More Than a Fling?

by Joss Wood

  ‘Dear God, if I had known you were this annoying I would never have agreed to sleep with you,’ Ally muttered as he walked back into the hall and down the short passage.

  ‘I’m not annoying—you’re just stubborn,’ Ross said when he came back, a pair of comfy slouch boots in his large hand. ‘Get your feet in these, Jones.’

  ‘I don’t need to go to the ER. I’ll call for an appointment with a doctor.’

  ‘Alyssa.’ He sighed. ‘Do me a favour...please? Since I’ve travelled over twelve thousand kilometres to see you?’ Ross used his best woe-is-me voice and guilt immediately swept across her pain-gripped face.

  ‘What?’

  It worked every time. It was such a girl trick, but he had no compunction in using manipulation to get his way quickly.

  ‘Let’s just get this done. Because it’s going to happen with or without your cooperation.’ Ross hauled her to her feet and guided her to the door. He shoved her arms into the coat he’d found hanging on a hook behind the door, not fastening it so that the material didn’t rub against her blisters.

  Ally’s face turned mutinous. ‘Your bedside manner sucks, Bennett.’

  Ross’s look was full of irony. ‘That’s because what I had planned for you involved being in your bed, not at its side.’ He dropped a hard but brief kiss on her lips. ‘Let’s go, zombie-girl.’

  Ally had to smile. ‘Screw you,’ she said, but this time there was no heat in her words.

  ‘Again, those were my plans...’

  * * *

  ‘Shingles.’

  Ally looked down at the dark head of the doctor who was peering at the rash on her stomach and thought that he had a nicer bedside manner than Ross. He was kind and patient and rather cute... She looked at Ross, who was standing with his back to the wall, scowling at his mobile. He had a right to scowl. He’d had his night of nookie screwed up by—what had he said?—shingles.

  ‘What causes it?’ Ally demanded.

  ‘It’s a viral infection; most of us have the virus in our system and it takes something to trigger the infection. Suppressed immunity, sickness, stress...’

  ‘Ding, ding, ding,’ Ross said, not lifting his head.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ she demanded rudely.

  ‘Oh, hoping for a miraculous recovery of both your libido and your sunny disposition,’ Ross said lazily. ‘Oh, wait...you don’t have a sunny disposition.’

  The doctor laughed and Ally wanted to throw something at him. Ross—not the doctor.

  ‘So, on a scale of one to ten, how stressed are you?’ the doctor asked.

  Ally tried not to squirm in her chair. Okay, the last two weeks had been crazy, and she could lay a huge part of that on Mr Too-Sexy-To-Breathe over there. If he’d just said yes to the campaign and then left her alone, then she wouldn’t be going clucking mad.

  ‘Well?’ the doctor demanded.

  ‘Four.’ Well, maybe a seven or a nine, but she wasn’t going to admit that!

  ‘A hundred and four. Frig, woman, you are like the poster child for what corporate stress looks like. Thin, wired, sleep-deprived,’ Ross commented.

  ‘He has the stethoscope around his neck, not you!’ Ally pointed out.

  ‘Nevertheless, he’s not wrong,’ the doctor stated, and Ally turned her glare onto him.

  Typical men, they always stuck together.

  ‘Prolonged stress lowers the body’s immunity, which allows the virus to reactivate.’

  ‘What’s the treatment?’

  ‘A course of antiviral medication. Rest. No stress.’

  ‘Rest,’ Ross repeated. ‘No stress.’

  Ally really needed to throw something at him. Unfortunately there was nothing within reach. ‘Bite. Me.’

  The doctor laughed. ‘Jeez, you two are fabulous entertainment value. How long have you been together?’

  ‘We are not together,’ Ally stated, pushing the words out between her teeth.

  ‘She’s just using me for sex.’

  ‘That’s it...get out! Go! Now! Shoo!’ Ally shouted at him, goaded beyond all measure.

  ‘I’d prefer that you are not alone tonight, Ms Jones. You are still dizzy, and if you fall and crack your head there could be some nasty consequences.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want him,’ Ally said in a huffy voice. Mostly because this wasn’t the way she’d envisaged her first date with Ross.

  She should be scented and clean—sexy, even. Her hair wouldn’t be greasy, her eyes would not be looking as if she’d been smoking dope for six days straight, and she wouldn’t have a headache that threatened to roll her head off her neck.

  Ross just rolled his eyes at the doctor and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He smiled at Ally, totally unfazed. When she was yelling at him she felt fractionally better—not quite so miserable and defeated. And he didn’t seem to be taking her bitchiness personally; it was almost as if he knew that along with feeling so sick she also felt scared and vulnerable, and that arguing made her feel marginally better.

  ‘Is there a friend I can call?’ Ross asked.

  ‘No.’

  Ally dropped her head. How had she arrived at this point in her life where she didn’t have a single girlfriend she could call in an emergency? She’d always thought that she’d have time for friends, lovers, fun when she finished her studies, got her next promotion, finished the next project...

  Ross’s eyes hardened. ‘Someone is going home with you tonight, Alyssa. And I’m not idiot enough to trust you to make the arrangements. I’ll call Luc and he can organise someone to look after you tonight.’

