I nodded, unable to speak for the tears pooling in my eyes, but I wasn’t going to let myself give in, not then, not when I was so close to achieving my goal. That night I finished revising my story. I stared at the laptop blindly, not seeing the words as I felt the familiar sense of emptiness that accompanied me everywhere these days, wondering if it was worth it, wondering if I had made the right choice after all. The memory came to me of Alex lying in bed, his body relaxed and sated, the spicy scent of him sending curls of desire licking my body. I saved my file, hit print, and crossed off another item on my list.
Three weeks to the day after Alex walked out of my life I met with Maureen Tully, agent. She was my only connection to the publishing world, and after discussing with Daniel the possibility that she might be one of the unscrupulous agents who prey on newbie writers, I decided to give her another chance. After all, she did originally like my story, and she had returned part of my money, and it certainly was true that the story in its original version didn’t stand up under anyone’s scrutiny. So, after pleading with her secretary Jacquie for an appointment, I spent four hours with Maureen in her smoky office while she read my revised manuscript from start to finish. By the time she was through, I had an agent again.
“I didn’t think you could do it,” she said as she turned the last page, reaching for another tissue. I smiled a gracious smile as she mopped at her eyes and blew her nose, and predicted great things for my literary future. Later that day I drew another red line through an item on my list.
One task remained. I scooped up a handful of coins and headed out for the nearest red phone box, the kind that could handle international calls.
“Hi, Mom, it’s me.”
“Alix? Where have you been? Why haven’t you answered your e-mail? Where are you? You’re not still in England, are you? I told you to stop wasting time and come home!”
“Yes, I am still in London. Sorry about not answering the e-mails, but I’ve left Stephanie’s flat and I don’t have access to e-mail anymore.”
“You’ve left the flat? What on earth are you talking about? You’re not drunk, are you? What happened to that man you were seeing?”
I looked out of the phone booth to where a couple was sitting kissing on a bench in Russell Square. “He’s still there. Mom, I don’t have a lot of time to talk, so if you’d let me just say what I have to say, I’d—”
She made a snorting sound. “I knew that wouldn’t last. No man would want a woman who writes pornography!”
“It’s not pornography, and you don’t have to worry about that version I sent you, I’ve revised it. Mom, I’ve got about forty seconds left to talk, so I’m just going to say this right out: I’m not coming home.”
“What? What? What are you saying? You are drunk!”
“I’m not drunk, but I’m not leaving, not unless I get thrown out of the country. I love this place, I love everything about it, especially”—I glanced back at the couple on the bench—“especially Alex. If he’ll have me, I’m going to stay.”
“If that isn’t the stupidest, most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard you say, throwing yourself away on a man who will probably kick you out as soon as he’s tired of you. Well, don’t come crying to me when you find yourself pregnant and stuck in some foreign country!”
“I have to go. I have only ten seconds left, but I wanted to say one more thing.”
She was silent on the other end, probably trying to think up a string of invectives to heap on my head. But this was my money, my plan, my hopes for success.
“I love you, Mom, and I forgive you for not believing in me.”
“What? What? Alix, what are you talk—”
The phone clicked twice and went silent.
A great weight lifted off my heart as I stared at the receiver in my hand. I was free. I was whole. And best of all, for the first time in my life I had done something right. I had fought for what mattered most to me, struggled on my own, and I hadn’t once given in and taken the easy way out. The unknown face of success stared at me, and I welcomed it with open arms. I hung up the phone and danced a little victory dance right there in the phone booth as I crossed the last item off my list, laughing with a joy I hadn’t felt in a month.
I had done it. I had done everything I planned to do, and I had succeeded. Now all that remained was for me to reap the rewards of my success.
I headed off to my flat to gather the necessary items that I’d need to capture my prize. It wasn’t going to be easy, but as a very wise, very sexy man once said, the things that are worth having are worth working for.
And he was very worth working for.
