More Than a Fling

SEVEN


Ally stood in her bathroom in her one-bedroom, open-plan loft apartment in the heart of Geneva and realised that she was sweating.

Buckets.

Wiping her face with her facecloth, she looked at her sheet-white face in the mirror above the sink and blanched. Her face was green-tinged and her eyes were huge and round, red-rimmed. She wished she could blame it on jet lag—the flight back from Hong Kong had been diverted and delayed—but she flew first class, which wasn’t exactly torture.

No, it was time to admit that she was getting sick...and within twelve hours Ross would be here.

Ross—here. And she was looking like something the dog had rolled in.

She’d be okay, she told herself, ignoring her pounding head. She was just stressed and on edge. Nothing that three layers of make-up and a bucket of aspirin couldn’t fix.

Ally had thought that a fortnight would give her ample time to prepare for her night of—she fervently hoped— debauchery. Before she’d left for Hong Kong she’d dashed out of the office for a bikini wax, a pedicure and a full body scrub. Yet, despite her primping and preening, she was having second, third and sixteenth thoughts about what she was doing.

On one hand the idea of him flying in to see her made her feel like the world’s sexiest woman; on the other she was really worried about how she’d interact with him once they’d finished scorching the sheets. Would it be awkward? Weird? Should she ask him to leave straight away or would he stay the night? She had to be at work early on Friday morning for a meeting—would she leave him to sleep or wake him up and kick him out?

Dilemmas...dilemmas.

And, on top of it all, she’d started feeling...well, blah yesterday—light-headed and headachy. She’d initially put it down to not eating enough, and had ordered a chicken salad on the flight, but even after eating it she’d still felt sub-par.

Ally looked at the sweat beads on her forehead and shivered in her thick dressing gown.

She could no longer ignore the band of pain that encircled her stomach like the gnawing, heated teeth of a Tasmanian devil. She could practically trace the path of the pain—it felt like a red-hot wire under her skin. Unlike the heartburn, which came and went, this was relentless hell.

Ally gripped the basin as misery, wet and cold, encircled her heart. How was she supposed to be a sex goddess—even have sex—feeling as she did now? Looking like an extra in a zombie movie? As much as she wanted to sleep with Ross, what she really wanted to do was to crawl up into a ball and suck painkillers.

Ally straightened, pulled out her tongue at her reflection, opened her bathroom cabinet and rooted around for a bottle of painkillers. She shook a couple into her hand and swallowed them down with a half-glass of water. Bunking off work was not an option. Apart from her tryst with Ross later that day, she had a meeting with the creative director of her favourite ad agency to discuss the commercials for the new line and she had a directors’ meeting that afternoon.

She’d be fine. She just had to get to work and get busy and she’d forget that she wasn’t feeling well.

By midday Ally realised that she wouldn’t be doing much for the rest of the day, never mind showing Ross her brand-new, orchid-blue Bellechier negligee. She was running a temperature and the pain in her stomach was almost debilitating. Getting from her office to the ground floor of her building without passing out would be a challenge, and she felt so ill that driving home was not an option.

She couldn’t do Ross—ha-ha-ha—not today. After calling for a taxi, she looked at her watch and nodded grimly. It was just on noon—plenty of time for Ross to cancel his flight. It wasn’t fair to make him fly all the way to Geneva for a date with Morticia from the Addams Family. This simply wasn’t going to work...


The pain clenching her heart was the twin of the one biting her stomach. Sucking up her courage and picking up her mobile, she dialled Ross’s mobile number and couldn’t help feeling relieved when it went immediately to voicemail.

‘Ross, this is Ally. Sorry, but I really am not well and I have to cancel tonight. So, so sorry, but I wouldn’t be any fun. At all. I hope you get this message in time so that you can cancel your flight.’

Ally rested her mobile against her chest and, fighting dizziness, quickly sent Ross an e-mail in the same vein. Leaning back in her chair, she blinked back the tears in her eyes... Well, that was that. She’d just blown a fantastic night by getting sick. She couldn’t even have casual mind-blowing sex without stuffing it up.

