Save the Last Dance
Page 25
‘They all say they are fed up with the high-maintenance women in their lives, but they all eventually find a new siren to trot around after—or, in Paul’s case, trot back to.’ Her face fell. ‘I’m just a…a…stopgap until that happens!’
Coreen flung her arms round Alice and squeezed. ‘You are so much more than a stopgap!’
‘Then why don’t the guys I go out with get that?’ she wailed. ‘Why am I always the one they go out with just before they find the love of their lives? Why can’t somebody think I’m the most wonderful thing to happen to them for a change?’
Coreen hugged her tighter. ‘You want the truth?’
Alice nodded. If her friend had some advice on how she should keep men interested, she might as well hear it. She was tired of being discarded like an old shoe.
‘I think that until you believe you’re more than a stopgap, you’re going to keep attracting men like Paul. He was too much of an idiot to see what he had.’ Coreen swivelled to face her. ‘Where’s all this coming from anyway? I don’t think this is all about Pathetic Paul after all.’
Alice avoided her gaze. ‘Nonsense. Of course it is. I’ve been so busy recently, when have I had time to meet any other men?’
A naughty smile quirked Coreen’s lips. ‘There is one rather yummy specimen you’ve come into contact with on a daily basis recently.’ She paused and looked a little sheepish. ‘I Googled him, you know.’
‘Who?’ Alice said, fearing she already knew the answer.
‘Mr Orion Solutions, of course.’ Her eyes brightened. ‘Did you know he went out with—?’ She took one look at Alice’s face and closed her mouth. ‘Never mind…’
Alice sighed. ‘Yes, I know he went out with Sierra Collins last year. Suddenly I keep seeing her face everywhere. On bus shelters, batting her eyelashes at me…in my bathtime magazine, showing off her perfect bikini body…I think I hate her.’
Coreen sighed too, and flumped back onto the sofa next to Alice. ‘She’s a supermodel. What’s not to hate?’
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
‘You like him, don’t you?’ Coreen finally said, so quietly it was almost a whisper.
‘I do not!’ Alice said with venom, and then buried her face in a cushion. Coreen tapped her on the shoulder, and Alice looked up. ‘Oh, Corrie…I really do. I really do like him. A lot. It’s like a bad joke, really.’
A soppy smile spread across Coreen’s face. ‘Aww, I can see it now—childhood sweethearts, and then he whisks you off your feet and takes you away from all this…’
Alice burst out laughing. ‘I hardly think so! He was lovely back then, you know. Sensitive, thoughtful, kind…I’m sure he’s still that way underneath, but he’s changed, Corrie. He’s used to the finest things in life, to having the best of everything. Somehow he’s harder, pushier. It wouldn’t be a good idea to get involved with him. It really wouldn’t.’
‘Not even a teensy bit?’ Coreen replied, her incorrigible smile back on her face.
Alice laughed again, but this time it was more with gallows humour than hysteria. She walked over to Coreen’s stack of fashion magazines and flicked through one, then another. Finally she found what she was looking for. She folded the magazine back on itself and held the picture up next to her face.
On one side the glossy picture of Sierra Collins—flawless skin, sparkling blue eyes, a cleavage…
On the other, plain old Alice Morton. So used to being ‘one of the lads’ she was almost androgynous, with her face flushed pink and a figure like an ironing board.
Coreen looked at both Alice and the magazine picture, her eyes sombre.
‘I rest my case,’ said Alice, and threw herself back down on the sofa.
Coreen silently handed her back her glass of wine, patting her on the hand.
‘And you know why?’ Alice went on. ‘I learned my lessons from Anne of Green Gables.’
Coreen blinked. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
Alice hugged her wine glass to her chest and let it warm her fingers as she gazed off into the distance. ‘Anne went searching everywhere to find her Mr Right—looking for dashing strangers, full of adventure—and where did she find him?’
Coreen opened her mouth, but Alice didn’t give her the chance to provide her with a smart answer.
