‘Feels like a great idea to me. Do you want to fuck Josh?’
Stunned at the frank language, she blinked.
‘No.’
‘Do you want me to fuck you?’
Oh, yes please, a little voice said.
The clutch of arousal low in her womb made her teeth grip her bottom lip.
But she wouldn’t give into it.
For the second time in one day, Rosie lied straight to his face.
‘No.’
His smile was a show of white teeth and it wasn’t nice.
‘Liar. We need to talk.’
Something like panic raced up her spine.
‘We’ve nothing to talk about.’
His finger’s squeezed.
‘We’ll talk tomorrow after you’ve had time to think about it.’
The way he spoke to her, as if she had no choice in the matter, as if he was the one who made all the decisions made her voice too high.
‘No. We won’t, Alexander. Nothing is going to happen between us.’
He simply grinned and her hand itched to smack him.
His eyes, dark and possessive, dropped to her breasts in a way that caught the breath in her throat.
‘Tell that to your hard little nipples. Tell that to the frantic pulse in your neck. And I put money on it your panties are wet.’
His fingertip skimmed the spot under her ear and she felt the touch on her nipples and between her legs.
He stood.
‘Alexander.’
‘You need a good night’s sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He kept walking and Rosie thought her jaw would crack by the way she was grinding her teeth.
‘Alexander,’ she growled in utter frustration.
‘By the way.’
Hand on the door handle he turned to look at her and his eyes were so cold she shivered. ‘I don’t do vanilla sex. And if I see you cock teasing Josh again I’ll paddle your bare arse so hard you won’t sit down for a week.’
He left.
Rosie simply stared at the door unable to believe her ears.
Her heart was racing.
Her nipples were like bullets and her panties indeed were damp.
Omigod.
Who’d have thought suave, sophisticated Alexander Ludlow was a human missile of mass destruction? A dominant alpha male?
How did that old phrase go, ‘Be careful what you wish for because it just might come true?’
That’ll teach her.
Rosie hadn’t slept a wink.
How could he behave like a caveman and just leave her standing in a puddle of lust?
And for once, Roger rabbit hadn’t been up to the task and that fact was driving her mad.
After being on her feet since five in the morning, all she wanted to do was to have a blissful soak in a hot bath with a glass of frosty white wine.
But no, here she was over twelve hours later stressing over Julie’s cake thanks to a chance remark by Bronte that still had her spitting nails.
Why couldn’t the twit have told her his PA was allergic to nuts?
She’d had to work like a
crazy
person to have the cake ready by this afternoon.
Then she’d overfilled muffin tins, causing Armageddon in two industrial ovens.
Of course the girls she employed offered to clean them, but the rule at Sweet Sensationss was that the person who made the mess cleaned the mess. It didn’t make any difference if she was the boss, Rosie led by example.
Bitter feelings of being illused and abused burned in her chest.
Alexander knew she was busy and if the staff hadn’t stepped in today to help with a cake tasting, she’d never have managed to complete it on time.
Why couldn’t she learn to say no to the man?
With care, she added yet another blushed pink rosebud to the cake.
Finished.
She carefully placed the fabulous cake into a glossy white cardboard box.
Snapping on rubber gloves, Rosie blinked back hot tears.
Exhausted self-pity mingled with a toxic sexual frustration that was killing her.
She bent, checked how the oven paste was working on the burnt globby disaster zone.
With her head stuck in the oven, she put her back into scrubbing and was so busy cursing like a sailor she didn’t hear the door open or the, ‘Hello’.
So when a large male hand patted her bottom, her shriek almost burst her eardrums as her head hit the top of the oven with a sickening crack.
Stars exploded behind her eyes as agony pealed over her skull and down her spine.
‘God, Rosie, sorry darling. I didn’t mean to startle you.’
The masculine voice, full of concern, seemed to fade into the distance.
A jack hammer above her temple robbed Rosie of the power of speech and she could actually feel the bone on her hairline swelling, stretching her skin.
Strong hands lifted her and pushed her onto a chair.
Dazed, eyes stinging, the room tilted sickly.
