Читать книгу The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights: 6 Book Romance Collection - Jane Linfoot, Zara Stoneley - Страница 20

Prince Charming does not exist.

Maggie’s grandmother had drummed into her that no matter how scintillatingly wonderful the Mr. Perfects of this world might seem, she should make no mistake – The One was a myth. Like aliens, unicorns, vampires, and every other fantasy out there. In the end, it turned out that she’d have loved to have been proved wrong. The thought made Maggie smile.

Safe in the cossetted luxury of Alex’s hotel suite, she went directly to the bathroom to brush her teeth and freshen up, sorry that she’d ruined the evening, the dress, the mood. She should stick to creating images for other people. She’d stepped out of her comfort zone and things had gone pear-shaped.

She joined Alex in the living room. Hands in pockets, he stood at the window glowering at the dark treeline below, the planes of his face reflected in the glass, spookily distant. His broad shoulders and the long lines of his athletic body made her fizz.

This friends thing wasn’t working.

When Mercy of the Vampires had taken off, she used to wonder if she’d ever meet Alex again. She’d imagined scenarios – bumping into him at a party or in a pub. And more fanciful ones like walking on an empty beach and finding him by the sea. He’d hurt her. She’d been falling in love with him and he hadn’t bothered to say goodbye.

Her heart swelled, filling up her chest and tightening her throat. She wasn’t over that will-we-won’t-we thing they’d had. Why couldn’t the attraction she felt for Alex in the here and now be the same shallow variety that made Jago fans the world over sigh wistfully and move right along to the next thing on their real-life agenda?

Maybe a fling with Alex would be mind-blowingly amazing. She’d love to know.

Okay, so in the Plumtree world there’d been a distinct lack of Prince Charmings. She couldn’t have Alex forever, but more than anything she didn’t want to go through life wondering what if? It was time to stop hanging on to the fact that once upon a time they’d been friends and let him be her fantasy man.

Alex unknotted his bow tie and sank onto a squashy sofa.

“Let’s order room service.”

She didn’t need to think about it. The empty space in her stomach reminded her of the hole in the middle of a donut.

“Oh yes puh-leeese. I’m ravenous.”

He passed her the menu and she pretended to think about it, but she knew exactly what she wanted. Needed, even.

“I’ll have a cheeseburger with fries and ketchup and those little green things. What d’you call them?”

“Pickles?” Alex prompted.

“No, not pickles. Whatd’youmacallits? Like the London skyscraper? She snapped the menu closed. “Gherkins!”

“Really?” He sent her a questioning look.

“Yes, really.” She bit her bottom lip.

“You hate pic … gherkins. You always used to pick them out and leave them.”

“Well tonight I want gherkins.”

“Gherkins it is!” There was a big, super-sexy grin on Alex’s face. A flame of deep heat uncurled inside her. She wished she could put it down to dodgy pregnancy hormones. His smile and her fizz all but killed off her hunger pangs.

There were three big comfy sofas in the room. She could have had one all to herself. Instead, she plonked herself next to Alex. Their eyes locked and held in almost telepathic stillness.

Alex coughed. He got up, walked to the polished wood desk and switched on the lamp. The light cast shadows through the fine petals of three giant hydrangea blooms arranged in a glass vase. The flowers with their green leaves were three times the size of the ones that grew in her cottage garden in Cornwall. Alex, distancing himself, triggered a pang of uncertainty that shivered through Maggie.

“I don’t eat burgers much – normally.” She started to babble. “Hardly ever – actually. I can’t even remember when I last had one. But tonight, for some reason …” She twisted a wave of hair around one finger. “I think I’ll die if I don’t get a burger.”

“With gherkins.” Alex lifted the phone. “Get me the emergency services.” His lovely deep voice rumbled theatrically into the receiver. “We need a burger and we need it fast.”

He dialed room service for real and placed the order. “Oh, and don’t forget the gherkins,” he reminded the person on the other end of the line. There was a pause. “Sorry … pickles. It’s a matter of life and death.”

Maggie curled up on the plush gold sofa island. Emptiness that wasn’t hunger struck her. Her baby plan lacked a vital ingredient. Someone to share stuff. The highs. The lows. By default, Alex had taken on the role. He’d been there when she did the pregnancy test. He’d held her when she was sick. He’d made fun of her craving. It felt good. Too good.

He had hired the adjoining room to his suite for her. A communicating door linked the two. A knot of jealously clenched her gut. With other women – the ones that were lovers not friends – a second bedroom would not be necessary. She tortured herself a little wondering how many nights of passion he’d spent in hotel suites like this one.

A practically mute, robotic waiter arrived. He went quick-smart into the separate dining room and placed a bowl of delicate cream roses in the center of the solid mahogany dining table. Polished to such a shine, Maggie caught him admiring his reflection in the wood as he set down the burgers, which sat grandly under silver domes waiting for them to tuck in. She stopped worrying about being out of her comfort zone. Sitting opposite Alex on a posh dining chair she gazed across the expanse of shiny wood. “I think we’ve just invented the most upmarket burger joint in Manhattan.”

