Falling for Alexander (Corkscrew Bay #2) (11 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Monday was chaotic.

Marge had organised an emergency meeting at the Corkscrew Weekly and, from what Kate could hear through the paper-thin walls of the office they were enclosed in, fresh plans were being steamrolled out faster than a printing press.

Not that Kate had involved herself in the details. She had no desire to sit on t
he town committee, not even as a temporary volunteer. She’d act as intermediary between the ladies and Alexander’s estate manager and, of course, she’d committed herself to be present at the castle for the site visit on Thursday.

The last minute arrangeme
nts, however, were stretching their deadline to the limit. The Easter egg hunt would be tomorrow’s front page spread and needed to include everything, from the exciting confirmation of the venue to the price of the tickets to the precise times of the busses that would shuttle people between the town and the castle.

And then there was Alexander, a constant presence front and centre of her mind. After lunch, he
’d shown her exactly what he’d meant by making that rocking chair work for him. Heat flushed her skin every time she thought of it, the way he’d looked into her eyes while she straddled his lap, the sensual movement as he rocked inside her, the foreign words he’d whispered against her breast afterwards.

Once they
’d recovered, he’d taken her by the hand for a stroll down to the lake, where they’d sat and chatted until the sun dipped out of sight. Romantic, intimate, almost a couple. But when she’d mentioned it was time for her to leave, he hadn’t put up any argument. Hadn’t pressed her to stay a while longer…stay the night. Not that she would have. And normally it wouldn’t matter. But yesterday she’d felt closer to Alexander than any guy she’d ever dated, and now they were on different continents, an ocean apart.

Assuming he
’d already landed in California.

She called up a browser to check the flight times, but quickly realised how little she knew. He
’d have caught a direct flight, more than likely, but what time had his flight departed? What airline?

A door banged open, disrupting her momentary panic.

“We’ve finally got a confirmation from Bradley Coach Hire,” Marge exclaimed, gliding toward her on five-inch heels.

They
’d gone through school together, but their lives had taken drastically different paths since. At nineteen, Marge had married. At twenty-three, she’d been in possession of two daughters, three dogs and a parrot. Earlier this year, at the grand age of twenty-five, she’d popped the big one, head of the Corkscrew Bay Woman’s Legion, which was just a fancy name for the town committee.

Kate didn
’t envy Marge’s life as such, but she did admire her for achieving everything she wanted so early in her life. She tilted her chin up as Marge pressed perfectly manicured fingernails to her desk.

“
How did you know Neil was the one?” Kate asked her.

“
The one what?”

“
The
one
…”

It wasn
’t that she’d spent a handful of hours with Alexander and had decided he was ‘the one.’ She wasn’t a total nut. But he wasn’t just a passing number in the crowd, either. The attraction between them was too instant, too fierce. Not purely physical. He was significant; he was
someone
. She’d guessed that from the start.

“
Normally, I’d love to hear exactly what this is about, but we’ve less than an hour to go.” Marge made a show of lifting her wristwatch up to her nose. “Focus, Kate.”

Dea
dline.

Kate sat up straighter and sharpened her brain. If she didn
’t email the weekly edition to the printing press in Penzance before five o’clock, there’d be absolutely nothing delivered first thing Tuesday morning.

She grabbed her notepad and pencil to
scribble down the information Marge fed her. “Is that it?” she asked when Marge stopped speaking. “Are we ready to go?”

Marge nodded. “
Let’s just hope we can fill the busses or that’s the last of our rainy day money from the treasury coffer.”

“
We’ll sell the tickets,” Kate said, giving her a reassuring smile. “You should be hoping we have enough busses.”

Marge returned a small smile. “
That’s one of things I really appreciate about you, Kate. Your glass is always half full.” Her gaze flicked to the open office door and back. “We could use some of that in there.” She sighed. “You will send the edition off immediately, won’t you? If the paper doesn’t come out tomorrow—”

“
I’ll take care of it,” Kate told her. “It’s what I do.”

“
You take care of more than the paper, sweetie,” Marge threw out as she headed back to her ladies. “You’re our guardian angel. How you got that man to change his mind, I’ll never know…” Her voice faded as she disappeared through the doorway.

Kate doubted any angel had ever traded sex for f
avours.
God, where did that come from? Sex for favours? That is not—well, it wasn’t—grrr, it didn’t end that way.

She scowled at the monitor as she scrolled down the template to the space reserved for the transport information.

Alexander opened a door.

Th
at was all.

She typed in the bus schedule for departure from the high street in the morning and the return trip in the afternoon, checked and re-checked the entry, then leant back in her seat without pressing the send button.

Twenty minutes later, Marge’s screech jolted her spine. “Hold the presses! Hold the presses! We have another sponsor.”

“
This isn’t the London Gazette.” A little too much adrenaline pumping there?

Marge
’s eyes went wide. “Have you sent it off yet?”

“
I was just about to,” she said, unable to resist feeding Marge’s excitement. What were friends for? “You caught me just in time.”

“
Thank goodness.” She fell into the seat opposite Kate, taking a few deep breaths before continuing.

