by Fiona Harper
Stop it! she told herself. Stop it at once!
Cameron merely nodded at her and stood silently beside her. And as they rode down in the lift together, preparing to go their separate ways to their separate homes, Alice held her breath and tried to anchor her stomach yet again.
Cameron turned to her.
‘Thank you, Alice, for all you’re doing.’
Alice struggled hard not to let her surprise at his words show on her face.
‘I really enjoyed our lunch,’ he added.
Had he? Had she been the only one feeling as if she was teetering on a tightrope the whole time, then?
And then he did something even more unexpected. He smiled at her. ‘It reminded me of that Christmas party. Do you remember?’
He shuddered. And she knew as surely as she knew her own name that he was remembering Aunty Barb’s orange foundation. The very same thought that had popped into her own mind.
The grin widened, suddenly taking years off him, changing his face from granite into something softer, warmer, and infinitely more alive, more appealing. Breathing suddenly became something less than automatic.
Oh, yes. She remembered.
With his unheralded smile Cameron had brought all those warm feelings rushing back. Alice couldn’t help but smile back. Something clicked into place, and once again they were partners in crime.
Cameron knocked on the office door, but didn’t wait for an answer before he pushed it open. Alice was on the phone. She glanced up at him, but almost too quickly her eyes flitted back to the large spiral-bound pad in front of her. As he stepped closer he saw that she wasn’t taking notes, but filling in the detail of an elaborate doodle.
By the sounds of it she was talking to someone who hired out staging, and she was busy telling them, in her soft, understated voice, that what they were proposing to build for the fashion show catwalk just wasn’t good enough, and could they please pass her on to someone who knew what they were talking about or she’d take her business elsewhere.
Alice might seem meek in person, but in the week she’d been based in the spare office on his floor he’d realised that underneath she was a woman who had very clear ideas about what she wanted and how she wanted it done. Once she’d set her mind on something, she wasn’t easily shaken.
When she put the phone down she was almost smiling, and he surmised that she had indeed once again got her own way. Not by shouting or manipulating, but through quiet determination.
‘You wanted to see me?’
She flushed an attractive shade of pale pink. A shade that matched the simple embroidered blouse she was wearing. While other women in the office either power-dressed or wore bland outfits he hardly even noticed, Alice always wore something that caught his attention. Not that what she wore wasn’t suitable for the office—just that somehow he stopped and looked. Perhaps it was the vintage fashion angle. If so, that boded well for the ball and the fashion show. It certainly would be memorable if every outfit had this effect on every guest.
Alice looked apologetic. ‘Oh…no. I mean—I didn’t mean you had to drop what you were doing. It could have waited.’
Yes, it could have. He had calls to make, reports to read, marketing meetings to attend. But somehow wandering into Alice’s temporary office had seemed much more appealing.
The room had been bare less than a week ago, only a desk and a dead pot plant occupying the space. Now there were clothing rails, sketches stuck haphazardly to the walls, and two dilapidated mannequins staring at him, rather as if they were keeping guard. The one on the right only had one good eye, and the effect of her bright green stare was rather unnerving. He moved his gaze away from the bald-headed figure to look back at Alice.
‘Here I am,’ he said. ‘Ready to do your bidding.’
She seemed to find that funny, because her eyes shone and she pressed her lips together, squashing a smile away. He couldn’t help smiling back. Not his nice-to-do-business-with-you smile, but a real one—a lazy one that gently lifted the corners of his mouth. That seemed to have an odd effect on Alice, because she stopped being all cheeky and started tidying things on her desk, squaring her notepad, dropping paperclips in a pot.
He couldn’t make this woman out.
Sometimes she reminded him of the quiet, shy girl he’d known years ago. Sometimes she was a confident, strong-minded professional. But then she’d get all absent-minded and start knocking things over, spoiling the polished picture. It didn’t matter, though, that he couldn’t solve the riddle that was Alice. He just enjoyed watching her slip from one persona to another, wondering what she would do next.
And in that respect their relationship seemed to be a two-way street. It was refreshing to be in the company of someone who didn’t label him as just one thing—a software tycoon, a hard-nosed businessman. Or a meal ticket.
She stood up and walked round to the front of the desk, leaned back against it. ‘We need to find you something to wear for the party,’ she said, looking him up and down.
Now, hang on a minute. There was no way he was wearing second-hand clothes to the biggest event of his career. Not when he’d invited specific people just so he could rub their noses in his success. He’d been there, done that, worn the T-shirt—literally—and he’d promised himself he’d never do it again.
He gave her a steely look and shook his head. Alice didn’t bat an eyelid. Most of his employees would have bowed and backed out of the room if they’d been on the receiving end of that look.
‘Everyone else on your senior management team has agreed to wear something vintage—even if it’s only a waistcoat or a hat.’
‘I am not wearing a hat.’
The little smile was back. ‘All right. Don’t get your knickers in a twist.’ She rolled her eyes and walked over to the clothing rails, where she started moving things around. Beneath the sound of scraping hangers he could have sworn he’d heard her mutter something along the lines of, ‘Obviously it’s a crown or nothing, then.’
