“So, what factor are you?” I step forward and run a hand down his chest. “Because it’s pretty hot out here.”
In answer, he cups my waist and presses his chest to mine, his hands swiftly roaming below my jeans waistband. As I inhale his scent—part sweat, part soap, part Alex—I feel a fresh, sharp flare of hunger. God, I need this.
Sex has not been on my agenda for a long time, and I can feel my body waking up, like a dragon after hibernation. Every nerve ending. Every pulsing bit of me.
“You know, I wanted to sunbathe with you the moment I met you,” says Alex into my neck, and his lips brush along my skin, making me whimper.
“Me too,” I murmur back, unbuttoning his jeans, trying to move things along.
“But I was your boss. It would have been fucked up….” He hesitates and draws back, his brow crumpled. “Hey, wait. You are OK with this? I mean, you’re not…” He hesitates. “This is a yes?”
When I was at senior school, I studied judo for three years. Without thinking twice, I wrap my foot round Alex’s leg, unbalance him, and pin him on the ground, ignoring his startled cry.
I straddle him, looking down at him, feeling more in charge of my life right now than I have done in a long time. I lean down, cup his face, and find his mouth for a long, sweet kiss, and for the first time I think, You. There you are. Men’s mouths are like their personalities, I find. (Which is why I never really took to kissing Steve.) Then I sit up, unhook my bra, and toss it aside, relishing Alex’s instant, unmistakable reaction.
“It’s a yes,” I say, and lean down to kiss him again. “Don’t you worry. It’s a yes.”
We wake up in the early evening, a breeze cooling our skin. Alex glances at me and I see a sleepy smile come to his eyes. Then reality sets in.
“Shit.” He scrambles to his feet. “What time is it? Have we been asleep?”
“It’s the country air,” I say. “Knocks everyone out.”
“It’s six.” I can see him doing calculations in his head. “Demeter might be back.”
“Maybe.” I feel my rosy glow dim a little. I don’t want the bubble to burst. But Alex is already out of the bubble, his face alert, his fingers moving quickly as they do up his buttons.
“OK. We need to get back. I need to—” He breaks off and I finish the sentence in my head. Fire Demeter.
Already, he looks beleaguered and stressed out by the thought. Maybe some bosses get a kick out of sacking people and throwing their weight around—but it really doesn’t suit Alex.
I take the wheel this time, and as we bump back to the farmhouse, I can’t resist speaking my mind.
“You’re not enjoying this prospect, are you?”
“What, having to fire my friend and mentor?” he replies evenly. “Funnily enough, no. And I know she’s going to try to wriggle out of it, which will make it even harder.”
“But even if she wasn’t your friend and mentor?”
Alex is silent, his face taut, as we bump over a hillocky patch of ground. Then he sighs. “OK. You got me. I’m not cut out to be a boss.”
“I didn’t say that!” I say, dismayed. “That’s not what I meant—”
“It’s true, though,” he interrupts. “This management stuff—I hate it. It’s not me. I should never have taken on the role.”
I drive on, feeling a bit speechless. The famous Alex Astalis feels insecure about his job?
“Have you ever shaken up a compass and seen the arrow whirling around, trying to find a place to settle?” says Alex abruptly. “Well, that’s my brain. It’s all over the place.”
“Demeter’s like that,” I volunteer. “Totally scattershot.”
“If you think Demeter’s bad, I’m ten times worse.” Alex gives me a wry grin. “But bosses aren’t like that. They’re focused. They can compartmentalize. They like process. And long tedious meetings.” He shudders. “Everything I hate, bosses love. Yet here I am, a boss.”
“No one likes long, tedious meetings,” I protest. “Even bosses.”
“OK, maybe not all bosses do,” he allows. “But a lot of manager types do. Biscuit people do.”
“Biscuit people?” I snort with laughter.
“That’s what I call them. They come into the meeting room and sit down and take a biscuit and plop back with this air of contentment, like Well, life can’t get any better than this, can it? It’s as though they’re settling in for a long-haul flight and they’re pretty chuffed to get the legroom and who cares what else goes on?”
I grin. “So you’re not a biscuit person.”
“I never even sit down at meetings.” Alex looks abashed. “It drives everyone mad. And I can’t deal with conflict. I can’t manage people. It bores me. It gets in the way of ideas. And that’s why I shouldn’t be a boss.” He sighs, gazing out of the window at the passing landscape. “Every promotion requires you to do less of the thing you originally wanted to do. Don’t you find?”
“No,” I say bluntly. “If I got a promotion I’d do more of the thing I want to do. But, then, I’m at the opposite end from you.”
Alex winces. “That makes me sound ancient.”
“You are ancient. In prodigy years.”
“Prodigy years?” Alex starts to laugh. “Is that like dog years? Anyway, who says I’m a prodigy?”
“You came up with Whenty when you were twenty-one,” I remind him.
“Oh yeah,” he says, as though he’d half-forgotten. “Well, that was just…you know. Luck.” He comes to. “Shall I get that gate?”
I watch as he unhooks the gate, then drive through and wait for him to close it and hop back in. The engine’s still running, but for a moment I don’t move. We’re in a kind of limbo-land here, and I want to broach something with Alex, while I have the chance.
“Was it really luck?” I say tentatively. “Or do you think maybe you were trying to impress your father?”
I want to add: Is that why you can’t stand conflict? But let’s not turn into Freud.
Alex is silent for a few minutes, and I can see thoughts buzzing round his eyes.
“Probably,” he says at last. “Probably still am.” Then he turns to me, with a wry acknowledging smile. “Will you stop being right?”
I grin back—touché—and start driving on again. I sense that Alex might carry on unburdening himself, and, sure enough, after a few moments he draws breath.
“Sometimes I worry my ideas might dry up,” he says, an odd tone to his voice. “I’m not sure who I’d be without them. Sometimes I think I’m really just an empty vessel floating about, downloading ideas and not much else.”
“You’re a funny, gorgeous, sexy guy,” I say at once, and he smiles at me as though I’m joking. I can tell he’s not pretending: He really feels this. I can’t believe I need to bolster Alex Astalis.
“What would you do,” I say impulsively, “if you weren’t rushing round the world, creating award-winning branding concepts?”
“Good question.” Alex’s face lights up. “Live on a farm. Drive the Defender. That was the best fun I’ve had in years. Eat Biddy’s scones.” We come to a halt in the yard, and Alex twines his fingers around mine on the steering wheel. “Kiss a beautiful girl every day.”
“You’d have to find a farm with a beautiful girl on it,” I point out.
“Don’t they all come with beautiful girls?” His dark eyes glow at me. “This one does.”
Beautiful. That word again. I want to take it away in my hands and keep it in a jar forever. But instead I smile easily back, as if perhaps I didn’t even hear him, and say, “Not all of them, no.”
“I’d put it in the search engine, then. En suite bathroom, fields of sheep, beautiful girl with freckles like stardust.” He touches my nose. “Actually, I think there is only one of those.”
He leans over to kiss me—and there he is again. The sweet, gentle Alex that’s been such a surprise. The truth is, I’m falling for this guy, and I can’t find a single reason in my brain not to, except for Demeter’s voice running through my mind: Any woman who got involved with Alex Astalis would have to be insane.
Why insane? I need to talk to her.