Page 7 of Midnight Wishes

Alex gave a long, low whistle. Heavy paws padded towards his bedroom, and Celine’s snout pushed the door open. The Rottweiler pup had suffered terrible abuse at the hands of her first owner. It was a wonder she had survived the first two months of her life, being starved and beaten. As such, she was skittish around new women. Thanks to regular exposure, she’d warmed to his housekeeper, Maggie, within a few weeks, and she was becoming increasingly comfortable with Abby, but he hadn’t wanted to risk Sarah’s presence sending her into a panic, so he’d put her on the small mattress he kept for her in his office.

Despite the stern warnings in all the puppy training guides that said not to let her sleep in his room, she was too damn cute when she curled up at the foot of his bed, and her light snores had become the equivalent of a white noise machine for him, helping him shut off his brain to prepare for sleep. The closest he could get to drawing a boundary was not allowing her in thereuntil bedtime, so he made sure she had plenty of comfortable spots around the house.

A grunt escaped him as she leapt towards the bed and landed with her cold paws on his bare chest. They were still working on her aim. And just shy of her first birthday, her weight was becoming significant.

‘You need to stop trying to crush me,’ he wheezed, rolling her gently off him. ‘If I suffocate, who will give you treats?’

She licked his face in response to the wordtreats. And he couldn’t leave her high and dry afterhe’dsaid one of her trigger words. So he reached for his bedside drawers, where he kept a stash of high-quality, organic dried meat snacks that cost more than most people spent on dinners in a week, because his girl deserved only the best. And Alex liked having someone to spoil, even if it felt slightly pathetic for that someone to be his dog.

Still keyed up from the night of socialising—from seeing her—he was never going to get to sleep unless he could tire his brain, or at least his body, out.

‘Come on, girl. Let’s go for a walk.’

Chapter 4

SARAH

mirrorball | Taylor Swift

I love my best friend.

I love my best friend.

I love my best friend.

That was themantra running through Sarah’s mind as she waited outside a pretty stationery shop on a quiet, tree-lined street.

Given the time crunch, it was inevitable that wedding planning duties would end up overlapping. And understandable that duties would be delegated to her and Alex in those situations. Apparently the only time the stationery shop could accommodate them lined up with the only time Abby and Erik could book their cake tasting, and Sarah knew which she’d prefer to do herself if it were her wedding. So she was only too happy to help, but she would have been far happier to do it without Alex’s company.

‘Why doesn’t Zoe come with me?’ she’d suggested, when Abby asked her to procure the wedding invites.

‘You and Alex both have such a great eye. And he’ll know what Erik would like. Plus…he’d never say it, but I think it’ll mean a lot to him to be involved in the planning process. And you’re the next most important person in my life; he’s the next most important person in Erik’s. It would mean a lot to me for you two to get to know each other.’ Abby had shrugged, blissfully ignorant of the fact that they knew each other better than she could ever guess.

What Abby hadn’t told her was that Alex would be cutting it extremely fine to make their appointment. Sarah checked her phone again, hoping against hope that he’d cancelled and she could go ahead by herself. No text. But there was an email from her website notifying her that—No.She’d assumed it was a commission enquiry, her chest already going cold at the thought of trying to fit another client into her already crammed schedule, but…she’d made a sale. A real sale.

One of her favourite pieces, painted in a frenzy the week after she’d found out Gregg was cheating. It had been meant as a catharsis. She’d had no plan for it, just loaded up her palette with a spread of colours and let the hurt and anger simmer out stroke by stroke. By the end, she’d felt free.

And someone called Kevin, at a business address in Central London, wanted it.

She was still reeling when—one minute before they were supposed to be inside—shoes appeared in her field of vision, followed by dark blue trousers and a crisp white shirt as her eyes ventured up, finally landing on Alex’s annoyingly pretty face.

‘You look good,’ he drawled.

She did, and she knew it—when painting, she usually stuck to leggings and oversized shirts, so when the opportunity came up to go out, she took care to look and feel good—but he wasn’t supposed to be commenting on it. He certainly wasn’t supposed to be leering down the neckline of her sundress.

‘You’re late.’

‘I am exactly on time,’ he corrected, brushing past her to hold the door open.

In the shop, a tiny woman with enormous plastic glasses greeted them warmly, bombarding them with questions about design, grammage, texture, and finishes. Sample after sample was thrust upon them, and Sarah pointedly ignored Alex’s long fingers trailing over the small stacks of ivory card. Ignored the memories of those fingers trailing over her skin with similar attentiveness.

It helped that as she diligently flipped through design options, Alex flirted with the saleswoman instead of helping.

When she’d had enough of hearing how sparkly the old lady’s eyes were, Sarah excused them with a polite smile in her direction, that quickly turned into a scowl when she began talking to Alex.

‘If you’re done sweet talking her, can we settle on a design? I say this one.’ She held out a card with a pretty floral design and swirling letters that she knew Abby would love. ‘On the metallic finish cardstock with gold foil.’

Alex raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t think so.’

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