Typical.

* * *

Ross was, to put it very mildly, supremely irritated as he stood in front of Ally’s apartment block, staring up at the half-arch windows on the first floor. He’d spent the day chasing his tail around London, had barely made his flight to Geneva and had only picked up his messages in the taxi that he’d caught at Geneva Airport.

She was too sick to see him? BS! She’d just changed her mind and didn’t have the guts to tell him. It had probably finally dawned on her that sex with him wouldn’t be clinical, professional, quiet and calm, and she wasn’t ready for hot and wild. Down and dirty.

Well, he was here, and he wasn’t going to tuck his tail between his legs and just leave because Miss Uptight wanted him to. He wasn’t one of her corporate lackeys that she could boss around and dismiss at a whim, Ross thought as he lifted his finger to hit her apartment’s bell.

What if she ignored him? Wouldn’t let him in? Well, he’d break down the damn door if he had to.

Luckily for him the door swung open and a teenager stepped out, bopping her head to the music blaring out from the headphones perched over her head. Ross caught the front door before it clicked shut and walked into the hallway. Ignoring the lift, he walked to a set of narrow stairs, hoping to take the edge off his anger before he reached Ally’s top-floor apartment.

Sick, my ass, Ross thought at the top of the stairs. Fourteen, sixteen...there was her door. She probably had some work that had landed on her desk today and she needed to complete, because if she didn’t it would signal the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the friggin’ Apocalypse.

And if she wasn’t home he’d bloody well wait for her. He might even barge his way into Bellechier itself, he was that angry. Ross pounded on the door and felt his temper ratchet up at the resulting silence. He pounded again and heard the creak of a door opening, the faint shuffle of feet.

‘Who is it?’

There she was, Ross thought, stupidly relieved. ‘Open the door, Jones.’

‘What the hell...? Ross?’

The door opened and Ross looked into a snow-white face and pain-addled eyes. His irritation disappeared and was swiftly replaced with concern.

‘Crap, you are sick.’

Ally’s hair was scraped back from her face and she wore a loose pair of track pants and a baggy long-sleeved top that hid her curves and draped over her braless, perky breasts.

‘I said that I was sick! Didn’t you believe me?’

‘Sorry,’ Ross said, stepping into the hallway and dropping his overnight bag to the floor. ‘I thought it was an excuse. What’s wrong with you?’

‘Damned if I know,’ Ally muttered, walking into her lounge and sinking onto the couch, immediately lying down and placing her head on the armrest. She pulled up a thin blanket. ‘Headache, pain in and on my stomach, and a rash. And I am so damn cold.’

Ross narrowed his eyes as he shrugged off his coat and laid it over the back of a chair. The temperature in the flat was like summer in the Karoo, and he immediately stripped off the V-necked jersey that covered his white T-shirt. Better, he thought, moving to sit on the couch next to her hip. She looked clammy, and when he touched her forehead with the back of his hand even he, novice that he was at Florence Nightingale stuff, could tell that she was running a temperature.

‘Where’s the rash, Jones?’

‘Stomach,’ Ally mumbled, and kept a firm grip on the blanket.

He easily tugged it away from her and lifted her shirt. He swore when he saw the belt of angry blisters below her navel. They looked vicious and painful and Ally winced when he rested his fingers on her bare hip, far away from the sores.

‘That sore?’ he asked, quickly lifting his hand.

‘My skin is super-sensitive,’ Ally said, her voice and face miserable.

‘Guess sex is out, then. Unless you’re prepared to get creative...’ Ross teased, as much for his sake as for hers as he picked up a strand of damp hair from her cheek and pushed it behind her ear.

‘You have about as much chance of getting lucky with me as you have of knitting fog.’ Ally closed her eyes. ‘I’m really sorry for putting you out but—and I’m asking you nicely—can you go now?’

