Save the Last Dance (26 page)

Alice's feet had protested at just being prised out of her comfy trainers and forced into a pair of low-heeled pumps.

Still, however scarily smart the Orion bunch seemed to be, they were all very friendly, and there seemed to be a lot of good-natured banter going on. Cameron's PA got her a coffee and chatted away so incessantly about him that Alice's eyes started to glaze over. It seemed she felt she'd found a kindred spirit.

At twelve-twenty-five Alice stepped into the lift and felt her stomach float and churn in a disturbing way as the doors closed and she started the downward journey. It seemed to go on for ever, and she was heartily relieved when they reached the lobby.

As soon as she stepped from the lift, a serious dark-suited young man who introduced himself as just ‘Henderson' approached her, and indicated she should follow him. Alice trotted after him, wondering which sandwich bar they were headed for. But instead of leading her to a little café, with pictures of coffee cups on the windows, Henderson stopped in front of a long black limo and opened the door.

Alice just stared at him.

‘We're eating in there?' she said, confusion written all over her face.

Henderson, bless him, didn't even crack a smile.

‘No, madam. Mr Hunter would like you to join him up in town, and has asked me to drive you to the restaurant.'

Oh.

Work lunches to self-employed Alice meant a Thermos of soup or a ham salad bap and a packet of crisps. They obviously meant something totally different to Cameron Hunter.

Not wanting to seem even more gauche than she already had, she slid into the back seat of the limo, and didn't dare squeak another word until they arrived at their destination.

The drive out of Docklands into the West End seemed to fly past. Perhaps it was Alice's imagination, but the traffic seemed to melt away, deferring to the powerful, sleek black car. The other drivers probably imagined somebody famous or important was inside. That made her smile. It was like having a secret joke, seeing all the other traffic let them pass and knowing it was only ordinary old her on the other side of the tinted glass.

Henderson finally drew up outside an imposing hotel on the edge of Hyde Park, and before Alice could even thank him she was being ushered out of the car and into the foyer by a liveried doorman. From there she was escorted towards the restaurant, which was hidden behind a screen of glass shelves stacked with hundreds of bottles of wine. Even before she saw the restaurant she knew it was going to be somewhere scarily minimalist and trendy, and that she probably wouldn't recognise half the ingredients on the menu.

She smoothed down the hem of her soft heather-coloured polo neck as she followed the waiter to a table near the windows overlooking the park. There was no sign of Cameron, and she had no idea what time the table had been booked for, so she sat as still as she could and tried not to look too out of place.

A different waiter appeared and asked her if she'd like
some wine. She desperately wanted to say yes, but decided she needed a clear head and asked for water instead.

Where, oh, where was Cameron? Far from wanting to avoid meeting him, she was now desperate to see something—someone—who wasn't totally alien to her.

Two women in extremely expensive coats walked past her table.

‘Did you see who was in the lobby?' the one in the camel coat asked the other one.

‘No,' the other woman, who had bumped Alice with her massive shoulder bag as she passed, replied. ‘Anyone we know?'

‘Cameron Hunter,' Camel Coat muttered under her breath as she sat down at a table only a few feet away. ‘I don't actually know him personally, but he used to go out with my sister.'

‘Really? I think my cousin dated him once too.'

Alice's ears tingled. She didn't want to listen to this conversation, but she didn't have much choice. Apart from sticking her fingers in her ears and going
la-la-la
, there wasn't much she could do.

‘Silly girl,' Large Shoulder Bag said with a sigh. ‘I don't think there's a heart in London he hasn't broken. But she thought she was going to be the one to succeed where all the others had failed. Of course he ended it.'

Alice's urge to ram her index fingers in her ears was almost irresistible.

‘Of course,' Camel Coat said sagely. ‘He always does.'

‘She should have known the score from the start—silly girl.'

A
LICE
had her fingers ready, and was just about to lift them from under the tablecloth when she saw Cameron striding across the room. Something odd happened. An invisible ripple emanated from him, and everyone it touched straightened their spines, looked his way, then hurried on about their business. Even the two women in the coats stopped gossiping, thank goodness.

‘Sorry I'm a little late,' he said, as he leaned over to kiss her cheek.

Alice burbled something noncommittal in reply. Stringing words into sentences was suddenly beyond her.

Immediately two—not one, but two—waiters snapped to attention at their table. Cameron ordered off-menu, and Alice let him pick for her too. She wasn't even sure she knew what ‘ballotine of rabbit' or ‘celeriac remoulade' were, anyway. And that was only from the list of starters!

But Cameron seemed completely at home with the waiters bobbing up and down, almost sprinting off to get him anything he desired, and Alice realised with astonishment that he was just as comfortable here as
she
would have been in that little café with the coffee cups on the window. This was
his
world.
Somehow she hadn't really believed all the millionaire software entrepreneur stuff up until now. Being slapped in the face with it was somewhat of a shock.

