The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance 2016

‘You’re a woman. How on earth do you not?’ From behind his dark shades Theo looked down at her upturned face, amused. ‘Have you made it your life’s mission to avoid leading the sort of life you were expected to lead?’

‘I’m not into expensive jewellery. Do you come here with your girlfriends?’

She was acutely conscious of his fingers, still in her hair, absently stroking her neck. It sent shivers racing up and down her spine, and she had to forcibly remind herself just how over the moon she was that he would be disappearing to salvage his business deal and she wouldn’t have to put up with these public shows of phoney affection.

Theo paused. ‘Quite some time ago a woman I was dating dragged me here and made a point of telling me how exquisite and expensive the jewellery was.’

‘So you bought her a diamond ring?’ Alexa squeaked.

‘Quite some time ago’ implied that the woman he had been dating might have been her age, and she was struck again at just how sheltered a life she had led—more interested in her studies than in getting a guy to buy her baubles and trinkets...waiting for love to knock on her door and refusing to spread herself thin in the meanwhile...

‘I broke off the relationship,’ Theo returned wryly. ‘I didn’t like the direction it was taking.’

Alexa stopped dead in her tracks. ‘You must hate this,’ she said with sudden force. ‘Being trapped into marrying me.’

‘The rewards outweigh the inconvenience,’ Theo said, fighting an urge to brush the hair blowing softly around her face from her eyes. ‘And your dowry is certainly a healthy incentive.’

Feeling like cattle that had been successfully bartered to a new master, Alexa spun round on her heels and pushed open the door to the jewellery shop—which was as unprepossessing on the inside as it was on the outside.

‘Take your time,’ Theo urged as they were ushered into comfortable chairs and the process of displaying rings began.

The owner of the shop was small, thin and extremely knowledgeable. He seemed to know everything there was to know about diamonds, and tray after tray was brought, with rings nestling in beds of velvet, unpriced and therefore probably priceless.

Since it wasn’t a real engagement Alexa didn’t care which ring she wore, but it would be ridiculous to choose something that was big and ostentatious.

‘What is your preference?’ She turned to look at Theo, who was lounging in the chair, his long legs stretched out to one side, lightly crossed at the ankles. ‘Why don’t you choose?’

Theo linked his fingers on his washboard-flat stomach and looked at the proprietor with a knowing, man-to-man grin.

‘Women!’ He shook his head with an expression of rueful indulgence. ‘As if my opinion would count for anything!’

He stroked her back with one possessive hand and his fingers lingered for fractionally too long on her bra strap. Alexa kept a smile pinned to her face and wriggled a little to dislodge his over-inquisitive hand.

‘The women do usually take the lead when it comes to choosing jewellery, sir.’

The proprietor returned Theo’s smile and Alexa gritted her teeth as Theo patted her a couple of times on her back and then linked his fingers lightly on his lap once again.

‘And this feisty little lady knows that she can have whatever she wants! So what do you want?’ He looked at her with lazy, sexy bedroom eyes. ‘Your wish is my command...’

‘If only that were true,’ Alexa returned pointedly.

She bared her teeth in a smile and hoped that he was sharp enough to read the hidden message, which was along the lines of If my wish was your command, you would be on the other side of the world...

Without warning, Theo leaned forward and quickly, but far too effectively, planted a kiss on her mouth.

Their eyes tangled and she realised, heart beating frantically, that he knew exactly what she had been implying and had duly punished her with that kiss.

To add insult to injury, as she returned her attention to the tray in front of her, she felt his big hand rest on her leg and then, shockingly, move upwards, curving over the sensitive skin of her inner thigh and sending a frisson of electric response through her.

Perspiration beaded her upper lip. She snapped her legs shut and pointed to any ring on the tray—she didn’t even notice which one she had chosen.

‘That’ll do!’

Theo’s hand on her thigh tightened.

‘Perfect choice, if I may say so myself...’

The proprietor reverently removed it from its velvet bed and they listened to his rhapsodies about the purity of the diamond and the rarity of its setting. They were asked to pay attention to the tiny details in the band, which marked it out as a one-off. Alexa was made to try it on. Measurements were painstakingly taken.

