Escaping Christmas
Autor
Charlotte Ashwood
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8
HarlequinChapter One
Angie stepped out of the elevator, staring eagerly at the take-out container of Baskin-Robbins ice cream in her hand, and promptly tripped over her own feet. For a fraction of a second she registered the fact that her ice cream was not going to survive the fall before she bumped into something hard.
“Oomph!”
“I’ve got you.” A sexy voice reached down and caressed her as she felt strong, muscular arms breaking her fall.
“My ice cream!”Angie couldn’t hide her relief as she caught the container before it hit the ground. What was that scent? She inched closer so she could get another whiff. Hmm, smelled like spice. There was a woodsy aroma there, too. And he definitely smelled like a man. She inhaled again and almost jumped when he let out a sexy chuckle.
“I promise you, I wash regularly. I’ve even been known to take a shower on occasion.”
Her face flushed with embarrassment, Angie stiffened and realized she was still in his arms. She took a step back and felt strangely bereft when his arms fell away. “I’m sorry, I’m quite clumsy,” she said, looking anywhere but at her rescuer, trying to figure out why her pulse was racing.
“Hey, no sweat. It was entirely my pleasure.”
She lifted her head then and stared into the sparkling brown eyes of her next-door neighbor. She frowned. They had met a couple of times around the elevator, and something about this man, with his roguish good looks and curly black hair, had always rubbed her the wrong way. Probably because she kept wondering what it would be like to kiss him, and images of him naked kept flashing up at unwanted times. She needed to extricate herself from this situation if she didn’t want him to see that those images had begun flashing once more.
“Well, thanks, anyway. I need to go.” She fidgeted with her purse strings while carefully holding on to the container of ice cream. Realizing how ungracious she sounded, Angie sighed, and before she could stop herself she blurted out, “I don’t mind sharing this.” She lifted the container slightly.
His eyes widened, and for a second he looked like he was going to say yes, but then they clouded with regret.
“I would love to, but I need to be somewhere else. I’ll take a rain check.”
That was when she took in the fact that he was dressed in a tailored shirt and what appeared to be designer jeans. He looked ready for a night out. The tightness in Angela’s stomach eased a little, and she couldn’t hide her relief. She’d regretted her impulsive offer almost as soon as she’d made it.
“No problem. Thanks for saving my ice cream.” She turned to leave.
“Wait!”
Damn. She’d almost escaped. Slowly she turned back to face him, one eyebrow lifted in inquiry.
“What’s your name?”
“Angie Scot.”
He closed the gap between them. “I’m Alex Farhadi.”
He stretched out a hand and waited till she reluctantly placed hers in his. Her skin tingled where their palms touched.
“I meant what I said about taking a rain check,” he said slowly, looking straight into her eyes.
Angie gazed into his eyes and felt her stomach give a slow flip. That was not a good sign. First the tingle, now a flip? She was beginning to get warning signals, the big, blinking, neon-colored kind. His eyes were doing funny things to her, too. They were deep pools of caramel, and he was looking at her intently, as though she were the only woman in the world. Of course, she was the only other person standing there, just outside the elevator. At that reminder, she blinked and realized her hand was still enveloped by his much larger one. She tugged gently, and he let go immediately, but her hand still retained the warmth of his.
“I’ll be seeing you around, then.” He flashed a smile at her.
Not if she saw him first, she decided. But she just shrugged and nodded. “Sure.”
She felt his eyes on her as she turned and walked the short distance to her door. While she searched her purse for her keys, she risked a glance behind her and was slightly disappointed to find he was no longer there. She had not heard the elevator, and she knew it was because she had been preoccupied by lingering thoughts of a pair of brown eyes. Well, not exactly brown. More like liquid gold. Even now, she was thinking about them, and that irritated her to no end. She had not come to Kuala Lumpur to think about men, no matter how gorgeous they were. She finally located her keys and let herself into her apartment. Who needed men when one had ice cream?
Several days later Angie walked into the Starbucks just around the corner from her apartment building. The cool air in the café was a welcome relief from the hot sun outside. Even though it was only 10:00 a.m. the heat was almost unbearable. It was the first time she had ventured outside her apartment in three days. She had spent the time writing, thinking about her life and trying not to think about her brown-eyed neighbor. She had not seen him again, but he’d made his presence known. A container of ice cream had been delivered to her door with an A scrawled in a rough man-script on a tiny card.
It was a small gesture, yet it had had a profound effect on her. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had done something nice for her. Well, apart from Elizabeth, her mother-in-law, but she had a guilty conscience to assuage.
“What can I get you, ma’am?”
She blinked at the smiling barista and her mind went blank. After a few seconds of scanning the menu, she went with the first thing that caught her eye. “Hi, I’ll have a caramel latte.”
Now why on earth had she ordered that, she wondered to herself. She didn’t even like lattes, for crying out loud…and caramel? She knew who she had to blame for that choice.
With a small smile, she paid for her coffee and took a table by the window. She gazed out onto the street with unseeing eyes. Sitting there, staring out the window on a sunny morning in a quiet area of Kuala Lumpur, she finally felt a semblance of peace. The past year had been hell, and she didn’t know how to put the broken pieces of her life back together again, but at that moment it didn’t seem to matter so much that she had nowhere to call home, or that she was unemployed and an emotional wreck. For the first time in a year, she was just glad to be alive.
