“You forgot the rings.” It was an onlooker who drew it to everyone’s attention, one of the ladies from the WI who’d squeezed in at the back to watch the Plumtree girl marry Hot Vampire Guy.
The inexperienced vicar blushed so hard that his ears complemented the wedding dress. Everyone laughed. Nobody minded. Certainly not Alex and Maggie. They couldn’t have been any happier. Or any more in love. Alex took Maggie’s hand in his. Her neatly manicured nails shone with natural polish. Gently he slid the wedding ring into place.
They’d taken over the local Manor House Hotel for the holiday weekend and all the family had stayed. When the last drop of champagne had been drained and the bouquet thrown like a beach ball straight to Layla, Alex and Maggie said their goodnights. Wrapped in each other’s arms, moonlight streamed through the mullioned window of the bridal suite. Far below waves crashed onto rocks. Maggie stood on tiptoe and kissed her husband lovingly. He scooped her off her feet into his strong arms. He carried her across the room and tumbled her gently onto the four-poster bed.
“I love you, Mrs. Wells.”
Maggie brimmed with love and desire for her gorgeous husband. In the shadows, she reached out, ran her hands across his cheeks, down over his lightly stubbled jaw, and linked them at the back of his neck. The fingers of her right hand connected with the metal band on the ring finger of her left. A bubble of joy erupted inside her. She touched the soft, short hair at his nape and pulled him close, seeking out the mouth that he’d promised to her with a lifetime guarantee. Happiness filled her heart when he kissed her.
“You’re The One. The only one. Ever,” he murmured. He started oh-so-slowly to untie the crisscross laces in the back of her red-silk dress. She laughed softly. He loved her inside out. “You’re the color of my love.”
She didn’t believe it was humanly possible to be this happy.
If I am the color of your love, you are the color of my tomorrows.
The thought was lost in his kiss. He was the man she didn’t know she could have, the one to love forever. He enfolded her and she wrapped around him like a seam of soft rock melded with granite.
Epilogue
June sunshine streamed into the penthouse apartment. The place had been transformed into a temporary photo studio. At the heart of the craziness were tiny twins Horatio Alexander Wells and Phoebe Rose Wells.
“We chose names from Shakespeare,” Maggie explained to the journalist. “And Rose was my grandmother’s name.”
The babies had arrived three weeks early while Alex was in London to discuss a future directing project and Maggie was by herself in Cornwall. Her waters had broken at half past six on a beautiful May morning and the first thing she’d done was call Alex. Then she’d called the duty midwife, who’d reassured her that since she hadn’t had any contractions it might be hours before anything happened but advised her to come straight in. Luckily Layla was next door and she’d driven her to the hospital.
The midwife was right. It was a bit of an anti-climax at first because nothing happened at all. Left to her own devices, she and Layla read all the magazines, punctuated by cups of tea, pacing up and down the corridor, and the occasional check-up to make sure that everything was alright.
When it all kicked off without any sign of Alex her heart sank. She was in the middle of a contraction when news came via a student nurse that a helicopter had been given permission to land on the emergency helipad.
Shortly after, Alex’s voice boomed through the maternity unit as if he was speaking to the back of a large theater without a microphone. He caused quite a commotion bypassing Reception and heading straight to the labor ward.
“I’m the dad!” She couldn’t see his face, but she’d have recognized that dark, rumbling voice anywhere.
He’d arrived in the nick of time. Horatio was born first and little Phoebe Rose followed twenty minutes later.
Exhausted, elated, Maggie had never been happier.
And now she was showing the Wells babies off to the world.
With the babies dressed in colorful teeny outfits from her first babywear collection, Maggie sat next to Alex on the cream-leather sofa that she’d slept on all those months ago. With a backdrop of London and the River Thames spread out behind them through the wall of windows, Alex cradled Phoebe and Maggie cuddled Horatio.
Maggie smiled. She’d been apprehensive about her first in-front-of-the-camera photo shoot. She needn’t have worried. She turned her head slightly as the camera clicked. Grinning from ear to ear, Alex’s gorgeous smile said everything she needed to know.
The journalist was another story. “So tell me, guys,” she probed. “Plans to extend the family?”
Maggie breathed an inward sigh of relief when Alex didn’t tell her to get lost. His finger tightly held in Phoebe’s grasp, he switched his gaze back and forth between his baby daughter and son with comedic timing.
“We need to get a bigger place.”
“It sounds like you’re planning on a full house,” the journalist hinted.
Maggie smiled at Alex’s careful answer and supplied one of her own, “A home full of love.” With her husband at her side, she felt no need to hide, or avoid the direction of the question. “No plans just yet,” she informed the journalist, “But I’m sure we’d like a brother or sister for the twins in the future.”
