Holiday with a Stranger

by Christy McKellen

  She sighed. How could she have thought Connor wouldn’t call her on it?

  There was no point in lying—not after she’d resolved to stop hiding from her fears.

  ‘Because I’m afraid that when you look at me afterwards all you’ll see is a watered-down version of her.’

  He frowned. ‘You think I’m going to drop you and run off with your sister?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s happened in the past.’

  He barely had time to flash her a look of concern before Maddie caught sight of them both and swept gracefully over, her eyes zeroing in on Connor as if he were a magnet and she were a beautiful, beguiling, sister-surpassing iron missile.

  ‘Josie, who’s this? I didn’t know you were bringing a date tonight.’

  Josie’s shoulders drooped, despite her determination not to let her sister’s overwhelming presence intrude on her newfound and apparently rather shaky confidence. ‘This is Connor. Connor—my sister, Maddie.’

  Maddie gave him one of the devastating smiles that had made her such a hit with the TV-viewing public and Josie’s stomach crashed to the ground. Please, please don’t let Maddie make a play for him. Not tonight. Not when things are so fresh and raw and precariously balanced.

  Connor gave her a steady smile. ‘I just want to tell you what a huge fan I am.’

  Maddie’s grin widened, then faltered as he put his arm around Josie’s shoulder.

  ‘Of your sister,’ he said, drawing Josie close to his body. ‘She’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever met and you should be proud to have her as part of your family.’

  Maddie opened and shut her mouth in surprise, before pulling herself together—ever the consummate professional. ‘I am.’

  Josie could barely stop herself from laughing. Her sister’s face was a picture. She’d never seen her so rattled.

  Maddie stepped forward, blocking Connor with her back and leaning in to Josie as if giving her a sisterly hug.

  ‘My God, he’s a bit bloody gorgeous. Where have you been hiding him?’ she whispered against her ear.

  Drawing back, she waggled her eyebrows and smirked over at Connor. He gave her one of his indifferent smiles back.

  Maddie looked ruffled at his cool response to her, but brushed it off quickly, looking over her shoulder for someone else to talk to. ‘Thanks for coming to support me, Josie. I’m really pleased you’re here,’ she said evenly, giving her an extra hard squeeze on the arm, then gliding away to her admirers and being swallowed back into the crowd.

  ‘Well, that was my sister,’ she said, giving a small shrug of her shoulder and rocking back on her heels, testing his response.

  Connor nodded thoughtfully. ‘I can see why you have such an issue being related to her.’

  Josie’s heart plummeted. So he had been impressed by Maddie after all; he’d just done a bang-up job of disguising it.

  Connor frowned at her less than enthusiastic response to his statement and pulled her in close, wrapping his arm tightly around her middle so she could feel the hardness of his muscles against her belly.

  ‘I can honestly say you have absolutely no need to worry about me running off with your sister.’

  She met his eyes and saw the sincerity in his gaze. Leaning forward, she planted a firm kiss on his mouth, attempting to convey through the osmosis of her touch that she really, truly believed him. When she drew away he was smiling at her. Apparently she’d been successful.

  ‘It would never work with me and Maddie, anyway,’ he said, leaning in to nuzzle the flashpoint on her neck that, when kissed, always made her lose her mind.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ She struggled to get the words out.

  ‘Because if my ego and her ego ever got together I think the world would probably implode.’

  She giggled in response, happiness making her light-headed.

  Pulling back, he kissed first her cheeks, then her nose, his breath feathering over her skin.

  ‘You know I wouldn’t change a thing about you,’ he said, firmly kissing one side of her mouth and then the other. ‘You’re one of a kind and I love that.’

  At that moment she felt it. Unique. After all those years of peeking out from under her sister’s shadow, of wishing and hoping that there was something special about her, finally here was that feeling. And it was from a totally different source than the one she’d expected. A better source. An infinitely more important one.

  ‘So what happens now?’ she asked, looking him dead in the eye.

  ‘Game of chess?’ he asked, smiling seductively.

  ‘I can think of something much more fun than that,’ she said, raising a suggestive eyebrow.

  ‘Fun sounds good,’ he said, and before she had time to react he pulled her tight against his body, locking his arms around her back. ‘What the lady wants, the lady gets,’ he said, kissing her hard. ‘Tell me what you want,’ he whispered against her mouth.

  ‘Take me to bed and I’ll show you,’ she said, kissing him back.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE PLUS-ONE AGREEMENT by Charlotte Phillips.

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  ONE

  Q: How do you tell your fake boyfriend that you’ve met a real one and you don’t need him any more?

  A: However you like. If he’s not a real boyfriend, it’s not a real break-up. Hardly likely that he’ll start declaring undying love for you, is it?

  Chance would have been a fine thing.

