about their relationship, anyway. What was one more little fib?

There was a knock at the door and Tyler yelled, ‘Come in!’

A stern-looking man – Duncan, Dory presumed – opened the door just enough to place Tyler’s case inside the room and nod at them both, then he disappeared again.

‘Guess we’d better get changed,’ Dory said, as Tyler crossed the room to fetch his case. ‘Do you want the bathroom or the bedroom?’

‘You get changed in here,’ Tyler said. ‘That way you can fix your make-up in the dressing-table mirror.’

Dory glanced at her reflection. She’d planned on redoing her lipstick, and touching up her powder, of course. But now she just wanted to ask what was wrong with her make-up in the first place?

She sighed at herself in the mirror as Tyler disappeared into the bathroom, then set about removing her make-up, ready to start over.

Apparently impressing the parents was harder than she’d remembered.