Spring at Blueberry Bay: An utterly perfect feel good romantic comedy

by Holly Martin

  Her heart leapt. He had texted her from his hotel when he’d got there on Sunday afternoon and he had texted her to wish her goodnight, but she hadn’t heard from him today.

  She quickly opened the message, her workload forgotten.

  Morning Beautiful.

  She couldn’t help the huge smile that erupted on her face. She quickly typed back.

  Hey Sexy.

  You’re in work early.

  Lots to do and without the boss here to maul me I might actually be able to get most of it done today.

  Your boss sounds like a pervert, sexually harassing his staff.

  He is a pervert. All he thinks about is sex. He can’t keep his hands off me. If I didn’t love it so much, I’d have to make a complaint.

  The phone suddenly rang on her desk. She picked it up.

  ‘Bella.’ Isaac’s voice sounded so deep and masculine and indescribably sexy over the phone.

  ‘Isaac.’

  ‘What are you wearing?’

  Bella looked down, what a weird question. ‘Umm, black trousers, pale blue shirt, blue ballet pumps.’

  She heard him laugh a little. ‘You really are good at this seduction malarkey.’

  Bella laughed. ‘Oh. Sorry. I forgot we were going to have phone sex. Ask me again.’

  ‘What are you wearing?’

  ‘I’m naked, Isaac. I’m sitting at my desk stark naked.’

  ‘No clothes at all?’

  ‘No, I got some really funny looks when I walked into work today. It was quite chilly too. I even walked the dogs while I was naked this morning. Though I had to wear my wellies obviously, but they don’t count.’

  It was so easy talking to him, flirting with him. It was as if they had been doing this for years not just a few days.

  ‘Are you still wearing the wellies now?’

  ‘Do wellies do it for you?’

  ‘I’m still hung up on the thought of you sitting at your desk naked, I’m not really focussing on your shoes right now.’

  ‘I’m wearing black high-heeled shoes and nothing else.’

  ‘I take it back; I’m very interested in your shoes.’

  ‘Well maybe, when you come back, I’ll greet you at the door wearing nothing but black high-heel shoes.’

  ‘Now that’s an image that will keep me smiling for the rest of the day.’

  ‘Well now I’m naked, what would you like me to do next?’ Bella said in her best seductive voice.

  ‘I’d like you—’

  He was suddenly interrupted by a woman’s voice in the background and Bella recognised that it was Claudia that spoke.

  ‘Isaac, we need to go downstairs to the meeting in five minutes.’

  ‘Thanks Claudia, I’ll be out in a second.’ There was a pause, presumably while he waited for Claudia to leave the room, and then Isaac spoke again, his voice returning to his sexy purr. ‘Bella, I have to go, but when I next call you, I want you to think about where you want me to touch you.’

  Just the thought of that sent shivers down her spine.

  ‘OK.’

  He said his goodbyes and then rang off. Immediately the phone rang again.

  ‘Bella, I got so distracted with your wellies and high-heel shoes that I forgot the main reason I called.’

  ‘Having phone sex with me was not the main reason? I’m offended,’ she teased.

  ‘Of course that was the main reason,’ Isaac laughed. ‘But I did have a smaller reason. I’m talking to Oak and Acorn this afternoon.’

  ‘The bank?’

  ‘Yes and I’m trying to persuade them to come in as permanent sponsors for the Umbrella Foundation. Would you be happy to do a telephone conference at four this afternoon and just talk through with them some of the ways their logo will be used at our events?’

  ‘Oh sure, I can do that. I can send through a quick PowerPoint as well if you want.’

  ‘That would be great. And I’ll phone you at two for our phone sex session.’

  Bella laughed. ‘Will you be naked too?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then I look forward to it.’

  She put the phone down and a few moments later her diary was updated with two events. One was the telephone conference at four with Oak and Acorn and the other at two o’clock was simply titled, ‘Phone call with Isaac.’ A thrill ran through her at the thought of that phone call.

