Sugar and Sin Bundle

by Stacey Joy Netzel

  ‘Knock yourself out,’ he said.

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  When she padded into the kitchen, Alexander found himself unable to speak with the emotion that flooded him.

  She’d rifled through his closet and now wore a pair of his cotton boxers and a T-shirt.

  So he just shook his head, cleared his throat.

  ‘Is the dress ruined?’

  ‘Nothing that dry cleaning won’t fix. You don’t mind me wearing your stuff?’

  Was she joking?

  The fact she was wearing his clothes did something crazy to his heart. And he realised she’d no idea of how he’d been struck by the intimacy of the moment.

  Okay the fact she wasn’t jumping at the chance to move in with him still stung. But he was honest enough with himself to realise that he was becoming a little too eager for her to fully commit to his sparkling vision of their future.

  At the moment she was watching him with big eyes and he realised he hadn’t responded to her question.

  ‘You look cute and sexy. I’m looking forward to peeling them off you later.’

  She smiled.

  He didn’t miss the flash of relief in those big eyes.

  ‘You’re insatiable,’ she teased.

  Baby, you have no idea how insatiable I am around you he wanted to say.

  But if there was one thing Alexander Ludlow always trusted it was his gut. And his gut was telling him to take it easy and not to force the subject that he wanted her to live with him. He’d take it one step at a time. So he’d just make sure she stayed tonight, spend the day with him tomorrow like a regular couple who were dating and exploring their relationship.

  Mostly, Rosemary Margaret Gordon was a stubborn, independent, self-aware little witch. God, he loved those facets of her complicated personality. So he’d just need to suck it up when the things he adored most about her didn’t work in his favour.

  The chef at Ludlow Hall had prepared a fruit and cheese platter. Now, he took it out of the fridge.

  ‘Grab a couple of plates from that cupboard, will you?’ He gave a jerk of his chin. ‘And knives from the drawer to your right.’

  She did as he asked, opening and closing cupboards and drawers.

  ‘Napkins?’

  ‘In one of those drawers in the island unit. You were right, we did need another drawer pack.’

  Poking her head in a couple of cupboards and moving to the drawer, she found napkins and handed him one.

  ‘I love this kitchen. It’s fabulous.’

  Biting down hard on his tongue, he wanted to say he’d had her needs in mind when he planned the space. But he had an idea the truth might spook her even more.

  Time to play it cool, Alexander. Time to back off and let her come to him in her own time rather than pushing her too hard and too fast.

  But God it was killing him.

  Couldn’t she see they were meant to be together?

  Again he cursed his stupidity.

  What was it about her that made him so terribly desperate?

  They sat at the island unit.

  Rosie slid her knife into soft Brie, placed it on a cracker and popped it into her mouth.

  He was very quiet she thought watching him take a sip of champagne.

  Not in a mood. Alexander wasn’t a moody man and he didn’t sulk either, thank goodness. But she could almost hear the wheels turning in that handsome head of his and she wondered what he was thinking.

  ‘Why don’t you ever talk about what happened to your parents? The letter to Bronte?’ she wanted to know.

  But the way he went stiff with surprise made her wish she’d kept her big mouth shut.

  He tried to hide it, but she saw the hurt, the pain, in those green eyes.

  ‘I don’t see the point in digging up bad stuff from the past.’

  ‘So your idea of dealing with it is to ignore it?’

  Now he frowned.

  ‘No. My idea of dealing with it is to remember them the way they were. Why do you want to bring it up? What’s it to you?’

  The tone told her to back off but she ploughed right on.

  ‘I saw how much you and Bronte suffered, how it affected both of you. I stayed here because of it.’

  Her mother always said the truth shall set you free.

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘And I couldn’t leave you.’

  His hand reached for hers and she felt, saw, him battle with his emotions.

  ‘I lost them both at the same second on the same day.’

  Again she was hurting him by making him remember.

  Why couldn’t she have left well alone?