Angie was lost in thought when she suddenly got the feeling she was being watched. She turned her head, and right there, sitting within her direct line of vision at the other side of the café, was her caramel-eyed neighbor. He was staring at her with such intensity that she felt her face fill with color, much to her annoyance.
Angie stared back for a few seconds, which stretched into a full minute. The surrounding noise faded into the background as they looked at each other across the room. There was a pull in his eyes that drew her in so far she felt like she was drowning. Her pulse picked up speed. She told herself that she needed to look away, but she couldn’t seem to break the gaze.
Just then someone waved a hand in front of Alex, and he looked away. That was when Angie noticed that he had a companion with him—a beautiful woman with large brown eyes framed by long, dark lashes and thick waves of dark brown hair spilling down past her shoulders. She was looking at Angie with amusement.
Angie averted her eyes. She was not disappointed because he had a girlfriend. She was just annoyed that even though he was involved with such a beautiful woman, he had flirted with her by the elevator. What was it with men, anyway? Was it so impossible to find a faithful one?
She took a sip from her latte and grimaced. It wasn’t so bad; it just wasn’t her thing. As she absently brought the mug back to her mouth, she casually glanced at the table where Alex had been sitting with his companion and found it empty.
“Looking for someone?”
Angie’s head snapped up, and there he was, standing beside her table, looking annoyingly sexy in a blue-and-white-striped work shirt tucked into black slacks. The sleeves were rolled up, exposing his forearms.
“Hi.”
“Hey.” His eyes smiled at her and she felt her pulse speed up. “Mind if I have this seat?”
She shrugged, and he sat down elegantly in the chair opposite her.
“Where’s your friend?” Angie asked.
“My sister decided she did not like my inattention and went shopping.” His eyes sparkled with amusement.
The ghost of a smile appeared on her lips. “I would choose shopping, too.”
“She’s my baby sister and incredibly spoiled. Some inattention is good for her.”
Angie heard the affection for his sister in his voice and felt a pang of regret. She’d often wondered what it would be like to have a brother or a sister. It had always been just her and her mom. Her dad hadn’t even stuck around long enough to get to know her, and his family had refused to acknowledge her altogether. She shrugged off the feeling. She’d done well for herself, and her life had been great, until recently. She missed her mom terribly.
“What’s going on behind those beautiful eyes?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Are you flirting with me?”
“Would you like me to flirt with you?” he asked.
Angie shrugged, which just made him chuckle.
“Why aren’t you at work on a Monday morning?” she asked.
“I’d rather spend the time flirting with you.”
“Oh, please, spare me. Do those doe eyes actually work on any real human women?”
He blinked once then laughed. “You have a way with words, did you know that?”
“Thanks, but that doesn’t answer the question.”
“Hmm, you must not have been in Malaysia long if you don’t know about makan.”
“Makan?” Angie was intrigued.
Alex smiled, his eyes glittering with mischief.
“Well, literally it means food or a meal. You interfere with makan at your peril. However, I like to think of it as a philosophy.”
“How can food be a philosophy?”
“It’s more than just a question of food. Makanis when families get together during the day and friends sit down and catch up with each other. Makan also means to party or to feast. Anyway, lunch break is a serious event here.”
Angie was impressed. She was surprised to find such depth beneath his stereotypical good looks. Then again, maybe it was a fluke, or maybe he’d studied anthropology in college. Besides, she knew firsthand that depth of knowledge did not always translate to depth of feeling.
Alex watched her drift off again, lost in her thoughts. It would have been a blow to his ego to see her attention wander if he was not so fascinated by watching her. She was a beautiful woman, and she was getting more than a few looks from the male patrons of the café. But it was more than her beauty that drew him to her. The first thing he’d noticed about her was the haunted look in her eyes, like she’d been very badly hurt. Watching her, he wanted to gather her in his arms and make her sadness disappear.
He felt his mouth curve into a rueful smile at this thought. His cousin Hussein would say his Sir Galahad complex was showing.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“It’s hard not to. You went off somewhere inside your head, and I didn’t want to interrupt.”
She frowned slightly and turned to look at him. “Interrupt what?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “What were you thinking about?”
She picked up her mug and absently took a sip, then made a face and placed the mug back on the table.
“I was just wondering why on earth I decided to experiment with a caramel latte of all things.”
“I can show you where to get real coffee, not this fancy stuff. There’s this place I can take you to…. What are you doing this evening?”
She hesitated, and then shook her head. “I’m busy tonight. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. Maybe another time?”
She smiled that small half smile that barely reached her eyes. “Sure.”
He glanced at the clock on the wall in front of him and realized it was time to head back to the office.
“I need to get going. It was nice meeting you again, Angie Scot.”
She smiled and murmured something appropriate before turning back to her coffee. Alex felt like he had been dismissed. As he walked out of the café into the hot sunshine, he promised himself that she was not going to find it so easy to dismiss him again.