‘Why?’

‘I look like hell, I have something on my stomach that is probably going to kill me soon, or infect the entire human race, I’ve been sweating buckets so I probably stink, and this isn’t how I wanted you to see me.’ Ally sighed. ‘I bought a negligee.’

‘Really?’ Ross stood up and pulled his mobile from the back pocket of his jeans. He logged onto the internet and searched for hospitals. ‘What colour is it?’

‘The most beautiful blue.’

‘Damn, I would’ve liked to have seen that,’ Ross responded. ‘Deep blue is my new favourite colour. I’m calling a taxi; where’s your bedroom?’

‘If you’re leaving why do you want to know where my bedroom is?’ Ally asked, her voice croaky.

Nice to know that she hadn’t lost all of her smarts, Ross thought.

‘I’m not leaving—we are. I need to get you a coat and a pair of shoes. I’m taking you to the nearest emergency room.’

‘No, you are not. I’ll be fine. I just need to rest.’

‘Stop being an idiot, Ally. You are burning up, you have a rash that looks dreadful, and you’re going to an ER if I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you downstairs.’

Ally told him what to do with himself and Ross grinned at her feistiness. ‘Actually, I had planned to do that to you.’

‘Funny man.’ Ally sat up and immediately shoved her head between her thighs. ‘Why don’t you just go and I’ll take myself to a doctor?’


‘I’m not that gullible. You’ll just lie down again and in a week your family will find your bloated corpse. If you think you look bad now, just think how you’ll look then,’ Ross stated on a teasing grin. ‘Stop arguing, sweetheart, you’re going to the hospital.’

‘Dear God, if I had known you were this annoying I would never have agreed to sleep with you,’ Ally muttered as he walked back into the hall and down the short passage.

‘I’m not annoying—you’re just stubborn,’ Ross said when he came back, a pair of comfy slouch boots in his large hand. ‘Get your feet in these, Jones.’

‘I don’t need to go to the ER. I’ll call for an appointment with a doctor.’

‘Alyssa.’ He sighed. ‘Do me a favour...please? Since I’ve travelled over twelve thousand kilometres to see you?’ Ross used his best woe-is-me voice and guilt immediately swept across her pain-gripped face.

‘What?’

It worked every time. It was such a girl trick, but he had no compunction in using manipulation to get his way quickly.

‘Let’s just get this done. Because it’s going to happen with or without your cooperation.’ Ross hauled her to her feet and guided her to the door. He shoved her arms into the coat he’d found hanging on a hook behind the door, not fastening it so that the material didn’t rub against her blisters.

Ally’s face turned mutinous. ‘Your bedside manner sucks, Bennett.’

Ross’s look was full of irony. ‘That’s because what I had planned for you involved being in your bed, not at its side.’ He dropped a hard but brief kiss on her lips. ‘Let’s go, zombie-girl.’

Ally had to smile. ‘Screw you,’ she said, but this time there was no heat in her words.

‘Again, those were my plans...’

* * *

‘Shingles.’

Ally looked down at the dark head of the doctor who was peering at the rash on her stomach and thought that he had a nicer bedside manner than Ross. He was kind and patient and rather cute... She looked at Ross, who was standing with his back to the wall, scowling at his mobile. He had a right to scowl. He’d had his night of nookie screwed up by—what had he said?—shingles.

‘What causes it?’ Ally demanded.

‘It’s a viral infection; most of us have the virus in our system and it takes something to trigger the infection. Suppressed immunity, sickness, stress...’

‘Ding, ding, ding,’ Ross said, not lifting his head.

‘Why are you still here?’ she demanded rudely.

‘Oh, hoping for a miraculous recovery of both your libido and your sunny disposition,’ Ross said lazily. ‘Oh, wait...you don’t have a sunny disposition.’

The doctor laughed and Ally wanted to throw something at him. Ross—not the doctor.

‘So, on a scale of one to ten, how stressed are you?’ the doctor asked.