The ring cost a small fortune, so it wasn’t hard to understand why the whole process was taking for ever.

‘That’ll do...?’ It was the first thing Theo said as they made their way out of the shop.

‘Your hand was on my leg,’ Alexa said stiffly. And his arm was around her shoulders now. The public face of unity was back in place, although her body was as rigid as a plank of wood.

‘Perfectly natural,’ Theo purred, giving her shoulder a little squeeze as he guided her to one of the hippest cafés in the area—a place where people went to be seen. ‘You’re my fiancée. Of course I’m going to want to touch you. Frankly, I can’t keep my hands off you...’

It was a load of nonsense, but Alexa still shivered with an illicit little thrill.

Her treacherous mind wondered what it must be like to have this sinfully sexy guy say those words and mean them...

What would it feel like to actually know that he couldn’t keep his hands off her...?

Her eyes skittered across to him—a quick glance at his face, once again shielded behind his sunglasses. Then, rebelling against all common sense, she noted the width of his shoulders, the lean muscularity of his body, the strength of his forearms and the way his dark hair curled around the dull metal of his watch strap.

She found herself drinking him in and felt her nervous system ratcheting up a notch.

In a couple of days she would be wearing a large diamond rock on her finger. Speculation, such as there was, would be over and she would be officially engaged to the guy now attracting stares from every single woman under the age of eighty and over the age of eighteen.

She was short and unspectacular. He was physical perfection. Even if he did get under her skin in ways that made her want to scream, there was no way that she could deny the sheer beauty of the man.

Was it any wonder that he was taking all this in his stride? He was accustomed to women. A phoney engagement wouldn’t faze him and he would be particularly incentivised by the carrot at the end of the stick. He didn’t need yet more money, but since when did the wealthy ever turn down the opportunity to add to their bank vaults? Never.

As expected, every head swivelled in their direction, and Alexa saw one very leggy blonde disengage herself from her group of friends and make a beeline in their direction.

She stifled a groan.

The blonde stalked towards them, her sharp bob expertly cut and dropping squarely to her shoulders. Even in flats she was close to six foot, and wearing next to nothing. She was rake-thin, flat as a pancake, and had the longest legs Alexa had ever seen—and most of those long legs were exposed because her skirt barely covered her underwear.

Her body language said it all as she chose to ignore Alexa completely, focusing one hundred per cent of her blue-eyed attention on Theo. Surely it couldn’t be true? The blonde ran her china blue eyes dismissively over Alexa. The press had it all wrong, hadn’t they?

‘I mean, I just can’t believe it!’ she squeaked, sliding him a naughty smile that was designed to eliminate Alexa from the conversation.

She placed a flattened palm on his chest and shimmied a little closer. Her hair was so silky and so unbelievably blonde that Alexa could only stare in wonder.

‘Andrea...’ Theo caught the blonde’s hand, halted it firmly in its tracks and held it slightly at a distance before dropping it. It was a gesture that was cool and indifferent. Alexa would have been mortified. The blonde remained perky and upbeat. ‘I’d like you to meet Alexa...’

‘You’re really short, aren’t you?’

‘Alexa is my fiancée.’ Theo’s voice was soft, silky, glacial. ‘And now, before I start getting annoyed at your interruption, I suggest you take yourself back to your group of friends.’

For a few seconds the blonde was nonplussed. Alexa almost, but not quite, felt sorry for her. In her world she would rule supreme, but with a few words from Theo she was reduced to a woman of no standing.

‘You don’t mean that...’

She tried for provocative and Alexa, with a stab of pure womanly satisfaction, could have told her that she had made a mistake. One look at Theo’s shuttered face should have sent the blonde running for cover.

‘I mean it, Andrea. I’m giving you two seconds. You don’t leave...you see that big guy, standing on the corner...?’

Andrea left, head held high, long, slim body taut with anger and wounded pride.