I was more than a little nervous when I knocked on Alex’s door. I knew he was home; I had taken the precaution of calling Isabella and asking her if he had returned from work yet. She called me back ten minutes later and told me he had, then wished me luck in regaining Alex’s heart.
I laughed at the knowing tone in her voice. “Isabella, you are a witch, aren’t you?”
“Certainly not. I simply value my friends and want to see them happy.”
“Keep your fingers crossed for me, then. I’m going to need a lot of good wishes in order to get him back.”
“If anyone can do it, you can,” she replied.
I smiled at a man outside the phone box. “Yup. That I can.”
I wasn’t quite so confident when I was actually standing outside Alex’s door, but I was excited. Excited and scared, and tossed between love for him and the fear that he’d slam the door in my face.
I reached out to knock again when the door opened.
“Hi, Alex,” I said breathlessly, and bit my lip. He looked hot and tired, just as he had that first day I saw him. “Would it be possible for me to come in and talk with you a bit?”
No expression filled his eyes; no sign of any emotion passed over his face. He just stared at me for a moment with eyes that were flat and empty.
“Um…Alex, you’re scaring me some with that look. Can I come in? Please?”
He stared at me in that chilling manner for another few seconds, then stepped back and let me enter his flat.
I knew that explaining my plan wasn’t going to be easy, but I had hoped he’d at least be happy to see me. The way he was standing leaning against the door, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes about as warm as those of a really pissed-off serial killer, did not bode well for the happy reunion I had been mentally planning, lo, these last three weeks.
I chewed on my lip for a few moments, then held out my package. He didn’t even glance at it. I took a step forward and shoved it at his chest. “I brought you something.”
He took it and allowed his uninterested eyes to examine it.
“It’s my manuscript,” I pointed out helpfully. “I finished revising it.”
I waited for recognition to strike him. I waited in vain.
“It’s the original story, Alex. The one that Daniel thought was so bad. I didn’t give up on it after all, you see. I took your words to heart and went back and revised it until it was a much better story. More consistent. And I didn’t ask anyone’s advice about it…well, almost no one. Daniel helped a bit with some plotting advice and he talked to me a lot about writing, but I never once asked what he thought of the story. So you see, I owe this whole manuscript to you.”
Nothing. He just stared at me, his eyes cold enough to trigger a second ice age.
I licked my lips, leaned forward, and flipped the first page back. “There’s something I want you to read, there.”
His gaze never left mine. I gritted my teeth and poked at the manuscript page. “Alex, I know you’re pissed—I mean, angry—but you could at least look at where I’m pointing!”
His eyes narrowed.
“Fine!” I snapped, and stood next to him, my head at an angle so I could read the page. “I’ll read it to you, since you’re so busy being all pride bound and prickly and everything. It’s the dedication. It says, ‘To Alex, the only pers
on who saw my true worth, my friend, my lover, my everything, the man who is worth any amount of trouble just so long as he’s by my side. I will love you forever.’ ”
I looked up hopefully, tears blurring my vision. “I know you’re hurt and angry with me, Alex, and you have every right to be, but if anyone can understand, you will. I love you. I have from that first day when you took my pot plant, and that scared me more than anything I’ve experienced. I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you, and I figured it would all just end up in the toilet the way all my other relationships have, and so…well, Isabella was right about that, too. I was protecting myself from being hurt when you dumped me by not giving all of myself to you, and then when you didn’t dump me, I got all panicky and scared and worried, and are you going to let me blather on like this without saying anything?”
“You don’t love me.”
I sniffed and wiped my tears on the sleeve of my blouse. “I knew you’d say that. I do love you, Alex. I love you with every teensy tiny bit of my being. I love you so much I knew I had to do something to change, so you’d love me, too.”
“You don’t love me,” he repeated stubbornly. “You left me. You told me I had no place in your life.”
“Oh, Alex.” I turned to face him and slid my hands up his taut arms to his neck. He was stiff and unmoving under my hands, but there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I was going to give up on him now. “I never said that, not once! It was all my plan, you see—my plan to turn myself into the woman you wanted.”
