Page 19 of The Alpha Escort Agency
“What, Lisa? You're making me nervous.”
“We got the pitch!”
“We got the pitch?!” Alice’s hands fly to her mouth. “No!”
“Yes. And I want you to lead the team, Alice. It'll be your account if we win it.”
“Oh, my gosh.” She feels light-headed, giddy with excitement. She wants to run out into the hallway and scream the news to Maria, grab her phone and call her mum. “Thank you, Lisa. I'm so grateful. What an incredible opportunity.”
“Yes, well, just don't screw it up.” Lisa wags her forefinger at her. “Ryan will forward you on the details — we've got about seven weeks to prepare. I'd like an update on progress by the end of this week.”
“Sure thing!”
???
The rest of the week passes in pitch preparations. She pulls a team together and divides up the work, creating a project plan to keep them all on track. She's completely submerged in Symix cosmetics, latest make up trends, market analysis and brainstorming ideas, that there is little room in her busy mind for anything else.
Yet, despite this, the Alpha keeps popping into her head at bizarre and inopportune moments. Like when she's leading the morning huddle with her team and a memory of how he'd made her mewl comes barging into her head and she stutters to a stop and finds her cheeks burning. Or when the sandwich man is trying to hand her change, and she's somewhere else completely, the coins falling to the ground while she’s reliving the Alpha’s kiss.
It's just a phase, she thinks, something that will pass soon enough and, when she crawls into bed exhausted after a long day at work, she forbids herself from fantasising about him, even though he comes wandering into her dreams, anyway.
Shit, how does the man make her come even in her sleep!
On Friday, when she arrives home from work, there's an envelope waiting for her on the mat. Alice always gets a little thrill whenever she receives post, even if it's just a credit card bill — she gets so few letters these days. It's most probably from her sister. Bea met an Australian while working at a bar in London and moved out there five years ago. Now they have two little girls and Alice sporadically receives unrecognisable artworks that her nieces have created for her.
The handwriting on the envelope, however, is not her sisters. It's sharper, almost scraggly and written in dark ink. The postmark is not Melbourne either, it's England. She gives the envelope a sniff, but there are too many intermingling aromas for her to pick out a scent. Curiously, she shoulders her bag onto the table and slides her finger under the flap, ripping the envelope open and pulling out two sheets of paper. One is a handwritten note, the other a webpage print out.
She pulls out a chair and begins to read.
Dear Alice,
I am concerned that by now you will have eaten all the food I left you and will be back to eating those unhealthy and nutritiously hollow microwaveable meals. I am therefore sending you this recipe for Vegetable chilli. I promise you it is very easy to make and you won't burn it.
Yours,
Rory
PS I checked the details of both mine and your contract with the agency. While we are forbidden to communicate by email, social media, or mobile phone, it does not appear to exclude letter.
She places the page down flat on the table and notices how her heart is fluttering madly in her chest. Running her fingers over the sweeps of his hand, feeling the indent his pen has made on the paper, she realises he's written his address at the top of the page. Is this an invitation to reply? She lifts the page and takes a deep inhale. His scent is faintly there.
On Saturday she heads to the supermarket with the printout and buys all the ingredients on the list and then spends the afternoon carefully following the steps. She tries very hard to concentrate on the instructions but she gets a little bored and a little distracted thinking about the fact he'd written to her, and she burns the onions, forgets to add the kidney beans and over boils the rice. Still, it's probably the best thing she's ever managed to cook, and she eats it with a satisfied grin on her face.
When she's finished, she searches the flat until she finds a pad of letter paper her mother gave her as a birthday present years ago. It's never been touched. Then she curls up on her bed and drafts him a reply.
Dear Rory,
Thank you for the recipe. You were correct: I had finished all the food and so instead of eating takeaway pizza today, I tried the recipe. I can't say it was an overwhelming success. Perhaps I need a few more tips?
Yours,
Alice
She is very tempted to squirt the letter with her perfume before she places it in the envelope but she knows he would probably prefer her natural scent so she runs the paper over the scent glands on her wrists, blushing as she does it, knowing it's pretty damn provocative. Then she seals the envelope, writes the address and fixes the stamp. If she dashes out to post it now, it'll arrive Monday, most probably, which will mean the earliest she can hope for a reply is Wednesday. It seems like a lifetime away.
Wednesday comes but no letter, and she's taken aback by how disappointed she feels. On Thursday, however, there's one waiting for her again on the mat, the same black hand scribbled across the envelope.
Eagerly, she rips it open and pulls out the letter. This time it smells more pungently of him, and she knows he's scented it just like she had hers. She brings the sheet up to her nose and takes a deep inhale and immediately his smell has her stomach spinning.
