The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights: 6 Book Romance Collection. Zara Stoneley
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like that.” She was sorry that she’d worried him, and added sheepishly, “I can’t sleep.”
Her eyes adjusted to the half-dark. Sprawled on a cream-leather sofa, propped on one elbow and naked to the waist, Alex’s swoon-worthy body took her breath away. Again.
She felt like a child who’d announced that she was scared of monsters under the bed as Alex got up and arranged her duvet on the enormous sofa opposite his. “You’d better stay here with me,” he suggested.
“You did say I shouldn’t be alone tonight.” She sounded embarrassingly petulant.
She burrowed into the duvet and got comfy. Alex returned to his sofa, a safe distance away.
“Better now?”
“Yes, much.” She hushed her voice, as though she might wake someone if she spoke normally. “I’m over my meltdown.”
“You had me worried,” Alex whispered back.
“There’s no need to be concerned. I’m back on plan.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” He stayed silent a moment. “If you don’t mind me asking, what is the plan? I mean you can’t go directly to the maternity ward, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred pounds. You need to get organized.”
“I’m getting organized,” she protested, a little too testily. “I don’t have anything concrete yet, but I’ve got new work plans, and when it’s time for the baby … eeeees, I’m going home to Cornwall.”
“That’s great, Maggie, but who’s going to be there – for you?”
She rolled over, turning her back to him. “I have friends,” she said defensively, “There’s Layla, and old friends from school, and neighbors of my grandmother’s, and I told you, my mother said she’d help, and …” She stopped abruptly, suddenly hesitant. “My life’s not as random as a board game. I’ll manage.”
Too wide awake, a childhood memory floated in her mind. A few months had gone by since her mum had gone and not come home. It was Layla’s eighth birthday party. Her parents had hired a magician and he’d made a rabbit disappear. Lying in the dark with Alex so close, Maggie could still feel the sadness that had overwhelmed her when the rabbit vanished into thin air. Instead of being delighted, she’d been horrified. She’d cried and worked herself up into such a state that her grandmother had been called to collect her early. All cried-out, she’d waited by the door with her party bag and balloon, sucking in shivery, distressed breaths. Before her grandmother had arrived to take her away, the magic show had ended. The other children sat in a circle and took turns holding the white rabbit. Deceived, rejected, Maggie watched the party continue without her. So many times when she was growing up she’d ached for her mum to be there. After that day, even if it got her down, she never let it show. She’d like to think that her mum would stick to her promise. If she didn’t, she’d survive.
It wasn’t her mother’s love that she wanted now. It was Alex’s.
She couldn’t protect her heart. He had it. She’d sneered when he said she needed a man to make her heart sing. How could she look him in the face and tell him that it was him? He was the one that did that. When she thought about not being alone, she couldn’t imagine not being alone with anyone but him.
Alex lay still in the darkness, jaw clenched, holding back on making any kind of stab at articulating what was on his mind. He hoped her mum had meant it. The Maggie he knew ten years ago had a tendency to view life from the sunny side, even where her let-down of a mother was concerned. Nothing would make him angrier than to discover that her mother had been paying lip service to the notion of playing happy families. She hadn’t exactly been reliable in the past. Maggie had come through thanks to her grandmother, but she wasn’t there now. She needed someone she could count on.
A smile broke onto his face listening to her steady breathing that only just stopped short of qualifying as a snore. She was the only woman he’d risk his heart for, but she’d been crystal- clear. Her heart wasn’t up for grabs. Her loving for one night meant more to him than he meant to her. He’d accepted that. She’d armor-plated herself against hurt. She wanted to be a single parent, and he respected her decision, although for days he’d been stamping down on the temptation to ask her if she’d change her mind. It was fortunate that he had Hamlet to absorb him, because when he wasn’t throwing himself into the role, she was all he could think about. The way his heart sat in his mouth at the hospital, staring at the two heartbeats on the screen, he’d almost convinced himself that he could be a dad to Maggie’s children, and then she’d gone into free-fall, freaking out about her babies’ genes, and wretched fear had kicked in, opening up old wounds, reminding him of his family’s chaos, his mother’s irreparable unhappiness.
After he’d left his mother, his father had become emotionally cold. He couldn’t be in a relationship with Maggie because if it didn’t work out, he’d be ruining her carefully thought-out plan. He couldn’t risk hurting her, repeating the past, walking away from his family. With Maggie, he’d stopped caring that he didn’t know where half his DNA came from. Biological or not, Drake was the man he called his father, and he’d abandoned his mother, played a heartless game of reject-you-reject-you-not with him and Nick, and set up expectations where the bar was so high that neither of them could ever measure up.
The feelings he had for Maggie were so strong they hurt. He couldn’t do anything about that. He’d left Maggie behind once before. He owed it to her not to take a chance on failing. Second time around, the best thing he could do was guarantee to be there for her if the going got tough. He’d always care about her, he wanted to support her, but beyond that anything more would be an almighty mistake.
On the day of Alex’s first night Maggie decided it was time for a re-style.
She called a snazzy West End hair salon. Hooray. One of the stylists had a cancellation. She booked herself in and went straight over. She had a couple of inches cut off her hair, plus a sweepy fringe and highlights.
It had been ages since she’d done a shop-till-you-drop session for herself. She knew exactly what she wanted. Color. Out with the grey and black. In with the colors of the season. First off she bought herself a fab pair of boots in dark-green suede. With those dreamy little numbers in a carrier bag, the rest had been a piece of cake. Alex’s first night was an excellent excuse to splash out. No more blending into the background. She spent her life putting the glamor and color into other people’s wardrobes. It was high time for some va-va-voom of her own. She’d been using monochrome as her personal style-mask. Alex had given her the confidence to be happy with herself again, to trust her instincts. From now on she planned to dress how she liked, express her personality through color, be her authentic self, with no need to hide behind black, white and grey every day. After her shopping spree Maggie headed home to her tiny apartment in Battersea. She had so much to think about and plan for. Just for tonight, she decided to put it all on hold.
Tonight would be everything Alex had dreamt of. Nick and he had got over their bust-up over Mercy of the Vampires ending. He’d stopped wanting to disown Jago, accepted that if he hadn’t spent the last ten years playing the character, he’d never in a month of Sundays have landed this theater role.
It had been over a week since the night she’d spent at his apartment, and her best efforts had gone into sorting out her feelings about him. He’d been busy. He’d sent texts and a couple of heart-stoppingly funny photos. There’d been a technical run and a dress rehearsal. He’d be in his element – apart from the promo. Her heart flipped. Her head was struggling with the fact that she was in the “friend” zone, and her emotions were in the danger zone.
When the time came to get ready, she had a bad case of butterflies. She lined up a row of nail-varnish bottles. What would be the perfect color? She couldn’t decide on one, so she chose