Thankfully, after they'd demolished their starters, they got on with discussing the ball, and she filled him in on the details of what Jennie had already booked and how the plans were progressing. Cameron seemed happy with everything she said, but somehow, Alice just couldn't seem to relax with him as she had the other day. It was as if she was seeing him with a completely fresh pair of eyes.

Was there even a hint of the sensitive, serious young man she'd known all those years ago? If there was, she was struggling hard to see it in him today. He was all quiet charm and confidence, understated power. There was something compelling and magnetic about him, and he drew every female eye in the busy restaurant, but Alice couldn't help feeling that she was sitting opposite a stranger.

Well, perhaps that was for the best. The past was the past, and she needed concentrate on the future—the next few weeks in particular. For that time period he would effectively be her boss. She was just another one of his paid minions.

He was all business during lunch, treating her as such. And that started to rankle with Alice. Even the divine food couldn't take her mind off her irritation.
She
was doing
him
a favour, actually, not the other way around. A smile now and then wouldn't go amiss. But he was so totally focussed on the project in hand it seemed he'd forgotten how to be…well, human.

Things didn't improve much when they headed back to the office. Alice returned to her own little room, and there she stayed, glued to the phone, frantically taking notes and generally filling the space with an ever-expanding mess that she wasn't quite sure Cameron would approve of.

Every time she thought of him, even when she remembered lunch with the cold, emotionless business tycoon, her whole body buzzed and she flushed hot and cold—just as she had that day at the building site. Time and distance didn't seem to dilute the effect he had on her, unfortunately. And neither did being in a slight strop with him.

She was starting to understand Jennie's multitude of doodles, because she'd caught herself in the act too. Nothing incriminating, like initials or love hearts, but it was the fact she was doodling at all that bothered her. She was supposed to be concentrating.

At the end of the day, when she'd made her last phone call and her to-do list had started to go all blurry, she headed for the lift. Just as the doors were about to close, a large hand sliced between them and pulled them open again. Alice didn't need to see the rest of the body to know who it was. All at once the blood in her veins started to hum.

Stop it!
she told herself.
Stop it at once!

Cameron merely nodded at her and stood silently beside her. And as they rode down in the lift together, preparing to go their separate ways to their separate homes, Alice held her breath and tried to anchor her stomach yet again.

Cameron turned to her.

‘Thank you, Alice, for all you're doing.'

Alice struggled hard not to let her surprise at his words show on her face.

‘I really enjoyed our lunch,' he added.

Had he? Had she been the only one feeling as if she was teetering on a tightrope the whole time, then?

And then he did something even more unexpected. He smiled at her. ‘It reminded me of that Christmas party. Do you remember?'

He shuddered. And she knew as surely as she knew her own name that he was remembering Aunty Barb's orange foundation. The very same thought that had popped into her own mind.

The grin widened, suddenly taking years off him, changing his face from granite into something softer, warmer, and infinitely more alive, more appealing. Breathing suddenly became something less than automatic.

Oh, yes. She remembered.

With his unheralded smile Cameron had brought all those warm feelings rushing back. Alice couldn't help but smile back. Something clicked into place, and once again they were partners in crime.

 

Cameron knocked on the office door, but didn't wait for an answer before he pushed it open. Alice was on the phone. She glanced up at him, but almost too quickly her eyes flitted back to the large spiral-bound pad in front of her. As he stepped closer he saw that she wasn't taking notes, but filling in the detail of an elaborate doodle.

By the sounds of it she was talking to someone who hired out staging, and she was busy telling them, in her soft, understated voice, that what they were proposing to build for the fashion show catwalk just wasn't good enough, and could they please pass her on to someone who knew what they were talking about or she'd take her business elsewhere.

Alice might seem meek in person, but in the week she'd been based in the spare office on his floor he'd realised that underneath she was a woman who had very clear ideas about what she wanted and how she wanted it done. Once she'd set her mind on something, she wasn't easily shaken.

When she put the phone down she was almost smiling, and he surmised that she had indeed once again got her
own way. Not by shouting or manipulating, but through quiet determination.

‘You wanted to see me?'

She flushed an attractive shade of pale pink. A shade that matched the simple embroidered blouse she was wearing. While other women in the office either power-dressed or wore bland outfits he hardly even noticed, Alice always wore something that caught his attention. Not that what she wore wasn't suitable for the office—just that somehow he stopped and looked. Perhaps it was the vintage fashion angle. If so, that boded well for the ball and the fashion show. It certainly would be memorable if every outfit had this effect on every guest.

Alice looked apologetic. ‘Oh…no. I mean—I didn't mean you had to drop what you were doing. It could have waited.'

Yes, it could have. He had calls to make, reports to read, marketing meetings to attend. But somehow wandering into Alice's temporary office had seemed much more appealing.