“I wanted you as you were.”
I shook my head and brushed my lips against his. He didn’t kiss me back, but he didn’t run screaming from me, either. Point one for Team Alix. “You didn’t want me, you wanted a woman who wasn’t riddled with insecurities and flaws. You wanted a woman who valued what she had, who fought for what she wanted, who knew the good things in life don’t come easy. I had to leave you to find that woman, Alex.”
“Why? Christ, Alix, I offered to help you—”
“I know, love—oh, don’t think I didn’t know and wasn’t tempted by the thought of just caving in and letting you fix everything for me, but I couldn’t do that, don’t you see? If I didn’t stand on my own two feet and do it alone, I’d never be able to respect myself, and worse than that, you’d never respect me. I had to get away so I could rewrite my manuscript. I had to get away so I could work by myself, without the support of my friends. I had to leave you in order to prove I could be the woman you deserve. Don’t you see? I had to leave you so I could find my way back into your arms.”
I stood pressed against him, my body warm against his, my hands on his tight shoulders. He hadn’t budged one inch; his arms were still crossed over his chest, his jaw was still tight. But his eyes had life in them again, even if it was only the hot glare of anger.
I didn’t blame him. If the shoe were on the other foot, I’d want to put his lights out. With a wry smile, I lifted my chin and stepped back. “Go ahead, punch me. Right on the chin.”
He did a damned good impression of my goggle. “What?”
I tapped my chin and turned my head slightly. “Punch me on the chin. I deserve it. You’ll feel better afterward.”
“I’m not going to strike you, Alix.”
I kept my chin firmly turned away from him. “I know violence isn’t the answer to any problem, but sometimes you just really need to deck someone. I figure you’re pretty angry with me, and you’ll feel much better if you vent your spleen with a little physical contact.”
“You’re right,” Alex said after a moment’s consideration. He started toward me. I opened my eyes wide at the look of emotion on his face, then slammed them shut hard as I braced myself for pain. He didn’t touch my face, but grabbed me around my waist and pushed me backwards toward his computer table. My butt bumped up against the table as he leaned forward and swept off the stacks of papers, notebooks, and books that littered the surface.
The look in his eyes left me in no doubt that he was in the grip of a strong emotion, but which emotion was it? He hadn’t decked me when I invited him to, but he certainly didn’t look like he had forgiven me, either. My newfound courage suddenly deserted me when he turned those hot, burning eyes on me.
“Uh…Alex, maybe I ought to come back a little later when you’re not so—”
The words were cut off as his mouth descended upon mine. It was a kiss, but like no kiss he’d ever given me before. This one was demanding, unyielding, a dominating kiss that said better than words that I had no choice but to surrender. The thought didn’t even cross my mind to dispute that fact.
“You left me,” he growled as he put both hands on my waist and hoisted me up onto the table. His hands were all over me, in my hair, holding me for another one of those ravaging kisses, tracing along the curves of my breasts, on my bare legs, sliding up my thighs, pushing my dress up as he headed for the promised land. My heart soared at his touch, at the look of pure, unadulterated desire burning in his eyes. He might not forgive me for what I had done, but he sure wanted me.
“I had to leave you,” I whispered, offering the sacrificial lips up a third time without the slightest murmur. I started to fumble for his shirt buttons, but he snarled and forced my hands lower. “I had to leave you so I could take charge of myself, of my life. I had to know I could do it on my own.”
“You told me I wasn’t worth your trouble.”
“I was hurt and wanted to hurt you, too. I was an idiot! I was stupid! I was crazed with grief and didn’t know what I was saying!”
My eyes widened again as his hands slid up either side of my hips, hooking his thumbs around the thin waistband of my slinky underwear, underwear I was wearing especially for the occasion. He didn’t miss that fact.
“You ran from me when I touched you,” he said as his lips curled into a hot, tight smile just before he literally ripped the undies right off me.