  If him being away was supposed to make her realise that she didn’t need him or miss him, it was having the completely opposite effect. She was falling for him and it scared her to death.

  Bella found herself so busy for the next few hours, eating at her desk over lunch as she created the PowerPoint, that she barely noticed that two o’clock came and went without the promised phone call. She didn’t mind. She was sure she would catch up with Isaac after work that night and then she might be able to enjoy the phone sex a bit more in the privacy of her own home. Something had clearly come up for Isaac which meant he couldn’t call her.

  When two thirty came and there was still no phone call, she ran down to the marketing department to talk through the Facebook adverts and the other promotions they were going to run for the egg game. She came back to her office around three just as the phone was ringing.

  She quickly snatched up the phone and grabbed an orange from her desk.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Bella.’ Isaac’s quiet authoritative voice was enough to make her knees turn to jelly.

  Determined to do better at her seduction than she had in the previous conversation, she decided to start the ball rolling straight away.

  ‘Isaac, I’m so glad you called,’ she purred. ‘I’ve been sitting here naked waiting for you to call. I’m touching my breasts and thinking of you.’ Bella quickly checked her emails to see she’d had a reply from the council in London about the zombie run she had planned in Hyde Park in the summer. She popped a chunk of orange in her mouth and scanned through the email to see if it was anything important.

  There was a sudden clatter on the other end of the phone as Isaac’s voice suddenly became louder and clearer.

  ‘Um, Bella, I’m sitting in the conference room with the representatives from Oak and Acorn. The meeting was brought forward. I did update your diary accordingly.’

  She quickly swallowed the orange segment and nearly choked on it. ‘Oh my god. Please tell me I’m not on speakerphone.’

  ‘You’re not at the moment but you were. That’s sort of the whole point of a telephone conference call.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Bella’s cheeks flamed red and hot, sweat prickling down the back of her neck. ‘Oh god no, did they hear me say I was touching my breasts?’

  ‘Yes, I think everyone in the conference room heard you.’

  ‘Everyone?’ she squeaked. ‘How many is everyone?’

  ‘Er, I think there’s twenty of us in here.’

  ‘No! Oh god no, I’m so sorry. I’m not even touching my breasts, I’m sitting here reading my emails and eating an orange. I can’t believe I told a room full of twenty people that I was touching my breasts.’

  She wanted to curl up and die. She wanted a great big volcano to suddenly erupt off the coast of Hope Island and completely obliterate her from the surface of the earth. She was going to get the sack for this. It was all well and good that people knew she and Isaac were dating at work as long as it didn’t interfere with their jobs or they weren’t rubbing it in people’s faces. Telling a conference room of twenty people that she was sitting naked at her desk, touching her breasts as she thought of her boss, was about as in your face as it could possibly get.

  She felt sick.

  How was she supposed to come back from this?

  ‘Tell them I’m your wife,’ Bella blurted out. ‘It looks better if I’m your wife rather than just some random woman you’re shagging at work.’

  There was silence from Isaac. Was he angry? Of course he was. This was a huge sponsorship opportunity for him and she
had just ruined that.

  In the background, she could suddenly hear laughter. It was a man but other people were laughing too.

  ‘Bella, I’m going to put you back on speakerphone,’ Isaac said.

  She quickly took a drink of water, trying to get moisture back into her mouth. What was she going to say?

  Should she just launch straight into her spiel and ignore the huge elephant in the room, just pretend that she hadn’t been talking about touching her breasts a few minutes before? Or should she make some reference to it, try to explain it away?

  ‘Well,’ the man said, laughing. ‘I’ve been to many of these sponsorship meetings and I’ve never had a company go to these lengths to get us on board.’

  They found it funny. It was going to be OK. She should make some joke about it and clear the air.

  ‘Well we’re committed to getting your name out there at every event in any way we can,’ Bella said. ‘Even if that means tattooing your logo on my breasts.’

  There was silence. Idiot. She’d made the situation ten times worse. She should have just apologised and skated over it.

