Maggie admired his honesty. She’d seen through his comedic version of Cassandra. After all she’d done the same. Instead of talking about the woman who’d made the first, deep crack in her heart, she’d painted a clown of a mother to her friends. She was someone with a perma-tan and an unhealthy devotion to karaoke, who ran a bar in Spain.
“I guess she fell out of love with herself.” She pictured the last article about Cassandra she’d happened upon in a magazine at the fertility clinic. It said she’d cleaned up her act and found “lurve” with a younger guy. She’d taken years to get over the blow of Drake leaving. She’d kept his name after the divorce and forced contact with him to continue the only way she knew how, sparring with him publically in the press. At long last she’d let it go, found equilibrium in new love and pride for her sons.
“It must be hard to love your children if you hate yourself,” Alex agreed. “Look, there’s a couple of things I need to warn you about.”
“Too late. We’re here.” She touched his upper arm gently. Beneath smooth fabric, she felt rock-firm muscle. “It’ll be fine,” she assured him, “I’m excited to meet Cassandra.”
The limo pulled up outside the Empire State Building. Glancing upwards into the twilight sky Maggie saw that the tower’s lights were pink, white and blue for the night – magical. Out of the limo in an instant, Alex offered his hand to Maggie. As she stepped out his arm banded around her and flashes popped. Alex tensed, giving out the requisite Jago vibe. Under his breath he cursed the press presence. He dipped his head and whispered in her ear. “If they ask questions, say nothing. Leave any comments to me.” The hairs on the back of her neck rose. His strong arm circled about her waist made sweet, honeyed heat swirl at her core.
She smiled easily. “Happy to.” The words came out in a throaty whisper.
Compared to the movie premiere, the charity gala was low key. There were a few photographers on the street and just one reporter. Alex looked ahead purposefully, his face frozen, jaw clenched, walking her quickly towards the entrance in the protection of his arm, strangely less relaxed in this setting than he had been on the red carpet.
“Alex!” A beady-eyed reporter with tousled fair hair that made him look about fourteen and as though he just got out of bed beckoned. “Can you spare a moment for a couple of questions?”
“What do you need to know?”
“Tell me about the projects funded by Wells Wish?”
“There’ll be a press release.” He held Maggie close. “You’ll get all the details you need there.”
She’d pasted on a fixed smile. It was her second outing in the glare of publicity and she was wary, but she steeled herself, determined to nail the being-on-show thing as Alex continued. “The charity mainly funds play schemes, literacy programs, theater-in-education initiatives.” His touch and his deep drawl swirled through her senses.
A sly smile contorted the reporter’s ever-so-slightly lopsided features. “Any plans to fund a nursery? Baby-and-toddler groups? Breast-feeding awareness?”
Alex’s jaw tightened. “Not that I’m aware of.”
Maggie smiled like a waxwork of herself, panicky inside at the reporter’s hints.
He turned his attention on her. “When’s the happy event? I hear congratulations are in order.”
She almost gawped. Sticking to Alex’s advice, she said nothing.
Bedhead Boy honed in on Alex. “You must be excited,” he probed. “Are you looking forward to becoming a dad?”
Maggie’s jaw hit the floor. She wanted a hole in the ground to open up and swallow her whole. She pulled herself together. If she was going to snag TV work she’d have to be able to think on her feet. Before Alex could utter a word, her reply sliced through the night air.
“Alex is not the father.” Her skin turned to goose flesh, but she persevered, “I’m having a donor-sperm baby.”
Alex’s hand gripped her waist tighter, hastening their move away. He turned back to the reporter and said with studied calm. “It’s great news. I’m thrilled for Magenta.”
Inside the building, milling amongst hundreds of guests, when the pressure of effusive greetings and social niceties settled down for a moment, Maggie cornered Alex. “How did that reporter know that I’m pregnant?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” He gave a big shrug. Harsh tension shadowed his features. “Someone told the press. It was on the net.”
“You knew?” She couldn’t control the wobble in her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to. I got side-tracked trying to warn you about Cassandra and her color scheme.”
