The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights: 6 Book Romance Collection. Zara Stoneley
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he said. “We’ll stay and watch the movie. I haven’t seen it yet. We made it about a year and a half ago. For all I know, the bit with me in ended up on the cutting-room floor.”
“Hardly,” she pointed out, “If you and Nick weren’t in it, they wouldn’t expect you to be here all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, now would they?”
“All what?” Alex laughed. “It’s not an animation, Maggie. I’m not some woodland creature.”
“Well, okay then, let me rephrase that – looking all sultry and sexy – the way you do. Better?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “It might be if I thought you meant it.”
“Well, I do mean it. Just not in a proactive, I want to go to bed with you, kind of way.” Liar! “More in a helping out an old mate who happened to need a plus one for a film premiere kind of a way – and he happens to be looking pretty flipping …” She couldn’t find an appropriate, non-committal, not-interested-in-that-way word. “Dapper.”
“Dapper!” Alex scoffed, over-doing the British accent. He glanced about the room furtively. “I say, old bean. Look at all these dapper chaps. Are we in a period drama? Spiffing!”
If it wouldn’t have put her in danger of toppling off her high heels, Maggie would have aimed a kick at one of his designer-clad shins. Fortunately an announcement distracted her.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” The disembodied voice was very grand. “Please take your seats for the New York Premiere of The Magician of Arden.”
Exactly as Alex predicted, the stars of the movie introduced the film and promptly vanished. Maggie had styled many important clients, but being a guest at the same event as these one-hundred-per-cent million-dollar Hollywood people took her breath away – even if they did disappear in a puff of smoke the minute the lights went down.
When the film began Alex shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He and Maggie had been placed next to Nick and their co-star Ella from Mercy of the Vampires. Nick and Ella made an appearance towards the end of the movie, but Alex’s cameo came right at the beginning and he was dreading seeing himself on the big screen. The thought of having to view his performance under the scrutiny of a cinema fit to burst with celebrities and media people was excruciating. He totally got why the leading actors preferred to duck out early – quite apart from the brain freeze of having to watch their own movie far too many times than was good for you.
Stunning, Maggie looked the part – the perfect mystery hot date. He was glad she’d come to New York. She was easy to be with. She didn’t play games, manipulate. He could get to like this friends thing – if it wasn’t such a challenge to his libido. This weekend was about closing an unfinished chapter, not starting something new.
He wanted to be cool with her donor-baby decision. His own feelings, not knowing who his biological father was, colored his view. She didn’t believe in one man forever, but what if that changed? What if Maggie found The One? Would he love her child? Or would he be the baby’s dad on sufferance? He’d assured her that Mr. Right was out there. But what if he came along for a while, only to give up and abandon them like Drake had done. His mother had lost the plot, an emotional wreck, unable to haul herself back from a broken heart, incapable of being responsible for two small children.
He’d been watching the screen, taking in nothing that was happening up there as the whirlpool of concerns for Maggie spun in his head, when he twigged that this was his moment.
He leant close and whispered in her ear. “Okay, get ready, this is my bit.” Her hair looked different up. It brushed his face, as soft as the silken threads in the fabric of her way-too-sexy dress. Her signature perfume, wild flowers, stirred him.
She touched his forearm, reassuringly. “Brace yourself!” Typical. There was no hiding anything from her. She’d picked up on his lack of interest in watching himself. She’d always been good at reading him.
He was looming like a human elephant on the big screen when Maggie clutched tightly at his sleeve. A sideways glance in the darkness confirmed that all was not well. While one hand tugged at his arm, she clasped the other firmly over her mouth.
“Maggie? Are you going to throw up? I didn’t think my performance was that bad.”
Maggie nodded frantically and dragged him to his feet. They squeezed out of the row of seats past Nick and Ella and headed for the exit as fast as Maggie’s feet in her stilettos would allow them.
As she made a dash for the restroom one high heel caught in a hot-air heating grid in the floor and snapped. Disastrously, as she stumbled to keep her balance, the other heel tangled in her excessively long dress. There was a horrendous rip and a tear wrenched up the seam, exposing one shapely leg.
She ploughed on in her state of disarray. When she burst through the door of the Ladies he followed right along, watching in dismay as she leant over a washbasin and vomited.
Great!
She remained doubled over the sink and ran the water. Less than useless, he stepped forward and touched her soft, bare shoulders lightly. He massaged the nape of her neck while she washed her face. He passed her a paper towel.
Maggie stood up straight. She was pale and wide-eyed and her fancy up-styled hair resembled a disheveled bird’s nest. “Sorry.”
“I’d have thought if anyone was going to throw up it would be me. I’m the one who should be sick with nerves.”
“As if!” Her eyes glinted. A faint smile played on her lips. “Morning sickness, I’m afraid.”
“It’s half past nine at night.”
“It’s a figure of speech. I read up about it. First-trimester nausea can happen any time of the day. I guess I’m a night-sickness person.” She shrugged.
“Okay now?” He stopped rubbing her neck, wrapped his arms round her and pulled her close. She rested her head on his shoulder. He rested his chin on the top of her head. She felt more like a waif than the glamorous woman he’d walked into the cinema with earlier that evening.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Shall we go back in? I’m fine now.”
“Nah.” There was a lightness about being with Maggie. He felt like a student bunking off from a lecture. “Let’s not bother.”
“I want to see what happens.”
Her eye make-up had smudged, making her eyes bigger than ever. Bare-shouldered, she looked pale and vulnerable, and he didn’t want to stop holding her. A loose wisp of hair fell across her face. He pushed it behind her ear. His fingers brushed her cheek as he did so. A tiny diamond earring glimmered in her earlobe. “I’ll send you the DVD when it comes out.” He’d been selfish expecting her to be his plus one at this event. He’d been thinking about himself when he’d struck this bargain with her. Some friend. He released her from his arms. Reluctantly.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here. The hotel’s only a couple of blocks. And you could use some fresh air. We can walk.”
Maggie gathered two fistfuls of scarlet fabric and lifted the hem of her dress, revealing two slender ankles and feet with toes painted in the same shade as her fingernails, in shoes that, even with one broken heel, made his pulse race. He was quite sure this wasn’t the effect she’d intended.
She slipped out of the shoes and picked them up. “I can’t walk anywhere in these.” Without the help of the heels, the ripped dress created an even bigger pool of fabric on the floor. “The designer will be apoplectic when she finds out what I’ve done to his dress.” She gave a dismal sigh. “I’ll never work again.”
“There’s no need to be so melodramatic.” He held up a finger. “Wait right here.”
Deflated, Maggie looked around the Ladies. There was nothing to sit on. In a place like this she’d have expected a velvet-covered chaise longue at the very least.