  But then laughter erupted in the room again and it went on for some time. Finally it quietened down.

  ‘Let me introduce Bella properly,’ Isaac said, and it was evident he was laughing too. ‘Bella is our fundraising events manager at the Umbrella Foundation and she is also my fiancée. We always joke with each other like this whenever I’m away from home. I can assure you that Bella is not naked and is currently sitting in a communal office with around thirty other people nearby so definitely not touching her breasts.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Bella said. ‘I’ve just eaten an egg and cress sandwich. There’s nothing sexy about that. I’m so sorry. I was expecting a call from my fiancé at two and I wasn’t expecting to talk to you guys until four and when I heard Isaac’s voice, I thought I would tease him as I always do. This is not standard practice for our charity, I can assure you.’

  ‘It’s OK, Bella,’ the man said. ‘Best laugh I’ve had in a long time.’

  ‘Bella, this is Graham Miller, he’s in charge of sponsorship at Oak and Acorn,’ Isaac explained. ‘Why don’t you tell him how his sponsorship would be integrated into our events?’

  She could do this. They’d just explained it away, cleared the air. Now it was time to be professional. She could curl up with embarrassment later.

  ‘Do you have the PowerPoint to hand, Isaac?’

  ‘Yes it’s up on the whiteboard as we speak. Can you talk us through the slides?’

  Bella quickly loaded the PowerPoint on her own computer. She started to launch into her presentation and knew that she would never ever live this down.

  Isaac got in the back of his car and Marcus, his driver, pulled out into the traffic to take Isaac back to the hotel. It had been a busy day with several meetings but lots of good things had come out of it. Graham from Oak and Acorn had been very impressed with what Bella had come up with despite the fact that the meeting had started in such a strange way. Bella was charming and proficient and she had soon smoothed out the mistake. It had all but been forgotten by the time they got to the end of the meeting, though he knew it would be a long time before Bella forgot it.

  He took his phone from his jacket and called her. She should have left work by now, though he wasn’t sure if she’d be at home.

  It rang once before she answered.

  ‘I hate you, Isaac Scott,’ Bella answered.

  He burst out laughing. ‘It’s not my fault.’

  ‘It so is your fault. You said you’d ring at two and you wanted me to think about how I wanted you to touch me.’

  ‘Bella, you’re on speakerphone,’ Isaac teased.

  ‘WHAT?!’ Bella squealed.

  ‘I’m kidding, I promise, I’m kidding. I’m sitting in the back of the car alone and no one can hear you but me.’

  ‘I hate you.’

  He laughed. ‘No, you don’t, you love me really.’

  ‘We’re never having phone sex again.’

  ‘Why? You were so good at it.’

  ‘Shut up. I was not. I couldn’t be sexy if I tried.’

  He smiled. ‘Believe me, you don’t have to try.’

  ‘Still never going to happen. While we’re at it, we’re never having proper sex again. That’s your punishment for getting me into trouble like that.’

  ‘I think that’s called cutting your nose off to spite your face.’

  Bella laughed. ‘What? I won’t miss the sex. Not at all. Whereas you’ll be begging me for it as soon as you come back.’

  ‘I bet you’ll instigate sex before I do. You’re insatiable,’ Isaac said.

  ‘How much do you want to bet?’

  Isaac looked out the window as they drove past a chocolate shop. ‘An Easter egg.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘If you instigate sex first, you have to buy me a giant Yorkie egg.’

  Bella laughed. ‘OK and if you instigate sex first you have to buy me a giant Crunchie one.’

  ‘I’ll agree to those terms. And remind me, where do the Godiva chocolate-covered strawberries come in?’

  ‘Those are separate. You have to buy me those to win my love, but the price has just gone up to two boxes because of today.’

  ‘That seems fair.’

  The noise on the other end of the line changed and he got the sense that she had just gone indoors.

  ‘Where are you, Bella?’

  ‘Just got in from walking the dogs. I’m going to have dinner then probably go straight to bed. Being humiliated has taken its toll on me. What do you have planned for tonight?’