Pressing a shaky hand to her stomach Rosie took a breath.
And looked into a pair of very anxious blue eyes.
‘Ouch,’ she said in a weak voice.
Josh rose and moved to get her a glass of water.
Handing her the water he asked,
‘Where do you keep painkillers?’
The glass trembled in her hand as Rosie blinked up at him while her brain tried to compute his question.
She took a careful sip.
He gazed into her eyes, shook his head and started poking around cupboards, found what he was looking for and handed her two pills.
Telling herself to just keep breathing through the percussion blows pounding her skull, Rosie watched him rifle through a freezer and return with a bag of frozen peas.
Kneeling in front of her, Josh carefully untied her bandana and winced as he gently pressed the peas to her head.
Her whine had him bite his lip.
‘Jeez, I’m so sorry.’
She blinked, held onto the pack pressed to her skull.
‘I can see three of you.’
The door opened.
The sound of hurried footsteps came closer.
‘What’s the matter? What happened?’
The tone in Alexander’s deep voice made her moan and close her eyes.
From a great distance Rosie heard Josh relating the story.
Alexander tipped up her chin, she knew it was him by what his touch did to her.
Chemistry was a bitch.
With a gentle hand that made her eyes sting even more, Alexander lifted the pack of frozen peas and swore under his breath.
‘Christ’s sake, it’s the size of an egg.’
‘We need to phone an ambulance,’ Josh said, sounding terribly upset.
‘You’ve done enough,’ snapped Alexander.
‘Back off.’ Her voice was thready and weak.
When she opened her eyes a cold sweat of nausea washed over her and the room pitched.
A roaring sound in her ears drowned out their voices and her world went black.
Rosie awoke to the feeling of someone trying to bore a hole in her skull with a pneumatic drill.
She was lying on the couch in her sitting room with Alexander’s pale face hovering above.
Somewhere along the line he’d lost his jacket and tie.
He placed a blissfully cold cloth to her forehead under the bag of frozen peas.
‘Where’s Josh?’
‘Who cares? What a bloody idiot.’
‘Accident,’ she muttered through the pain.
‘Yeah, well Bronte and the paramedics are on their way.’
She couldn’t stop the whine in her voice,
‘It’s only a bump on the head.’
Alexander’s emerald eyes went soft now as he stared into hers.
He knew exactly how much she hated hospitals.
‘You’ve a bump the size of a duck egg and you passed out. Stay quiet and let them look you over.’
A commotion at her front door had her groan.
And she made the mistake of moving her head.
‘Hi, Rosie,’ a chirpy voice she knew well spoke above her. ‘What have you done to yourself this time?’
Through her lashes Susan Bradshaw swam into view.
She’d gone to school with Susan.
Dressed in a dark green romper suit of a paramedic, Susan knelt and opened a bag.
Behind her a large stocky man with dark hair peppered with grey, another paramedic, folded his arms and watched her carefully.
‘Nice bump,’ he said. The tone was jovial but his eyes were sharp. ‘Better out than in.’
Nausea hit her like a brick.
‘I’m going to be sick.’
Susan rolled her to her side to be wretchedly ill into a cardboard pot.
Then Susan cast a sharp eye on Alexander.
‘Who gave her painkillers?’
Josh raised his hand.
‘I did.’
‘Don’t do it again,’ Susan told him in a firm voice before flashing a pen light into Rosie’s eyes. ‘Leave medicating a patient to the experts.’
She turned and nodded to her companion who nodded back.
‘Righto, kiddo, we’re taking you back with us. You always did enjoy riding in an ambulance. I’ll even run the siren for you.’
Weak tears ran down Rosie’s cheeks.
She could care less.
She’d never felt so poorly in her life.
Alexander held her hand and squeezed.
‘Hang on in there. I’m right here. I won’t leave you.’
The arrival of Bronte and Nico had her sob even harder.
They were supposed to be flying to Rome tonight and the thought she might cause them a delay had her hang on even harder to Alexander’s fingers.
‘What happened?’ Bronte demanded to know. Then her eyes narrowed on her brother’s face. ‘And what happened to you?’