A few moments later she held up an ensemble. ‘Everyone else has agreed to be a little adventurous. How about this?’
Jeans and a leather jacket? She had to be joking.
‘Try it on,’ she said. ‘We put a screen in the corner so the models could get changed for the casting session the other day.’
She thrust the hanger at his chest and let go, and he didn’t have much choice but to grab onto it to stop it all landing in a heap at his feet. See? Quiet determination. Alice liked having her own way just as much as he did.
Leather jackets were so not him. He’d never been a rebel—had always had a clear vision of where he wanted to go in life. Messing around hadn’t ever been on the timetable. But the faded denim was soft between his fingers, and the smell of the leather made him think of motorbikes and open roads.
‘Okay,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll try it on. But I’m telling you this: I’m not wearing it to the party.’ His staff would all fall about laughing.
He marched behind the screen and started to undress, wondering as he did so just how he’d ended up stripping down to his boxers in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. He was taller than the screen, and as he pulled on the clothes Alice had given him he kept catching glimpses of her as she shuffled papers on her desk and generally ignored him. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had been so clearly unaffected by the thought of him being semi-naked in the same room as her. It was probably good for his ego. It didn’t mean he liked it, though.
Finally he was done. The jeans were a perfect fit—felt as if he’d owned them for years, had lived in them. The white T-shirt was brand-new, thankfully. It was crisp and clean and still had the sales tag attached. As he rounded the screen he shoved his arms into the leather jacket and pulled it over his shoulders.
Alice seemed to be doing that silent, unimpressed-but-rooted-to-the-spot thing she did, but her eyes were round and she was staring at him.
‘Happy?’ he said, in a voice that was a tad gruffer than
he’d intended it to be.
Alice just nodded.
‘Very,’ she whispered, when she finally got her voice. ‘You’ve got it…Um…it’s caught…’
She walked over to him, not looking him in the eye, and sorted out the lapel of the jacket, which had somehow got tucked under itself, smoothing it into place. He stared at her small, long-fingered hand as it came to rest on his chest, on the white T-shirt.
‘You’re right,’ she said, and then gave a little cough to clear her throat. ‘It looks…g-good…but it’s not right for the party.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he heard himself say. He’d been staring at her cheekbones and had got distracted by the translucent quality of her skin. Like most redheads she was pale—almost white—but she seemed to glow. How did she do that? He ran his tongue across his dry bottom lip, all at once overtaken by the urge to find out what a glow like that might taste like.
‘No,’ she said.
No to what? To glowing? To tasting…?
‘I’ll find you something else.’
And before he’d had a chance to say James Dean she’d darted away and hidden herself between the racks of clothes.
Nothing else worked. Cameron tried not to think about who might have been the last person to wear each of the five suits he tried on, tried not to think about mothballs and funerals and caskets. Just as well that none of them fitted. Either the trouser legs flapped above his ankles or the shoulders were way too tight.
‘I happen to have some really nice suits of my own,’ he yelled over the top of the screen as he finally clambered back into his own clothes. ‘The one I was intending to wear—to my party, remember?—is being made for me by a man on Savile Row.’
She looked impressed when he mentioned the name, clearly knowing that the man in question never needed to advertise and that being admitted into the inner sanctum of his fitting rooms was rather like gaining entry to an exclusive gentlemen’s club.
‘Sizing with vintage clothes is often a problem for someone as tall and…Well, with all those…with all that—with your physique,’ she finished in a hurry. ‘We could search for months and not find anything suitable. A few distinctive vintage accessories may be the way to go. I’ll see what I can find.’
He shrugged his suit jacket back on and straightened his tie. ‘In other words, the last forty-five minutes were a complete waste of time?’
She pulled an apologetic face.
‘My time is valuable,’ he said, trying not to smile. ‘I should charge you.’
Suddenly she looked extremely serious and thoughtful. ‘It’d be worth every penny,’ she said, glancing at the leather jacket and jeans hanging innocently on the other side of the room, a decidedly naughty twinkle in her eye.
Wait a minute. Was Alice…flirting with him? In a totally Alice way, of course. She’d just hinted at it with that look, done something almost undetectable with her voice. It was all so subtle he started to doubt it had been there in the first place.
When he looked again she was hanging the last of the suits up, all brisk efficiency, and he decided he must have imagined it after all.
His forehead crinkled into a slight frown.
The thought he might have imagined it disappointed him, and the realisation he was disappointed surprised him. Did he want Alice to flirt with him? She was just a kid he’d once been kind to at a Christmas party a very, very long time ago. As she walked back to her desk she did the hair-behind-the-ear gesture. The gentle, unselfconsciously feminine movement made his stomach knot, even though she wasn’t paying him the slightest bit of attention. All at once surprise gave way to irritation. Another thing he didn’t like. This feeling of being at a disadvantage, of not being the one to hold all the cards.
‘Am I dismissed, then?’ he asked, as she tucked herself behind the desk and got back to work.
She looked up at him, bit her lip and released it slowly, emphasising its fullness. Somehow that just made him crosser.