Wherever they might live, whatever shape their only-just-started family might eventually take, it was their love for each other she counted on – far more than four walls and a roof. She’d never give up her tiny Cornish cottage, no matter how big her family got. Visits there might become a squeeze, but it would be the love inside that mattered more than anything.
A whole lot later, when the magazine team had gone, and the babies had had a flying visit from Uncle Nick and were tucked up cozily asleep in their cribs, Alex kissed Maggie, deeply, passionately. With one hand he tangled his fingers in her hair, with the other he circled the pad of a thumb on her cheek. Crushed so close against him that he felt like a part of her, she smiled against his kiss.
“I’m more in love with you than I ever could have believed possible,” she whispered.
“I love you, Magenta Wells.” His lovely drawl made her float on air. “Always and forever.”
Crazy, Undercover, Love
Nikki Moore
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
This story is dedicated to;
My wonderful children for putting up with me disappearing into my writing room at odd times!
My friends and family for their unwavering support and belief that one day I would get a publishing deal.
The wonderful members of the Romantic Novelists' Association, the most friendly and professional organisation I've ever been a part of.
The fantastic HarperImpulse team – we've got the love!
And a special mention to my aunt, author Sue Moorcroft, who has been a constant source of support and inspiration to me. Without her clear constructive criticism, valuable advice and emotional cheerl
eading I'm sure it would have taken me much longer to achieve my dream.
Chapter One
DAY ONE
– Friday –
I should have said no; it would have been the smart – aka sane – thing to do.
But there was a time limit on the offer and Amy caught me in a moment of desperation after I’d woke to yet another thick batch of overdue bills and polite job rejections. The feeling tripped a yes straight off my tongue, and now I’ve realised that maybe this isn’t such a good idea, it’s too late. I’m dashing across the city, yanking my purple case along behind me on squeaky wheels. So I can’t back out now; I’m committed. More importantly the reason for agreeing to this crazy Plan B, on the basis that sensible Plan A isn’t working, stands. It’s probably my last chance to hang onto life as I know it. Sounds a bit dramatic, but there it is.
The bitter wind increases its howling across the West India Quays footbridge, tearing through my belted winter coat. ‘Bugger it!’ I shudder. As well as being freezing, the force of the gale is making staying upright a challenge. My favourite (yes, okay, impractical) stiletto ankle boots are battling for grip in the snowy slush.
I’m so bloody cold it’ll be a miracle if my ears are still attached to my head, in fact they’ve gone completely numb, and there’s also a familiar ache starting deep in my throat. Great. I don’t need to get ill on top of everything else. To finish off my bad mood, the Arctic draught is trying to pick my hair out of the stylish knot I spent ages on. It’s hardly going to look professional if I arrive looking like the loser in a pro-wrestling match or as if I’m stuck in the jungle on I’m a Celebrity …
Glancing at my watch, I speed up, heels rapping out a clank-clank-clank on the metal bridge. Being late will hardly impress, either. Unfortunately, fate is conspiring against me, because as I break into a jog the jolting combined with the wind finally frees my hair. A rain of kirby grips slide into my collar and down my back. Seriously? Come on! Stopping with a skid, I yank my thick red waves into a ponytail, using the emergency hair band from around my wrist.
Setting off again, I pray the anticipated snow will hold back for another few minutes. It’s not looking hopeful; the air has that weird ozone smell to it and the temperature’s dropped loads already, grey-white cauliflower-like clouds crowding in uncomfortably low like a suffocating blanket. Yep, I’m probably going to get snowed on and I can’t help feeling it’ll be fair enough; bad karma for being so sneaky. What I’m about to do makes me want to dig a giant hole in the ground and leap into it head first. But working as a temporary Personal Assistant for the CEO of my ex-employer is an opportunity too good to miss.
Of course, it may all blow up in my face. Jess certainly believes it will, saying I’m making a massive mistake. She might be right, but I think it’s a risk worth taking. I’ve got to at least try: I owe myself that. So now I have one weekend in Barcelona to change things, whatever my best friend thinks, and if I don’t, at least the lump sum I’ll get will keep the rabid debtors at bay a while longer. In honesty, though, I really need the plan to work. It has to work.
Coming to the end of the bridge, I let out a panicked yelp as I step onto the concrete and slip on a patch of ice, regretting grabbing the handrail when my bare hand freezes to the slick metal. Peeling it off, I pick my way across a courtyard, cutting through a narrow concrete alleyway between a Japanese-themed bar and a towering hotel. The multicoloured lanterns and white fairy lights are still hanging in all the windows, even though Christmas was over a week ago. Of course leisure and retail are going to maximise the festive season and people’s celebrations; there’s more money in it for them. God, I’ve turned cynical. Sad, really, because I’ve always adored this time of year. But at the moment merriment and holidays are way down my list of priorities and for the first time I really didn’t enjoy Christmas, even though I was home with my family and friends. I think I understand Scrooge’s pre-ghosts-of-Christmas perspective now. Bah humbug.
