Back in the Headlines

‘I’ll find a hostel,’ she mumbled. ‘Just for the night.’

She began to haul her heavy suitcase down the street, not stopping until she reached the bus stop and was certain she was away from Annabella’s pitying stare. And when the bright red double-decker bus stopped, she bought a ticket planning to travel as far away from this privileged area of West London as possible. Because she didn’t belong here. Come to think of it, she didn’t really belong anywhere.

Somehow she found a hostel, not caring that it was right by a busy Tube station or that to get there she had to pass three people sitting on a pavement, asking passers-by for money.

She just needed to sleep, that was all. In the morning she would feel better—and after that she would find somewhere to live. She wondered if the desperation showed on her face or whether it could be heard in her croaky voice—but something in her heartfelt appeal must have worked, because she was given a bed.

It was an iron bedstead with a lumpy mattress, in a dormitory with twenty other women—some of whom seemed to be withdrawing from alcohol. Their delusional screams about yellow ants pierced the night and ordinarily Roxy would have been terrified. But the pounding in her head was pretty much all she could think about right then—until she remembered that she’d left no forwarding address and that she was expecting a much-needed cheque. And that she wouldn’t put it past the hateful Titus Alexander to throw it in the bin, out of spite.

With trembling fingers, she scrabbled around in her bag until she’d found the arrogant aristocrat’s card, then fumbled him a text, before flopping back against the flat pillow.

She’d never felt so ill in her life. The walls were closing in on her. Her skin was growing hot. And just before her eyelids fluttered to a close, she cursed the tawny-headed man whose cruel behaviour had brought her here.

CHAPTER THREE (#uead48278-f3d2-5770-821d-f45a4a24c91f)

A FADED denim crotch swam into view and Roxy’s heavy eyelids slowly fluttered open. Narrow hips framed the crotch like a prize exhibit at an art show and for a moment she was so disorientated that she simply stared at it. Slowly, she moved her gaze upwards to meet the shuttered gaze of Titus Alexander.

‘You’re awake, I see,’ he remarked acidly.

Roxy blinked. She felt warm and comfortable and the room was strangely quiet. Yet she remembered going to sleep on a lumpy mattress with the sound of demented voices all around her. More memories began to crowd into her befuddled brain. The sleepless night which had turned into a sleepless day. The pounding in her head and the terrible aching in her throat—followed by the soaring bewilderment of a high fever when her skin had felt as icy as if she’d spent the night in the Arctic. The hostel!

Despite the restrictive heaviness of her limbs, she sat up in bed and her eyes narrowed in disbelief as she looked around. No, definitely not the hostel. She was in a huge room, with light streaming in from equally huge windows. Gone was the dormitory with its rows of sardine-packed beds—and in its place was a tranquil bedroom, decorated entirely in white. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling and the bed in which she was lying was covered with crisp and deliciously clean linen.

Roxy stared up at the Duke’s striking aristocratic features, her heart pounding with confusion. ‘Where am I?’ she demanded.

‘In my London home.’

‘How did I get here?’ she questioned, her voice rising on a slight note of hysteria.

‘You don’t remember?’

‘If I remembered, then I wouldn’t be asking, would I?’

Titus felt his mouth harden. Ungrateful little witch. He should have left her in the hostel where he’d found her! ‘I brought you here,’ he said flatly. ‘You’ve been ill.’

Roxy slumped back against the billowy bank of pillows. Illness would explain this strangely weak and woozy feeling—but it didn’t explain why Titus Alexander was standing next to the bed and glowering down at her. She stared at him suspiciously. ‘What do you mean—you brought me here?’

‘I mean,’ said Titus, with a growing feeling of impatience that he should have to explain himself to her after all he’d done, ‘that I went to the hostel where you were staying, to give you some letters which had been delivered for you. And that’s when I found you delirious with fever and looking quite shockingly ill—with no proper medical care or attention. So I put you in my car and brought you back here.’

She blinked at him as more fragments of memory began to piece themselves together in her mind. She remembered feeling icy cold, but her body being drenched with sweat. At one point, her teeth had been chattering so loudly that she’d been afraid she might shatter them. There had been wild voices shouting out all around her—or had one of those voices been hers? And then someone picking her up. Someone very strong. She vaguely remembered slumping against a rock-hard chest as she’d been carried out of that scary place and put into a car. Her eyes narrowed as she met the Duke’s cool expression.

‘It was you. You rescued me,’ she said slowly.

Titus gave a cynical laugh, because the last thing he needed was for her to start building schoolgirlish fantasies about an episode he would rather hadn’t happened. ‘I felt duty-bound to get you out since I felt partially responsible for you being there,’ he growled. ‘Though, of course, if you hadn’t made such a complete mess of your life—then you wouldn’t have been there in the first place. So I brought you back here and had my friend Guy Chambers look you over—’

‘Look me over?’ she breathed. ‘What do you mean, look me over?’

‘He’s a doctor,’ he answered as he read the suspicious look in her eyes. ‘Not some kind of voyeur. He diagnosed you with pneumonia, he prescribed antibiotics and rest—and that’s what you’ve been getting ever since.’

But she must have been getting more than rest, mustn’t she? Her hair and body felt scented and clean and...Roxy placed her hand over her racing heart, only to encounter the slippery feel of silk against her fingers. Pulling the sheet away by a fraction, she stared down at the apricot sheen of a nightdress which must have cost a fortune. She could feel the delicate fabric brushing against her bare knees and the deep scoop of its low-cut back and she clutched onto the sheet as she looked at him with renewed suspicion.

