Secret Strangers in Love novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Technically Engaged

Hiding in a cloakroom from the fake Alexis, Alexis and her boss kiss in the dark, then agree they are both technically engaged.

By Thursday I had given Mr. Stanhope three true things about Alexis Gaillard.

I laid them on his desk in a neat list and did not sign it.

One, she had been written up at Evanston Township High for reading a classmate's private diary aloud at an assembly.

Two, she had never once held a job at Gaillard Foods, though she let people think she ran it.

Three, she laughed at waiters.

He read the page twice, slowly, with one finger on his jaw.

"Where did you find this?"

"Alumni forums. People remember a thing like that."

"Did the classmate say how it felt?"

"She said it felt like standing in a cold shower for a year."

I had not planned to say that out loud.

He lifted his eyes, and for a second I thought he might ask me something dangerous.

Instead he stood, took his coat off the hook and held mine out.

"The chairman wants me at a dinner at seven with the woman on that list," he said. "I need an exit."

"A what?"

"If I look at my watch, you call me with an emergency. If I look at it twice, the emergency is large."

"You want me at the engagement dinner."

"I want you in the coat room, with your phone."

He glanced at the clock.

"It's the only plan I have that doesn't involve a vase."

I should have asked for the restaurant before I said yes.

The Aldine sat on the river, all brass and white linen.

Its coat room was a velvet alcove behind a curtain next to the host stand.

Mr. Stanhope took the table at the back and told me, "Stay put."

I stayed put in a cloud of other people's furs.

Then the front door opened, and I heard a voice I would know on the moon.

"I'm so sorry I'm late, I was in the car forever."

Brooke.

She stood eight feet from me in a green dress that cost more than my car.

I flattened myself against the wall behind a long camel coat.

She was not alone.

I could see through the gap in the curtain as Gavin Ashworth, the man with the tan and the roaming hand, kissed her cheek.

It lasted too long, and her fingers lingered on his lapel.

Heat went up my neck.

The man I was supposed to marry was greeting the woman wearing my name.

And the real me was hiding inside a stranger's coat.

I could not leave, and I could not think.

Then the curtain moved again, and a man slid in beside me.

He was tall, he smelled like cedar and clean shirt, and he pressed his back to the wall to get out of sight.

"Mr. Stanhope?" I whispered.

"Quiet," he breathed. "She is looking at me."

His mouth was an inch from my ear.

"Why are you hiding in a coat room?"

"I'm taking a call."

"You're not holding a phone."

"Neither are you."

He turned his head, and in the dark his eyes were silver.

I felt his hand land at my waist, politely.

Nothing about the way it stayed was an accident.

"Is she that bad?" I whispered.

"She's worse. She arrived with the groom."

"The groom is kissing her cheek?"

"Very warmly, for a man who has known her four days."

We were breathing the same air.

The coats around us whispered, and a long silk scarf slid off a hanger and fell across my shoulder.

He caught it.

His knuckles brushed my collarbone.

"Lexie," he said, very low.

"Yes?"

"If I do something stupid, it's the coats' fault."

"Blame the coats."

He kissed me.

It wasn't polite, and it wasn't brief.

His mouth was warm and sure, and he kissed like a man who had been holding a breath for three weeks.

I grabbed his collar and kissed him back, and the back of my head hit the wall.

His hand slid into my hair and tipped my face up.

I made a sound against his mouth that I didn't know I owned.

He pulled me against him so I could feel every plane of his chest, and my knee came up along his thigh without my permission.

His teeth caught my lower lip.

"You're not leaving this room yet," he said roughly.

"Don't you dare let go."

He laughed into my mouth.

We kissed until the coats rocked, until my blouse came loose from my waistband and his palm spread flat against my bare back.

Then, on the other side of the curtain, Brooke's voice dropped.

"Three weeks, darling," she said. "Then the old men sign, and nobody will know the difference."

His laugh came back, low and pleased.

"You're sure he's buying it?"

"He's been looking at his watch for ten minutes. He's already bored."

His body went still against mine.

I held onto him.

I knew exactly what I was hearing.

The man I was supposed to marry and the woman wearing my name were partners.

They thought they had both old men in their pockets.

"Did you hear that?" I whispered.

"Every word."

His breath was uneven.

"So did I," I said, and held up my phone, which had been recording since the curtain moved.

He stared at the screen, and slowly he smiled.

It was not the smile of a man who had just kissed a stranger.

It was the smile of a man who had just found a reason.

Then he looked at my swollen mouth and the smile fell off.

"Miss Dunne," he said. "I'm not free to do that."

I fixed my blouse.

"Neither am I," I said. "Technically."

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