I look for the car as I emerge onto the street, feeling sick and sweaty in spite of the chill in the air. Have I missed my ride? I’m only a couple of minutes late. Something cold kisses my cheek and I glance at the sky. Snow begins to eddy and swirl around me, getting in my eyes. No doubt I’ll end up with black Alice Cooper tracks down my face. I’m wearing cheap mascara – haven’t been able to afford the branded waterproof stuff in ages.
A wave of utter weariness drags me down. Perhaps this chance has slipped away. If so, standing here could make frostbite an unwelcome reality. How long to wait before I jack it in and head home? But then a swish black town car turns the corner and pulls in at the kerb with a quiet purr and I know this is it. It’s on. Time to meet the CEO.
Pasting on a shaky smile, I step towards the smart uniformed driver, holding back a laugh at the luxurious vehicle he’s stepped from. The formality reminds me of The Apprentice, when Lord Sugar emerges grumpy and grizzled from a flash car. I was a middle manager, so we were never kept in this style.
‘Can I help you?’ The man meets me at the back of the car, posture as rigid as his voice, whilst the wind whips grit and whirling snowflakes about us.
‘Good afternoon, I’m Charley Caswell.’
He peers down at me. ‘You are?’
‘I am.’ At least, I was last time I checked. ‘Would you like to see some ID?’
‘That would be helpful, thank you.’
Oh. I was joking. This is a bit weird.
Sliding a hand into my bag, I flip my passport open at the last page, placing my fingers strategically along the side to hide Wright, the second part of my double-barrelled surname.
He gives it a quick glance.
I stop breathing.
‘Thank you, Miss Caswell. Wait here a moment please?’
I nod, tucking the passport away and thrusting half-dead hands into my coat pockets. I should have swiped a pair of gloves from Jess on the way out of our flat. She’s used to me borrowing her stuff.
Focusing on the driver as he taps on the tinted rear car window, I watch the glass slide down but can’t hear his conversation with the passenger. The tension in his shoulders as exchanges rattle back and forth between them is obvious, though.
Gritting my teeth to stop them chattering, I scrunch my eyes against the awful weather. What’s taking so long? I can’t be busted so soon, surely? When registering with the latest batch of agencies, I only used the first part of my surname, the one I originally dropped when moving to the city, a change made back then to escape my upbringing. But for this weekend – at least initially – I needed to be safely hidden behind the name Charley Caswell, rather than marked out as Charlotte Wright.
The ex-employee.
The troublemaker.
‘I said, now!’
The order erupts from the window like something snarling with teeth and my eyes fly open. My stomach clenches in knots as the driver straightens, turning to fight his way back to me. Holding my breath, I wonder if I’m destined to go home with no prospects, no money and only numb toes and damp hair to show for my efforts.
‘Shall we go?’ he asks, stamping his feet for warmth.
My cover isn’t blown. ‘Yes!’ Oops, probably a little too enthusiastic.
He doesn’t seem to notice, opening the boot and gesturing to my case. ‘May I?’
‘No. I mean, I can manage. But thank you.’ I grab it and shove it in before he can. I won’t be waited on. If my independence is one of the few things I have left, I’ll guard it like a precious possession.
‘Fine, Miss Caswell,’ a tiny glint of humour warms his eyes, ‘but are you going to at least let me open the door for you?’
‘It’s Charley,’ I flash him a grateful smile as he swings the door open, ‘and if you’re going to insist… Yes, thanks.’
Mr CEO is on the phone as I get in, so I take a moment to appreciate the cosy, immaculate interior of the car. Heavenly. Smooth, black leather seats, walnut finish on everything, TV screens in the back of the headrests
in front of us. Nice. I sink back with a sigh of relief, then ruin it by fumbling around trying to click the metal tongue of the seatbelt into place. My fingers are burning and tingling as they start to thaw, so it makes the job that much harder.
Finally buckling myself in, I glance up. And my mouth drops open. My hands clench and lust strums my knickers.
Oh … wow! I did not count on this.
I had a vague idea Alex Demetrio wasn’t bad looking but I’ve never seen a proper picture. He’s got an aversion to being photographed and any pics successfully snapped would appear in Hello or Tatler – not my type of reading material. The only photo I’ve seen was in a corporate brochure and he was standing scowling in the middle of a crowd. All I could tell was he had the same dark colouring as his father, the previous CEO.
So it’s a complete shock he’s one of the most astoundingly gorgeous men I’ve ever shared oxygen with, Brad Pitt-beautiful. Frozen, I admire his short, ruffled black hair, slightly olive skin and strong, sculpted face with angelically defined cheekbones. I’ve worked with good-looking men before but this guy is magnetic.
The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights Page 24