‘I don’t mind leaving if you feel that you might be uncomfortable here...’ Alexa hovered, uncertain as to what to say in the wake of that dramatic scene.

Theo looked down at her, bemused. ‘Why would I feel uncomfortable?’

He signalled with a nod to a hassled-looking waitress, who immediately patted her hair and plastered a smile on her face when she spotted him. Every other customer apparently forgotten, she dashed over to them and cleared a path to a table at the back of the restaurant.

‘It’s reserved,’ the waitress confided with a giggle, ‘but I’ll sort something else out for the women who reserved it...’

Alexa automatically opened her mouth to protest, but Theo was already sitting and ordering a bottle of wine for them to share without looking at the menu.

‘Why do you think I would feel uncomfortable?’ he asked again, as soon as she was seated. ‘And stop looking guilty because someone else had reserved this table. That charming little waitress said she’d sort it out—let’s let her do her job.’

‘Her job isn’t to pander to customers who haven’t booked a table.’

‘Not my problem.’ He shrugged. ‘Now, moving on...’

Alexa sighed. The man was utterly impossible. The more time she spent in his company, the more cemented that impression became.

‘I guess that woman must be one of your girlfriends and I just thought it might be awkward for you to be in the same place as she is when you know she’ll probably be gossiping about you to her friends...’

Theo was looking utterly relaxed. ‘You guess correctly,’ he said, pushing back his chair to accommodate his long body. ‘Ex-girlfriend. Barely lasted a month, if you want the truth. The woman turned out to be a bunny-boiler. What started as a little bit of fun with a reasonably attractive woman turned into a dozen phone calls a day and attempts to get into my diary to make sure I wasn’t seeing anyone else...’

Andrea had wanted a hell of a lot more than he had been prepared to give. Big mistake. On the love front...he had nothing to give. He’d seen what unrestrained emotions did to a guy—had seen the way his mother’s death had destroyed his father...the way it had left a great gaping hole in his and Daniel’s lives. No. Frothy, dewy-eyed looks from women were the ultimate turn-off to him, and trying to get anything more out of him than passion was their fastest way to the exit.

Alexa’s mind had become stuck on his description of the blonde bombshell as a ‘reasonably attractive woman’.

What on earth did he consider stunning? Were his values so much different from everyone else’s because of the way he looked? What on earth must he think of her?

‘Some women are possessive, I guess...’ she said.

Wine had been brought to the table and poured into oversized goblets and she took a sip of the chilled liquid and then stared at the glass—which seemed less fraught with potential danger than staring at him and getting into a mental muddle.

Theo nodded. He found it amazing that a life of luxury and wealth appeared to have had so little effect on the woman sitting opposite him. The privileges which should have turned her into the sort of vain, self-obsessed young woman he met every day of the week in his social circles seemed to have had the opposite effect. Frankly, and against all odds, she roused his curiosity.

‘I’ve always found it a healthy option to stay away from those,’ Theo drawled. ‘Life’s too short to waste any of it with a woman who wants to micro-manage my life. No, I don’t give a damn if Andrea is sitting five inches away from us, gossiping with her friends.The only thing Andrea will tell anyone is that I am now engaged.’

‘Engaged to someone short.’

He laughed, and his cool green eyes skirted over her flushed face. ‘There’s no law about falling in love with someone who doesn’t fit the insane prototype other people have come up with,’ he murmured.

No, Alexa thought, and as he had pointed out they made the perfect society match. Two prominent families united in marriage. Who would think to scratch beneath the surface to see two individuals who couldn’t have been less suited?

‘How is it that you have never settled down?’ she asked with blunt curiosity.

It was an extremely personal question—but why not? There would be occasions they spent together away from the spotlight, and they couldn’t lapse into silence whenever they were together, could they? It would make living together extremely difficult—even if their living together would be taking place in opposite wings of whatever house they ended up living in...

She wondered whether they might not end up being friends, and then nearly laughed hysterically at that notion—because the man was just too much, too larger than life, to be considered a potential buddy. Potential buddies didn’t make you feel as though you were standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down. Buddies were comfortable to be around, unthreatening, safe...

