It wasn’t that she’d spent a handful of hours with Alexander and had decided he was ‘the one.’ She wasn’t a total nut. But he wasn’t just a passing number in the crowd, either. The attraction between them was too instant, too fierce. Not purely physical. He was significant; he was someone. She’d guessed that from the start.
“Normally, I’d love to hear exactly what this is about, but we’ve less than an hour to go.” Marge made a show of lifting her wristwatch up to her nose. “Focus, Kate.”
Deadline.
Kate sat up straighter and sharpened her brain. If she didn’t email the weekly edition to the printing press in Penzance before five o’clock, there’d be absolutely nothing delivered first thing Tuesday morning.
She grabbed her notepad and pencil to scribble down the information Marge fed her. “Is that it?” she asked when Marge stopped speaking. “Are we ready to go?”
Marge nodded. “Let’s just hope we can fill the busses or that’s the last of our rainy day money from the treasury coffer.”
“We’ll sell the tickets,” Kate said, giving her a reassuring smile. “You should be hoping we have enough busses.”
Marge returned a small smile. “That’s one of things I really appreciate about you, Kate. Your glass is always half full.” Her gaze flicked to the open office door and back. “We could use some of that in there.” She sighed. “You will send the edition off immediately, won’t you? If the paper doesn’t come out tomorrow—”
“I’ll take care of it,” Kate told her. “It’s what I do.”
“You take care of more than the paper, sweetie,” Marge threw out as she headed back to her ladies. “You’re our guardian angel. How you got that man to change his mind, I’ll never know…” Her voice faded as she disappeared through the doorway.
Kate doubted any angel had ever traded sex for favours. God, where did that come from? Sex for favours? That is not—well, it wasn’t—grrr, it didn’t end that way.
She scowled at the monitor as she scrolled down the template to the space reserved for the transport information.
Alexander opened a door.
That was all.
She typed in the bus schedule for departure from the high street in the morning and the return trip in the afternoon, checked and re-checked the entry, then leant back in her seat without pressing the send button.
Twenty minutes later, Marge’s screech jolted her spine. “Hold the presses! Hold the presses! We have another sponsor.”
“This isn’t the London Gazette.” A little too much adrenaline pumping there?
Marge’s eyes went wide. “Have you sent it off yet?”
“I was just about to,” she said, unable to resist feeding Marge’s excitement. What were friends for? “You caught me just in time.”
“Thank goodness.” She fell into the seat opposite Kate, taking a few deep breaths before continuing.
The sponsors were the real headache Kate had been dealing with all day. She’d had to negotiate or bribe space from some of the paid advertisers, all local businesses, who’d been scheduled in advance.
At ten minutes before five, Kate hit the send button and powered down her laptop. The ladies had left, and she had more kinks in her spine than she had vertebrae.
This day is done.
She passed through to the reception, was flipping off the bank of electric switches near the door when the phone rang. She stretched over the desk to lift the handset. “Corkscrew Weekly, good afternoon.”
“Kate, I was hoping to catch you before you left.” The sound of the sexiest voice in the history of sex, sexier than when she’d first heard it, rippled over her skin. “I’ve just realised I don’t have any other number for you.”
The tension in her spine softened along with the rest of her. “I wasn’t expecting you to call.”
“I miss you, cara.”
“I miss you, too.” She closed her eyes for a moment, smiling, savouring the feeling. He’d called. He missed her. “What hotel are you staying at?”
“I’m at home.”
“Oh, right, you still own a home there?”
“An apartment in the city, but no, I mean I’m at my aunt’s home…the aunt I came to live with after my parents died.”
A family visit, then. She’d assumed he’d gone over for work. “They must be pleased to have you there.”
“For the night, anyway,” he said. “I need to be in the city first thing tomorrow morning. But I try to stop in here whenever I get the chance.”
So, work, then? She was just about to ask when he said, “Hold on…”
The line went dead for a minute, then he came back on. “Unfortunately, I have to go.”
Kate swallowed a sigh of disappointment. “Well, thanks for the call. It was, um, nice hearing from you.”
Nice. That sounded so insufficient compared to the swelling in her heart. She wanted to keep him on the line all night, listen to his voice as she fell asleep. She wanted—
“Kate?”
She sighed again, this time to drown the longing. “Hmm?”
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She wasn’t supposed to feel so much, so soon, for a man she knew so little about. He was halfway across the world and she didn’t even know his reason for being there.
“I still need your cell phone number, cara.”
At least that was one thing she did know. She was on Alexander’s mind as much as he was on hers. He’d left the country, but he hadn’t left her behind.
And somehow, for now, it was enough.
Tuesday evening, Kate was relaxing in a steaming bath when he called, greeting her with the words, “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
“I could send you a photo,” she teased lightly, reaching for her glass of wine and sinking lower into the water. “Then you could look at me all day, too.”
“Take one now,” he said, his voice deep and husky. “I want to see you as you are, right now.”
She laughed, and took a fortifying sip of wine before shooting back, “That would be slightly more X-rated than I’m comfortable going public with.”
