Improper English (8 page)

“Good.” She stubbed out her cigarette and riffled through an open drawer. “Sign all three pages. The top copy is yours.”

“Um…” I looked at the papers she shoved across the desk at me. “What’s this?”

“Standard contract,” she said, and rustled around in another drawer, then pulled out a receipt book. “You pay the edit fee in advance. Three hundred pounds.”

I dropped the contract and stared at her. I had a horrible suspicion my mouth hung open at her words. “Three hundred pounds? Edit fee? I don’t understand, I thought agents take their fees out of the money the book makes.”

She lit another cigarette and nodded. “That’s right. Fifteen percent. That doesn’t include the editing fee.
Your book needs editing—you’d pay more if you went to an editing service. I make my editing expertise available to my clients, so they save money. It takes up a good deal of my time, but I believe in supporting my clients, not using them as a mean to an ends.”

I was ashamed of my parsimonious ways and my plebeian suspicions. “Sure, I can understand that, I just wasn’t expecting…”

She gave me a gimlet-eyed look and took a long drag on her cancer stick, but didn’t say anything when my voice trailed away helplessly.

I glanced at the contract. I tried to think of everything I had read about finding an agent. I thought about the stories I’d heard about how hard it was to find an agent. What was I doing acting squeamish about paying to have my work edited, if it meant I’d have an agent going to bat for me? It wasn’t as if I was paying for nothing, after all—I would be getting something in return.

“OK, so, if I pay you the three hundred pounds, you’ll edit my book and then try to sell it?”

“I
will
sell it,” she promised, stabbing at the air with her red pen. “My success rate is very high, even with unknown authors.” She leaned forward in her chair again. I uncrossed my legs and shifted uncomfortably in my chair, hoping she wouldn’t notice I’d moved back when she waved the cigarette toward me. “I like you, so I’ll be honest with you. I don’t take on many new clients, I’m too busy with the ones I have. But your voice struck a chord with me instantly, and I pride myself on my snap judgments. I’ll sign you, edit your book, and sell it for you, but I expect you to have confidence in me and the job I do.”

I hesitated for a few seconds—£300 was a lot of
money, and ate significantly into my budget. I gnawed on my lip as I debated waiting until I saw the second agent three weeks hence, and then gave myself a mental shake. I was being an idiot! I was throwing away my big chance to have an agent!
To hell with caution,
my sister Cait always said;
success comes to those who take the bull by the balls.
I snatched the pen out of Maureen’s fingers and signed all three contracts.

“I’ve got the confidence in you if you have it in me,” I said, reaching for the travel neck pouch hidden under my blouse. She smiled and sat back, watching me, a strange light in her pale blue eyes.

“Are traveler’s checks OK?”

I couldn’t wait to tell someone, anyone, about my good fortune, and as luck would have it, when I toddled back home the first person I told wasn’t Isabella, or Alex, or even Ray or Philippe. As I was unlocking my door, I could hear the phone ringing inside. I thought it might be Alex, too shy to accept my offer of dinner face to face, so I flung myself across the room, grabbing the phone as I went down on one knee, acquiring a doozy of a rug burn in the process.

“ ’Lo,” I said, sitting on the floor and rubbing the injury gingerly.

“Alix? I’m glad you answered, I was about to hang up. This is Karl.”

I looked at my leg critically. Knees aren’t the prettiest of spots to begin with, but mine had definitely taken a turn for the worse with the rug burn, and it stung like the dickens.

“Hi, Karl. What can I do for you?”

“It’s more along the lines of what I can do for you. I
was wondering if you’d like to go to Windsor on Saturday. We could make a day of it, if you’d like, and see Hampton Court as well. I think you’ll find I’m a rather good tour guide—I read history before I decided to become a dentist.”

O-o-oh, touristy things! Karl may leave me feeling a bit cold sexually speaking, but I wasn’t one to turn down a chance to go sightseeing, especially with a man who had an interest in history. I accepted with alacrity, assured him I was over the trauma of losing several inches of hair, and managed to steer the conversation in the direction I wanted.

“How is your writing going?” he asked politely. I knew he probably wasn’t really interested—he certainly hadn’t expressed any interest in it during the ill-fated dinner—but I was bubbling over with glee about my agent coup and couldn’t resist sharing my news.