The room had been bare less than a week ago, only a desk and a dead pot plant occupying the space. Now there were clothing rails, sketches stuck haphazardly to the walls, and two dilapidated mannequins staring at him, rather as if they were keeping guard. The one on the right only had one good eye, and the effect of her bright green stare was rather unnerving. He moved his gaze away from the bald-headed figure to look back at Alice.

‘Here I am,' he said. ‘Ready to do your bidding.'

She seemed to find that funny, because her eyes shone and she pressed her lips together, squashing a smile away. He couldn't help smiling back. Not his nice-to-do-business-with-you smile, but a real one—a lazy one that gently lifted the corners of his mouth. That seemed to have an odd effect on Alice, because she stopped being all cheeky and started
tidying things on her desk, squaring her notepad, dropping paperclips in a pot.

He couldn't make this woman out.

Sometimes she reminded him of the quiet, shy girl he'd known years ago. Sometimes she was a confident, strong-minded professional. But then she'd get all absent-minded and start knocking things over, spoiling the polished picture. It didn't matter, though, that he couldn't solve the riddle that was Alice. He just enjoyed watching her slip from one persona to another, wondering what she would do next.

And in that respect their relationship seemed to be a two-way street. It was refreshing to be in the company of someone who didn't label him as just one thing—a software tycoon, a hard-nosed businessman. Or a meal ticket.

She stood up and walked round to the front of the desk, leaned back against it. ‘We need to find you something to wear for the party,' she said, looking him up and down.

Now, hang on a minute. There was no
way
he was wearing second-hand clothes to the biggest event of his career. Not when he'd invited specific people just so he could rub their noses in his success. He'd been there, done that, worn the T-shirt—literally—and he'd promised himself he'd never do it again.

He gave her a steely look and shook his head. Alice didn't bat an eyelid. Most of his employees would have bowed and backed out of the room if they'd been on the receiving end of that look.

‘Everyone else on your senior management team has agreed to wear something vintage—even if it's only a waistcoat or a hat.'

‘I am
not
wearing a hat.'

The little smile was back. ‘All right. Don't get your knickers in a twist.' She rolled her eyes and walked over to
the clothing rails, where she started moving things around. Beneath the sound of scraping hangers he could have sworn he'd heard her mutter something along the lines of, ‘Obviously it's a crown or nothing, then.'

A few moments later she held up an ensemble. ‘Everyone else has agreed to be a little adventurous. How about this?'

Jeans and a leather jacket? She had to be joking.

‘Try it on,' she said. ‘We put a screen in the corner so the models could get changed for the casting session the other day.'

She thrust the hanger at his chest and let go, and he didn't have much choice but to grab onto it to stop it all landing in a heap at his feet. See? Quiet determination. Alice liked having her own way just as much as he did.

Leather jackets were so not him. He'd never been a rebel—had always had a clear vision of where he wanted to go in life. Messing around hadn't ever been on the timetable. But the faded denim was soft between his fingers, and the smell of the leather made him think of motorbikes and open roads.

‘Okay,' he mumbled. ‘I'll try it on. But I'm telling you this: I'm
not
wearing it to the party.' His staff would all fall about laughing.

He marched behind the screen and started to undress, wondering as he did so just how he'd ended up stripping down to his boxers in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. He was taller than the screen, and as he pulled on the clothes Alice had given him he kept catching glimpses of her as she shuffled papers on her desk and generally ignored him. He couldn't remember the last time a woman had been so clearly unaffected by the thought of him being semi-naked in the same room as her. It was probably good for his ego. It didn't mean he liked it, though.

Finally he was done. The jeans were a perfect fit—felt as
if he'd owned them for years, had
lived
in them. The white T-shirt was brand-new, thankfully. It was crisp and clean and still had the sales tag attached. As he rounded the screen he shoved his arms into the leather jacket and pulled it over his shoulders.

Alice seemed to be doing that silent, unimpressed-but-rooted-to-the-spot thing she did, but her eyes were round and she was staring at him.

‘Happy?' he said, in a voice that was a tad gruffer than he'd intended it to be.

Alice just nodded.

‘Very,' she whispered, when she finally got her voice. ‘You've got it…Um…it's caught…'

She walked over to him, not looking him in the eye, and sorted out the lapel of the jacket, which had somehow got tucked under itself, smoothing it into place. He stared at her small, long-fingered hand as it came to rest on his chest, on the white T-shirt.

‘You're right,' she said, and then gave a little cough to clear her throat. ‘It looks…g-good…but it's not right for the party.'

‘Uh-huh,' he heard himself say. He'd been staring at her cheekbones and had got distracted by the translucent quality of her skin. Like most redheads she was pale—almost white—but she seemed to glow. How did she do that? He ran his tongue across his dry bottom lip, all at once overtaken by the urge to find out what a
glow
like that might taste like.

‘No,' she said.