  Oh, dammit, she didn’t want him to go—not really—but she couldn’t ask him to stay. That wasn’t what he’d offered. And she most certainly did not want her family knowing about this.

  The little colour in Ally’s face drained away. ‘Oh, no, Ross, don’t. Please? I don’t want to worry them. Please don’t call Luc. He’ll just call Sabine and Justin, and they’ll call Patric and Gina, and they’ll all rush to my apartment and... Please don’t. They are more than I can handle right now.’

  They’d fuss and fret, and Sabine would lecture her on taking care of herself and working too hard. Justin would look at her with agonised eyes and she’d feel smothered and guilty.

  ‘If you can just see me back to my apartment, then you can go home.’

  ‘Did you hear me? I don’t want you left alone tonight,’ said Dr Dishy. ‘I’ll keep you in hospital if I have to.’

  Dammit—rock and concrete wall. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered at Ross. ‘It’s not what you came here for.’

  Ross looked at her for a long, long time before finally nodding his head. ‘I’ll stay at the apartment tonight,’ he eventually told the doctor.

  Ally let out a long, relieved sigh and bit her lip. ‘Thanks. I owe you one.’

  Ross arched an expressive eyebrow. ‘One? Oh, I think we passed one a while ago.’

  Ally tipped her head up and stared hard at the ceiling. After a minute she dropped her eyes to the doctor’s very amused face. ‘Maybe I should stay here tonight, because if he carries on like this shingles might be the least of my problems. I might brain him senseless,’ she mused as she swung her legs off the bed and started to stand. ‘Ooh, dizzy...’

  * * *

  Ross walked into the café a couple of blocks from Ally’s apartment and slipped off his coat as he looked for an empty table in the early-morning rush. Seeing
that one was being cleared next to the window, he walked over there and practically begged the waitress to bring him a cup of coffee.

  Ally didn’t drink coffee—a fact he’d found out after turning out practically every cupboard she had in search of the magic potion. How could she not drink coffee? he wondered. It was practically its own super food.

  After the night he’d just had he might need it injected straight into his veins, he thought, sliding into the chair and looking across the street to Lake Geneva. Pretty, he thought. Even if it was colder than a witch’s heart.

  Ross grabbed his left shoulder with his right hand and held his elbow to try and stretch out the knots that had formed in his shoulders from laying his six-foot-three frame on a couch made for a pygmy. Last night had been possibly the most uncomfortable, most boring night of his life. He’d taken Ally home, got her into bed, heated up a cup of soup for her. Soon after she’d passed out—possibly from the antihistamine injection she’d received in her luscious butt earlier.

  Ross, thinking that work would be the last thing on his mind, hadn’t brought his computer, and Ally did not own a television. Who didn’t have a TV in today’s day and age? Oh, right—the same contrary woman who didn’t drink coffee.

  But Ross had found her e-reader and spent the next couple of hours flipping from one business book to another—all guaranteed to put a guy into a coma. Didn’t the woman do anything for fun? Did she even know the meaning of the phrase ‘light entertainment’?

  Despite his frequent checking on her, she hadn’t stirred for the rest of the night, and when he’d left the apartment a half-hour ago she’d still been conked out. Before he’d left he’d made a couple of calls, and he’d also lifted her shirt to check her rash—it still looked horrible, but as far as he’d been able to see there were no new blisters.

  Ally would be fine, physically, in a couple of days. Mentally—well, that was anyone’s guess.

  The woman was a bona fide basket case...and he had this crazy impulse to help her and he wasn’t sure why. He’d thought that he was coming here for uncomplicated sex, but something in her white face and large eyes had him wanting to help and, God help him, protect her.

  Why? She was a modern woman who would rather eat glass than admit that she needed help. Maybe because she was a little lost and a lot alone—why didn’t she have friends? A social life? Someone she could call in a scrape? She obviously loved her family but didn’t want to rely on them, and he suspected that her life consisted of working too hard and trying damn hard to be brave.

  And that was why he was in this café, about to make a decision that he would probably regret later. C’est la vie, as Jones would say in her impeccable French.

  Ross had just finished his second cup of espresso and was feeling a lot more human when Luc walked through the door of the café, looked around and immediately spotted him. Dressed in a grey suit and a raspberry tie, he looked every inch the corporate CEO Ross tried very hard not to be.

  Ross stood up, shook hands and eyed Ally’s foster brother as he ordered an espresso and a full breakfast.

  When the waitress had left Luc leaned back, unbuttoned his suit jacket and looked at Ross with friendly but wary grey eyes. ‘This is a surprise, Ross. What can I do for you?’

  Ross thought that there was no point in beating around the bush. ‘Your sister is at home, on her own, suffering from a nasty case of shingles.’ He saw Luc’s eyes harden, saw the obvious question in them. How the hell do you know that? ‘We were going to have dinner last night but she fell ill. I took her to the ER and she’s not well.’

  Luc slumped down in his chair. ‘And she didn’t want you to tell us?’