  ‘I know how much it...’

  ‘No,’ he interrupted and his eyes went too fierce. ‘You don’t. You’ve no idea. It broke me, Rosie. And then I lost my home. And for a time I thought I’d lost Bronte.’

  He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t in a fit state to ask anything of you. And you drove me nuts. I couldn’t understand it. There were times I almost reached out to you. But I...’

  And there it was, right there, the reason why she couldn’t move forward with him.

  She pulled her hand from his.

  ‘Don’t you see? That’s the whole point. When you care for someone it’s not just for the good times. It’s for the bad times too. I wanted to help.’

  He blinked.

  ‘But you did. You did help by being there. A constant thorn in my side.’

  As far as Rosie was concerned he just didn’t get it.

  ‘You never let me in.’

  Again he took her hand and held it tight as his eyes met hers.

  ‘Darling, I didn’t let anyone in... And...’ He took a breath and she could see how much it cost him to open up to her. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forgive them for not telling us.’

  Rosie didn’t attempt not to understand him. She’d had almost the same conversation with Bronte.

  He continued, ‘It was as if I didn’t know myself anymore. Everything I believed in, everything they made me believe in was gone. None of it was real.’

  The man, Rosie realised, was hurting and damaged in a way she could never have guessed. He’d kept all these thoughts buried deep within him. Secrets and words unspoken leave a legacy of regret, mistrust and hurt. Bronte often said that and now Rosie knew exactly what she meant.

  Perhaps she needed to back off until he was ready to talk through difficult feelings.

  Without asking her he placed apple slices, grapes and peeled kiwi fruit on her plate. She noticed the gesture was instinctive and found her eyes sting. Did he realise how much it meant to her to have him take care of her?

  Those eyes, the colour of deep emerald met and held hers.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  He smiled and something in the region of her heart twisted.

  ‘Baby, you are very welcome.’

  And she knew he wasn’t just talking about fruit and cheese.

  Regret made her take a shaky breath.

  ‘Alexander...’

  But he simply placed his hand over hers.

  ‘Don’t say it. I’m not going to make a fuss or try and force you into something you’re not ready for. When you want more, need more from me, Rosie, then you’re going to need to tell me. Okay?’

  And just like that, very neatly, he’d tossed the ball back into her court.

  ‘Okay.’

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Strong arms cocooned her close to his body and Rosie was right where she was supposed to be.

  He’d wrapped his arms, his leg around her like ivy and she was so very warm and so very safe.

  She was dreaming.

  Alexander held her in his arms and they were dancing, waltzing through the glass covered ballroom of Ludlow Hall. And she was wearing a long ivory gown and he looked fabulous in his morning suit. All around them were friends and family. Bronte carried Luca as she nuzzled his glossy curls, a single tear of utter happiness slid down he
r cheek. Nico simply held Sophia who wore an ivory dress in silk taffeta that made her look like a tiny fairy.

  A wave of euphoria, so big it threatened to lift her high in the air, washed over Rosie.

  Alexander opened his mouth to speak...

  The sound of a cell phone broke the spell.

  In her ear Alexander groaned a curse as he rolled off her.

  ‘Shit,’ he cursed again and she heard his hand drumming to find his cell, the light.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said in a voice that told whoever was there that he was not a happy man.

  Then he slapped on a light.

  ‘Janine? Right, you phoned the police? Okay. We’ll be right there. No, lock the fucking door and barricade yourselves in the cellar.’

  Rosie sat and her heart beat too fast in her chest as Alexander thrust his legs into his jeans, taking care not to trap his Love Muscle in the zip.

  ‘Get dressed. Janine’s got an intruder.’

  He hauled on a T-shirt, thrust his feet into loafers.

  Rosie leapt out of bed, pulled on his boxers, T-shirt and hot on his heels ran down the stairs.

  In his Range Rover, he tossed her his cell.

  ‘Phone Nico.’