The sinful in his voice dialled up a notch. “What are you doing?”
Her toes curled around the faucet as the effect of red wine and Alexander hit her bloodstream. “You first.”
“I’ve been in the studio all morning and we’ve just broken for lunch,” he said. “Very public, nothing X-rated and boring as hell.”
“In the studio? I thought you didn’t sing.”
“We’re wrapping up the title track for a movie. I wrote the lyrics and helped compose the music, so I’m purely here on stand-by during the recording in case some tweaks are required.”
“That’s your idea of boring?” She shook her head, both amused and dumbstruck. “I can’t imagine anything more exciting.”
“I thought so too, until I started working on the piece and realised how many different people and teams needed to be satisfied,” he said. “I prefer to compose with less restrictions. Your turn,” he tagged on, the seductive quality of his tone indicating he didn’t really need to ask, “What are you doing?”
She’d been naked all along, but now, suddenly, she felt exposed—in an erotic, thrilling way, for his eyes only.
Were they going to do this?
What was this, anyway?
Phone sex?
Her skin tingled with excitement and anticipation. She had no doubt as to what Alexander could achieve between that bone-melting voice and the vivid memories of last Sunday. On the other hand, she’d never done anything like this before. Wouldn’t know where to start.
In a slight panic, she glanced around, then swapped her glass of wine for this week’s freshly delivered edition from the stand beside the bath.
“Reading today’s paper,” she told him breathlessly.
He chuckled. “Either you have an interesting habit of reading in the nude or we need to have a serious discussion on the meaning of X-rated.”
“Neither,” sh
e told him, swallowing a laugh that released some of the tension constricting her lungs. “I’m in the bath.”
The pause was brief, barely noticeable. When he came back, his voice was thick with desire. “That definitely works.”
Heat flushed her entire body at the reminder of that last time he’d made her situation work for them.
But instead of suggesting something erotically outlandish, he simply said, “Read to me.”
“From the paper?”
“Hmm.”
She put her phone on speaker and placed it on the rim of the bath, freeing her hands to skip past the front page spread. “We don’t exactly get newsworthy headlines in Corkscrew Bay,” she warned.
The biggest news this week was the Easter egg hunt, and she didn’t want to get into that with Alexander. After making his generous offer and slipping her his agent’s business card, he hadn’t brought the subject up again.
“I don’t mind.”
“Okay.” She folded the paper in half and grabbed her wine, reading a couple of articles aloud in between sips.
Not quite phone sex, and yet her body hummed with awareness of him on the other side of the line while bath oils caressed her tingling skin. The intimacy wrapped around her heart, warming, binding them as close as when their bodies had been tangled.
Closer, now that he was opening up to her, speaking about his day, his life. Slowly, she was beginning to believe he’d let her over onto his side of those walls. The bonds of trust spinning a web around her, drawing her in, were real this time. If she blinked, Alexander would still be there, would still be hers. Probably crazy, but he filled her completely, with an intensity unlike any other emotion she’d ever experienced, and she didn’t want to reserve any space for doubt.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Alexander cut into her thoughts, “but you’ve read that last sentence five times.”
“You’re not seriously interested in Mrs. Sellman’s mole infestation theories, are you?”
“I just like listening to your voice, cara.”
Kate closed her eyes as his sensual confession washed over her.
What are we doing? She bit down on her lip to keep the question inside her heart. Too serious. Too soon.
But as the week passed, each day ending with a phone call from Alexander, as they spoke for hours about everything and nothing, she could no longer pretend that she didn’t know exactly what she was doing.
She was falling in love.
Chapter Fourteen
Sunday arrived with a light drizzle that made no impact on the turnout for the Easter egg hunt. At least three-quarters of the town had come out for the day, four generations of local families swarming between the tents that dotted the field sloping from the east wing into a wooded area.
If Kate had needed confirmation that she wasn’t alone in missing the connection between the castle and the town, she was looking at it. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she wove a path through the sea of familiar faces, waving, calling out greetings and stopping to chat every now and then as she went.
She finally caught up with Finn at the pancake line, his arm around a sun-kissed brunette he introduced as Melanie, down from Newcastle for the week.
Kate exchanged a few pleasantries with the girl, who seemed nice enough but wouldn’t be around for long. None of Finn’s girls ever were. The last time he’d actually dated anyone, let alone someone from town and not simply passing through, was…well, she couldn’t even remember.
“You’re unusually happy.” Finn’s gaze slid over her with amusement. “Something you want to share?”
“No secret.” Kate threw her arms out. “It just feels like a bit of normal has been restored.”
“From what I’ve seen this morning, the entire town agrees,” Finn said, his tone touched with warm sincerity. “I know we give you a lot of grief over it, but some traditions are worth the fight.”
“Thank you!”
He chuckled. “Keep playing nice with Darrock’s owner and this might become an annual event again.”
“I haven’t been playing nice with Alexander.”
“What have you done to the poor man now?” came a lazy drawl from behind.
