by Ellen Lane
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Designer and the Agent
Chapter 2: Fighting the Tide
Chapter 3: Crossing Over
Chapter 4: Denial
Chapter 5: Closer
Chapter 6: Change
Chapter 7: Forgiveness
THE AGENT
Ellen Lane
WARNING: This Ebook contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language. It may be considered offensive to some readers. This Ebook is for sale to adults ONLY.
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Thank You!
Naughty Business
Top Love
Saving Hearts
Certainty
Trouble
Chapter 1: The Designer and the Agent
For Alice Tate, sleeping past six a.m. on any given day was considered sleeping in. Even on weekends, she rarely rose after six thirty, regardless of what she had done the night before. So, when she opened her eyes to a clock that read almost nine a.m., she realized that the previous night must have been one for the history books.
Her suspicions were only confirmed when a decidedly larger form shifted in bed behind her. The dark-haired woman sat up slowly, draping long raven waves over her shoulder before she gazed over at the figure sharing her bed with a sigh.
She could barely remember his name – Daniel something or other. He was the lead guitarist for some up and coming rock band that played at a function she’d been invited to the previous night. It had been a long while since she’d enjoyed the company of a man as musically talented as he was – and as physically arresting to boot.
Even now, she could appreciate his long, lithe limbs, leanly muscled chest and that careless fall of blonde hair. Daniel was American, and Americans were usually entertaining enough to garner her attention for at least a few weeks, but this one had been too inebriated to do much of anything last night.
That much she remembered. With a long-suffering sigh, the young woman slipped from bed, wondering how much longer her guest would be sleeping. She was fonder of men who woke before she did and slipped out, than she was of those who lingered with romantic notions. They might think they were giving her the slip, but in Alice’s opinion, they were doing her a favor. She didn’t need to be burdened by men who thought they needed her.
Naked, she padded across the room to the immense drapes that covered the window before yanking them open with gusto. Instantly, the entirety of the ornate bedroom suite was filled with bright morning sunlight. The man in her bed groaned, immediately diving under a pillow to block out the light and she scowled.
So much for her attempts to be subtle.
If he wasn’t going to take her subtle hints, she would have to resort to less than ladylike means to get him out of her penthouse. Luckily enough for Alice, she had someone willing to do her dirty work for her.
Still, stark as the day she was born, she pranced across the suite to open the door and start down the hallway. There was only one other resident of the penthouse besides herself, and at the sight of her without a stitch of clothing on, he merely exhaled a long-suffering sigh.
“Where is your robe, Miss Tate?”
Alice merely yawned, stretching to her full, diminutive height of five feet three inches as she attempted to ease her sore muscles. “I can’t find it. Did you have it sent to the cleaners, Tom?”
His dark eyes held not the slightest hint of predatory or sexual interest. Instead, the tall, slim, middle-aged man before her merely turned to the linen closet without a word and extracted a deep blue silk kimono hanging from a hook. “Here’s a spare. I’ll see to it immediately.”
“Thank you, Tom.” She plucked the garment from his fingertips, swinging it around her body to belt it around her waist. The garment had been a gift to her from one of her many admirers, and the Versace silk was smooth and buttery against her skin. “Can you also please see to the guest in my room? My schedule’s been thrown off, and I’ll be in my study.”
“Of course, Miss Tate.” Beaming, Alice rested a hand on the tall man’s shoulder, and he dutifully lowered his cheek to present to her for a kiss.
“You’re an angel, Tom.”
“Thank you, Miss Tate.”
In her world of glitz and glamour, very little was as depicted in the movies and film. Alice had long learned that things were rarely as they seemed when money was involved. It was one thing to be born into the lap of luxury, have a silver spoon shoved in one’s mouth, and live off your family’s fortune forever. It was quite another to make your own way in the world; and regardless of what path you chose, one always had to be careful. There was a high chance of the riches overwhelming one’s individuality.
But Alice had never encountered that problem.
Even if she didn’t rule upon high, from a plush Hermes chair barking orders to interns and only eating from gold dishes, one of the many perks that actually existed in her world was the luxury of well-trained, professional butlers.
Tom was a gem, and she wouldn’t trade him for the world. In the five years the man had worked for her, he’d seen everything under the sun. In all honesty, she in her birthday suit was comparably tame when juxtaposed to some of the things he walked in on.
But true British butlers were a rare breed. Classically trained and completely resistant to any ruffling, they were loyal, efficient, and, in the modern era, almost completely monopolized by the royal family.
But Alice was a Tate.
In her opinion, the best thing her name afforded her was the right to employing a man like Tom.
A man who could hand a naked woman a robe in the morning, serve her tea, and eject her unwanted guest.