  ‘No. And I would’ve kept my word but I have to return to London. I have a computer game designer who is debating whether to move from his mother’s house to Cape Town and he needs his hand held. Unfortunately he’s brilliant, or else I wouldn’t bother. I just don’t think Ally should be on her own.’

  Luc tapped his fingers on the wooden table, his grey eyes unreadable. ‘Alyssa is very good at shutting us out.’

  ‘Why?’

  Luc’s mouth turned grim. ‘She’d have to tell you that. All I can tell you is that she is complicated. A little messed up.’

  He knew that, Ross thought, yet it hadn’t put him off. He raked his fingers through his hair, wishing he could tell Luc that he was worried she was on the fast track to a loony bin. That he wanted to see the shadows lift from her eyes...that he wanted her to relax and have some fun. But when Luc would ask why he was doing this for a woman he’d only met a couple of times and he wouldn’t be able to answer.

  Mostly because he didn’t have a freaking clue. It wasn’t as if he thought they were going anywhere, that they had a future. They just had—what had Ally called it?—a hectic chemical reaction.

  ‘Does Ally know that you’re here, telling me that she is sick?’ Luc asked.

  ‘No, she was still sleeping when I left. I need to get back to London and I can’t wait for her to wake up. And her mobile is off.’

  Her mobile was off because he’d removed the battery to said mobile and hidden it. He was really hoping that she would be sensible and stay in bed for the rest of the day, preferably the weekend. But he couldn’t stay around to babysit her; he had things to do, a business to run.

  And he had to be the Bellechier face.

  Frick. He still hadn’t wrapped his head around that either. He wasn’t a ‘face’ type of guy. He was going to take a truckload of BS from his mates at the gym, his fellow surfers, his colleagues for this—everyone who friggin’ knew him.

  Ally so owed him.

  Luc lifted his coffee cup in a Gallic toast as the waitress placed his food in front of him. ‘She is not going to be happy that you told me. I thank you, but she won’t.’

  ‘I can handle Ally,’ Ross stated and wondered if he actually could.

  * * *

  ‘You sicced my family on me? Thanks so much!’ Ally said as soon as Ross answered her call. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m busy. I’ll call you back in ten,’ Ross retorted.

  Ally pulled out her tongue at her dead mobile and tossed it onto her desk, walking to her window and looking at the cloud-covered Alps in the distance. It was Tuesday morning and she was back at work, considerably better but not one hundred per cent. Her rash had subsided and the blisters had started to scab—yuck—and the headache was at a manageable level.

  She’d woken up on Friday at eleven to an empty-of-Ross apartment. He’d left her a note

  Fridge has food in it. Eat something! Rest.

  DO NOT GO TO WORK. I called and told your secretary you were taking a personal day. Implied that I was keeping you in bed...not sure if she believed me. We’ll talk.

  She’d still been feeling so dreadful that she hadn’t had the energy to deal with his high-handedness so she’d just turned around, hopped straight back into bed and slept for the rest of the day.

  She’d dealt with her entire family trooping in to see if she was alive on Saturday night, and after Sabine had shooed them out she’d gone back to sleep and slept all night. And most of Sunday.

  Every time she’d woken up Sabine had been there, with a cool hand, or soup, or a facecloth. It had felt nice and comforting, and that had been scary, so she’d insisted that Sabine went home to Justin on Sunday evening. Sabine had gone, taking her hurt feelings with her. That was why she didn’t want her around; Sabine wanted to fuss and fidget and A
lly wanted to be alone. She knew how to take care of herself...

  She’d started off her morning by searching her apartment for the battery to her mobile—finding it eventually in her coat pocket behind her door. There had been a dozen calls to return, more explanations to make, worried family to reassure.

  Ally tapped her foot, impatient. Three more minutes—could she wait that long? She leaned her shoulder onto the wooden frame and rested her head on the glass. Their date had been an unmitigated disaster and yet Ross had never once showed his irritation or annoyance. Yeah, he’d needled her at the hospital, but she knew that he’d just been teasing. His laughing eyes and amused mouth had given him away.

  He somehow knew that she found sympathy and coddling more difficult to deal with than mockery. She so appreciated that. And she appreciated him leaving, letting her get on with being sick and then getting better. She was also very grateful for the food in her fridge—not that she’d eaten much of it. It was the thought that counted.

  Twelve minutes had passed and he still hadn’t called back. At fifteen minutes she dialled his number again.

  ‘Bloody Nora, Jones, give me break,’ he groaned.

  ‘I need you to talk to me. Now,’ Ally said, not realising how breathy her voice sounded.

  ‘Hold on.’ Ally heard Ross asking for a twenty-minute break and heard the scrape of chairs, footsteps fading away. ‘You there, Jones?’

  ‘Why did you do it?’ Ally demanded. A part of her—a small, wishful part—wanted to believe that he’d done it for her. The rest of her scoffed at the notion.

  ‘Hello to you too. How are you feeling? Blisters gone?’ Ross said, his tone pointed.

  Ally sucked down her impatience. ‘Better. Thanks for the food. And for taking me to the hospital. I’m sorry I messed up your evening. That you flew in for nothing.’

  She could almost see Ross’s shrug. ‘No worries.’