Kathy Jay - What If He’s the One

Lips set in an unflinching line, a muscle twitched in his cheek. “We’re working on it.”

His body brushed hers when he slid into the car. Being around Alex over the next few days would be so much easier to cope with if he came with a button and an instruction manual telling her how to turn his infernal sex appeal off.

She couldn’t afford to indulge in swoony fan moments. She had a job to do. This Boston shoot was nothing more than a slot blocked off in her diary. Styling Alex would be easy. He’d rock any look she threw at him.

Maggie tugged at her seatbelt. It had jammed. She tugged again.

“Need a hand?” Alex leaned across. Mmm… Spiced man. His unshaven jawline was so close she wondered how it would feel against her skin. Any more of these moments, or – heaven forbid – incidents like the one on the plane and she would melt like microwaved chocolate. She needed to come up with a self-preservation plan, something to keep her one step ahead of Hot Vampire Guy.

One deft movement unjammed the seatbelt and he passed it into her hands, his fingers brushing hers as he did so. There was a knowing quirk of an almost-smile on his lips when he pulled back and settled into his half of the back seat to snap on his own seatbelt.

Her heart fluttered, hormones sky-high. If she could roll back time she’d make sure her one not-so-stellar night with television’s dreamiest man played out very differently. That Christmas, before Alex went off and got famous, Layla had teased her about her missed opportunity and bought her a pack of fluorescent, glow-in-the-dark condoms to keep handy just in case she ever got so lucky again. She didn’t. She’d been wearing blinkers when she met Marcus, moved in with him, started making long-term plans. What a mistake. The words “man” and “plan” might rhyme, but they were otherwise utterly incompatible.

The car pulled away from the terminal. Boston didn’t look very welcoming. A misty rain was falling, wrapping the whole place in gloom; the streets, the sea, the sky and everything in between looked grey.

Now that he wasn’t being scrutinized by any members of the public, a flirty smile lit up Alex’s features. His much-too-blue eyes twinkled, the corners creased.

“When do you start ripping my clothes off, Maggie? Tomorrow, is it?”

His deep voice did things to her that a girl in the back of a chauffeur-driven car should be ashamed of. How in heaven’s name was she going to get through the next few days if she couldn’t get her berserk hormones under control? She fidgeted, smoothing the grey fabric of her skirt under her palms. To stop herself, she locked her hands, as if she was praying, only to end up rubbing one thumb over the blue varnish on the other as if doing so might erase the color.

“The day after,” she replied primly. “And the general idea is to get you in clothes, not out of them. If it was a naked photo shoot you’d hardly need a fashion stylist.”

Alex laughed. He ploughed the fingers of one big hand into his jet-black hair. There was silence and then he hit her with a bombshell. “For the record, I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”

She gulped. Her throat felt tight as if she’d tried to swallow a peach stone. “Oh, it’s no biggie.” She whooshed a hand through the air, as if sweeping his words away. Her heart thudded as if it had been surgically removed and replaced with a piece of rock. She wanted to kick herself. Not a biggie? Of course it was a biggie. It was the biggest biggie of all time. She’d been crushed.

“I should have called,” he insisted.

“I really truly didn’t expect you to.” She babbled out the brush-off. “I mean, I rang your mobile a couple of times.” Six – at least. “You had things to do.” She’d got voice mail and hadn’t known what to say. When she’d tried him that final time, Nick had answered Alex’s phone. She’d told him to give Alex her love and wish him luck. He’d promised he would.

A shiver ran through her as though someone was trailing icy fingers along her spine. When he hadn’t called back, she shouldn’t have been surprised. Her grandmother had warned her to keep her expectations of the male species extra low. It was safer than having shattered hopes. She hadn’t believed her. She’d gone into the adult world with an open heart. And she’d been hurt. Twice.

Although she was controlled on the surface, her mind was paddling like a duck’s feet underneath. She’d thought she and Alex shared something special. They almost had. Only he’d kept his feelings locked away. Maybe allowing her to get that close had been a step too far. He’d always been out of reach.

After the holidays everyone was buzzing with the news that he’d dropped out to make Mercy of the Vampires. At the time she’d ached, knowing that he wasn’t coming back to London. The disappointment had been excruciating, but she’d clung on to a thread of consolation. He hadn’t just dropped her. He’d dropped his entire life.

“It’s ancient history.” She gave a nonchalant shrug and a bright smile. She’d had an airy- fairy notion that, in spite of her grandma’s professed wisdom on the non-existence of soul mates, she might prove her wrong. She and Alex simply weren’t meant to be.

Then along came Marcus and she’d had the stuffing knocked out of her. She’d come back a day early from working away, turned the key in the lock, and walked into her home to discover her fiancé getting down and dirty with someone he’d picked up at the pub. She wasn’t even that attractive and she was at least ten years older than Maggie. Maybe twelve. The gut-wrenching shock had turned her cold.

“Anyway, I called you, remember? You were busy and Nick answered. I told him to wish you all the luck in the world, and … well, anyway … c’est la vie, as they say.”

One hand on his perfectly hewn-in-granite chin, an inscrutable shadow darkened his gaze.

“I apologize,” he rumbled. “It was inconsiderate.”

“It’s okay.”

She’d been miserable. She’d felt cut off and abandoned, but she’d understood. Like she’d understood why her dad had left her mum pregnant, and why her mum had left for Spain without her when she was only eight years old. Understanding why people left each other behind was what she did. It was practically a talent. And one that had come in handy when she’d walked away from Marcus. Bouncing back from the heartache was another matter, but she’d become quite good at that too. She’d dreamed up a foolproof method for guaranteeing that she’d never have to bounce back again.

The car sped towards downtown Boston. She turned away, feigning interest in the grey city they’d landed in, all the while scraping at one nail with another so that some of the blue peeled away revealing a pale streak. It was high time they put this clearing the air of Alex’s behind them. She decided to steer the conversation onto safer ground.

“I gather Mercy of the Vampires is going out with a bang.”

“About time too. The show has been running my life for a decade.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve caught episodes in hotels all over place. I’ve watched Jarvis and Jago wreak havoc in German, French, Italian, and Spanish.”

“You’re a fan of the show?”

“It’s kind of impossible to avoid it, frankly.”

“Well, it all ends in hellfire just before Christmas, you’ll be glad to know.” Maggie refused to let herself look at him. She kept on staring out of the car window.

“Rumor has it you go out in the sunlight with a string of garlic wrapped around your neck and Nick, I mean Jarvis, strangles you and then rams a stake through your heart, just to be sure he’s finished you off.”

“It could happen,” he joked. “And I don’t mean in the TV world. Nick’s not best pleased with me at the moment. In fact, that’s an understatement. He’s furious. We’ve got a day of back-to-back promo here in Boston tomorrow. And the same again in New York next week. If he can find a string of garlic that’s long enough, I think he’d happily throttle me.”