Falling Fast Read online

  & Jerry’s SuperFudgeChunk ice cream when she got back to the sanctuary of her apartment.

  Alexa wondered how anyone could possibly think the pathetic little spa lunch they had served her today — cucumber sandwiches with some disgusting rubbery yellow stuff that they were trying to pass off as cheese — even counted as food.

  Her stomach grumbled loudly just thinking about it. As soon as she could escape the salon, she was going to buy two chili dogs from the vendor. Licking her newly glossed lips, she closed her eyes in ecstasy at the thought of the greasy, steaming fulfillment.

  *

  The sun was setting by the time Brandon headed back to his car. He hadn’t come to any firm conclusions about anything, but he felt better just for looking out at the ocean for a couple of hours.

  Yes, he may have been a bit hasty in signing the contract with the TV network, but what if he really could find a wife among the thirty women they picked for him? Someone to take to corporate functions, to host cocktail parties for his customers, to fill that odd void inside of him that seemed to grow bigger with every wedding and baby christening he attended.

  His spirits suddenly lighter, he took in the goings on in the San Francisco Marina neighborhood with his usual interest. He’d always loved wandering through streets at night, looking into lighted windows to catch a glimpse of other people’s lives.

  Then, all of sudden, something in a store window caught his eye and he stopped dead in his tracks. All at once, Brandon realized that he had been completely, absolutely, and utterly wrong about there being no such thing as love at first sight. And about there being no chance of falling fast for a woman.

  Because he had a feeling he’d just found his perfect woman.

  Smooth olive skin, full red mouth, and large, slightly tilted hazel eyes.

  The woman licked her luscious lips, closed her eyes, and leaned back against the lime green seat with a very contented sigh.

  What Brandon wouldn’t give to be the gloss on her lips.

  He had always thought he preferred blondes. Nope. Rich brown, with a hint of red and black highlights was so much better.

  He’d always thought small women better suited him. Wrong again. He’d take long legs on this woman any day.

  But it was when she opened her eyes that he fell completely under her spell. How could he have ever thought blue eyes were sexy? Big and blue had nothing, repeat, nothing over mysterious, long-lashed hazel eyes.

  Mid-gape, Brandon caught a glimpse of himself in the wall-to-wall salon mirrors. He looked like a big, drooling idiot, so he scooted out of the way, standing with his back pressed up against a pillar.

  How could he, he asked himself, in good conscience, ask out this amazing woman when he knew with 100% certainty that he was going to have to marry someone else in two weeks?

  *

  She was free! No more lessons or cuts or waxing. Until the next day, in any case, when a personal shopper at Nordstrom was going to overhaul her wardrobe. Alexa dreaded shopping with a passion, but a byline was a byline, and her day at the spa hadn’t completely sucked away her will to live.

  Besides, the interviews for the show were at 5pm tomorrow and she was determined to secure a spot. Somehow, some way, she needed to tap into her innate female power and be gorgeous, funny, sexy, demure — whatever they were looking for.

  Alexa snorted, laughing at her thoughts of innate female power. She stepped out of the overly bright salon in to the night-lit sidewalk and made a beeline for the street vendor.

  “Two chili dogs please,”

  “You hungry or something lady?”

  Alexa grinned widely. “You better believe it! Lay the toppings on thick.”

  “I like a girl with an appetite,” he leered at her, showing a mouth full of gaps and holes.

  “Me too,” Alexa agreed, not the least bit concerned with his physical appearance or apparent interest in her. She rubbed her empty belly and watched with glee as the vendor loaded chili, cheese, onions, mustard and pickles onto a huge sausage. Practically drooling, she grabbed it off of the counter as he made her second dog and took a couple of big bites, barely pausing to chew or swallow.

  “You want me to wrap this other one up to go?”

  Alexa was tempted to eat both dogs right there, but home sounded really, really good after her day of spa torture. She managed an “mmphh” around the food in her mouth by way of saying yes.

  After she paid, she spun around to head for home and smashed her beloved half-eaten hot dog—chili, mustard and onions too—all over herself and some guy who had appeared out of nowhere.