Alexander flicked Nico a warning look.
‘An accident. It’s nothing.’
‘Ah, the gang’s all here,’ Susan said, still chirpy. ‘Hi, Bronte, we’re taking her in for a couple of tests. She’s passed out and been sick. They’ll do a CT scan and check her out thoroughly. I suspect a concussion, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.’
‘I want to go home,’ Rosie said, again, four hours later.
Alexander sprawled in the chair next to her bed, shot her a look that warned she was pushing her luck.
And that glint in his eye was back.
However, he’d been fantastic, jumping in the ambulance with her while Bronte drove his car with Nico following on behind.
Poor Josh had eventually gone home feeling terrible after promising he’d make it up to her.
And Bronte, Nico and the kids were on their way to Italy for the funeral of Nico’s father.
For a knock on the head, the whole thing had been blown out of all proportion. It could have happened to anyone. So why Alexander insisted on making a meal out of it, she didn’t know.
‘You’ll go home when you’re well enough to go home and you’ll do as you’re told,’ Alexander commanded in a tone that on a good day would have her tearing a strip off him. ‘Bronte has it all organised and under control. Janine’s running the business while Lucy and Amy are picking up the slack. No work for at least a week.’
‘This is all your fault,’ she snapped.
He gave her wide eyes.
‘I’m not the one who patted your bottom. And I’m going to have a little word with Josh about that.’
‘Leave him alone. You’re the one who didn’t tell me Julie was allergic to nuts. I had to make another cake. It threw out my entire day. I got behind. I got stressed and tired. I overfilled the muffin tins which caused chaos in my new ovens which was why I was cleaning them. Ergo, it was your fault.’
‘You had to make the cake twice?’ he asked in a voice of utter disbelief.
‘Nice to see that expensive education wasn’t wasted and you can count.’
‘I’m sorry, angel face. I didn’t think.’
‘You never do. I should have checked and asked the question.’
He sent her a big smile.
‘So it’s your fault?’
‘Shut up.’
‘I’ll pay you for two cakes instead of one.’
He’d what?
Now temper roared through her system in a way that made stars jump in front of her eyes.
‘You’re a pathetic excuse for a man.’
He simply grinned at her.
‘Do you know what those big dark eyes do to me when you’re angry?’
‘I know what I’d like them to do to you.’
The grin got bigger.
‘They get me right here,’ he said and punched his chest.
By how big those fabulous eyes went, Alexander realised Rosie had no idea what she did to him and had absolutely no idea she had him by the throat.
And he wondered now if these feelings had always been there hidden under the permanent itch of irritation with her sassy mouth, the flashing eyes, the always too quick temper.
It was layers of emotions he thought, and underpinning every one was the need to protect and take care of Rosie.
And now she had him by the balls, the little witch.
He couldn’t resist her.
Every time he saw her now his belly did a little dance.
The first time his belly had done that little dance was at Rosie’s sixteenth birthday party at Ludlow Hall’s swimming pool and he’d popped in to give her a present - a gold chain with a little gold handbag and tiny gold shoe with high heels since Rosie and Bronte had a thing for bags and shoes.
She’d been wearing an excuse for a bikini, a white one, and he’d needed oxygen. With the long limbs, the curvy figure, the tan and her hair, she could have been Miss July on his locker room calendar.
At twenty-three those feelings had scared the hell out of him and he’d thrown himself into a hot affair and his career to get her out of his system.
His feelings for her since were something he couldn’t articulate even to himself except as friendship, something he’d assumed she’d accepted and returned.
But it was odd, he thought now, that those feelings of needing oxygen had lasted more than twelve years even though they’d been disregarded, repressed, swept aside.
Rosie was about to give him a smart response when the doctor entered, a middle-aged Asian man with dark twinkling eyes.
‘Good news. Nothing sinister is going on in that hard head of yours. You have a mild concussion which is never fun.’ He perched on the edge of her bed. ‘You have two choices. You can go home as long as you have someone with you over the next forty-eight hours, maybe longer depending on how you feel. Or you can stay in here where we’ll keep an eye on you.’