Before she forgot how to let go at all.
‘I think we should do it. Where do you want to go?’ She pulled her phone out, ready to search the internet.
‘Let’s not plan. Let’s just go for it and see where we end up.’
Ellie took in a deep breath, damping down the knot of worry forming in her stomach. She could do this. She didn’t need to plan everything. Spontaneous. Fun. Those adjectives could describe her.
They had once described the little girl running barefoot through the sand at Trengarth, living completely and utterly in the moment. She was still in there somewhere. Wasn’t she?
‘Perfect. We’ll see where we end up. Absolutely.’
* * *
Max seemed to take the hotel completely in his stride, but although Ellie wanted to look like the kind of girl who stayed in sumptuous five-star hotels every day of her life she was aware she was failing miserably, gaping at everything from the uniformed doorman to the gilt-edged baroque decorations.
‘I don’t think this is within my budget,’ she whispered to Max as the doorman took her case, not betraying with so much as a flicker of his eyebrow that her old tattered holdall was easily the cheapest item in the entire hotel.
She’d known they were going to stay somewhere nice, had justified the extravagance as a business expense, but this? This was the difference between high street chocolate and hand-made truffles.
It wasn’t just nice, and luxurious didn’t come close. It was the haute couture of the hotel world. And Ellie was very much a high street girl.
She cast a surreptitious look around, trying to find some clue as to the tariff. But there was nothing. If you have to ask the price you can’t afford it... Wasn’t that what they said?
What if you were terrified to ask the price? That meant you absolutely couldn’t afford so much as a sandwich in the lavishly decorated bar.
It wasn’t as if she spent much, but one night in this hotel might severely deplete her carefully hoarded savings. Her nails bit into her palms as she fought for breath. She didn’t have to stay. She could go and find a more affordable room right now.
Only the doorman had shepherded them into the lift and the doors were beginning to close. Would it be too late when he opened the door to her room? It might be okay... If she bought sandwiches from a shop down the road and didn’t go anywhere near the mini-bar...
And there was always her emergency credit card. Her breath hitched. She should be glad that an emergency had been downgraded from an escape plan to paying for a luxury hotel room.
‘Relax, this is on DL Media,’ Max whispered back.
How had he done that? Read her mood so effortlessly?
Relief warred with panic. She always paid her way. Money had been just one of the ways Simon had liked to control her. One of the ways she had allowed him to control her.
‘Don’t be silly. Of course I’ll pay my own bill.’
Max leaned in closer and his eyes held hers for a long moment before hers fell under his scrutiny. But that was no better, because now she was staring intently at the grey cotton of his T-shirt where it moulded to his chest.
It was fair to say, Ellie had conceded in the sleepless depths of the night before, that Max Loveday was a reasonably attractive male. He was young, fit, intelligent, and he had that certain air of unconscious arrogance. Infuriating and yet with a certain charm.
But had she really noticed? Had she taken the time before now to appreciate the toned strength of him, the long muscled legs, today casually clad in worn jeans, the flat stomach and broad chest? Of course they had never been in quite such close proximity before. She hadn’t allowed him within real touching distance.
They weren’t touching now, but there were mere millimetres between their bodies. His breath was cool on her cheek and his outdoorsy scent of salt air and pine was enfolding her as every inch of her began to sense every inch of him. An ache began to pulse low in the very centre of her.
He leaned in a millimetre further. ‘DL Media pays for the hotel. You get dinner tonight. Deal?’
A compromise. Sensible, fair; no games, no coercion. The ache intensified, spreading upwards, downwards, everywhere. Her pulse speeded up. She wanted to lean in, to allow herself to feel him, touch him.
‘Deal.’ Ellie could hardly form the word. Her throat was dry. There was no air in this lift, no air at all.