She lifted the silver dome and realized that she didn’t fancy the pickled green things after all. She picked them out of her roll.

“I thought your life wouldn’t be worth living if you didn’t get whatd’youmacallits.”

“I changed my mind.” Her voice wobbled ruefully.

“You always were a bit contrary.” His dark hair had fallen across his eyes. He tossed his head, supremely masculine.

“Alex?” she blurted. What she was about to say was totally contrary, but there was more in the air between them than the celebrity crush factor. “Can I get an upgrade?”

Alex glanced around the room with a puzzled expression. “I don’t think so, Maggie. This is the best suite they’ve got.”

She held back a giggle. “Not the room. Us.” She looked down at her red nails. Resisting the urge to pick at the color, she looked up again. This wasn’t about what-might-have-been. He could leave his barriers intact, hide behind Jago if he liked. “I want to upgrade from friends to fling.”

Alex stiffened as if his spine had turned to solid steel. His eyes glinted, the blue irises practically turning storm grey in the half-light. “That’s out of the question.”

He pushed his plate away and stood up, made a move to walk off, changed direction, jerkily ploughed a hand into his thick hair. He frowned, his dark brows knitted. “Not every woman I’m photographed with finds her way into my bed.” He shot her a scornful look. “Believe it or not, the playboy image isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be.”

He rounded the table, pulled out the chair next to her and sat on it. “Look.” His voice softened to a husky murmur. Something she couldn’t read flickered on his face. “We should stick to friends. A fling would be a bad idea.”

A ve-ry bad idea. That was the point. She didn’t say so. Clearly, she was a lousy seductress. Mortified, she forced out a syrupy false giggle. “What was I thinking?” She rolled her eyes. “Me having a fling with TV’s Hot Vampire Guy? I need my head examining.”

“Hot? Vampire? Guy?” Alex fired her a condescending look. “Really?”

She bit her lip and nodded, squashed. So much for sizzling attraction. What was wrong with wanting a walk-away-with-no-regrets-when-it’s-over fling? She could do utterly emotionless. She couldn’t undo the fact that she’d been deluded. The chemistry had been one-way after all. Hey, the guy was a great actor.

After an awkwardly silent dinner, back in the softly lit sitting room, Alex paced. He had a copy of Hamlet in his hand and his nose buried in it, going over his lines. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Maggie, curled up on a sofa flicking through a magazine she patently wasn’t reading. No longer a vision in red, she was still sexier than sexy, even in the goofy leggings and I Heart NY tee.

He’d said the wrong thing, handled it badly. He’d made her feel unattractive when the opposite was true. She was complicated. She was a mother-to-be and every time he thought about it the hot blood flowing in his veins turned to cold porridge. Beneath that monochrome image of hers she was vulnerable. And he was getting too involved – pregnancy tests, sickness, cravings. He was out of his depth.

On automatic he retreated behind his own stony mask.

He turned his back on her and glared out the window at the skyline. Muttering under his breath he reeled off some lines. His concentration was zero.

Hot Vampire Guy. Damn it!

He was desperate to let go of that image, show people the real Alex Wells. But he’d been living with the character for so long he wasn’t sure who the “real” Alex was. He frowned at his script, read some more, straightening out the torment in his head. Playing Hamlet would be a dream come true and he was going to crash and burn. He couldn’t shake off Jago. Every move, every look, every step across the stage, every word was Jago. He stared past his cold reflection in the glass. The moon was a couple of slivers short of a round cheese in the black sky. When he stepped onto the London stage the audience was going to see the cheesy vampire guy. He threw the script across the room. Maggie let out a yelp and caught it in midair before it took out the hydrangeas.

“Sorry, Maggie. I wasn’t aiming at you.”

“What’s up?”

He’d spent meaningless nights with quite a few women for whom that question would have begged a suggestive quip. Not Maggie. The tension from his knock-back bristled between them.

“I’m murdering Hamlet. Every time I open my mouth, I hear Jago.”

“You are a bit mid-Atlantic.” Maggie shrugged. “But hey, you can fix that. It’s what you trained to do.”

An English education, followed by years based in LA had turned his accent into a hybrid. But he wasn’t talking about received pronunciation, he had a voice coach for that. The problem with Jago lay deeper.

He folded himself onto the sofa next to her. “My accent is exceeeeedingly mid-Atlantic.”

Maggie laughed at the extra dose of British oomph he added to his words, easing the atmosphere.

“It wasn’t a hindrance in Mercy,” he mused. “The reverse; it kinda helped.”

“I don’t see the problem.”

“What if I walk on stage and all anyone sees is Jago?”

“Jago in a doublet and hose. Isn’t that part of the appeal? The production’s unique selling point?”

“You mean I just have to work with it.”

“I doubt make-up will be up for giving Hamlet vampire fangs, but I don’t think your audiences will complain if you bring a smidge of Jago to the role, do you?”

