Page 125 of Christmas at Sturcombe Bay
“I think I might. I’ll speak to the estate agent in the new year to arrange a viewing.” He smiled down at her again. “Will you come up with me to have a look?”
She laughed a little unsteadily. “You want me to give you sensible advice, after I landed you with Tyler?”
His eyes glinted with warm amusement. “Well, that turned out pretty well.”
“It did.” She had to smile at the thought. “Where is he now?”
“In Mike’s office. He’s okay in there. I can pop in from time to time to check on him.”
“With a bit of sausage roll?”
“Of course.”
“He’s not bothered by the noise of the party?” she asked.
“He’s better there than on his own in the flat. He doesn’t like being alone.”
She laughed softly. “Big baby.”
* * *
Another cheesy Christmas song began, and Alex laughed, shaking his head. “Oh no, not this one. This is really doing my head in. Let’s go outside.”
“It’s freezing out there,” she objected.
“The conservatory then.”
He kept his arm around her waist as they threaded their way through the dancers. She looked absolutely gorgeous tonight, her pixie blonde hair curling around her head, her blue eyes sparkling.
Her dress was a light greeny-blue, some kind of floaty fabric that swirled around her as she moved and flirted to just above her knees.
“I like your dress,” he murmured.
“Oh . . . !” Her eyes lit up. “Thank you. Jess picked it for me. We went into Exeter last week to go shopping.”
It struck him to the heart how much that simple compliment seemed to mean to her. He guessed that she had never owned a pretty dress like that before, much less received any compliments.
The small jewellery box he had picked up yesterday was burning a hole in his pocket. Was he moving too fast? But moving fast was what he did. And Jess had told him that she had almost run away a few weeks ago — Lisa had persuaded her to stay. He didn’t want to risk that happening again.
* * *
“Phew!”
Shelley huffed out a breath. It was cooler in the conservatory after the heat of the ballroom, where everyone was jumping around and singing along raucously to the music. She’d noticed that even the two golf ladies were on their feet, joining in.
Alex drew her round into the shelter of a flourishing Areca palm, sliding his arms around her and drawing her close.
“About the house . . .”
She glanced up at him, a question in her eyes.
“The thing is, Tyler said that he won’t move in there unless you come too.”
She laughed at his nonsense. “He did?”
He nodded, pretending to be solemn. “He was most insistent about it. In fact, he said it would be most improper of me to just ask you to move in with us. He can be really quite prudish at times.”
“Oh . . . ?”