‘What am I wearing?’ she demanded.

‘What does it look like?’ he growled, furious with his body’s instant reaction to the provocative outline of her breasts.

‘But I didn’t arrive with a silk nightdress! I don’t even possess a silk nightdress. Whose is it?’

‘It’s yours now. I had someone from the store deliver a few, the morning after you arrived—since you seemed to have only one of your own, which, frankly, was well past its sell-by date. And I decided that clothing you was better than seeing you naked, every time I walked past.’

‘You mean you...you stripped me off and dressed me?’ she demanded, her heart beginning a ragged thunder.

Titus gave a short laugh. ‘Actually, I employed a nurse to do that. I haven’t quite reached the point of dragging sick women back to my house so that I can have my wicked way with them.’ He paused as he flicked his eyes over her. ‘Added to which, I’m afraid that you’re just not my type.’

Roxy’s face didn’t betray any kind of reaction, but stupidly his remark hurt. It was bad enough being made to feel like a complete waif and stray without it being implied that you were hideously unattractive. Anyway, it was obvious what sort of woman he would go for. A starchy aristocrat like Titus Alexander would be attracted to someone like Annabella, her ex-next-door neighbour, with her perfect pedigree and clothes which always looked like an upmarket uniform.

‘Well, you’re not my type either,’ she said defensively, putting her hand over her mouth as she began to cough.

‘Really? I’m crushed!’

‘I don’t go for toffee-nosed, stuck-up aristocrats who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth!’

‘I suppose the fact that I’m single must also be a bit of a barrier,’ he offered sarcastically. ‘Because you seem to like the buzz of the forbidden. I can’t think what else attracted you to my father’s accountant. Was it just the cheap rent which won you over, or did his large beer-gut play a part in luring you into his bed?’

‘I didn’t go to bed with Martin Murray!’ she snapped, but the effort of having a row with him was too much and she slumped back against the pillows to see him watching her from between narrowed eyes. ‘How long have I been here?’

‘Five days.’

Five days? Roxy’s feeling of disorientation increased and it wasn’t helped by her sudden acknowledgement of how long it had been since she’d been alone in a bedroom with a man. And the even more unwanted acknowledgement of just how sexy a man he was. His soft, dark sweater sleeves were rolled up to reveal hair-roughened arms and his jeans were close-fitting and faded. Effortlessly, they emphasised the narrow jut of his hips and the taut definition of his powerful legs. How weird it was to think that this man was actually a Duke when he looked more like some pin-up of a rock-star. ‘That’s a long time,’ she observed, her skin prickling with unwanted awareness.

Tell me about it, Titus thought grimly. Five days of trying not to focus on that amazing body which had clung to him as he’d carried her inside on that frosty night. Or to remember the brief glimpse of her cherry-tipped nipples when she’d torn her nightdress off in the middle of her delirium. It had been that fever-fuelled gesture which had made him instantly decide that he needed a nurse there.

He cleared his throat, trying to ignore the fact that her hair was tumbling over her narrow shoulders or that those cherry nipples were now outlined by the silk of her nightgown. He shouldn’t be thinking about what it would be like to explore all that soft and silken skin. She was trouble in every sense of the word and the thing he needed to do now was to get her out of here and out of his life. Only this time, for good.

‘So how are you feeling?’ he forced himself to ask.

Roxy gave a shrug, knowing that he wasn’t interested in hearing her worries about what had been happening work-wise during the five days she’d been out of it. Or her concerns about what the cleaning agency would make of her unplanned absence. Her inbuilt survival system took over and she even managed a watery smile. ‘Hungry.’

‘Good.’ He nodded, as if that was the first sensible word she’d uttered. ‘So why don’t you get dressed and I’ll fix you some breakfast?’

Roxy nodded, hearing the note of closure in his voice. No doubt he would send her on her way after a hearty breakfast. A last meal for the condemned woman. ‘Okay.’

‘You’ll find your clothes in the wardrobe over there,’ he said abruptly, on his way out of the bedroom. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I had them sent out to be laundered.’

What could she say—that he made her feel a bit like some feral animal who’d needed to be hosed down and disinfected? Roxy waited until he’d gone before gingerly getting out of bed, but her legs felt wobbly and she was decidedly weak as she showered and washed her hair. She remembered losing her job at the Kit-Kat Club and wondered what on earth she was going to do. More importantly—where on earth she was going to go? Pulling on a deliciously fresh-smelling sweater, she wriggled into her jeans—except that there wasn’t much wriggling to be done because they slipped on much too easily. No woman ever wore her jeans this big, she thought—adding a belt to cinch them in as she wondered just how much weight she had lost.

She made the bed and tidied up the room, but she knew she couldn’t keep putting off going downstairs and facing her bleak future. Her heart was pounding as she followed the sound of clashing pots to find Titus cooking breakfast.

The kitchen was situated right at the back of the house and contained all the usual luxury components of a no-money-spared environment. There was a big, scrubbed oak table and a beautiful dresser crowded with china which looked scarily valuable. At the other end of the room, two squashy sofas overlooked a garden which was huge, by city standards. It was like one of those rooms featured in the lifestyle magazines you sometimes found lying around in the dentist’s surgery. Only they didn’t usually feature someone like Titus Alexander standing stirring something over a huge range.