Alex laughed. He pulled Maggie into his arms and hugged her. “You’re a genius.”

Awkward, his arms sprang back, letting her go like a failed turn on an arcade candy grabber.

“I can help with your lines.” She opened the script. “Okay. Let me see. It’s Act One, Scene Two, and we’re in the council chamber in the castle. There’s a flourish of trumpets.” She made a trumpety ta-da-da-da-da noise. “Enter blah, blah, blah and last of all you, Prince HAMLET. You’re dressed in black, with downcast eyes.”

Alex suppressed a chortle. Her am-dram approach was too funny.

He ran a hand over his newly stubbling jaw. “Just give me the cue, please, Maggie, or we’ll be here from now until Christmas.”

They rattled through Alex’s scene, then moved on and did the bit where Hamlet sees his father’s ghost. By the end of Act Two, Maggie was flagging and yawning. It was very late. She passed Alex the book. He paced, reading aloud, while she curled up on the sofa and plumped a cushion under her head. Concentrating on the play, he ploughed a hand into his hair. “I’m ready for Act Three. You’re Ophelia.” He held out the script to Maggie, but she was fast asleep.

The place where he was supposed to have a heart lurched. Maggie was right. Jago was a marketing ploy. He could see past it, thanks to her. Make it work. To get to Hamlet, he’d need to dig inside himself. He’d stored up a deep well of hurt. He should put it to use and channel the confusion he’d felt growing up in the drama of his parents’ real-life soap, into Hamlet’s angst. The stone in his chest knocked against his ribcage.

His mother’s television career had sky-rocketed about a year after he and Nick were born. A highbrow British actor, Drake Wells, landed a couple of great roles in LA. He won a prestigious award and for a while he got to write his own ticket. He was frequently away on location, but when he came home every day was like Christmas. Smarting from having to deal with her husband’s doesn’t-count-on-location attitude to his marriage, their mother didn’t share their euphoria. Much too little to know about the infidelities and the crushingly public humiliation that he inflicted on Cassandra, the twins lapped up his over-the-top attention, a hail of toys and trips to theme parks. When he left for good the fun stopped, and worse, she went completely off the rails. She’d been admitted to rehab and they’d been cared for by relatives. Rejected by their father and separated from their mother, Alex had felt it was his job to protect Nick. Later, when their mother was out of rehab and back in their life, every time things got tough in the media glare, he felt responsible.

Perhaps because she still craved Drake’s approval, Cassandra had decided to send them to a British boarding school. Mostly, at sports days and rugby matches, there were gaps where the Wells parents should have been. When he graced the school plays with his presence, Drake would sit looking dour in the audience, and sneer disapprovingly afterwards, belittling his sons and pointing out everything about the production he considered wrong.

Cassandra’s visits had always been scheduled to coincide with press tours in Europe. It was during an alcohol-fuelled outburst when they were thirteen that the truth about Drake had come out. She’d flown in from somewhere, having arranged for a taxi to pick them up from school and deliver them to the airport. While she’d been waiting she’d fallen off the wagon. That’s how they’d learned that the man whose name was on their birth certificates did not share their genes – in an inebriated ramble in Departures at Heathrow. “Drake’s not your real dad.” Alex got chills thinking about that day. “He might claim that you’re his sons, but he can go take a running jump off a high cliff.” She cracked some lame joke about denim genes and spilled the contents of her handbag on the concourse floor. In the scramble to wrangle lipsticks, crumpled till receipts and small change, the revelation had been brushed aside, but it was out there. Everything slid out of perspective for Alex because suddenly his father’s rejection made total sense.

He knelt down next to the sleeping Maggie and touched her shoulder. “Maggie,” he whispered. Out for the count, she didn’t stir. Deciding against leaving her to spend the night on the sofa, he got to his feet and carefully scooped her into his arms. She moaned softly and her scent hit his senses. He steeled himself against his attraction. Shouldering open the door to her room, he carried her in and placed her gently on the turned-back bed. He covered her with the marshmallow-light duvet and for a moment he ached to take back his rejection, drop the mask of indifference. Touching two fingers to his lips he blew Maggie a kiss and closed the door quietly.

Shut away from her, he let out a disgruntled breath. He had to admire her confidence in starting a family on her own. He didn’t want kids. He wouldn’t know how to be a dad, although surely he couldn’t be as diabolical as Drake. His heart squeezed thinking about Maggie’s pregnancy. He needn’t worry about her. She wouldn’t go to pieces the way his mother did. No matter what life threw at her, she’d stay strong.

Being at a red-carpet event had felt miles better with Maggie. Even before she got sick he’d cared more about her than he did about the paps and the outside world. She’d given him a fresh take on making Jago work alongside Hamlet. He’d have to be careful. Maggie helping him channel Hamlet’s pain was one thing, but he couldn’t let her into his heart. Turning her down had been hard, but he’d done the right thing. Alone in his own room, he stripped off his I Heart NY tee and threw it into a corner. It landed on a chair, the red heart glaring at him.