“It’s going very well, thank you. As a matter of fact,” I said, “I just signed with an agent today.”

“An agent? You must be very pleased.”

I tried to tone the smug factor in my voice down to a tolerable level. “Oh, it’s just an agent, you know, not a big deal at all. I still have to finish the book. She has high hopes for it, though.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine. Shall we say nine, then?”

We agreed on the place and time, and I hung up feeling very happy. Everything was falling into place for me at last! England was turning out to be the promised land: I had an agent who was going to whip my story into shape, I had a tour guide who promised me he knew all of the fabulous historical spots around the town of Windsor, and I had formulated an intricate plan for the
seduction of Alex. An agent, sightseeing, and sex—what more could a girl want?

I was still mulling over my good fortune when I answered a knock at my door.

“Alex!” I said with delight when I saw who was standing there. My welcoming smile quickly evaporated under the grim green-eyed stare he leveled at me. He thrust a familiar-looking bouquet of roses into my hands. I stared at them stupidly, then looked up when he spoke.

“I’m not in the habit of accepting flowers,” he said frostily. I glanced down at his feet to see if the ice cubes dripping off each word were piled up there. “I am unable to accept your invitation to dinner as well. Thank you. Good night.”

He turned around to leave when my brain finally kicked into gear.

“Alex, wait!” I grabbed his arm and held on as he tried to walk away. He looked down at my hand like it was something offensive. “If you can’t make it tomorrow night, we can do it Sunday. Or another night, I’m easy.”

His gaze touched mine for just a second, but the fury in it was enough to send me reeling backwards a few steps.

“You know, you’re not being very polite,” I said as he walked toward the stairs.

“On the contrary, I believe I’m being quite polite.” He didn’t even turn around when he said it, he just kept going up the stairs.

“Oh, really? Where I come from it’s not considered nice to turn down someone’s apology.”

He stopped at that, and half turned toward me, a pale shadow blending in to the dark of the landing behind
him. I couldn’t help but wonder how he could stand to wear a suit in this warm weather.

“The flowers.” I waved them at his silent figure. “They were my way of apologizing for calling you a bastard. I thought you were going at it with Isabella, you see. I didn’t know you weren’t.”

He turned a fraction more toward me. “Going at it with Isabella?”

I took a little step toward him, certain that if I moved too quickly he’d dart away like a startled deer. “Yeah, I thought you two were…uh…intimately acquainted.”

He didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even blink. I took another step forward and slowly held out the flowers. “That’s why I said what I did—I thought you were flirting with me right under Isabella’s nose. So would you please accept the flowers? And my apology for what I said?”

He turned to face me briefly, then suddenly shook his head and started back up the stairs. “I accept your apology, but not the flowers.”

Damn the man! Why was he making it so bloody hard? He obviously had his knickers in a twist over the whole stupid event. Fine, if he wanted to have his ego massaged, I’d massage it.

“It’s just flowers, Alex, not a proposal of marriage!” I yelled as I marched up the stairs after him. He stopped in mid flight and frowned down at me. I continued to move up toward him.

“I don’t like flowers.” If his words were any more frigid, I could keep a side of beef in the stairwell.

“God, you are the single most obstinate man I’ve ever met,” I said loudly, shaking the roses at him. Several
petals fell, but we both ignored that to glare at each other. “Take the damn things, will you? I feel like an idiot chasing you down, begging you to take them. They’re yours, I bought them for you!”

“I don’t want them,” he snapped and started back up the stairs. I grabbed the tail of his suit coat and held on.

“You’re taking them, you pigheaded boob!” I shook the flowers at him again and tried to shove them into his hands. Petals scattered like snowflakes. “Put them in water, sprinkle them in your bed, make a stew out of them, I really don’t care what the hell you do with them, but you’re taking them!”

Even though the staircase was dark, I could see his eyes glittering with green fire. In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought to myself. “And while you’re at it, I want my cute little spiky plant back.”

His frown acquired monumental status. “What?”

“The plant you stole from me last week!”

“That cute little spiky plant, as you mistakenly insist on calling it, is a controlled substance.”