  She did as he asked.

  He put his foot down and her head was thrust back in the seat as the car leapt forward.

  Fear gripped her by the throat as she alerted Nico who told her he’d organise a security team.

  ‘I’ve never been happy with her living out there all on her own with a little baby,’ she said now as Alexander roared down the main road to screech up into the overgrown driveway to The Grange.

  Approaching the house they could hear the increasingly loud shriek of an intruder alarm.

  She gripped the dashboard as the car skidded to a halt.

  He was out of the car so fast, Rosie didn’t have time to even feel the sting of gravel digging into her bare feet as she followed him through the damaged front door.

  Logic told her not to touch anything as the house alarm pealed too loud in her ears.

  Alexander flew around the ground floor, calling for Janine.

  ‘This way,’ she yelled.

  Rosie knew the house and headed for the kitchen following the sound of a screaming Boo.

  She pounded on the cellar door.

  ‘It’s us, Janine!’

  The sound of a key turning in the lock and the door opened.

  Wearing cotton pyjama bottoms and a ratty T-shirt a sobbing Janine virtually collapsed into Rosie’s arms.

  Red faced, little Boo was wailing at the top of her lungs.

  When Alexander entered it all happened so fast for Rosie that later she wondered if she’d dreamt it.

  She was pushed aside.

  Janine and the baby ended up in his arms.

  ‘I was so scared,’ Janine sobbed into his shoulder.

  Alexander held them close, his hands stroking the girl’s hair as he pressed a gentle kiss on the baby’s head.

  ‘I’m here. You’re okay. Everything’s okay. Hush now.’

  Time stood utterly still.

  And for Rosie the air was sucked right out of her lungs the way the world seemed to redress itself, right itself in a way that told her this was how it was meant to be.

  They looked so good together, so right together.

  And it killed her.

  The police in the shape of Inspector Andy Bradshaw, entered along with a constable. Andy was long and lean and just happened to be paramedic Susan’s husband.

  Hot on his heels Nico and a team from Ludlow Hall arrived.

  Over the next three hours Rosie went through the motions, making soothing noises she cradled little Boo, made copious cups of coffee and tea as Janine clung to Alexander.

  Andy was speaking privately to Janine and Alexander had insisted on being there too.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Nico wanted to know.

  Rosie gave him what passed for a grin.

  ‘Fine. Are you going home? Can I get a lift? I need to grab my clothes.’

  His gaze slid over her and although her heart felt as if it was pieces, Rosie was thankful for the teasing light in those dark eyes.

  ‘Si, no problem. We’ll treat you to breakfast.’

  She scribbled a quick note for Alexander telling him she’d gone home to change and she’d speak to him later.

  Chapter Forty

  ‘He’s asked me to move in with him.’

  Bronte simply stared at her friend.

  They were in the kitchen of The Dower House. It was six-thirty in the morning and no one had slept.

  Dressed in her brother’s boxers and T-shirt, Rosie stood looking very tired and terribly vulnerable as well as deeply unhappy.

  Under the table Bronte found Nico’s hand and squeezed.

  ‘What did you say?’ Bronte asked needing to make sure she’d heard correctly.

  If Alexander had asked Rosie to live with him then the situation between her brother and best friend had undergone a seismic change.

  Rosie stood and began to pace.

  ‘I said he was moving too fast.’

  Her sisterly concern overtook the very real anxiety for her best friend.

  ‘That’s not fair to him.’

  Dismay for her friend and her brother squeezed sticky fingers around Bronte’s heart.

  Rosie spun now to face Bronte.

  ‘Don’t you think I don’t know that?’

  ‘I don’t want him hurt!’

  ‘And who am I, Mata Hari?’ Rosie shot back.

  ‘Jesus, sit down, you’ve gone as white as a sheet.’

  ‘I’m okay, just a dizzy spell. I didn’t get much sleep.’

  ‘You’ve come back to work too soon.’