‘She found him right underneath her nose! Gilbert!’
A blank look crossed Coreen’s face.
‘The boy next door that she’d always been in love with but never realised until it was almost too late. Well, I’m not going to be that stupid. There are plenty of ordinary, lovely guys right under our noses—I just have to find which one’s mine.’
Coreen snorted. ‘Well, you go on looking under rocks, or whatever, but you can count me out.’ Then she went very still. ‘Anne of Green Gables? Wasn’t she the one who said she’d die if she didn’t get a pair of puff sleeves?’
Alice bit her lip and nodded.
Coreen took a large slurp of wine. ‘Now, there’s a sentiment I can agree with,’ she said, as she waved her glass at Alice.
CHAPTER FIVE
A WEEK later Alice was starting to think that nothing else existed but the inside of Cameron’s spare office and this blasted extravaganza she was planning. There had never been anything else. There never would be anything else. Eternity would be full of to-do lists, phone calls and an inbox that clogged up faster than she could unclog it. She ought to keep a plunger under her desk for the very purpose.
The ball to celebrate the opening of Cameron’s new building was in two days, and she was fantasising about slipping into a coma when it was all over and done with.
Thankfully, Jennie was obviously marvellous at her job, and it hadn’t been as hard as she’d expected to pick up the reins; it had just made life very, very busy. All of Jennie’s suppliers and contacts had been wonderful when she’d phoned them and explained that Jennie was on her honeymoon and she was the new girl filling in. But with a job this size it was inevitable that there would be a multitude of last-minute hitches. It was eating up all her time.
And somehow, at some point in the next forty-eight hours, she had to find herself a dress to wear.
She pushed her swivel chair away from the desk and let it slide backwards. Her shoulders were all bunched up, and she rolled them a couple of times in an attempt to release them. They complained loudly. There was a headrest on her chair, and she let her head fall against it…
‘No napping on the job, Morton!’
Alice easily resisted the urge to jump to attention, and lifted one eyelid. ‘Hi, Coreen. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at the market?’
Coreen shook her head. ‘Dawn looked after the stall for me today—and besides, the market closed an hour and a half ago.’
Already? Now the evenings were drawing in, and it was dark by five, it was easy to lose track of time. She raised her arms above her head and stretched.
Coreen started bouncing on her rather spectacular platforms. ‘Anyway, I have something utterly fabulous to show you!’
Alice eyed the garment carrier Coreen was clutching with interest.
‘I’ve found your dress.’
‘My dress?’
Coreen’s grin was a little scary as she unzipped the bag and pulled out the most amazing—
Alice was dumbstruck. In a flash, she was out of her chair and across the room.
‘That can’t be mine,’ she said, her hands over her mouth. ‘It’s too…It’s too…’
‘Nonsense. It’s nothing of the sort. It’s fabulous.’
Of course it was fabulous. It was a gorgeous deep emerald satin—a floor-length bias-cut evening gown. The most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
But it would look stupid on her. What about her hair? She opened her mouth to say so.
‘Na-huh!’ Coreen held up a finger and wagged it at her. ‘Don’t you dare say it. This is a genuine Elsa Schiaparelli and it’s going to look stunning on you—I have a gut instinct about th
ese things and you know it.’
Alice had to reach out and touch the fabric, feel its glossy weight, run the thick satin between her fingertips.
‘Where did you get this?’ she whispered.
Coreen’s smile buckled a little. ‘At an auction.’
‘An auction!’ They never bought clothes at specialist auctions. The clothes there were normally designer labels, exceptional quality, and way out of their price range. They’d never make back what they spent on clothes like that on a poky little market stall. ‘How much did it cost?’
‘I paid a quarter of what it’s worth,’ Coreen said. ‘If you’re worried about the money, you don’t have to keep it. We can auction it off at the party. Along with all the rest…’
Alice’s eyelid began to twitch, and she looked at Coreen.
‘What exactly do you mean by “the rest”?’