At which point had she begun to notice him? Learned the way his hair curled despite its short cut trying to subdue it into businesslike submission? Learned the line of his jaw and the way his mouth curled sometimes in impatience, sometimes in disdain. sometimes in humour? Learned the gleam in the light brown eyes and the way they could focus on a person as if seeing right into their core?
How had she learned him by heart when she had been trying so hard not to see him at all?
Ellie took a step back, perspiration beading her forehead as the temperature in the suddenly too small lift rocketed. Could he tell? Could he tell that she was horrifyingly, intensely burning up with unwanted attraction? Not that it had that much to do with him per se. It had everything to do with three years of celibacy, emotional as well as physical.
She wasn’t superficial enough to fall for a lazy smile and an air of entitlement. Oh, no. She had been blinded by charm once. She was just ready to move on, that was all. And he was a temporary fixture in her life. Safe. A two-week stop-gap. That was why he was the perfect person to hack through the forest and reawaken those long-dormant feelings.
Only he didn’t feel quite so safe now.
‘This way please, sir...madam.’
Thank goodness. The lift doors were open and there was her escape. A hotel room came with a bathroom, which meant one thing: a long and very cold shower. And forget all those good intentions regarding the mini-bar, Ellie needed a large glass of wine and chocolate and she didn’t much care which came first.
And then she would give herself a very stern talking-to indeed.
Max stood back to let Ellie precede him out of the lift and she resisted the urge—barely—to press herself against the opposite side of the door and keep as much space between them as possible. He fell in behind her and she stiffened, all too aware of his step matching hers.
Cold shower, wine, chocolate, stern words.
Or maybe stern words, wine, cold shower, chocolate.
And a plan. A plan to start dating. There were single men in Trengarth. Sam was interested, she was almost sure of that, and there were more eligible bachelors. She would find them. She would track them down and she would have coffee and conversation just like any girl of twenty-five ought to.
Maybe even a stroll on a beach, if she was feeling daring.
‘Madam, sir...this way, please.’ The doorman opened a door and stood aside, an expectant look on his face.
Only it was one door.
One. Door.
Ellie stopped still.
‘Madam?’ There was a puzzled note in the smooth tones. ‘The Presidential Suite...’
Ellie tried to speak. ‘I...’ Nope, that was more of a squeak. She coughed. ‘Suite?’ Still a squeak, but a discernible one.
There was a smothered sound from behind her and she narrowed her eyes. If Max Loveday was laughing at her then he was in for a very painful sobering up.
‘Yes, madam, our very best suite. As requested.’
Ellie swivelled and fixed the openly grinning Max with her best gimlet glare. ‘Suite?’
‘My very efficient PA. She must have assumed...’ He trailed off, but didn’t seem in the least bit repentant. ‘Chill, honey. I’m sure that the suite is plenty big enough, and if not I’ll find you a broom cupboard somewhere.’
‘I’m afraid the hotel is fully booked, sir.’ The doorman didn’t sound in the least bit sorry. ‘If you would lik
e to follow me?’
Stay in the corridor and sulk? Retrieve her bag from the doorman and head out into London to find a new hotel within her budget? Or walk into the suite like an aristocrat headed for the guillotine?
The tumbril it was.
* * *
On the one hand it was pretty demoralising to see just how much Ellie Scott didn’t want to share a hotel suite with him. It wasn’t that Max had expected or particularly wanted to share a room with her, but he hadn’t faced the prospect with all the icy despair of one prepared to Meet Her Doom.
Plus, he wasn’t that terrible a prospect. All his own hair, heir to one of the biggest family businesses in the world, reasonably fit and able to string a few sentences together. In some quarters he was quite the catch. But Ellie’s ill-hidden horror burst any ego bubble with a resounding bang.
Although it was amusing to watch her torn between her obvious dismay at his proximity and her even more obvious open-mouthed appreciation of the lavishly appointed suite.