She rolled her eyes at Harry as he joined them. “Why do you always assume it’s what I’ve done? Did it ever occur to you he might have done something to me?”
“Did he?” Harry cocked a brow at her.
Finn gave a shout of laughter. “Good luck getting that story out of her.”
“Who’s Alexander?” asked Melanie.
“You’re all so hilarious.” Kate turned from them to walk away. “Excuse me while I go and kill myself laughing.”
She hadn’t gotten far before Finn came after her.
“Hey, is everything okay? Is it something I said?”
She shook her head.
He grabbed her arm, forcing her to stand and face him. “We were just messing with you. You know I’d never breathe a word of what you told me about you and Alexander. Not even to Izzy.”
“I know.” Kate met his worried gaze with a weak smile, only now realising that her sudden unease had everything to do with what Finn had said. “I’m just not in the mood for a Harry lecture and I promised Marge I’d help shepherd the kids through the forest trail.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m fine, Finn.”
But her smile collapsed the moment she turned from him to walk on.
How naïve was she, imaging a future with Alexander?
She respected his need for privacy, to distance himself, his home, from the outside world. If he needed those walls, she no longer wanted to break them down. He wasn’t the recluse she’d initially assumed, obviously, but Castle Darrock was his sanctuary.
Could she really stand by his side, however, ignoring petitions every year.
Could she ever live on his side of the wall, being the one that disappointed the town?
The questions and doubts churned her stomach throughout the day and when she spoke to Alexander later, she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Where are we going with this?”
“I don’t know,” he said after a small pause. “Does it matter, so long as we’re going there together?”
Together. One little word with the power to erode most of her doubts. Sometimes, she was such an idiot.
Alexander had already shown he was prepared to compromise, and so could she. If they somehow worked out, if the intensity of what she felt after such a short time wasn’t all purely in her head.
“Is that enough, cara?”
“That’s perfect.” She bit her lip on a smile. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” His voice deepened to a rumble that rolled along her spine. “And I have so many ways to show you just how much.”
“You are such a tease.”
“It’ll be worth the wait,” he promised.
As much as Kate tried not to put her life on hold, waiting, she found herself counting down the days, and then the hours when she knew his flight had touched down in Heathrow. Butterflies took up residence in her pulse, and she wasn’t even expecting to see him until the following day. He still had to make the long journey down to Cornwall.
She screwed her eyes at the computer screen, determined to apply her mind to the list of summer internship applications she was reviewing. She now had two part-time employees who contributed feature columns and she’d recently contracted a marketing agency to help drum up advertising sales.
This was the first year she felt the paper sufficiently established to offer internships and she was possibly more nervous than the applicants.
She didn’t want to fail any of the starry-eyed students who dared to dream big. The Corkscrew Weekly wasn’t exactly a glam rag or thrill ride.
The only exciting news the town had seen in decades was Alexander and the celebrities he apparently hosted from time to time, and that was all strictly off limits.
Kate sat back with a sigh. She’d
be a liar if she didn’t admit the slight tug between her personal and professional life. Damn, but that would make a good story.
She glanced up and her gaze landed on the man himself. Her cheeks flamed with guilt, and then there was no space for anything else except Alexander.
“I didn’t think you’d get here until at least midnight.” She pushed to her feet, drinking in the sight of his rumpled hair, those gorgeous grey eyes, the grin sliding over his granite jaw.
“I was able to charter a flight to Penzance,” he explained, long strides bringing him closer and closer. “I was going to phone, but decided to surprise you instead.”
Her fingers flew to her hair, to the messy knot she’d tied at some point during the day.
“You’re beautiful, cara,” he said, as if reading her mind. He came to a halt on the other side of her desk, his gaze softening on her. “Dio, I’ve missed the sight.”
His adoration nearly undid her.
She wasn’t beautiful, but to him, she felt like the most beautiful woman on the earth. Unable to be apart from him a moment longer, she rounded the desk and threw herself into his arms.
He held her tightly, his heart thudding against hers, his words a blend of foreign phrases and sin murmured into her hair.
When she recognised the word adoro she strained back to look into his eyes, a smile sneaking over her lips. “I adore you, too.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” His hands slid over her backside, pressing her flush against him as his mouth covered hers in a kiss that lingered with tantalising nips and licks.
When he didn’t deepen the kiss, she took the initiative, thrusting her tongue inside. He met her thrusts with increasing urgency, stroking, mating, his tongue curling around hers, claiming.
Her hands dipped beneath his thin sweater, her fingers grazing warm skin. His back was lean, rippled muscle, burning up her fingertips. His body was amazing, athlete fit without an inch of slack. He was gorgeous, deliriously so, but the sensations stirring up her hormones were so much more, a unique blend of his essence with hers. The chemistry between them was electrical, pulsing through her veins.
He pulled out of the kiss, bumping up against the desk. His arms remained around her, loosely circling her waist. “Kate, I didn’t come here for this.”
Falling for Alexander (Corkscrew Bay #2) Page 10