  This Aston Martin might fly before arm candy addict Dan Morgan developed anything more than a fake attraction for someone as sensible and boring as Emma Burney, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t given it time. Getting on for a year in his company, watching an endless string of short-term flings pout their way through his private life, had convinced her she was never going to be blonde enough, curvy enough or vacuous enough to qualify. In fact she was pretty much the opposite of all his conquests, even dressed up to the nines for her brother’s art exhibition.

  She glanced down at herself in the plain black boat-neck frock and nude heels she’d chosen, teamed as usual with her minimal make-up and straight-up-and-down figure. Romance need not apply.

  She did, however, possess all the qualities Dan wanted in a supportive friend and social ally. As he did for her. Hence the fake part of their agreement.

  An agreement which she reminded herself she no longer needed.

  Not if she wanted to move forward from the suspended animation that had been her life this last year. Any residual hope that what was counterfeit between them might somehow turn genuine if she just gave it enough time had been squashed in these last few amazing weeks as she’d been swept off her feet by a whirlwind of intimate, luxurious dinners, expensive gifts and exciting plans. What was between her and Dan was now nothing more than a rut that needed climbing out of.

  She watched him quietly for a moment from the passenger seat of his car, looking like an aftershave model in his dark suit and white shirt. His dark hair was so thick there was always a hint of spike about it, a light shadow of stubble lined his jaw, and his ice-blue eyes and slow smile had the ability to charm the entire female species. It had ce
rtainly worked on her mother, whose ongoing mission in life was to get Emma and Dan married off and raising a tribe of kids like some Fifties cupcake couple.

  Perpetuating her gene pool was the last thing Emma wanted—a lifetime in the midst of her insane family had seen to that. Having Dan as her pretend boyfriend at family events had proved to be the perfect fob-off.

  But now she had the real thing and the pretending was holding her back. All that remained was to explain that fact to Dan. She gathered herself together and took a deep breath.

  ‘This has to stop,’ she said.

  * * *

  ‘You’re dumping me?’

  Dan shifted his eyes briefly from the road to glance across at her, a mock grin on his face. Because of course this was some kind of joke, right? She simply looked back at him, her brown eyes serious.

  ‘Well, technically, no,’ she said. ‘Because we’d have to be in a proper relationship for me to do that, and ours is a fake one.’ She put her head on one side. ‘If it’s actually one at all. To be honest, it’s more of an agreement, isn’t it? A plus-one agreement.’

  He’d never seen fit to give it a name before. It had simply been an extension of their work dealings into a mutually beneficial social arrangement. There had been no conscious decision or drawing up of terms. It had just grown organically from one simple work success.

  Twelve months ago Emma, in her capacity as his lawyer, had attended a meeting with Dan and a potential client for his management consultancy. A potentially huge client. The meeting had overrun into dinner, she had proved a formidable ally and his winning of the contract had been smoothed along perfectly by their double act. She had seemed to bounce off him effortlessly, predicting where he was taking the conversation, backing him up where he needed it. He’d ended the evening with a new client, a new respect for Emma and the beginnings of a connection.

  After that she’d become his go-to ally for social engagements—a purely platonic date that he could count on for intelligent conversation and professional behaviour. She’d become a trusted contact. And in return he’d accompanied her to family dinners and events like this one today, sympathising with her exasperation at her slightly crazy family while not really understanding it. Surely better to have a slightly crazy family than no family at all?

  He’d never been dumped before. It was an odd novelty. And certainly not by a real girlfriend. It seemed being dumped by a fake one was no less of a shock to the system.

  ‘It’s been good while it lasted,’ she was saying. ‘Mutually beneficial for both of us. You got a professional plus-one for your work engagements and I got my parents off my back. But the fact is—’

  ‘It’s not you, it’s me?’ he joked, still not convinced she wasn’t messing around.

  ‘I’ve met someone,’ she said, not smiling.

  ‘Someone?’ he said, shaking his head lightly and reaching for the air-conditioning controls. For some reason it was suddenly boiling in the car. ‘A work someone?’

  ‘No, not a work someone!’ Her tone was exasperated. ‘Despite what you might think, I do have a life, you know—outside work.’

  ‘I never said you didn’t.’

  He glanced across at her indignant expression just as it melted into a smile of triumph.

  ‘Dan, I’ve met someone.’

  She held his gaze for a second before he looked back at the road, her eyebrows slightly raised, waiting for him to catch on. He tried to keep a grin in place when for some reason his face wanted to fold in on itself. In the months he’d known her she’d been on maybe two or three dates, to his knowledge, and none of the men involved had ever been important enough to her to earn the description ‘someone’.

  He sat back in his seat and concentrated hard on driving the car through the London evening traffic. He supposed she was waiting for some kind of congratulatory comment and he groped for one.

  ‘Good for you,’ he said eventually. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He was involved in some legal work I was doing.’

  So she had met him through her job as a lawyer, then. Of course she had. When did she ever do anything that wasn’t somehow linked to work? Even their own friendship was based in work. It had started with work and had grown with their mutual ambition.