Maggie’s brain fogged up. How could he be fussing about a color scheme at a time like this?
“Pesky-reporter-of-the-year put two and two together and got it wrong. Ve. Ry. Wrong.”
“I know. Awkward.” A muscle twitched in his face.
“Extremely.” Maggie simmered. “What are we going to do?”
“Nothing. You handled it fine. For the record, I’d have been happy to go with the flow and be your baby’s father for the night.”
“You would?” Maggie’s nerves jangled and her heart skipped.
“Why not?” He gave a big, nonchalant shrug. “The press getting hold of a whiff of information and making a mountain of tittle-tattle out of it is my normal.” He shrugged again. “What can you do? They need column inches and we have to make the best of it.” He fiddled distractedly with a cufflink. It didn’t help that he looked so devastating in a tux. “It’s not ideal.” He hesitated, clearing his throat with a gruff cough. “But people like baby news. It’s a misunderstanding with a positive spin. If that increases donations to the charity, then I’m happy to run with it.”
Maggie’s heart sank. For a micro-second she’d thought Alex was saying that he didn’t mind people thinking he was having a baby with her. That’s not what he’d meant at all.
“I should have said nothing. Like you told me to do.” She hadn’t told anyone yet. Not her friends. Not her mother – although that might be difficult since her mobile phone had a semi-permanently flat battery. No one knew except Alex. And now the rest of the world.
She was contemplating hailing the first passing taxi and hightailing it back to the hotel to hide, when Nick and Ella arrived.
“Is this your doing?” The tension ramped up a notch as Alex glared suspiciously at Nick.
“No way. I haven’t said a thing.” Nick held up his palms. “Actually,” he added, looking contrite, “I may have mentioned that Maggie was an old flame.”
“That’s not exactly true, Nick,” Maggie chided.
“The rest is anybody’s guess. An indiscreet bellhop or something. By the way, Cassandra’s on the warpath. That reporter called her ‘grandma’.”
Maggie let out a long, panicky breath. “Your mother’s going to kill me.”
Ella, in hot pink, touched Maggie’s arm reassuringly. “She’ll get over it. She’s used to dealing with PR problems. Congratulations, by the way.”
Across the room, in the midst of a throng of guests, Cassandra, clad in shimmery blue sequins like a shiny mermaid, was graciously accepting everyone's good wishes. She was giving an award-winning performance as the delighted grandma-to-be.
“I sent her a text,” Alex said. He pressed a finger into the furrow between his brows and shook his head. “What’s she playing at?”
Practically in sync with his twin, Nick shook his head. “Evidently she didn’t read it.”
Ella’s super-glossed-up lips set in an I’m-saying-nothing moue. She wrapped Maggie in a hug. “Don’t worry. Alex will sort it out. Welcome to our world.”
Her heart somersaulted. Who knew getting noticed could be so fraught with complications?
“Thanks.” She smiled trustingly at Alex. “I think.”
Nick and Ella melted into the room, leaving her alone looking into his eyes.
“I shouldn’t have exposed you to any of this.”
“It’s PR
pandemonium.”
“It’s my life, and I should have done more to protect you. I’m sorry.”
The organizer stepped up on a raised platform at the far end of the room and banged an auctioneer’s gavel. The room hushed. She thanked everyone for supporting the Wells Wish Foundation, encouraged them to give generously, and informed them that there’d be an after- dinner address from the inimitable Cassandra Wells followed by an auction of promises, including kisses from each of her dreamy sons.
The news sparked an unnecessary pang of jealousy in Maggie. It was bad enough that her body was operating on a different frequency from her head as far as Alex was concerned, but possessive emotions were completely uncalled for.
“Keep your credit cards at the ready, ladies,” the organizer enthused with a diva-in-training sigh. “And now, without further ado, dinner is served.”
Alex and Maggie took their places at the top table, alongside Nick and Ella, and Cassandra with her younger man.
