Jessica Hart - Here Comes The Bride

“I’ve noticed,” he inserted in a tone that sent a wild shiver of excitement through her body. “I waited a whole year for the kind of kiss you gave me at the party.”

Her breath caught. “That was for fun.”

“It felt like a lot more than that to me, and I ought to know better than any man…unless you’ve been seeing someone behind my back.”

“What do you mean behind your back?”

“Exactly what I said. Who’s the man in your life who has opened you up and made you give more freely of yourself? I thought I knew everything about you.”

She blinked. “There isn’t another man.”

“The guy at the dealership would never believe it.”

“I don’t care what he believes.” She eyed Alex covertly. “I could ask you the same question. Who’s your secret woman?”

“If you really want to know, I’ll tell you about her later. How’s that?”

“Is it serious between you two?” She could have shot herself for asking the question, but it was out now and she couldn’t take it back.

“Very.”

She clutched her hands together and stared blindly through the side window, away from him. “I see. Is she an actress, too?”

“No.”

They’d come to the Pacific Coast Highway. He turned right and joined the stream of traffic headed north. Suddenly the mood between them had darkened. With every mile, her agony increased.

Agreeing to spend the rest of the day with him was the worst mistake of her life.

“Alex, I-”

“Don’t worry,” he cut her off. “We don’t have a long drive. I promise to feed you.”

“I ate at the party.”

“One mouthful. I watched.”

She took a ragged breath, not knowing what to say. His behavior was so different than usual. Always before he’d treated her like a cherished sister. But ever since she’d backed into his truck, it felt as if everything had changed. In some indefinable way, he’d changed.

The next sign came into view. Malibu lay just around the curve in the highway.

Like many Hollywood stars, Clark Robison, the actor who played Carlo on the show, lived there with his wife and family. One evening soon after Reese had gotten the part of Carly, he’d invited the cast to a party at his fabulous house in Topanga Canyon.

Reese could still remember standing on his deck, trying to imagine what it would be like to live in such a paradise with the man you loved. At that point in time, Alex hadn’t arrived on the scene yet.

What an irony that, almost two years later, she discovered herself sitting next to the man of her dreams at the very moment the truck passed the turn-off for Clark’s home.

She studied the landscape. Amazingly, the chaparral-type vegetation that had gone up in flames from the terrible fires of the recent past had grown back a lot since she’d come to Malibu for the party.

“Here we are,” Alex broke in on her thoughts. He’d turned left at the light and had driven them into the parking area of a one-story building on the ocean side of the highway. There were a dozen workmen moving about. The place was obviously undergoing major renovations.

He read the question in her eyes.

“Once this was an art gallery. As you can see, a lot of it was scorched, and some of the rooms partially destroyed by fire. I bought it for a good price over the holidays.”

This was one of his unfinished projects?

A good price in Malibu was probably three to four million dollars. But her aunt had told her that because three different television networks had wanted to sign up Alex, he’d been offered the kind of a salary to afford the very best, and he’d taken it.

Alex got out of the truck and walked around her side to help her down. Every time he touched her, even if it was just to assist her to the ground as he was doing now, she felt it to the very bones of her body.

“Come inside. One of the rooms has been drywalled so I can use it to work.”

“Are you a famous artist I should know about? Or maybe an art dealer who’s planning a new opening?”

He stared at her through veiled eyes. “Neither one.” He extended his hand. “Hold on to me while we make our way through-it’s a maze of building materials at the moment.”

Reese was glad for his support. With almost every step she needed to be careful as he guided her past the weathered-looking stones a workman was fitting into place in front of the building. Two men worked in harmony tiling the roof.

With Alex’s help, she reached some wooden steps leading into the shell of a rectangular room with a stone fireplace at one end. The bank of windows facing the ocean was covered by plastic so you couldn’t see the view. Another group of workmen were putting in dark wooden beams across the ceiling. They nodded to Alex.

“Watch your step,” he cautioned Reese as they stepped down another makeshift wooden staircase at the opposite end of the room. It led into a smaller room with a patio table and a couple of lawn chairs. Plastic sheeting prevented her from looking out at the ocean.