Ally tried not to squirm in her chair. Okay, the last two weeks had been crazy, and she could lay a huge part of that on Mr Too-Sexy-To-Breathe over there. If he’d just said yes to the campaign and then left her alone, then she wouldn’t be going clucking mad.

‘Well?’ the doctor demanded.

‘Four.’ Well, maybe a seven or a nine, but she wasn’t going to admit that!

‘A hundred and four. Frig, woman, you are like the poster child for what corporate stress looks like. Thin, wired, sleep-deprived,’ Ross commented.

‘He has the stethoscope around his neck, not you!’ Ally pointed out.

‘Nevertheless, he’s not wrong,’ the doctor stated, and Ally turned her glare onto him.

Typical men, they always stuck together.

‘Prolonged stress lowers the body’s immunity, which allows the virus to reactivate.’

‘What’s the treatment?’

‘A course of antiviral medication. Rest. No stress.’

‘Rest,’ Ross repeated. ‘No stress.’

Ally really needed to throw something at him. Unfortunately there was nothing within reach. ‘Bite. Me.’

The doctor laughed. ‘Jeez, you two are fabulous entertainment value. How long have you been together?’

‘We are not together,’ Ally stated, pushing the words out between her teeth.

‘She’s just using me for sex.’

‘That’s it...get out! Go! Now! Shoo!’ Ally shouted at him, goaded beyond all measure.

‘I’d prefer that you are not alone tonight, Ms Jones. You are still dizzy, and if you fall and crack your head there could be some nasty consequences.’

‘Well, I don’t want him,’ Ally said in a huffy voice. Mostly because this wasn’t the way she’d envisaged her first date with Ross.

She should be scented and clean—sexy, even. Her hair wouldn’t be greasy, her eyes would not be looking as if she’d been smoking dope for six days straight, and she wouldn’t have a headache that threatened to roll her head off her neck.

Ross just rolled his eyes at the doctor and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He smiled at Ally, totally unfazed. When she was yelling at him she felt fractionally better—not quite so miserable and defeated. And he didn’t seem to be taking her bitchiness personally; it was almost as if he knew that along with feeling so sick she also felt scared and vulnerable, and that arguing made her feel marginally better.

‘Is there a friend I can call?’ Ross asked.

‘No.’

Ally dropped her head. How had she arrived at this point in her life where she didn’t have a single girlfriend she could call in an emergency? She’d always thought that she’d have time for friends, lovers, fun when she finished her studies, got her next promotion, finished the next project...

Ross’s eyes hardened. ‘Someone is going home with you tonight, Alyssa. And I’m not idiot enough to trust you to make the arrangements. I’ll call Luc and he can organise someone to look after you tonight.’

Oh, dammit, she didn’t want him to go—not really—but she couldn’t ask him to stay. That wasn’t what he’d offered. And she most certainly did not want her family knowing about this.

The little colour in Ally’s face drained away. ‘Oh, no, Ross, don’t. Please? I don’t want to worry them. Please don’t call Luc. He’ll just call Sabine and Justin, and they’ll call Patric and Gina, and they’ll all rush to my apartment and... Please don’t. They are more than I can handle right now.’

They’d fuss and fret, and Sabine would lecture her on taking care of herself and working too hard. Justin would look at her with agonised eyes and she’d feel smothered and guilty.


‘If you can just see me back to my apartment, then you can go home.’

‘Did you hear me? I don’t want you left alone tonight,’ said Dr Dishy. ‘I’ll keep you in hospital if I have to.’

Dammit—rock and concrete wall. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered at Ross. ‘It’s not what you came here for.’

Ross looked at her for a long, long time before finally nodding his head. ‘I’ll stay at the apartment tonight,’ he eventually told the doctor.

Ally let out a long, relieved sigh and bit her lip. ‘Thanks. I owe you one.’

Ross arched an expressive eyebrow. ‘One? Oh, I think we passed one a while ago.’