She didn’t have a clue who any of the other social elite at the table were. The men rose to shake her hand and their partners smiled warmly – all the while giving out extra-cool vibes. How come some women had a talent for that? She picked up on the curiosity behind their fake eyelashes and bright lipstick smiles. No doubt they were itching to know all the gossip.
At that point her brain-fog cleared. The penny dropped. There wasn’t a single woman in the room who wasn’t wearing either electric blue or shocking pink – the charity’s signature colors.
“Why didn’t you tell me there was a dress code?” Maggie hissed at Alex in a whisper.
His eyebrows shot up. “I tried. You didn’t listen.”
“I stick out like a sore thumb. You should have said something.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t wear black would have been a good start.”
Alex raised his eyes to the roof. “Black’s what you do,” he reminded her. A sexy smile played on his lips.
“I look like I should be waiting tables.”
“Dressed like that?” Very slowly Alex raked his gaze over her. How could his ice-blue eyes make her feel so hot?
Shadowy staff delivered the delicious meal with attentive precision. The courses came and went, glasses were filled and refilled. The event had been organized with attention to detail that verged on finicky. Like the dress code, the flower arrangements and the lighting echoed the charity’s colors – every single thing pink, white and blue. Throughout the proceedings, Cassandra Wells’ eyes fired daggers at Maggie. She clearly wasn’t impressed.
So much for the neutral image she’d worked so hard to perfect. Her black dress might as well have been a gorilla suit. How could she have got it so wrong? Getting noticed was uncomfortable in the extreme, so much so that she was beginning to think this whole idea of landing a job on a television show was pie in the sky. She just wasn’t up to it.
The conversation murmured around her. When the time came for the auction, Alex leant in and whispered close against her neck, “Nick and I always outbid the highest bidders.”
Unwanted heat spiraled through her body, transmitting awareness impulses into every nerve cell.
“You bid to kiss each other? How does that work?”
Alex chuckled. The wide smile lit up his face.
“It’s a bit of a tradition. I give Nick’s kiss to his date – it’s been Ella for the last few years. He gives my kiss to my date …” He paused, a teasingly blasé and annoyingly seductive look stamped on his face. “… Whoever that might be.”
Her heart skittered. “That’s me.” She fought the urge to know who’d been on the receiving end of Nick’s generous gift last year and the year before that … and …
“You catch on quick.”
After dinner the organizer introduced Cassandra. She gave her spiel, thanking people for their generous support. Gracious and humorous, she commanded the attention of the room. From what Alex had said earlier their relationship had been difficult when he and Nick were children, but clearly she was beyond delighted with her grown-up sons. Before dinner Alex had straightened things out about the surprise grandchild, so mercifully she stuck to her planned speech and didn’t make any off-the-cuff remarks about Maggie’s pregnancy.
She wondered how her own mother would take the news. At forty-five she’d be even less enchanted than Cassandra with being dubbed a granny. Contact had been pretty patchy since her grandma died. She still flew out to visit her from time to time. Usually, she didn’t stay more than two or three days, although at the beginning of the summer they’d been short-staffed at the Green Flamingo Bar, so since her diary was clear she’d stuck around and helped out for couple of weeks. Still, they were a long way from close. She hadn’t shared her pregnancy plan with her. Dedicated to celebrity gossip, her mother would be wowed when she found out her grandchild-to-be had a famous dad, and absolutely gutted when she learned that it wasn’t true.
Ripples of polite applause filled the room.
The auctioneer’s gavel knocked loudly and the gathering fell silent. Nick’s kiss was the first promise to be auctioned off. Maggie watched it all, remaining attentively remote, like a spectator. The bids went steadily higher and when the hammer was about to fall Alex bettered the last bid by ten thousand dollars. The hammer fell and the kiss was Ella’s. It was awarded right away. Nick and Ella both stood, playing to the crowd, and performed a very stagey smooch to the cheers of the well-wined-and-dined guests.