  Now she grabbed Bronte’s hand.

  ‘Don’t tell Alexander. He’ll cluck around me like a mother hen.’

  ‘On one condition.’

  Surprised, Rosie blinked. ‘What condition?’

  ‘You tell me the truth about what’s going on with you.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll just text my brother.’

  A child’s cry, Luca, burst from the baby monitor and Nico stood.

  ‘I’ll get him,’ he told Bronte.

  But before he went, his hand slid over Rosie’s hair and he pressed a kiss to her cold cheek.

  After he left, the heavy silence between them was unremitting.

  Rosie sat, stared unseeing out at the garden and she knew the time had come to tell her best friend nothing but the truth.

  ‘You and Nico are so happy. Two individuals who’ve come together to make something very special.’ Feeling terribly guilty, she raised her eyes to Bronte’s. ‘I’m jealous.’

  Teeth worrying her bottom lip, Bronte frowned.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  God this was so hard. Who said unburdening the truth shall set you free?

  ‘I don’t begrudge you one moment of happiness. I love you. I love Nico and the kids.’ She heaved a big sigh. ‘I’d just like a tiny part of what you’ve found for myself.’

  ‘And you don’t think you’d find that with Alexander?’

  Rosie shook her head.

  ‘There’s a fundamental inequality in our relationship.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I’ve loved him my whole life.’ Now she rose to stand and stare into the gardens. ‘Not in a dreamy romantic sense, but it’s a needy, passionate, almost a fast and furious love. Sometimes I’ve felt it’s not been healthy. It’s too possessive, too intense. I’d die for him.’

  She turned to look at her best friend, recognised the anxiety, the fear in those green eyes.

  ‘He doesn’t feel that way about me. He doesn’t hunger. He doesn’t need me in the way I need him. Am I making sense?’

  Nodding, Bronte clasped her hands together recalling the month of hell she’d endured when she’d been estranged from Nico.

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean.�
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  ‘He never loses control. Never lets himself go.’ Heat flooded her cheeks and she pressed cold hands to her face. ‘And I’m holding it all in. I can’t let him see what he does to me. It’s killing me.’

  ‘You need to talk to him.’

  ‘He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t really get me. I can’t be in a relationship with someone I love too much. He can’t give me what I need.’

  Now Bronte’s eyes went cool and it broke Rosie’s heart to see it. Of course she would side with her brother, blood was thicker than water and hadn’t she always known it?

  ‘What do you need?’

  Rosie had the strangest sensation of standing right on the edge of a precipice.

  ‘To be front and centre in his life.’

  Now Rosie saw those vivid eyes tear up and it was like a sucker punch right to the heart.

  ‘I dreamt that you were my sister. I’ve always wished you were. Remember as children we used to say we’d always be best friends?’

  ‘We always will be,’ Rosie’s voice was barely a whisper.

  ‘He’ll be badly hurt if you leave. He loves you very much.’

  ‘In his own way, I know he does. It’s just not enough.’

  ‘Can I just say that nothing you’ve said is making any sense to me?’

  Now Rosie groaned, pressed her fingers into her eyelids and opened that locked door to her heart.

  ‘I’m so confused, annoyed, about a number of things. I’m good at what I do.’

  Bronte stood, took her hands, held them tight and waited until their eyes met.

  ‘You are.’

  Agitated, Rosie yanked her hands from under Bronte’s.

  ‘I’ve got everything I’ve always wanted. A home, a wonderful friend. My own business. But it’s all falling apart. I’m tired, bone weary all the time. I can’t fix it.’

  ‘Do you want to fix it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ When her voice broke, she pressed her fingers to her lips. ‘I don’t know how to. Everything about him hurts me. His touch, his smell, the sound of his voice.’

  ‘Are there no happy memories with him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then you need to hold onto, treasure, your memories instead of being hurt by them.’ Bronte pushed her hair back from Rosie’s hot cheek. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’