Something was different. Cameron had just been heading for the lifts, at the end of a long day, but halfway down the corridor he stopped. He didn’t know what it was, but something was definitely…not wrong, but different. He just had to work out what it was.
There was an extra light on somewhere. And then he noticed a fuzzy yellow slash on the carpet at the far end of the hall, emanating from the office he’d given Alice.
He stood in the semi-dark, looking at it.
He’d tried not to go into that office too much in the last week, but somehow he kept finding himself in there, even though he had plenty of reasons to be busy—plenty of reasons to keep him tied up for hours. With his normal workload, plus all the extra stuff involved with moving premises in the next few weeks, he’d been up at the crack of dawn and sliding into bed in the small hours of the morning. Perhaps it was tiredness, then. Maybe that explained the strange tug he felt towards that particular room.
And it didn’t just stop at the doorway. Once he was inside, other strange things happened.
He’d spent years crafting a persona to fit his ambitions, and even more years shaping himself to make it all real, but when he was in Alice’s office he found he forgot to be himself. He did uncharacteristic things—laughing, teasing, even talking about things that weren’t business related. And the atmosphere in there heightened his senses. He noticed little things he was sure he normally missed: the delicate curve of an ear, a faint scent of floral perfume, the way her fingers curled around her pencil. Yes, something odd was definitely going on in that room. He made a mental note to get the air-conditioning checked out.
While he was standing in the half-light of the corridor, a noise came from the direction of Alice’s office. It was a shout of frustration, immediately followed by the sound of rustling paper, as if a folder had been hurled across the room. Suddenly he was running, and when he rounded the office door loose leaf pages were still fluttering towards the floor.
Alice was sitting at the desk, her head in her hands, muttering to herself.
‘Alice? Is everything okay?’
She started, and a further pile of papers ended up on the floor as she jumped up and jogged them with her elbow. ‘Sorry…I’m having a bit of a tantrum.’
He shook his head. Alice didn’t do tantrums. She did calm and collected—just like him.
‘Do you need me to fetch someone?’
She looked thoughtful for a moment, then leaned forward over the desk. ‘Know any hit men?’ She seemed to droop. ‘The only way to cope at times like this is to descend into humour. Very dark humour, it seems.’
‘Problems?’
She nodded. ‘Coreen got a little carried away today. You remember Coreen, don’t you?’
How could he forget? When she visited Alice at the office here she looked him up and down as if he were a prime piece of beef. He had half an idea she’d once been on the verge of chasing him down the corridor and pinning him to his desk. Yes, he remembered Coreen. She was definitely a young lady with the capability to get more than a little carried away.
He walked over to the desk and perched on the edge. Alice looked up at him. She was wearing a soft cream cardigan with woolly embroidery and little pearls dotted all over it. Was it cashmere? Must be. That would explain his urge to reach out and touch it—touch her. His fingers tingled with the need to do just that.
‘Coreen went to a vintage clothing auction today, because she wanted to pick up a couple of dresses for the finale of the fashion show. She lucked out. A rather famous heiress had recently died, after reaching the grand old age of ninety-two, and all her wardrobe was up for sale.’
‘Surely that’s a good thing?’
Alice twirled a pencil on the desk, and Cameron’s eyes followed the motion of her fingers.
‘It would have been if she’d stuck at one or two of the smaller pieces. But she went a little loco and bought the lot.’ She looked up at him and placed a reassuring hand on his arm—before whipping it away again. ‘Don’t worry. It won’t affect the party or the fashion show.’
He looked at her hand, now back on the edge of the desk. ‘It sounds like there’s more to it than that.’ He made a point of peering at the collection of papers littered all over the office floor.
She sighed. ‘We’d been saving. For our own shop. Coreen’s dipped into our start-up fund and almost wiped it out. If we don’t get back what we paid for them…Well, let’s just say we’re taking a bit of a risk.’