  ‘We’ve been on a few dates and it’s going really well.’ She took a breath. ‘And that’s why I need to end things with you.’

  Things? For some reason he disliked the vagueness of the term, as if it meant nothing.

  ‘You don’t date,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Exactly,’ she said, jabbing a finger at him. ‘And do you know why I don’t date?’

  ‘Because no man could possibly match up to me?’

  ‘Despite what you might think is appealing to women, I don’t relish the prospect of a couple of nights sharing your bed only to be kicked out of it the moment you get bored.’

  ‘No need to make it sound so brutal. They all go into it with their eyes open, you know. I don’t make any false promises that it will ever be more than a bit of fun.’

  ‘None of them ever believe that. They all think they’ll be the one to change you. But you’ll never change because you don’t need to. You’ve got me for the times when you need to be serious, so you can keep the rest of your girlies just for fun.’

  She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap.

  ‘The thing is, Dan, passing you off as my boyfriend might keep my family off my back, and it stops the swipes about me being single and the comments about my biological clock, but it doesn’t actually solve anything. I didn’t realise until now that I’m in a rut. I haven’t dated for months. All I do is work. It’s so easy to rely on you if I have to go anywhere I need a date that I’ve quit looking for anyone else.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  She sighed.

  ‘Just that meeting Alistair has opened my eyes to what I’ve been missing. And I really think our agreement is holding us both back.’

  ‘Alistair?’

  ‘His name is Alistair Woods.’

  He easily dismissed the image that zipped into his brain of the blond ex-international cycling star, because it had to be a coincidence. Emma didn’t know anyone like that. He would know if she did. Except she was waiting, lips slightly parted, eyebrows slightly raised. Everything about her expression told him she was waiting for him to catch on.

  ‘Not the Alistair Woods?’ he said, because she so obviously wanted him to.

  He stole a glance across at her and the smile that lit up her face caused a sorry twist somewhere deep in his stomach. It was a smile he couldn’t remember seeing for the longest time—not since they’d first met.

  The glance turned into a look for as long as safe driving would allow, during which he saw her with an unusually objective eye, noticing details that had passed him by before. The hint of colour touching the smooth high cheekbones, the soft fullness of her lower lip, the way tendrils of her dark hair curled softly against the creamy skin of her shoulders in the boat-neck dress. She looked absolutely radiant and his stomach gave a slow and unmistakable flip, adding to his sense of unreality.

  ‘Exactly,’ she said with a touch of triumph. ‘The cyclist. Well, ex-cyclist. He’s in TV now—he does presenting and commentating.’

  Of course he did. His face had been a permanent media fixture during the last big sports event in the UK. Dan felt a sudden irrational aversion to the man, whom he’d never met.

  ‘You’re dating Alistair Woods?’

  He failed to keep the incredulity out of his voice and it earned him a flash of anger that replaced her bubbling excitement like a flood of cold water.

  ‘No need to make it sound so unbelievable,’ she snapped. ‘You might only see me as some power suit, great for taking on the difficult dates when one of your five-minute
conquests won’t make the right impression, but I do actually have a dual existence. As a woman.’

  ‘How long have you been seeing him?’ he said.

  ‘What are you? My father?’ she said. ‘We’ve been out a few times.’

  ‘How many is a few?’

  ‘Half a dozen, maybe.’

  ‘You’re ending our agreement on the strength of half a dozen dates?’

  ‘Yes, well, they weren’t dates in the way you think of them. He hasn’t just invited me out for an impressive dinner as a preamble to taking me to bed. You can actually get to know someone really well in half a dozen dates if you approach them in a more...serious way.’

  The thinly veiled dig didn’t escape him and indignation sharpened his voice.

  ‘OK, then, if he’s so bloody marvellous, and you’re so bloody smitten, why the hell isn’t he on his way to look at your brother’s wacky paintings and meet the parents? Couldn’t you have dumped me on the phone and saved me a load of time and hassle?’

  He pulled the car to a standstill outside the gallery steps and turned off the engine.

  ‘I’m not dumping you! How many times? It’s a fake relationship!’

  A uniformed attendant opened Emma’s car door and she got out. Dan threw his keys to the parking valet and joined her on the steps.

  ‘So you keep saying,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘I could have spent this evening working.’

  ‘Like you don’t spend enough of your life doing that.’ She led the way through the high arched doorway into the gallery. ‘You can easily afford an evening. Alistair’s out of the country until next week, and I need this opportunity to draw a thick, black and irreversible line under the two of us for my parents’ eyes and undo the tissue of fibs I’ve told them.’

  They walked slowly down the red-carpeted hallway, his hand pressed softly at the small of her back—the perfect escort as always.

  ‘I really don’t see why I need to be there for you to do that,’ he said, smiling politely at other guests as they passed, maintaining the perfect impression. ‘Especially since it’s only a fake relationship.’