Life was bliss.
When Alice shut herself into her study, she shut out memories of last night’s boozy and somewhat underwhelming event, and settled at her desk.
Her study was her favorite room in the penthouse. Of course, when she purchased the property, her properly posh, countess mother had gushed over the terrace and the entertaining space. But Alice herself had only been interested in the workspace.
Her penthouse had been her first major real estate purchase with her own money – a declaration of her spreading her wings, and a physical representation of her success as an up and coming fashion designer. All the young woman had ever wanted throughout her pampered youth was to make a name for herself – to escape the thumb of her overbearing, title-obsessed parents and find what she truly loved in life.
It had taken her until she finished school with a degree that she had no interest in to finally discover what she was passionate about, but once he had, Alice hadn’t looked back.
Fashion.
Fashion made the world go around.
When she was a child, carted from class to class that her mother dictated she take to fit in
to the right crowds, one thing that had always helped to pacify her – to calm her when she was at her most rebellious – was observing the high fashion of the women around her. Modern high society British noblewomen could be stuck up twats, but their clothes?
Dear God, their clothes.
Alice had learned from an early age that Louis Vuitton was king and Atelier was God. That a good pair of pumps could make or break a woman, and that the right pair of calfskin gloves could have all eyes on you. Even when she resented her mother and father for making her take ballet and French, she would sneak into their room to run her hands over the gorgeous gowns and jackets they wore to events and even their usual garb.
She would never forget the day her persnickety mother had found her trying on one of her Chanel jackets. One would think the uptight countess would have lost her mind, but instead, she merely told her ten-year-old daughter that she could never wear a camel colored jacket with purple pants. It was simply unheard of. That clarified, she’d redressed Alice in a black dress, strung her with a strand of her own real pearls and replaced the jacket on her shoulders.
It was one of few fond memories Alice had of the countess. Her childhood had mostly consisted of moments of her mother trying to mold her in her image while Alice fought back tooth and nail. At the time, she told herself she fought for both she and her brother, who had always been pretty complacent when it came to their parents. But Mike had recently blown all of that out of the water when he’d gone gallivanting to the Dark Continent on the whims of a woman.
And not just any woman –Rose Lithgall. A noblewoman and their parents’ front-running choice for his wife.
Of course, things hadn’t worked out exactly as Mother and Father had planned. Rose wasn’t exactly the picture of a high society lady. On the contrary, she was against the status quo and everything involved with it. She was noble by birth and blood, but she was far more comfortable in a third world country doing charity work than she was hobnobbing it with the royals at Buckingham Palace.
In fact, she was only in London now because she was about six months pregnant with Mike’s child and they were planning their wedding. Somehow, Michael had let the Lithgalls and his own parents wheedle him and his bride to be into coming back from the-middle-of-fucking-nowhere Thailand.
And Alice was glad. She adored her brother without question. As much as he might annoy her, she considered him one of her best friends, and she absolutely loved his bride-to-be as well.
In fact, Rose was one of the reasons she’d been so eager to get to her study this morning. If she’d woken when she usually did, Alice might have been able to get an earlier start on finalizing the designs she’d been working on for the past few weeks. She had promised Rose a new line of maternity clothes before her daughter was born, and now her time was running woefully short!
Of course, Cat had complained that Alice didn’t design her maternity clothes, and so the young woman knew that she would have to specialty make a dress for her dear friend as soon as she was done with her current task. With any luck, she wouldn’t have to go through the woman’s arrogant and pretentious husband in order to talk to her.
At the thought, Alice grinned. She simultaneously loved and hated Elias. The billionaire architect was one of many braggarts she knew in the world of the extraordinarily rich; and if he wasn’t careful, people would find out that he wasn’t nearly as much of a windbag as he put himself forth to be. Somehow, Alice let her brother and Cat convince her that the man was a stand-up person.
As long as she didn’t have to do the standing.
As things stood, Alice planned to release the designs she created for Rose as part of her new collection. She didn’t know why it had never occurred to her before to start a maternity line, especially with the frequency with which her friends and family were turning up with buns in their ovens.
Fondly, the dark-haired woman smiled at a picture on the corner of her desk that showed her with her brother and Cat, as she was cradling her friend’s baby boy on her lap. Everyone had bloody baby fever and here she was struggling to get the flavor of the night out of her apartment.
But honestly, Alice enjoyed her solitude. She prided herself on it. As her parents had always pressed her brother to get married in order to continue the family line, she’d enjoyed a more relaxed foray into adulthood. Even when her parents had pressured her, they hadn’t done it very attentively- they’d been far too focused on Michael for that.
And now it was too late.