‘Yes.’ The cool, restrained tone was back, but there was something—an undercurrent—that made him eye her suspiciously. ‘I’ve finished dressing you up. You can go now.’
Well, he didn’t know how to respond to that. Nobody ever dismissed him. He didn’t like that much, either.
‘Fine. I will, then.’
And he crashed out of the door and down the hallway without looking back.
Alice stared after him. Was she going crazy? She certainly seemed to be behaving strangely today. She swung round on her chair and looked out of the window. First of all she’d made Cameron get dressed up in an outfit she’d known he would never consent to wear to the party—just on a whim.
She sighed. It had been so worth it.
And just now, only a few seconds ago, had she actually been flirting?
Well, it hadn’t done her much good, had it? He’d gone all prickly and she’d just got worse, goading a reaction out of him. Well done, Alice. You just sent Cameron Hunter packing when he’s the key to your whole future. Very professional. But it was just…Well, when Cameron pushed, she had the stupidest urge to push back twice as hard.
What was wrong with her? She was doormat girl—voted by everyone she knew as most likely to just lie down and take rubbish from the men in her life—and she’d decided to lock horns with Cameron Hunter? Great time to grow a backbone, Alice.
Aw, shut up. You’ve always had a spine and you know it. You just chose to put it out to pasture because it suited your plan of being the perfect low-stress girlfriend no man could resist.
And look how well that had turned out. Yet another well-thought-out plan.
She let out a deep breath and rubbed her eyes. It must be the long hours, being flung into the deep end of her new career—and Jennie’s—without really knowing what she was doing.
A sudden blush crept up her cheeks.
Keeping her tongue under control hadn’t been the only problem, had it? Her hands seemed to have developed a will of their own too. But that white T-shirt had smelled of warm, clean man and had looked all soft and fresh and…touchable. She’d been feeling the heat of his chest beneath her palm before she’d even registered a decision to put it there.
This was bad. The party and the fashion show were in another nine days, and then she’d be back in the real world—not stuck up here in this impossibly high tower where the altitude must be getting to her brain cells. She couldn’t let this ill-timed crush grow any further.
I mean, get real, Alice. It’s all just a fairy tale, a daydream. He dates the likes of socialites and supermodels. If you can’t hold on to the likes of geeky Paul, how in hell have you got a chance of keeping a man like Cameron Hunter interested?
Two hours later, Alice was knocking on Coreen’s door. Coreen answered, resplendent in an embroidered black silk kimono and a bright green face pack. Alice pushed past her, marched into the kitchen, grabbed two wine glasses out of the cupboard and started pouring cheap Cabernet from the screwtop bottle she’d brought with her.
Coreen skidded into the kitchen behind her. ‘Whoa!’ she said, her eyes widening as Alice filled the oversized glasses nearly to the brim. Her voice sounded funny, escaping through clenched teeth as she tried not to crack her face mask. ‘What happened?’
Alice picked the glasses up and handed one to Coreen. Her hand was shaking and she sloshed wine all over her fingers. Shaking her head, she slammed the glass down, spilling more.
‘Me. I happened. I’ve had an epiphany! I’m the anti-girlfriend.’
Coreen’s face mask crumbled, and large chunks rained down on her kimono. She shook her head. ‘This is all about Paul, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You’re going through the five stages of grief…I thought you were in denial; now you’ve obviously moved on to anger.’ She stared at Alice. ‘What happened to bargaining? You should be bargaining now.’
Alice took another swig of wine and held it in her mouth for a second before swallowing it. She nodded at the bottle and headed out of the kitchen. ‘How’s this
for bargaining? You keep the red stuff coming and I’ll tell you all about it!’
Coreen had no choice but to follow her into the sitting room, where Alice not so much sat down as crumpled onto the couch.
‘Now, what’s all this about you being an anti-girlfriend? Is it like being an anti-hero? I’m not sure I quite get it.’
‘More like being an antidote,’ Alice said gloomily. ‘And not in a good way.’ She sank back into the sofa and stared into space. ‘I know what Paul meant when he said I was “a relief” now. Men love those girly girls.’ She narrowed her eyes and looked at Coreen. ‘Girls like you. Pretty girls, who run them a merry dance and keep them on their toes. Girls who torture them and treat ’em mean to keep ’em keen. But after a while either she gets tired of him not being up to scratch, or he gets tired of all the game-playing and one of them ends it. And that’s when the guys come looking for me—the perfect antidote to a demanding diva.’
‘That’s good news, surely?’ Coreen said. She thought a while, then pouted. ‘Not for girls like me, of course. But for girls like you it is.’ She grinned, destroying the rest of the face pack completely, and held her hand up for a high five.
‘What do all my exes have in common?’ Alice asked in a wistful voice.
‘Erm…bad hair?’
Alice shook her head, and kept on staring at the paisley curtains.
‘Anoraks?’ Coreen ventured, and got a scowl for her efforts.
‘I figured it out on the way over here.’
‘Figured what out?’
‘All of them said how lovely I was—how easy I was to be around. Easy to dump when something better turned up, more like it.’ Alice turned to look at her. ‘I am—and will only ever be—a transition girlfriend.’
‘I thought you said you were an antidote…’