“It’s a sideways move. Where are you staying? We need to collect your things and settle your bill.”
“Alec, you can’t just—”
“Either you disappoint my family by making me stay here with you, or you come with me. Your choice.”
She gave a choked laugh. “You heard my mom—I don’t make good choices.”
“You mean you don’t make the choices other people want you to make,” he said drily. “If you really want to stuff yourself with cookies you can do it at my house. My mother loves to bake. She’ll be delighted to have someone with your appetite to feed. There will be enough carbohydrate and sugar on offer to comfort an entire sorority.”
“You’re British. What do you know about sororities?”
“My father is American.”
“I didn’t know that about you.” She was starting to realize there was plenty she didn’t know about him, including the fact that caring for a sick woman didn’t put the smallest dent in his calm demeanor.
And he was decent.
Moody, irritating, insanely hot, but decent.
He could have made an excuse and left her alone. Instead, he’d stayed with her.
“What’s it to be, Sky? Are we spending the next few days in a hotel room or with my family?”
“I can’t just show up at your family’s home and join in a private gathering.” But the alternative was spending a week alone in a hotel room steaming mad about Richard and that was about as appealing as pulling her hair out at the roots. “Your mother won’t want me. I’ll ruin her numbers for the catering and mess up her seating plan.”
“Seating plan?” His brows rose. “People sit wherever there is room. If we run out of chairs, we use the piano stool. My family is very easygoing and my mother never quite knows who is coming until the day. And as for catering, she always cooks enough to feed half the village.”
Skylar tried not to compare that with her own experience of family occasions. Guests were expected to confirm. Last-minute extras were strongly discouraged. “This is your special time with your family and you and I aren’t exactly intimate.”
His eyes gleamed. “You’ve seen me naked and I’ve seen you naked. We’re a lot more intimate than we were this time yesterday. Do you need to go back to the gallery?” He moved around the room with stark efficiency, packing things into one small suitcase.
“No. I can call Judy.” She chose to ignore his comment about having seen her naked. She really didn’t want to think about how she’d ended up naked in a shower with a man who, until yesterday, she’d actively disliked. “Last night was the important bit. Fortunately it was almost over when this happened. She must be wondering what happened to me.”
“She isn’t. I talked to her before we left. She was the one who gave me your bag and coat.”
“What did you say to her?”
“That you weren’t feeling well. She obviously isn’t a fan of public proposals, so you had her sympathy. She told me to tell you that the exhibition was a huge success and to call her when you’re ready.” He gave her a long, searching look. “You’re pale. Still feeling ill?”
“No.” She was careful not to move her head. “But I could use some more of those pills you gave me.”
He walked into the bathroom and returned with the packet and a glass of water. “Take two.”
She swallowed them and drank the water. “About last night—”
“Forget it.”
“I won’t forget it Alec. I’m sorry you had to sleep on the sofa. It looks horribly uncomfortable. Are you aching all over?”
“No, and you need to stop apologizing. It’s starting to irritate me. I’m used to you arguing with me.”
Struck by another wave of dizziness, she closed her eyes. “I’ll start arguing with you as soon as those pills work.”
“You’re not going to look your best in the Christmas photos this year.”
He lifted his hand and smoothed her hair back, taking a closer look at her head. The brush of his fingers sent a rush of tingly heat across her skin.
“My family doesn’t do photos. Christmas is a very formal affair. Everything is scripted and planned.” The thought of Christmas made her want to curl up under the bedcovers and never come out.
He took the glass from her hand. “I need to call my mother and warn her that we’ll be one extra so she can make up the spare room. Then I’m going to find you some clothes. I have a pair of track pants that might do until we can fetch your things. You can roll up the legs and belt the waist.”
She was grateful to him for not pursuing the topic of Christmas.
“Great. If my unique seduction tricks of bleeding on you and throwing up on you haven’t worked, hopefully wearing baggy clothes will nail the deal.”
There was a brief pause and she saw a faint flicker of a smile touch his mouth.
“You’d look good in anything.” With that surprising comment, he walked to the phone by the bed. “I need breakfast before we hit the road.”
She stared at him, the air trapped in her lungs and her tummy doing acrobatics.
He didn’t pay her compliments. Ever. If anything, he went out of his way to make sure she knew she wasn’t his type.
True, there had been the moment in the bathroom, but he was a guy, wasn’t he? It hadn’t meant anything. Healthy, virile, sexually active hot guy meets half-naked girl in the bathroom. It was a moment she’d already forgotten—well, maybe not forgotten exactly, but she certainly wasn’t reading anything into it.
Half an hour later a tray arrived, heaped with fresh fruit, organic yogurt, pastries and scalding-hot coffee.
They ate while watching the sun rise over a frozen winter morning.
She noticed a stack of notes and his laptop on the desk. “Did you work last night?”
“For a while. I wanted to keep an eye on you.”
He’d stayed awake for her? She pulled the corner off a croissant. It flaked in her fingers, buttery and warm. “This is only my second trip to London. I was hoping to see some of the sights before I left.”
“When is your flight? You might still have time for that.”
“A week on Sunday. Then I’ll be back in New York for a couple of weeks before Christmas.”
The croissant was too rich for her stomach so she left the rest and picked at a few berries.
Alec, she noticed, drank lots of coffee.
It felt strange having breakfast with him in his hotel suite, wearing his shirt under a hotel robe. It felt—intimate. If housekeeping had walked in, they would have assumed they were lovers.
“How are we getting to your parents’ house? You have a car here?”
“I hire a car when I’m in London.”
“How long will it take us to get to your home?”
“Around two hours, depending on the weather.”
“You British are obsessed with your weather.”
“When you’ve seen the roads around Honeysuckle Cottage, you’ll understand why.”
He packed up his laptop while she dressed, then picked up the bags of gifts and the rest of his luggage