  ‘Dinner and bed too. Nothing exciting.’

  ‘Alone?’

  He frowned. ‘Bella, I’m not going to bed with anyone else. What kind of asshole do you think I am? I know this is only a bit of fun for you, but regardless how you want to categorise it, I’m not going to be sleeping with anyone else behind your back. And I hope you won’t too.’

  There was a silence from Bella. ‘I meant, are you having dinner alone, or would you be having dinner with people from work or Claudia? I didn’t think for one minute that you are up in London screwing around behind my back. I trust you.’

  Isaac cringed. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK. And… I don’t think this is just a bit of fun.’

  He swallowed. ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No. It’s something more, we both know that.’

  The car pulled up outside his hotel but he didn’t get out.

  ‘How much more?’

  Bella didn’t answer.

  ‘How much more, Bella?’ he asked softly.

  ‘I like you.’

  He smiled, this was like trying to get blood from a stone. ‘OK.’

  ‘I like you a bit more than like.’

  ‘I’ll take that,’ Isaac said.

  ‘It doesn’t mean I love you,’ Bella said, backtracking.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Just that I care about you, I’m fond of you. That’s it.’

  ‘I adore you, Bella.’

  ‘Despite the fact that I completely embarrassed you today at work.’

  ‘Because of it. Because every single thing about you makes me adore you even more.’

  ‘I adore you too,’ Bella said, so quietly he barely heard it.

  ‘I so wish I was there to kiss you right now.’

  ‘Me too. If I wasn’t working at the funfair this weekend, I’d come up to London to see you.’

  ‘You don’t like London, it scares you.’

  ‘I know, but I’d brave it to see you.’

  Isaac glanced out of the window and could see the doorman was getting irate about having their car parked outside when other cars were trying to unload their guests too. The doorman was gesturing to Marcus to move on. Marcus was unmoved by the angry glares.

  ‘Bella, I’d better go, but I’ll call you later. And I need to go shopping tomorrow to see if I can find a giant Crunchie
egg.’

  Bella laughed loudly. ‘You’re caving already.’

  ‘You bet I am.’

  He said his goodbyes and hung up. Well that was definitely progress. He wouldn’t push for anything more from her and he certainly wouldn’t tell her he’d already fallen in love with her. She wasn’t ready to hear it yet. But this conversation had given him hope that she would get there eventually.

  Bella plonked herself in the booth at Rosa’s the following night, sitting down opposite Rome and Dougie.

  It had been another full-on day at work and she was exhausted. She would have quite liked to have gone home and gone to bed, but it was Eden’s birthday and she wouldn’t miss that for the world. She had spoken to Isaac several times that day, some of it about the egg hunt game, but most of it was just lovely little chats in between his meetings. No more phone sex though, she was not risking that again.

  ‘You look happy,’ Rome noted as he popped an olive in his mouth.

  ‘I am happy,’ Bella said. ‘Things are going well at work, people seem nice, I love my job, the plans for the upcoming funfair are all going smoothly. Life is good.’

  ‘And the fact that you’re shagging the boss might have something to do with that huge smile you were wearing when you came in here,’ Dougie said and she playfully smacked his hand away from the last slice of cheesy garlic bread.

  Rome choked on his drink. ‘Do you mind, that’s my sister you’re talking about. I don’t need those images in my head.’

  ‘That might be a big reason why I’m smiling, yes,’ Bella said.

  ‘So it’s true?’ Rome’s eyebrows knitted together.

  ‘Yes, and you were going to trust my judgement on this, remember.’

  Rome visibly tried to force his frown away and failed. ‘I’m just not sure it’s a good idea.’

  ‘It’s OK, I already gave him the big brother warning,’ Dougie said. ‘Told him if he hurts her, I’ll have to beat him up.’

  ‘Good, well at least he knows where he stands,’ Rome said, seriously.

  Bella stared at them. ‘Are you kidding? We’re not in school any more. You don’t get to beat up people that are mean to me.’