Various generous gifts and promises followed. The sums of money raised practically made Maggie’s eyes water. She tuned out. Under the table she crossed her legs defensively and twirled one high-heeled foot in a circular motion. The image of the ribbon at her ankle and the thought of Alex slowly untying it swam in her head. She couldn’t kiss him. She didn’t have the necessary skills to perform a convincing stage kiss. There’d be no need to hold up a sign saying “She’s going to fall in love if she’s not careful!” like in a silent movie. It would be fairly obvious. She didn’t want to push him away, but she had no choice. She was starting to want much too much. And he didn’t want anything. He was doing his best to honor her friend request, but he’d been quick to decline her wanton no-strings fling proposition. She’d been all over the place since he’d arranged her upgrade. She didn’t know what she wanted from him, but it wasn’t a fake snog.
Finally, it was time. There was a hum of excitement in the room. Apparently kissing Alex was the evening’s pièce de résistance.
Maggie’s heart turned somersaults. Cassandra Wells watched her like a tigress about to pounce on its prey. She had the longest, reddest nails in the room. Lethal. She might have made a quick recovery from the pregnancy problem, but she wasn’t going to forgive the dress-code blunder in a hurry. What would she make of Maggie winning Alex’s kiss? Maybe it wouldn’t happen. Nick might be outbid.
“How much am I bid for Alex? Don’t be shy, ladies! This is Jago I’m talking about here. Dig deep. You won’t be disappointed.” Alex’s face had taken on Jago’s sexy-solemn quality, complete with the roguish promise of an almost imperceptible smile.
“You’re the Mona Lisa of vampires.” Maggie whispered. He wanted to laugh, she saw it in his eyes, but he held his stance, keeping his cool, ever the professional actor with only the faintest ghost of a smile on view.
The bids mounted high quickly. Maggie listened with bated breath. She so didn’t want Nick to win the auction. She’d have to kiss Alex – right here, right now – in front of who-knew-how-many-hundreds of people. Flipping Nora! She surreptitiously looked him up and down. He was standing for the auction. Towering above her he was a stud of a man. He could have been made to model the tux. Aware of many-eyed scrutiny focusing in on them, it took immense effort to ignore the exchanges of silent glances that said “who in the world is she?” more clearly than any words.
“Gentlemen. Treat your date tonight. She won’t regret it. But you might.” There was a chortle of good-humored laughter.
/> A vampish-looking cougar lady called out a huge sum and Maggie’s heart thumped. She bit back a gasp.
“Are we all done? Going once. Going twice.” Maggie’s heart rate soared.
At the last micro second Nick cut in with the winning bid.
“You took your time!” Alex jibed.
“I thought I’d let you sweat a little,” Nick bantered.
“Sold to …” The organizer squinted across at the top table.
Cassandra Wells picked up her glass of red wine as if it was a poison chalice she planned to force upon Maggie’s lips. She sipped in silence. Maggie did a double-take. Clearly she’d got far too into running lines from Hamlet with Alex. She had to remind herself that Cassandra wasn’t Queen Gertrude.
Nick stood and gestured in a grandiose manner towards Maggie.
“Magenta Plumtree.”
Chapter Fourteen
In the dim, atmospheric glow of the function room all faces turned on Maggie. Moody beams of deep-pink, blue and white light peppered the darkened room. The attention of hundreds of pairs of eyes hit her like a physical force as she was trapped in the glare of a movable spotlight. She blinked, startled. Alex reached out and drew her to her feet. Clasping her fingers and lifting them to his mouth in an act of old-fashioned gallantry he gently pressed his lips against the back of her hand. Time might as well have lapsed into slow motion. The warm pressure of Alex’s mouth on her skin felt incredible. Sensual. Delicious.
Phew! He wasn’t going kiss her for real in front of all these people after all.
Murmurs of disapproval emanated from the room. Someone booed and others followed suit. Desire and panic flooded her senses. Alex looked deep into her searching eyes. Before she had time to register what was happening he swept her into a Hollywood dip and while she was bent over backwards planted a kiss somewhere about her earlobe. She fizzed, even though she wasn’t meant to. He was hamming it up for the crowd. They cheered. In an instant she was back on her feet, reeling with surprise and pleasure, and aching to be kissed – properly.
The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights Page 16