“Good Lord, Alex!” I stared down at the torn bits of satin in his hands. “I had to run from you—you have no idea how badly I wanted to give up and just throw myself in your arms, but you were worth any amount of pain. Don’t you see, I had to run, or else I’d never be able to leave you, and if I didn’t leave you, I’d never have been able to stand on my own.”
My gaze jumped from his hands to his face. The look there made me shiver with need and wanting and excitement and love and a whole slew of other emotions I couldn’t begin to untangle. “You’re not going to…you don’t mean…Alex, I’m on a desk!”
“Physical contact,” he rumbled as his hands pushed mine away from where they had been trying to get a purchase on his belt. He ripped his belt off and yanked down the zipper. “I offered you my heart that night in the cab and you turned it down.”
With one hand he spread my legs and stepped between them, going straight to the heart of my desire by slipping a finger inside me. I trembled with the joy that filled me at his touch.
“I was so close, my sweet Alex. I had to stick to my plan in order to succeed, or you’d never want me, never be able to love me as I love you.”
I felt the tip of him nudging against the spot where his finger had been just a second before, and suddenly needed to be sure he understood. I spread my fingers and slid my hands into his hair, tugging him closer. “I couldn’t have lived with myself if you ended up pitying me because I was too weak and stubborn to realize my full potential.”
His arms went around me, grabbing my behind and yanking me forward just as he moved into me. I screamed his name with the pleasure of it.
“You left me.” His voice was as rough as granite as he pulled back until he had almost left my body.
“No!” I howled, both at his accusation and at the sense of loss.
“You abused me.” His fingers tightened on my behind as he thrust his full length back into me.
“I didn’t mean to.” The words caught in my throat as the familiar tension began to build within me. I kissed his lips, his cheek
, his hair, trying to pull him closer, deeper inside me, trying to merge the two of us together.
“You rejected me.” He grabbed my legs and hoisted them up around his hips until I locked my ankles behind him.
“Never,” I vowed, flexing my legs to pull him tighter. He was so deep inside me I could feel him touch my heart, but that still wasn’t deep enough. I needed all of him, his heart and soul and mind as well as his body.
“You love me.” His thrusts were increasing in speed, his breath rasping in my ear.
I kissed his neck and bit gently on the tendon that stood out there. “Always.”
“You love me.” His body slammed against mine, desperate now to finish the race. I arched upwards and welcomed him.
“Forever.”
He heard my gasp and bent me backwards until I was splayed across the desk, pinned back as much by the emotion in his eyes as by his body invading mine. “You love me.”
I framed his face with my hands and drew his head down until my lips could whisper along his. “I love you.”
He roared a wordless victory as he lunged forward against me, his body joining so fully with mine that there were no distinctions between him and me. He filled me with his love, sending us both spiraling off together into a blinding moment of understanding that left me sobbing with joy.
“Tears,” he said softly a little later, his voice as warm in my ear as his body lying next to mine on his couch. His fingers swept gently across my wet cheeks. “You cry again, Alix? Did I hurt you?”
I turned my faced into his shoulder and nipped the bare flesh. “No.”
“Good.” He smiled smugly as he said it, and closed his eyes as he pulled me against his naked chest. I slid a knee up his leg and decided I’d groveled enough. I nipped his shoulder again.
He grunted in response. “I’m not as young as I used to be, sweetheart. Give me a chance to catch my breath and I’ll be happy to oblige.”
“You haven’t said it, Alex.”
Two pure green eyes opened to meet mine, and I wondered how his beautiful eyes could ever have appeared cold and lifeless. “I haven’t said what? That I always knew you could succeed at whatever you set your mind to, that I’m proud of you, that I understand why you didn’t take the easy path? That I think you are a woman of strength and intelligence and I thank God for you every day, despite the fact that you’re a troublesome vixen who drives my blood pressure up each time I get near you?”
Improper English Page 31