Goodness knew what Lydia, his PA, was thinking. She usually booked him into business hotels. More than comfortable, certainly, equipped with twenty-four-hour gyms, generous desk space and the kind of comprehensive room service menu that a man heading from meeting to meeting required. A world away from this boutique luxury.
This suite took comfort to a whole new level. It didn’t say business, instead it screamed honeymoon—or dirty weekend. From the huge bath, more than big enough for two, to the fine linen sheets on the massive bed the suite was all about staying in.
Luckily for Ellie’s blood pressure, it also came with a second bedroom. The bed there was a mere super-king-size, and the bathroom came with a walk in shower and a normal-sized bath—but the large sitting and dining area separated the two, and Ellie had claimed the smaller of the two rooms in a way that had made it very clear that trespassers were most definitely not allowed.
And in the hour since they had first entered the suite she had clammed up in a way that showed just how discombobulated she was. Even now, walking down the wide bustling street, she was pale and silent. And it didn’t matter, it shouldn’t matter, but Max had quite liked the way she had opened up earlier.
The way he had opened up.
It had almost been as if they were friends. And it was only with the resounding sound of her silence that he’d realised just how few of those he had. Buddies? Sure. Lovers? Absolutely. Colleagues, teammates, old school and college alumni, relatives, people he’d grown up with—his life was filled with people.
But how many of them were real friends? He hadn’t discussed his parents’ bitter divorce, his doubts about his father’s helming of the company with anyone. Not with a single soul.
And yet he’d unburdened himself to this slim, serious English girl.
If she froze him out now then he would be back to where he had started. Dealing with feelings that were seared into his soul, struggling to keep them under control.
Besides, it would be a long two days if she was going to make monosyllabic seem chatty.
Which tactic? Normally he would try and make her laugh. Keep up a flow of light-hearted jokes until she smiled. It was the way he had always dealt with frowns and stony silences.
And if that didn’t work then he would walk away without a backward glance. After all, life was too short for emotional manipulation, wasn’t it?
But somehow he didn’t think that she was trying to manipulate him—nor that a quip would work here. And he was honour-bound to stay. It might be time to dig out honesty...
‘I didn’t plan to share a suite with you. I hope you know that?’
Ellie stopped abruptly, ignoring the muttered curses of the tourists and business folk who had to skirt around her. ‘I don’t know that. I don’t know you well enough.’
‘I hope you know me well enough to acknowledge that I would never be sleazy enough to go for the “accidentally booked one room” trick. I don’t use tricks, Ellie. If I wanted you to share my bed I’d tell you—and you would have every opportunity to turn me down with no hard feelings.’
She looked hard at him, as if she were trying to learn his every flaw, as if she were burrowing deep into the heart of him. He tried not to squirm—what would she find there? A hollowness? A shallowness?
‘Okay.’ She started walking again.
‘Okay?’ That was all?
‘I’m sorry I doubted you.’ Her voice quietened and she looked straight ahead. He got the feeling she was avoiding his eye. ‘My...my ex was all about tricks. It’s all I know. I don’t—’ Her voice broke and his hands curled into fists at the hitch in her voice. ‘I don’t trust what’s real. I don’t trust myself to see it.’
‘Well...’ Maybe it was time to bring in light-hearted Max. He sensed she was already telling him more than she was comfortable with. He didn’t want the distance to be permanent. After all, they were together for the next forty-eight hours. It might as well be fun.
It went no further than that.
‘The joke would be on me if I was pulling a sleazy trick. The room between our bedrooms is the size of an average hotel foyer. I think we can both sleep safely tonight.’
‘Your virtue was always safe with me,’ she said, but she still didn’t look at him, and Max noted a flash of red high on her cheekbones.Embarrassment—or something more primal?
The hotel was centrally located, right in the heart of London. Max had travelled to the UK on business many times and was familiar with the hotels, high-end clubs and restaurants of the buzzing city—but he had never wandered aimlessly through the wide city streets, never used the Tube or hopped on a bus. It was freeing. Being part of the city, not observing it through a cab window.