Theo looked at her consideringly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see his ex-girlfriend shooting venomous looks in their direction. He wanted to grin, because he knew that the single thing that would enrage Andrea and all those women like her—all those beautiful, arrogantly self-assured women he had dated in the past—was the fact that he was engaged to someone they would consider downright plain.

The fact that Alexa had been born to privilege would make little difference. Beautiful women were notoriously superficial when it came to judging other women, by standards that were almost always according to looks.

He felt a sudden surge of protectiveness towards his fake wife-to-be.

He reached forward and stroked the side of her face, linking his fingers through hers at the same time.

Another public display of affection, Alexa thought as her heart picked up a frantic pace. And particularly appropriate given that their actions were being minutely watched by an ex-girlfriend who would be busy spreading the news that the most eligible man on the planet had been caught.

An ex-girlfriend who was probably appalled and stunned that he had been stupid enough to fall for someone like her...

Alexa had always known that when it came to looks she could only ever aspire to be average. She didn’t have razor-sharp cheekbones or long, thirty-four-inch legs or shiny poker-straight hair. She had never felt comfortable in revealing clothes and largely avoided wearing anything that was too bright or too eye-catching.

And yet here she was. Engaged to a man who could have any woman he wanted with the crook of one imperious finger.

Okay, so it might all be pretend, but just for a moment she felt something wicked steal into her. A purely feminine response kicked into gear. His fingers were still entwined with hers and she slowly lifted them to her lips and grazed his knuckles with her mouth.

Heat flared in Theo’s eyes. She could almost hear his sharply indrawn breath.

Alexa felt a rush of unfamiliar daring. She raised her eyes to his and held his stare, watched the way his slow smile transformed his face and tried hard not to panic when he leaned in close to her, creating a little bubble of intense intimacy between them.

Nerves threatened to overtake her, but she could feel the blonde’s glassy blue eyes boring into her back and that gave her the impetus she needed to lean right into him. To offer her lips to him.

And when he kissed her she responded with an enthusiastic lack of inhibition. She slid her tongue against his and stifled a little moan as, eyes closed, she indulged in naked, forbidden desire.

This was what was expected of her. She was his fiancée. He had confirmed that to an ex-girlfriend, who would have been surprised if they had continued sitting opposite one another making polite conversation. Theo De Angelis was an intensely physical man. You just had to look at him to know that. So kissing him like this, curling her hand into his hair, was only to be expected.

She was just playing the part she had been commissioned to play!

It was liberating to think that she wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary.

It was permission granted to sink into a kiss that was...explosive.

When she pulled back she knew that she was shaking a little, and she licked her lips and forced a smile.

‘Just for show,’ she mumbled, and Theo raised his eyebrows.

‘I like it,’ he murmured softly. ‘I sense a change from all those other displays of affection you didn’t seem to enjoy—or was I wrong about that...? Were you actually burning up and looking for a few encores?’

‘Of course not!’ Her mouth was still tingling from that searing kiss. ‘But...’

‘But you thought you’d take the opportunity to get one up on the delectable ex-girlfriend who’s been shooting you daggers behind your back...?’

‘Of course not!’ But she blushed furiously.

Theo grinned. ‘Trust me, I don’t have a problem with your reasoning.’

‘I...I hope you don’t think that was anything but acting,’ Alexa breathed forcefully. ‘It’s just that you’ve announced that we’re engaged... I thought it would look odd if we didn’t act like a newly engaged couple. I mean...you’re the one who’s kept telling me that we have to make this stupid charade look real...’

‘Of course...’ He paused, wondering just how real he would like the charade to be. Complications aside... ‘And I’m heartened that you’re now in such a positive mindset,’ he told her, ‘because I should tell you that I’ve been called away on business. I will be out of the country for a week. Maybe a bit less...maybe a bit longer. It’s hard to tell because this is a complex deal...’

‘I know.’

‘You do?’