The Duke and the Countess had learned a resoundingly severe lesson from trying to interfere in Michael’s affairs. The scandal had, ultimately, resulted in what they wanted, but that was only after they had nearly lost everything, revealed that Michael was, in fact, a Russian adoptee, and betrayed his trust and respect so profoundly that he almost absolved himself of them altogether. In Alice’s eyes, it was fitting that such a man become heir to the Tate name. It just went to show that the Tates needed to hold themselves in check when it came to meddling with their children, lest they end up with no Tate heir at all.
As Alice was working on a bit of gorgeous shading for a deep purple, autumn maxi-dress, a brisk knock came on her study door.
“Come in.”
The double doors swung open to reveal Tom. He was, as always, dressed impeccably, without a hair out of place. He carried her breakfast tray in one hand and her mail in the other.
A wonderful British butler was indeed a thing of beauty, and Alice stopped to admire the man’s poise as he all but glided across the room. “I’ve seen your guest out, madam. And also taken the liberty of preparing your breakfast: wheat toast and two three-minute eggs, as well as fresh chamomile tea with soymilk.” He set the tray ever so gently on her desk before uncovering it and pouring her an excellent spot of tea.
“Bless you, Tom.”
“As you say, Miss Tate.”
If she could, Alice would take Tom everywhere with her – but her parents were reluctant to allow him in the family manor, where he would be impeding on their family butler’s domain. There were few other times where she left London for more than a week or so – after all, her studio was here, as well as her family and everything she held dear.
“Can you please lay out my beige Louboutins, the ones with the four-inch heels, as well as the cream Prada shift?”
“Of course, my lady.” With a deep bow, the man quietly left the room, closing the door soundlessly behind him.
As Alice enjoyed her breakfast, she pondered what was on her docket for the rest of the day. She had a skype meeting with one of her junior designers in about two hours, after which she would spend the rest of her afternoon in the studio, going over the final designs for her new collection. She planned to spend the rest of the week in working seclusion, emerging only to have dinner with Michael and Rose at the end of the week at one of her favorite restaurants. It was then that Rose promised to tell her some of the names they were considering for their daughter, and Alice hoped that some of the collection would be ready for her future sister-in-law.
It would be the perfect ending to a very productive week.
As she nibbled on her toast, Alice sifted through her mail. There were several invitations to upcoming galas, a bill or two, a letter from her grandmother, and the daily paper.
She arched a brow upon seeing herself on the front page holding hands with blonde Daniel.
The picture had obviously been taken the previous afternoon when she was on her way out of the party with him. Luckily, she didn’t look too terribly intoxicated, and Daniel looked handsome enough – eager to be home so he could have his way with her.
The headline for the paper read Tate Heiress Finally Snatched for Good?
Alice snorted into her tea in mirth. It seemed like every week the British tabloids were intent on her being off the market “for good.” Of course, they could never prove any extenuating connections with the men they photographed her with, but that didn’t stop them from printing the stories. Al
ice doubted she would even see Daniel a second time, if ever. The sex had been completely uninspiring, and though the man was a talented guitarist, there wasn’t much else upstairs.
Men like Daniel were a common product of British high society. He wasn’t a noble or a royal, but he was famous, and under that fame, there was very little depth of character. Alice prided herself on being an excellent judge of character. All of her favorite people were excellent – her brother, Elias’ wife Catherine, a number of her close fashion friends, her future sister-in-law – they never had any problems impressing her.
Most men, on the other hand, already had quite a lot riding against them. The boys in the circles Alice ran in intended to be self-absorbed, prideful, and dull to the point of inciting suicide. They expected women to flock around them like flies and yet did nothing to garner any type of awe or intrigue. Generally, they made her flee in the opposite direction, and if she happened to decide to jump into bed with one of them, she was usually disappointed.
With a sigh, Alice flipped open the paper to read the new beyond the cover story. Unsurprisingly, there was a full half-page feature about her brother’s upcoming wedding, which she read with no small amount of interest. Next to the story was a picture of Michael and Rose walking in Hyde Park together. At the sight of her brother’s obviously elated smile, as he looked upon his bride-to-be, Alice’s lips curved upward fondly. Michael was so in love that it made her heart hurt just to look at him. She was happy for him. After all, a mere year ago the man had insisted that he would die alone and be buried with his surgical instruments.
He might have been a tad dramatic, but he was so picky when it came to women. At a certain point, Alice had considered that the man might be asexual.
But no. It had just taken a very specific atmosphere for Michael to find what he was looking for.
And now that he had, her brother never ceased to hound her about when she would find the one.
Alice thoroughly enjoyed laughing off his every inquiry. She was just a year shy of her thirtieth birthday, attractive and successful. What need did she have for a husband?