  Glancing down at both of their clothes, Alexa resisted the urge to start babbling apologies, clamping her mouth shut in a firm line. Granted, she had moved a little quickly with her hands full of their important package, but he shouldn’t have been standing so close to her in the first place. What was he, some sort of creep?

  Not to mention the sad fact that most of her truly delicious, partially eaten chili dog was now lying on the pavement between them.

  “Shoot. I really wanted that,” she muttered as she picked up a hunk of chili meat from her chest and popped it into her mouth.

  “Can I buy you another one?” the guy asked her.

  Wow, she thought, as she picked a couple more chunks of food off herself and munched on them, this guy was being sort of nice about her clumsy maneuver. Newly interested to see who she had smeared chili all over she finally looked up from mourning her fallen dog.

  Oh god! It figured that she would act like a complete idiot with what had to be one of the best looking guys she had ever seen live, in person.

  As the thought whizzed through her mind, she quickly amended it, using her writer’s skills to draw a more accurate picture. He wasn’t perfect by any means — his hair was somewhere between brown and black, his eyes weren’t quite blue or green, and his nose was practically too big — but the way that his features had been arranged meant that she was heating up in one newly waxed region of her body.

  A passer-by jolted her arm and she snapped to, realizing she was making an even bigger ass of herself by standing there gaping at him.

  “Oh no, that’s OK, I’ve got another one,” she finally managed to say all in a rush and then added, “And hey, sorry about your clothes.”

  The fine looking stranger smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Looks like you got more than your share of the mess.”

  His smile practically made Alexa swoon. What is happening to me today? she hissed at herself, more than a little upset by her reaction to this gorgeous stranger.

  A little wax, hair dye and makeup and she had turned into a big ball of female hormones.

  CHAPTER THREE

  While Alexa was battling unfamiliar, insidious female urges, Brandon was desperately trying to think of some way to keep her talking to him. Chili stains or not, his perfect woman was even more perfect up close. Upright and moving, she was even more luscious than he could have imagined from his earlier voyeuristic vantage point.

  Unfortunately, now that she was standing right in front of him, all he’d done so far was make her drop her coveted chili dog.

  Smooth move, buddy.

  Her obvious love of food was yet another thing about her that was just right. Not to mention how she didn’t simper all over the place to apologize for trashing his clothes with her meal. Any other women he had ever been with would have been in the middle of a crying fit right now.

  Plus, he noted with some surprise, she was wearing one green tennis shoe and one red one. Somehow, he didn’t think it was a fashion statement. He just had a feeling it had slipped by her notice that morning. Could it be? A woman who didn’t spend every waking moment on clothes?

  It was such a relief to meet a truly unique woman. He couldn’t let her slip through his fingers.

  “Could I buy you a beer to make up for losing half your meal?”

  “You want to go get a beer looking like this?” she asked him, gesturing to her fi
lthy tshirt and jeans.

  “Hey, at least we match.”

  Laughing, she said, “I’d say you’ve definitely got more mustard going on than I do. But I guess we can go get a beer if you really want to.”

  Brandon let out the breath he’d been holding. “Great,” he said, scanning his brain for the perfect place to get to know this perfect woman better. “There’s a great bar about a block from here.”

  “Murphy’s?”

  “You know it?”

  Alexa nodded. “I put in some part-time hours there,” she told him and then added in reverent tones, “They have great onion rings.”

  Brandon grinned, pleased by her unabashed enjoyment of greasy food. His last girlfriend had jumped from one diet to another. The zone diet, the grapefruit diet, the eat-only-green-foods diet. He had gotten an earful on all of them. He had never enjoyed one single meal out with her, as she picked through her food instead of eating it.

  Yes indeed, this gorgeous brunette was just what he was looking for.

  “Sounds like I’ll have to throw in a basket of onion rings too, won’t I?”

  Alexa nodded and licked her lips. “Oh yes,” she said and then picked up her bag and started off towards the bar.