The sponsors were the real headache Kate had been dealing with
all day. She’d had to negotiate or bribe space from some of the paid advertisers, all local businesses, who’d been scheduled in advance.

At ten minutes before five, Kate hit the send button and powered down her laptop. The ladies had left, and she had mor
e kinks in her spine than she had vertebrae.

This day is done.

She passed through to the reception, was flipping off the bank of electric switches near the door when the phone rang. She stretched over the desk to lift the handset. “Corkscrew Weekly, good afternoon.”

“
Kate, I was hoping to catch you before you left.” The sound of the sexiest voice in the history of sex, sexier than when she’d first heard it, rippled over her skin. “I’ve just realised I don’t have any other number for you.”

The tension in her
spine softened along with the rest of her. “I wasn’t expecting you to call.”

“
I miss you,
cara
.”

“
I miss you, too.” She closed her eyes for a moment, smiling, savouring the feeling.
He’d called. He missed her.
“What hotel are you staying at?”

“
I’m at home.”

“
Oh, right, you still own a home there?”

“
An apartment in the city, but no, I mean I’m at my aunt’s home…the aunt I came to live with after my parents died.”

A family visit, then. She
’d assumed he’d gone over for work. “They must be pleased to have you there.”

“
For the night, anyway,” he said. “I need to be in the city first thing tomorrow morning. But I try to stop in here whenever I get the chance.”

So, work, then? She was just about to ask when he said, “
Hold on…”

The line went dead for a minute, then
he came back on. “Unfortunately, I have to go.”

Kate swallowed a sigh of disappointment. “
Well, thanks for the call. It was, um, nice hearing from you.”

Nice.
That sounded so insufficient compared to the swelling in her heart. She wanted to keep him on the line all night, listen to his voice as she fell asleep. She wanted—

“
Kate?”

She sighed again, this time to drown the longing. “
Hmm?”

It wasn
’t supposed to be like this. She wasn’t supposed to feel so much, so soon, for a man she knew so little about. He was halfway across the world and she didn’t even know his reason for being there.

“
I still need your cell phone number,
cara
.”

At least that was one thing she did know. She was on Alexander
’s mind as much as he was on hers. He’d left the country, but he hadn’t left her behind.

And somehow, for now, it was enough.

Tuesday evening, Kate was relaxing in a steaming bath when he called, greeting her with the words, “
I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

“
I could send you a photo,” she teased lightly, reaching for her glass of wine and sinking lower into the water. “Then you could look at me all day, too.”

“
Take one now,” he said, his voice deep and husky. “I want to see you as you are, right now.”

She laughed, and took a fortifying sip of wine before shooting
back, “That would be slightly more X-rated than I’m comfortable going public with.”

The sinful in his voice dialled up a notch. “
What
are
you doing?”

Her toes curled around the faucet as the effect of red wine and Alexander hit her bloodstream. “
You first.”

“
I’ve been in the studio all morning and we’ve just broken for lunch,” he said. “Very public, nothing X-rated and boring as hell.”

“
In the studio? I thought you didn’t sing.”

“
We’re wrapping up the title track for a movie. I wrote the lyrics and helped compose the music, so I’m purely here on stand-by during the recording in case some tweaks are required.”

“
That’s your idea of boring?” She shook her head, both amused and dumbstruck. “I can’t imagine anything more exciting.”

“
I thought so too, until I started working on the piece and realised how many different people and teams needed to be satisfied,” he said. “I prefer to compose with less restrictions. Your turn,” he tagged on, the seductive quality of his tone indicating he didn’t really need to ask, “What are you doing?”

She
’d been naked all along, but now, suddenly, she felt exposed—in an erotic, thrilling way, for his eyes only.

Were they going to do this?

What was this, anyway?

Phone sex?

Her skin tingled with excitement and anticipation. She had no doubt as to what Alexander could achieve between that bone-melting voice and the vivid memories of last Sunday. On the other hand, she’d never done anything like this before. Wouldn’t know where to start.

In a slight panic, she glanced around, then swapped
her glass of wine for this week’s freshly delivered edition from the stand beside the bath.

“
Reading today’s paper,” she told him breathlessly.

He chuckled. “
Either you have an interesting habit of reading in the nude or we need to have a serious discussion on the meaning of X-rated.”

“
Neither,” she told him, swallowing a laugh that released some of the tension constricting her lungs. “I’m in the bath.”

The pause was brief, barely noticeable. When he came back, his voice was thick with desire. “
That definitely works.”

Heat flushed her entire body at the reminder of that last time he
’d made her situation work for them.

But instead of suggesting something erotically outlandish, he simply said, “
Read to me.”

“
From the paper?”

“
Hmm.”

She put her phone on speak
er and placed it on the rim of the bath, freeing her hands to skip past the front page spread. “We don’t exactly get newsworthy headlines in Corkscrew Bay,” she warned.

The biggest news this week was the Easter egg hunt, and she didn
’t want to get into that with Alexander. After making his generous offer and slipping her his agent’s business card, he hadn’t brought the subject up again.

“
I don’t mind.”

“
Okay.” She folded the paper in half and grabbed her wine, reading a couple of articles aloud in between sips.