word.’
‘Until?’
‘Until the people dictate otherwise.’ He gave a shrug. ‘It might be days, it might be weeks.’ He looked to the cheque and so, too, did Allegra, and she thought about it—hell, she really thought about it. He wasn’t asking for her to sleep with him, just to smile and hold his hand. And what she could do with the money… She could get a flat, a job—actually, she could do what she really wanted….
‘You could finally write that book.’ It was as if he had stepped into her mind. She heard his voice as if he was inside it, but it was madness, it couldn’t work.
‘We’ll make it work,’ he answered her unvoiced words. ‘Is that a yes?’ Alex asked.
She looked back at him, thought not just of the book she could write but a link to this man, this beautiful man who had entered her life, and somehow she simply wasn’t quite ready to let go of him. ‘I think so.’
They stepped out onto the street, and she was wrong about taxis, for a luxurious car was waiting and it took them just a few streets down.
‘Shouldn’t you deposit it?’ Alex asked.
‘Okay.’ She grinned and walked into the bank and watched the eyebrow of the cashier rise a good inch. ‘Funds won’t be available till the cheque is cleared.’
‘Ring my bank and get it cleared now,’ Alex said, and she looked at the name on the cheque and did as told. There was the strangest feeling in her stomach as the cashier handed her a slip with her bank balance, a sort of great weight she hadn’t been aware she’d been carrying suddenly lifted.
‘Now, we shop.’
‘Shop?’
‘A fiancée needs a ring.’
They poured back into his car, laughed all the way along the street.
‘Shouldn’t I have royal jewels?’ God, she was tipsy.
‘You should, but…’ They were outside a very smart jewelers. ‘At least this you will be able to later sell. The acting starts here,’ he warned as he pushed a bell and the door opened. She stood there and looked at rings as the jeweler came out, and the acting did start here, because he held her hand as he spoke with jeweler, told them what he had in mind and they were whisked away, to view jewels kept well away from the window.
‘What about this?’ Alex turned to his fiancée but he had lost her attention, her eyes drawn not to the diamond ring he was holding, but to another that to Allegra was far more exquisite.
‘It’s heavenly.’ She picked it up—a brilliant emerald, so huge that it looked like a dress-up ring, but Alex shook his head.
‘Should be a diamond…’
‘Oh!’ She put it back down, remembered her place, that this was not real; she was merely playing a part. He put his head to her ear in a supposed romantic murmur. ‘Diamonds are more valuable.’
‘Perhaps.’
And he saw her longing for the ring, saw the moss of Santina in the jewel of her eyes. Perhaps an emerald would be more fitting and he hesitated for just a moment. After all, what did it matter? Soon it would be done, she would be gone, so she might as well have a ring to her liking.
He slid it on her finger.
‘We’ll size it,’ the jeweler said.
‘No need,’ Alex said. ‘It fits perfectly.’
‘I’ll give it a polish and box it,’ the jeweler said, but Alex’s hands were still holding hers, and they looked for all the world like a young couple in love, on the edge of their future, and she felt this wash of emotion for all that was not.
‘I don’t want to take it off,’ she admitted.
Allegra was confused and a little embarrassed to face him after he’d paid and they’d stepped outside.
‘Well done,’ Alex said. ‘You almost had even me convinced, though that is not the ring a future queen would choose.’
‘It’s heavenly.’
‘It’s yours,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you home.’
She gave his driver her address and of course they couldn’t discuss it in the car, so as they pulled up to her little flat and presumably because he was her fiancé, he saw her to her door, or rather the entrance on the street.
‘I’d rather you didn’t come up… it’s messy. I wasn’t expecting—’
‘I don’t care!’ He hushed her excuses.
He didn’t care and Allegra knew that—not about the mess in the flat, nor the chaos he was creating. Nor, she must remember, did he actually care about her.
‘What happens now?’
‘You write your book.’ Alex smiled. ‘I’ll fly to Santina in the next few days and break the news. I guess we should swap phone numbers.’
She tapped in his and when she had finished he picked up her hand and looked at the ring now on her finger. ‘It’s actually very beautiful.’ He looked more closely and then still held her hand and looked at her, saw she was suddenly nervous, perhaps regretting what she had done. ‘It really is just for a short while. Allegra, thank you.’
And she knew his kiss was coming. It was a kiss goodbye, a kiss to seal the deal, euphoria perhaps. It wasn’t just his smile that was dangerous, his kiss was too.
He lowered his head down and his mouth was warm and firm and just so absolutely expert. She breathed in his scent and she felt his lips and knew in a second he would end it. It was just a kiss to seal the deal, Allegra told herself.
He moved his head back, their lips parting, and she watched as he pressed his together, as if tasting her again. He smiled down at her, just a little, a warning smile, for he indulged again, lowered that noble head to hers. And it was a kiss called euphoria, she told herself, for it was not really her he was kissing, but a glimpse of the freedom he craved. And she kissed him back, because he made her weak, because the stroke of his tongue was completely sublime. He put his hand in the small of her back as if to steady her—and thank goodness he did, for if the previous kiss could have been covered by a handshake, then this one moved completely out of bounds.
His tongue was cool and his hand was warm, and when one hand would not do to hold her, when more than gravity was needed to anchor them to earth, he kissed her all the way to the wall. This dance of lips and hands in hair, two locked mouths and the strength of a wall to hold them up as he kissed her more thoroughly than she’d ever even dreamt of.
Heavens but it was thorough, so thorough that for decency’s sake it had to end. She looked up into eyes that were wicked, as if absolutely he knew what he’d do with her, all things she would never allow and it was imperative that she correct him.
‘What I said before about us not…’ She swallowed. ‘I meant it. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression.’ With that kiss, she knew she just had. ‘I think I’ve had