  Could she possibly know the power she wielded with the two simple words, “Oh yes”?

  *

  Ten minutes later they walked into Murphy’s and Brandon felt like the luckiest guy in the world to be sharing a table with her. He was damn sure anyone else in the room would kill for the privilege, considering every guy from twenty-one to eighty had ogled her as she made her way past them.

  As she slid into the booth, she smiled up at him and promptly stole his breath away, again. He felt like a pimply teenager with her — his mind was blank save the thoughts of how stunning she was.

  Before he could get his thoughts in any sort of working order, the bartender walked up and said, “Look at you lass. What have you done to yourself?”

  Alexa grimaced. “It’s a long story. I look awful don’t I?”

  The bartender cocked his head to one side and rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “You’re still passable.” Winking at Brandon he said, “What will you and your friend here be havin’?”

  “Cider and rings for me,” Alexa replied.

  Brandon answered, “Pale ale,” and the bartender nodded and headed back to the bar.

  Finally finding his tongue, Brandon said, “Do you like working here?”

  Alexa nodded. “Yeah, there are a bunch of really cool regulars. But I’ve recently cut my hours back so that I can put more time into my other job.”

  “What’s that?” Brandon asked as the bartender dropped off their drinks and rings.

  “I’m a writer,” Alexa said around a mouthful of fried onions.

  “Really?” Brandon was impressed. She had beauty and brains.

  Alexa gave him a half smile and washed her mouthful down with a large swig of peach cider. “Well, practically. I work for a magazine and after a year of proofing and editing I just got my first big story today!”

  There was no mistaking the pride in her eyes. Brandon desperately wanted to do something that would make her eyes light up like that.

  “Congrats! What’s the story?”

  Her eyes twinkled as she said, “It’s top secret.”

  Brandon grinned. “I’ll figure out a way to get it out of you eventually. I’ve just got to find your weak spot first.”

  *

  Alexa looked into his eyes and panicked. She was in major trouble if he had figured out what she knew after only fifteen minutes.

  He was her weak spot.

  All he would have to say was, “Tell me all about your story and then I’ll make mad, passionate love to you,” and she would have folded. Especially when she had a feeling the couple of guys she’d had sex with in college wouldn’t even count after Brandon.

  Her mouth suddenly dry as a desert, she put her cider to her lips and drained the rest of her glass.

  Disgusted, she put her glass back on the table. She had never been reduced to such a pathetic mess before in the presence of a guy. Not since the 5th grade when Joey stopped her on the playground to ask for his basketball back had she felt so weak at the knees.

  Weak at the knees? For god’s sake, she was sitting down. How could she possibly know how her knees were feeling? With as little outward movement as possible she stretched her legs out underneath the table.

  Damn. She was a little jelly-like right around her knees, as it turned out. What in the heck was she going to do to get herself out of this pathetic mess?

  Alexa certainly didn’t believe in love at first sight and she sure as hell didn’t believe in trusting a man to take care of her. She’d seen how those false beliefs had wrecked her mother and sister over the years, leading them towards new haircuts, face lifts, and breast implants in the hopes that they could make themselves ‘better’ for the opposite sex, and somehow more worthwhile.

  Alexa only believed in what she could see as fact, preferably in print. She had read The Beauty Myth twice, so she knew what she was up against.

  Her hormones had turned traitorously girly on her, just like her unrecognizable hair color and made up face. Alexa knew she had to get out of the bar, and fast, otherwise she was bound to lose all sense of herself. She flat out refused to let that happen, particularly as she was at the tail end of a very long day of selling out for a story.

  She felt inexplicably weary, even though she had done nothing more strenuous than lay around and be plucked, colored, cut, and painted. More than anything, she wanted to take a long hot bath, clean off the goop on her body, and remind herself of all the good reasons she had for what she was doing.

  Frankly, even being in the same room with — oh god, she was obsessing about a guy who hadn’t even told her his name, for crying out loud, she was weaker than she thought — this gorgeous stranger, was jumbling up her insides. If she didn’t leave soon, she might realize her worst fear.