“
Alleged
controlled substance!” I whacked him on his arm with the roses as he took a step down toward me. More petals fell. “It didn’t have a tag on it saying it was marijuana, so until you can come up with some sort of proof that that is what it is, you can just give it back!”

He descended two more steps until he was toe to toe with me on the landing. “What makes you think I still have it?”

It was distracting to have him standing so close I could feel his warmth. There was a very faint beading of perspiration on his forehead, and a couple of damp, hotlooking tendrils of hair curling over the outer edges of
his ears. I gave in to temptation and laid my hand on his chest. He glanced down, startled.

“Don’t you get hot wearing suits all the time?”

He looked into my eyes, his gaze scorching what remained of my wits. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down above the knot in his tie as he grabbed the roses.

“I accept the flowers.” My fingers wouldn’t unlock when his hand slid over mine. His voice was husky and rough, but not nearly as seductive as the feeling of his breath fanning out across my face. A need for him slammed into me with such force I swayed with the impact, my fingers tightening around the stems of the roses. As we stood and faced each other, the only sound to be heard was the flutter of white petals as they drifted softly to the landing.

That and the noise of my heart pounding wildly as it tried to burst out of my chest.

“Alix…”

It was only one word, but it felt like a caress against my skin. My breath caught as I stared dumbly into his eyes, unable and unwilling to gaze at anything else. I just wanted to look at him for a lifetime or two, to map the fascinating black starbursts leading out from his pupils, to watch the color in his irises change from startling emerald to a shadowed green that made my breath come fast and shallow.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, goose bumps rising on my bare arms as he slid his hand up my fingers to my wrist, then higher.

“Sorry?” He was pulling me toward him, or maybe it was just the magnetism between the two of us that brought our bodies together until we were pressed against one another.

“For yelling at you. I didn’t mean—”

My hand was caught between us, still holding on to the roses when his mouth settled on mine. Instantly I was in an inferno of heat that surrounded me, consumed me, starting a burning deep within me and rushing outwards until it surely must be melting Alex as well. I didn’t think the fire could burn any hotter, but the minute I opened my mouth to his gently questing tongue, I went up in a fireball of desire, want, lust, need—I couldn’t begin to separate the emotions, they were all fused together into one white-hot, blinding blast of sensuality. His tongue slid alongside, around, and under mine in a sinuous motion that made my knees weak, and probably would have felled me if his arms hadn’t been wrapped around me. I clung to his shoulders, mindless of the flowers crushed between us, of our very public location, of the fact that I had dug my fingernails into the cloth of his suit to keep myself upright, mindless to everything but the aching, driving need to merge myself with him.

His mouth shifted, parted from mine, leaving me empty and bereft. A sob escaped from the back of my throat as agony cut through me as real as any pain I’ve felt. I grabbed at his hair and tugged his head down to mine, frantic to taste him again, desperate to burn bright with his fire. Our teeth clinked as we frantically nibbled and licked each other, our mouths joined together in a way that seemed more intimate than any sex I’ve ever had. His tongue danced around mine again, enticing it, seducing it, luring it into the warmth of his mouth. One of his hands slid down my back, cupping my behind, pulling me tighter against his groin. I arched up against him and suckled his tongue, taking his breathless
groan of pleasure into my center, giddy with the knowledge that he felt the same rush of pleasure that threatened to overwhelm me.

With exquisite slowness, he slid his mouth a little distance away from my burning lips, resting his forehead against mine as we separated long enough to catch our breath, our bodies still melded together. He removed the hand tangled in my hair and traced his fingers past my ear, down my cheek, to my mouth, rubbing gently on my lower lip.

I opened my eyes and tipped my head back so I could see him.

“You’re crying.” The concern in his eyes almost undid me.

“Yes.” It was an effort to get that one word out; speech seemed so meaningless, so unnecessary when I was with Alex. He kissed my eyes, kissed the trail of tears down to my jaw. I knew that if I didn’t get a hold of myself and quickly, I was going to end up one big puddle of goo on his shoes. I would embarrass him with my brazenness, repulse him with the desire I felt so strongly it made me shake. Isabella had warned me not to go too quickly with him, and here I was throwing myself at him. I ignored the soft whisper of his kisses on my cheeks, and dug my nails into my palms to regain control.