‘My mother broke the news while she was poring over all the pictures of us together at that art opening we attended last night. Don’t worry...’ Now, more than ever, Alexa was looking forward to a few days on her own—away from his powerful, charismatic personality and the weirdness of their situation. ‘I’ll make sure to keep the home fires of the newly engaged couple burning...’

‘You won’t have to do that,’ Theo informed her kindly.

‘I won’t?’

‘Don’t be silly. How could you think for a moment that I would want you out of my sight for an hour, never mind a week...? No, there will be no need to keep those home fires burning, because you will be right there with me...by my side...’

CHAPTER FIVE

ALEXA WAS APPALLED. She stared at him in open-mouthed consternation, forgetting that her every move was being watched by an interested party.

‘Coming with you?’ she stuttered.

‘Step one in assimilating into my lifestyle,’ Theo said smoothly. He leaned back and slouched elegantly in the chair. ‘You may hate premieres and art gallery openings, but there will be a certain amount of socialising that you will have to do—like it or not.’

He signalled for the bill without taking his eyes from her face. ‘I’m not a fan of meeting and greeting people I have no intention of forming any sort of relationship with,’ Theo said drily, ‘but it’s all part and parcel of the game.’

‘Why do I get the feeling that everything about this arrangement is on your terms?’

‘Explain.’

‘Your father is the one who needed a bail-out,’ Alexa muttered, feeling terrible at having to remind him of that little detail, because she liked what little she had seen of Stefano De Angelis and was sorry that he, a proud man, had found himself in the position of having to ask for financial assistance from a man he was not on speaking terms with. Although she was beginning to suspect that their so-called feud had petered out into two old men warring through habit over something both had long forgotten about.

Theo’s mouth tightened. His father might have taken his eye off the ball, but he didn’t need to rehash that misfortune. And he certainly wasn’t interested in anyone rehashing it on his behalf.

‘He is—but that’s old news now. I don’t see the point in moaning about what can’t be changed.’

‘I’m not moaning.’ Alexa fiddled with the stem of her wine glass and wondered where all the contents had gone. She’d barely been aware of drinking. Or eating, for that matter. She raised her eyes to his and struggled to look away. ‘I just think that my life has been completely disrupted while you continue to carry on as if nothing much has happened...’

‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It makes sense for you to move to London after we are married. I can’t conduct my business from here. And remind me... As far as I am aware you don’t currently have many ties to this place. You’ve quit your job and your only other interest appears to be helping at a shelter somewhere. Nothing that can’t be left behind at a moment’s notice.’

Alexa felt rage rush through her with tidal wave force. If they’d been anywhere but here she would have been tempted to chuck something at him.

How dared he take her life, sum it up and write it off in a handful of words?

But perhaps that was how he treated all women? she thought with scathing distaste.

‘Are you like this with all women?’ she asked tightly.

‘How do you mean?’

Theo frowned, puzzled. How had they gone from a perfectly rational conversation about the dynamics of their married life to some opaque query about his treatment of women? He realised that never before had he had to hold himself to account with anyone—far less a woman.

Her bright eyes glittered as she waited in silence for a response.

Theo raked his fingers through his hair and muttered an oath under his breath. ‘I have no idea where you’re going with this...’

‘It’s a simple question,’ Alexa said stubbornly.

‘I’m extremely fair in my treatment of women,’ he said impatiently. ‘Exemplary, some might say.’

‘Really?’

‘Time to go, I think.’

‘Only if you answer my question.’ She didn’t know why it was important to her. She just had a vague feeling that she had to have some say in what was going on or else he would take control of the reins and she would find life as she knew it disappearing even faster than it already was.

‘I already have.’

‘I feel like you’re bullying me.’

Theo shot her a look of pure incredulity. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this!’

‘You expect me to change my whole life! You don’t even bother pretending that I have any say in the matter!’

‘I’m cutting through the red tape,’ Theo pointed out, with irrefutable logic as far as he was concerned. ‘There’s nothing you have here that ties you down.’

‘What about my parents?’

‘Your parents can come to London any time they want,’ Theo pointed out. ‘In fact I assume they already do, given that your father has business interests there...’

‘That’s not the point.’