Alex seated her. “Take a look through this. I’ll be right back.”

Intrigued, she opened the looseleaf binder he pushed in front of her. It was full of photographs mounted beneath transparent overlays. The yellowish color on the edges of the pictures told her they’d been taken a long time ago.

Though she’d never been to Greece, the charming, centuries-old country house hidden by greenery couldn’t be located anywhere else. Many exterior and interior angles revealed the detail of beamed ceilings and stone walls with niches containing icons.

She loved the ancient stone fireplace and indoor tile trim running the length of the heavy beams that curved with age.

In the front of the off-white villa was a delightful patio and fountain inlaid with stone. The whole place was smothered with overgrown vines and trees.

By the time she’d looked at the last set of photos, which included a much younger Alex and his grandparents, she marveled to realize he was recreating that same villa here in Malibu, the kind that looked several hundred years old.

He came up behind her and put a can of cola on the table next to her. “What do you think?”

Her heart gave a strong kick. “When this is finished, you will have captured the enchantment of your grandparents’ home. I absolutely adore it. How long do you think it will be before you and the woman you love can live here?”

She’d decided to come right out with it so he wouldn’t think she was getting any romantic ideas about him.

He sat down opposite her and began drinking from his can. She watched his throat work, enjoying the sight of him relaxed and seemingly content. She studied his long, powerful legs stretched out in front of him. His fingers were long and lean, too. Everything about him was beautiful. Too beautiful.

After he put his empty can on the table, she felt his penetrating gaze. “We won’t be living here.”

His comment set her straight with a vengeance. “I don’t understand.”

“This is going to be a Greek restaurant.”

“Restaurant?”

“That’s right. I’ll do the cooking. She’ll help me run the place.”

“You cook?”

“I do.” He pulled the looseleaf binder toward him and pointed to one of the pictures. “You see that patio with all the tables?”

“Yes?”

“My grandparents enlarged their house and ran a taverna there for many years.”

“You never told me that before.”

“I thought I did. I learned to cook in my grandmother’s kitchen.”

“Well, I remember you saying something about that, but I had no idea you meant she turned it into a business.”

He nodded. “She taught me how to make everything according to her exact specifications. It was a sad day when she passed away. My grandfather stopped wanting to live. He died within the year.”

She lowered her head for a moment. “How hard that must have been for you.”

“You would know,” he murmured. “The place was so full of memories, and so empty, I couldn’t stay there alone. So I put it in the hands of a Realtor to rent, and I left for New York on a worker’s visa.”

“I can relate to wanting to leave.” No wonder Alex was being so solicitous of her today. His ties to his grandparents were as great as hers to Lilian. She loved him that much more for being sensitive to her needs.

No man she’d ever met could measure up to Alex. Reese was shattered by his admission that he was deeply in love with someone else.

“There are plenty of Greek restaurants in New York in need of a good cook,” he continued to explain, unaware of her agony. “I had all the work I wanted while I continued to study English and begin the arduous process of becoming a citizen.”

How come he’d waited all these months before confiding this kind of personal information to her? When she thought of the many talks they’d had…

“What brought you to Los Angeles?” Even though she knew there was this important woman in his life, Reese couldn’t prevent herself from asking more questions. As long as he was giving her the opportunity, she had this incurable need to learn everything and anything about him.

BENEATH his dark brows, Alex’s black gaze trapped Reese’s. “You fell into acting because of a fluke. So did I.”

“How did it happen?”

“I worked under a famous Greek chef at the Athena Plaza in downtown Manhattan. Someone suggested he do a pilot for a television show. He needed an assistant and asked me to help. It meant more money for me, which I badly needed to support myself.”

“That’s how you got on TV? A cooking show? Fabio Andretti?” She couldn’t believe it.

His smile reached his eyes. “Not Fabio. The upshot is, the pilot did well, but the weekly series didn’t. My boss didn’t have the personality of a Chef Emeril, who’s been a great success on American television.”