Ally tipped her head up and stared hard at the ceiling. After a minute she dropped her eyes to the doctor’s very amused face. ‘Maybe I should stay here tonight, because if he carries on like this shingles might be the least of my problems. I might brain him senseless,’ she mused as she swung her legs off the bed and started to stand. ‘Ooh, dizzy...’

* * *

Ross walked into the café a couple of blocks from Ally’s apartment and slipped off his coat as he looked for an empty table in the early-morning rush. Seeing that one was being cleared next to the window, he walked over there and practically begged the waitress to bring him a cup of coffee.

Ally didn’t drink coffee—a fact he’d found out after turning out practically every cupboard she had in search of the magic potion. How could she not drink coffee? he wondered. It was practically its own super food.

After the night he’d just had he might need it injected straight into his veins, he thought, sliding into the chair and looking across the street to Lake Geneva. Pretty, he thought. Even if it was colder than a witch’s heart.

Ross grabbed his left shoulder with his right hand and held his elbow to try and stretch out the knots that had formed in his shoulders from laying his six-foot-three frame on a couch made for a pygmy. Last night had been possibly the most uncomfortable, most boring night of his life. He’d taken Ally home, got her into bed, heated up a cup of soup for her. Soon after she’d passed out—possibly from the antihistamine injection she’d received in her luscious butt earlier.

Ross, thinking that work would be the last thing on his mind, hadn’t brought his computer, and Ally did not own a television. Who didn’t have a TV in today’s day and age? Oh, right—the same contrary woman who didn’t drink coffee.

But Ross had found her e-reader and spent the next couple of hours flipping from one business book to another—all guaranteed to put a guy into a coma. Didn’t the woman do anything for fun? Did she even know the meaning of the phrase ‘light entertainment’?

Despite his frequent checking on her, she hadn’t stirred for the rest of the night, and when he’d left the apartment a half-hour ago she’d still been conked out. Before he’d left he’d made a couple of calls, and he’d also lifted her shirt to check her rash—it still looked horrible, but as far as he’d been able to see there were no new blisters.

Ally would be fine, physically, in a couple of days. Mentally—well, that was anyone’s guess.

The woman was a bona fide basket case...and he had this crazy impulse to help her and he wasn’t sure why. He’d thought that he was coming here for uncomplicated sex, but something in her white face and large eyes had him wanting to help and, God help him, protect her.

Why? She was a modern woman who would rather eat glass than admit that she needed help. Maybe because she was a little lost and a lot alone—why didn’t she have friends? A social life? Someone she could call in a scrape? She obviously loved her family but didn’t want to rely on them, and he suspected that her life consisted of working too hard and trying damn hard to be brave.

And that was why he was in this café, about to make a decision that he would probably regret later. C’est la vie, as Jones would say in her impeccable French.

Ross had just finished his second cup of espresso and was feeling a lot more human when Luc walked through the door of the café, looked around and immediately spotted him. Dressed in a grey suit and a raspberry tie, he looked every inch the corporate CEO Ross tried very hard not to be.

Ross stood up, shook hands and eyed Ally’s foster brother as he ordered an espresso and a full breakfast.

When the waitress had left Luc leaned back, unbuttoned his suit jacket and looked at Ross with friendly but wary grey eyes. ‘This is a surprise, Ross. What can I do for you?’

Ross thought that there was no point in beating around the bush. ‘Your sister is at home, on her own, suffering from a nasty case of shingles.’ He saw Luc’s eyes harden, saw the obvious question in them. How the hell do you know that? ‘We were going to have dinner last night but she fell ill. I took her to the ER and she’s not well.’

Luc slumped down in his chair. ‘And she didn’t want you to tell us?’

‘No. And I would’ve kept my word but I have to return to London. I have a computer game designer who is debating whether to move from his mother’s house to Cape Town and he needs his hand held. Unfortunately he’s brilliant, or else I wouldn’t bother. I just don’t think Ally should be on her own.’