She met his gaze, and he felt an odd little surge of something deep inside. They weren’t the most stunning eyes he’d ever seen—not if you only counted shape and structure—but they were possibly the most unusual. They had…depth.
Tonight they’d lost some of their sparkle. Tonight they looked weary.
She must be exhausted.
Exhausted working for him, bailing him out of the hole Jennie had left for him. And he hadn’t heard a murmur of complaint until her outburst this evening—and even that wasn’t directed at him. He should have realised, done more…But he’d been too busy enjoying her company to think about making her go home earlier or insisting she take a day off. You’re selfish, Cameron.
He stood in front of her and held out a hand. ‘Come on.’
She raised her eyebrows and looked at him suspiciously. ‘I was kidding about the hit man thing. You know that, don’t you?’
There it was. The room was working its magic. He realised he was smiling.
‘I know,’ he said softly.
She blinked and looked away. But her pale fingers met his and she slid her hand into his waiting palm.
Alice felt like a firework inside—a firework whose fuse had been lit and which was jittering, waiting, until it fizzed and then shot into the sky. Cameron had led her back to his office and motioned for her to sit on the ridiculously long leather sofa while he headed for the phone. But she didn’t seem to be feeling very obedient this evening, and she ignored the deep cushions in favour of the vast window that spanned the entire width of Cameron’s office.
Her little office had a fantastic view too, but it was just round the corner of the building, and partially blocked by another skyscraper. Cameron’s view was unobstructed and faced towards the heart of the city. They were so high up, and the window so clean, it was kind of like being suspended in mid-air, far away from the blinking lights, the red steaks of tail lights, the flashing aircraft. It was a beautiful view—the best—but she couldn’t help feeling it was a little lonely up here too.
He was behind her. Suddenly she just knew it. The soft hair behind her ears lifted.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. The silence needed to be broken, and stating the obvious was as good a way as any.
‘Yes.’ His voice was low and slightly husky.
She closed her eyes and placed a palm on the glass. Think of Aunty Barb and oranges…
Control yourself, Alice. It’s just a little crush. It’ll pass. And you know why? Just open your eyes, look at where you are, and you’ll remember that you’re from different worlds. You’re a mere mortal, while he’s…he’s…Cameron Hunter.
Time skipped. She caught her breath and held it.
No, she must be mistaken. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—be looking at her that way. It must be a trick of the light as it bounced off this tinted glass.
Maybe it had been only wishful thinking, because when she turned around to look at him he was the same old Cameron, his eyes unreadable, almost blank.
‘You must be hungry,’ he said, and everything she’d been feeling crashed back down to earth. Practicalities. Reality. Yes, let’s talk about those things for a while. Perhaps they’d get these daft notions out of her head.
‘I’ve ordered a takeaway,’ he added, still staring at her. ‘I don’t think either of us is in the mood for polite chit-chat in a restaurant.’
She began to protest, but he held up a hand.
‘It’s the least I can do to say thank you. You’ve worked your socks off to get me out of a nasty jam.’
Alice should have known that Cameron’s definition of a takeaway would be vastly different from her own. No greasy paper-wrapped parcels for Mr Cameron Hunter—oh, no. Their meal was delivered from one of the local ‘happening’ restaurants. When the bags had been handed over and the delivery driver tipped—very generously, by the looks of it—Cameron walked to his desk and began moving stuff aside.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
Cameron paused, looking puzzled. ‘Clearing a space. I always eat at my desk. You can have my chair, and I can pull up—’
Alice shook her head, effectively cutting him off. ‘You can’t eat takeaway sitting at your desk—like you’re pretending you’re at a fancy restaurant.’
‘But this is restaurant food.’
Alice walked to a space in the centre of the vast royal-blue carpet, dropped onto her bottom and crossed her legs. ‘To really appreciate the flavours and textures of a takeaway you have to picnic. Honestly, it makes the food taste better.’
Cameron looked as if he was going to choke. ‘You want me to eat my dinner off the floor?’