  She might actually throw herself at a guy.

  Alexa pulled out a $10 Joe from her back pocket and threw it on the table. Scooting over to slide out of the booth, she said, “I’ve got to get going. Thanks for the beer.”

  Brandon stared at her in disbelief. “You’re leaving?”

  Alexa wanted to run out of the bar without answering. Instead she was going to give this guy some lame excuse because she didn’t have the nerve to say, “Stop looking at me like I’m the answer to all of your prayers. I’m not that kind of girl, and I never will be. Not even for you, no matter how gorgeous you are.”

  She tried to project an air of confidence, sure she was failing miserably. “Actually, I just remembered I’m supposed to be somewhere else right now. Bye.” She turned and scurried out of the bar and away from him.

  It wasn’t until she was several blocks away that she realized she had left her second chili dog in the booth. But since she had also lost her appetite, it didn’t really matter.

  She had lost more than just her appetite, though. She had lost the ability to control her own life. In only twenty-four hours, everything had gone from perfectly normal to horribly unfamiliar. She dreaded the morning to come at Nordstrom’s more than ever. Once they dressed her up like a doll, what would happen to her? Would she end up married with a house in the suburbs and 2.4 kids?

  She sure as hell hoped not.

  Alexa whipped her cell phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. “Jared?”

  “Hey what’s up?”

  Alexa smiled. Then, remembering her predicament, her smile turned into a frown. “The worst thing in the world has happened to me.”

  “Did you just find out that you weren’t adopted after all?” Jared asked, his voice thick with mock-shock. “Whatever it is, just don’t tell me that Mel is actually your sister by blood. I don’t think I can take it.”

  Even in her funk, Jared could make her laugh. “No. It’s not that bad, I guess,” she said, keeping their fifteen y
ear running joke going about how she had to have been adopted with a gotta-be-glam mom like Sophie and an all-woman-all-the-time sister like Melanie. “But it’s pretty damn bad.” She sighed loudly into the phone. “Jane’s given me my first cover story.”

  Jared whooped so loud that Alexa had to pull the phone back from her ear. “Alexa, you rock!”

  “I wish,” Alexa muttered.

  “I don’t get it? What’s the problem?”

  “The problem,” she said, spitting each word out one at a time, “is that I am officially pretty now.” She felt a twinge of guilt about leaving the hunky smashed chili dog guy off of her list of complaints, but she really wasn’t up to dealing with his ridiculous out-of-the-blue lustful urges right now. “I’m going undercover on this dating show and Jane sent me to a,” she lowered her voice and glanced around her to make sure no one was listening, “spa. ”

  Jared gasped and she continued. “I’ve been subjected to every form of torture imaginable. Hot wax, sharp scissors. Makeup! ”

  “Oh shit,” Jared said, his voice dropping to a low whisper. “That’s bad. That’s real bad.”

  Alexa groaned. “You’re telling me.”

  “You’d better come over so that you can tell me the whole sordid tale,” Jared said sympathetically, his voice fairly dripping with curiosity.

  “Give me five,” Alexa said as she clicked her cell phone shut. Jared didn’t have any idea just how close he was to the truth. Sordid disaster described her situation perfectly. Especially since she couldn’t get his face out of her head, no matter how many blocks she put between her and the bar, where she had just left him like the wimp that she was.

  *

  Brandon sat in front of his half-drunk glass of beer and stared at the newly vacated seat across from him in the booth. He had no idea why she had fled the bar out of the blue like that.

  It couldn’t have been anything he had said, could it? After all, they were barely getting to know each other. And he didn’t think he had done anything to offend her. Although, according to all of his ex-girlfriends, he was a totally clueless male, so maybe he had.

  To top it all off, he didn’t even know her name. He thought about asking the bartender for it, but then what? He had signed a contract that stated, quite clearly, that he had to meet and marry a virtual stranger in two weeks. Brandon could just see it all unfolding; if he did get her name and ask her out, she would hate him when she found out he had known all along that he was already taken — by a damn TV show of all things!