Luc tapped his fingers on the wooden table, his grey eyes unreadable. ‘Alyssa is very good at shutting us out.’

‘Why?’

Luc’s mouth turned grim. ‘She’d have to tell you that. All I can tell you is that she is complicated. A little messed up.’

He knew that, Ross thought, yet it hadn’t put him off. He raked his fingers through his hair, wishing he could tell Luc that he was worried she was on the fast track to a loony bin. That he wanted to see the shadows lift from her eyes...that he wanted her to relax and have some fun. But when Luc would ask why he was doing this for a woman he’d only met a couple of times and he wouldn’t be able to answer.

Mostly because he didn’t have a freaking clue. It wasn’t as if he thought they were going anywhere, that they had a future. They just had—what had Ally called it?—a hectic chemical reaction.

‘Does Ally know that you’re here, telling me that she is sick?’ Luc asked.

‘No, she was still sleeping when I left. I need to get back to London and I can’t wait for her to wake up. And her mobile is off.’

Her mobile was off because he’d removed the battery to said mobile and hidden it. He was really hoping that she would be sensible and stay in bed for the rest of the day, preferably the weekend. But he couldn’t stay around to babysit her; he had things to do, a business to run.


And he had to be the Bellechier face.

Frick. He still hadn’t wrapped his head around that either. He wasn’t a ‘face’ type of guy. He was going to take a truckload of BS from his mates at the gym, his fellow surfers, his colleagues for this—everyone who friggin’ knew him.

Ally so owed him.

Luc lifted his coffee cup in a Gallic toast as the waitress placed his food in front of him. ‘She is not going to be happy that you told me. I thank you, but she won’t.’

‘I can handle Ally,’ Ross stated and wondered if he actually could.

* * *

‘You sicced my family on me? Thanks so much!’ Ally said as soon as Ross answered her call. ‘Why?’

‘I’m busy. I’ll call you back in ten,’ Ross retorted.

Ally pulled out her tongue at her dead mobile and tossed it onto her desk, walking to her window and looking at the cloud-covered Alps in the distance. It was Tuesday morning and she was back at work, considerably better but not one hundred per cent. Her rash had subsided and the blisters had started to scab—yuck—and the headache was at a manageable level.

She’d woken up on Friday at eleven to an empty-of-Ross apartment. He’d left her a note





Fridge has food in it. Eat something! Rest.





DO NOT GO TO WORK. I called and told your secretary you were taking a personal day. Implied that I was keeping you in bed...not sure if she believed me. We’ll talk.





She’d still been feeling so dreadful that she hadn’t had the energy to deal with his high-handedness so she’d just turned around, hopped straight back into bed and slept for the rest of the day.

She’d dealt with her entire family trooping in to see if she was alive on Saturday night, and after Sabine had shooed them out she’d gone back to sleep and slept all night. And most of Sunday.

Every time she’d woken up Sabine had been there, with a cool hand, or soup, or a facecloth. It had felt nice and comforting, and that had been scary, so she’d insisted that Sabine went home to Justin on Sunday evening. Sabine had gone, taking her hurt feelings with her. That was why she didn’t want her around; Sabine wanted to fuss and fidget and Ally wanted to be alone. She knew how to take care of herself...

She’d started off her morning by searching her apartment for the battery to her mobile—finding it eventually in her coat pocket behind her door. There had been a dozen calls to return, more explanations to make, worried family to reassure.

Ally tapped her foot, impatient. Three more minutes—could she wait that long? She leaned her shoulder onto the wooden frame and rested her head on the glass. Their date had been an unmitigated disaster and yet Ross had never once showed his irritation or annoyance. Yeah, he’d needled her at the hospital, but she knew that he’d just been teasing. His laughing eyes and amused mouth had given him away.

He somehow knew that she found sympathy and coddling more difficult to deal with than mockery. She so appreciated that. And she appreciated him leaving, letting her get on with being sick and then getting better. She was also very grateful for the food in her fridge—not that she’d eaten much of it. It was the thought that counted.