They had wandered south, moving towards the river as if led by a dousing stick, and were now on a wide open street. St James’s Park opened out on one side, a city oasis of green and trees in stark contrast to the golden silhouette of Big Ben dominating the skyline in front of them.
‘Looks like you got your wish.’ Ellie seemed to have recovered her equilibrium. ‘We’re in tourist central. Shall I buy you a policeman’s helmet or a red phone box pencil sharpener?’
‘I think I want a Big Ben keychain,’ he decided. ‘And possibly a shirt that says “You came to London but all you bought me was this lousy T-shirt”.’
‘As long as you wear it tomorrow night. So what now? We could go into Westminster Abbey? Visit the park? I think I’m allowed in the Houses of Parliament, but I might have needed to arrange it with my MP first.’
‘That would be cool. I’d like to watch all your politicians yell at each other. Are you allowed to bring popcorn?’
‘Nope, only jellied eels.’
‘Only what?’ She had to be kidding, right?
‘They’re a London delicacy. All the English love them. We just keep it hidden so the rest of the world doesn’t steal our national dish. We usually wash them down with some whelks and a pint of stout.’
‘Very funny.’
She laughed. ‘It’s true. I bet I can find you a place that sells them—if you’re man enough to try them.’
‘I’ll take the slur on my masculinity, thanks.’ He shuddered at just the thought of the slimy fish.
‘Coward. Right...what would tourists do? The palace is that way.’ She pointed to the park. ‘And we could take your photo with one of the guards at Horse Guards. That’s always popular.’
‘If only I was eight... Will we get invited to have tea with the Queen?’
‘Now that you’ve dissed the national dish it’s very unlikely. You don’t graduate to cucumber sandwiches until you’ve mastered the jellied eels.’
‘Just an unworthy Yank? Another dream shattered.’
Ellie ignored him. ‘So, what will it be? Trafalgar Square? Covent Garden? Or we could see a s
how?’
‘You know, I’m pretty much enjoying just walking. Is that okay?’
Surprise flashed across her face. ‘Of course.’
Their route continued riverwards to a busy intersection. Cars were such an integral part of all US cities that Max never noticed their noisy intrusion, but they seemed wrong in this ancient city, beeping and revving in front of the old riverside palaces. The road bisected the great houses from the riverfront, with pedestrians crowded onto the grey pavements.
Ellie stopped on the tip of the pavement and directed an enquiring look across the bridge. ‘Shall we cross over?’
Max raised an eyebrow. ‘To the dark side?’
‘It is south of the river, but I think we’ll be safe.’
‘I’ll hold you personally responsible for my safety.’
If Max had truly been a tourist, and if he’d had his camera, then he would have stopped halfway across the bridge and, ignoring the mutters of the tourist hordes, photographed the iconic clock tower. But all he had was his phone.
‘Come here.’ He pulled it out of his pocket and wrapped an arm around Ellie. He felt her stiffen. ‘Obligatory Big Ben selfie,’ he explained. ‘Smile!’
She relaxed, just an iota, but it was enough for her to lean a little further in, for him to notice that there was softness under that slenderness, that her hair smelt of sunshine and the colours were even more diverse close up: coffee and cinnamon, toffee and treacle, shot through with gold and honey.
It took every ounce of self-control he owned not to tighten his arm around her slim shoulders, not to pull her in a little closer, to test just how well they’d fit. Every ounce not to spin her round, not to tilt that pointed chin and claim her mouth. He ached to know how she would taste, to know how she would feel pressed against him.
‘Smile!’
Was that his voice? So strained? So unnaturally hearty? But Ellie didn’t seem to notice, pulling an exaggerated pout as he pressed the button on the camera.
‘One more for luck.’ Really he wasn’t quite ready to let her go. Not just yet.
A Will, A Wish...A Proposal (Contemporary Romance) Page 7