Twelve minutes had passed and he still hadn’t called back. At fifteen minutes she dialled his number again.

‘Bloody Nora, Jones, give me break,’ he groaned.

‘I need you to talk to me. Now,’ Ally said, not realising how breathy her voice sounded.

‘Hold on.’ Ally heard Ross asking for a twenty-minute break and heard the scrape of chairs, footsteps fading away. ‘You there, Jones?’

‘Why did you do it?’ Ally demanded. A part of her—a small, wishful part—wanted to believe that he’d done it for her. The rest of her scoffed at the notion.

‘Hello to you too. How are you feeling? Blisters gone?’ Ross said, his tone pointed.

Ally sucked down her impatience. ‘Better. Thanks for the food. And for taking me to the hospital. I’m sorry I messed up your evening. That you flew in for nothing.’

She could almost see Ross’s shrug. ‘No worries.’

Ally couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t say anything like There’ll be another time, or We’ll reschedule. Maybe he had cut his losses and was thanking God for his narrow escape. She rapidly blinked away the moisture in her eyes. Stupid to feel upset—it was just sex. Something she kept telling herself that she didn’t need and could live without.

‘Why did you tell my family when I specifically asked you not to?’

Ross was silent for a minute. ‘I have no bloody idea. Maybe I just thought that nobody should be that sick and have to deal with it on their own—especially when they have a family eager and willing to help.’

What was she supposed to say to that? ‘I don’t need help.’

‘That’s stupid. Everyone needs help now and again. Even you, Wonder Woman.’ Ross’s heavy sigh passed over the miles between them. ‘I can’t get back to Geneva, so when can I expect you in Cape Town?’

‘For the campaign?’

‘I couldn’t give a frig about the campaign. I’m thinking about burning up the sheets with you.’

Ally hauled in a sharp breath as pleasure spiked through her. She twisted a strand of hair around her finger. ‘You still want to sleep with me?’

‘Did you think that me seeing you as Death Girl would put me off?’

‘Sort of.’

‘I’m not that shallow, Jones.’

Before Ally’s frazzled brain could formulate a reply, she heard voices in the background and then Ross spoke again.

‘I’ve got to get some work done. We’ll talk later, okay?’

Oh, they’d talk again—he could be very sure of that. And she’d tell him all that she hadn’t managed to say earlier: that she didn’t approve of him interfering in her life and calling her family, that they were about sex and little else and that he couldn’t do it again.

Her mobile beeped and Ally picked it up, her heart accelerating when she saw a message from Ross on her screen.





Okay, I know I went against your wishes but I couldn’t stick around and I was worried about you. I don’t particularly like worrying about you and I want it to stop. It’s interfering with the X-rated fantasies I’m having about you. So help me to stop worrying about you. Eat. Sleep. Please?





Ally, her irritation replaced with confusion, typed a short message back.





I’ll try.





Two days later...

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Important question...

I have something important to ask you...





To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Important question

That sounds ominous. But okay...





To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Here it is...

What colour panties are you wearing today?





To: [email protected]

From:[email protected]

Subject: RE: Here it is...

Dammit, Ross, I just spewed coffee over my keyboard!





Three days after that...

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Long conversation

That was a very long and detailed conversation about the campaign and the contract, Miss Jones. So glad we got so many points cleared up.





To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Long conversation

I got the impression that you were distracted. Got a lot on your mind?





To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Yeah...doing you

Mostly I was just thinking that I’d prefer to hear different phrases falling from your lips...

Like... ‘I love having your body on top of mine. It feels amazing.’ Or... ‘Faster! Faster!’


A week after that message...

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Torturing me

Ross, you’re torturing me with the sexy messages. I don’t know if I can do another week in this state of...





To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Misery loves company

Frustration? Horniness? Well, get your ass over here and we can do something about it. Sick of flying solo. Getting RSI in my hand. :)