Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake (Winner Bakes All #1) - Alexis Hall Page 0,51

in the middle—she’s a stay-at-home mum, and a bloody good one. And then there’s Sam, who’s been through some stuff, but she’s doing all right now.”

“I’m an only child,” Rosaline admitted. “Which I sort of think people can tell.”

“I wouldn’t say that. You don’t act spoiled or nothing.”

“So you claim, but I just dragged you all over the set so you could watch me throw tantrums at people.”

“It’s important to stand up for yourself, mate.” Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he drove his toe into the gravel. “Look, now you’ve rung your kid and told Colin what’s what, do you wanna—”

“Ah, there you are.” Alain emerged from between two of the trailers. “I’ve been looking all over for you, Rosaline.”

She turned to find him looking tall and elegant and familiar, half smiling in the spill of light from the hotel. And it was pretty much perfect timing because, not only had she recovered from her unflattering mumzilla moment, but it had seemed like Harry was about to ask her for a drink. And that would have been . . . complicated. Because, honestly, if Rosaline had been a few years younger and hadn’t had Amelie to think about, she might have taken a chance on a more-decent-than-he-seemed guy whose guns were better than his grammar. Just because she could.

Except in the real world, there was no way she was going to throw away a burgeoning connection with a someone who could genuinely be right for her over—actually she had no idea what it was even over. A moment of curiosity? A private act of rebellion? The magpie impulse to grab at something shiny.

Or none of the above. And a drink would just have been a drink.

“Sorry,” she said to Alain. “I had something I needed to deal with. And now it’s dealt with. So . . . go me.”

His eyes darted from her to Harry and back. “Yes, I saw you were busy and didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it.”

“Well, if everything’s okay now, I was wondering if you felt like another walk?”

She definitely felt like another walk. Highlights of their previous walks had included being forgiven for lying about basically her entire life and kissing on a bridge by moonlight. They were, she felt, pretty good at walking. Besides, she’d spent all week being the harried single-mum version of Rosaline—the one who couldn’t get her boiler fixed or her parents to take her seriously. So she was almost embarrassingly grateful for a chance to be a different Rosaline for a while. Someone bold and sexy and adventurous who got to be with a man who even St. John Palmer couldn’t find fault with.

She nodded. “Definitely.”

Alain glanced briefly at Harry again. “You don’t mind if I steal Rosaline, do you?”

“I reckon with people,” Harry said, “it’s called kidnapping.”

“Actually, it’s called an idiom.” It was Alain’s most withering voice, which Rosaline wasn’t quite used to hearing directed at people rather than about them. But then he offered his hand to her and smiled. “Shall we?”

They left Harry in the car park and headed out into the grounds. And Rosaline tried to let go of everything that was tugging at her and worrying her and weighing on her—wanting to lose herself instead in the sky, the trees, and the man at her side.

And it was mostly working.

It was just that she also felt the tiniest bit guilty.

“Don’t you . . . ,” she began, “I mean, wasn’t that a bit much back there? With Harry.”

He paused. “In what way?”

“Well, he was clearly joking about the kidnapping thing. And I thought you were, I don’t know, a bit mean to him about it?”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it went over his head.”

“I . . . I don’t think that makes it better.”

“Oh come on.” He smirked knowingly. “He probably thinks Idiom is an island a couple of miles south of Magaluf.”

“You’re not funny,” Rosaline told him, trying not to laugh. “He’s been very nice to me.”

“Of course he has. He clearly wants to get his spanner into your fuse box.”

“Actually, that might be useful. My fuse box is playing up a bit . . . ”

At this Alain gave her a wary look.

“I mean,” she went on quickly, “I mean my actual fuse box. In my actual house. Not, you know, my vagina. Which, I hasten to add, is in full working order.”

His brow flicked up. “Good to know.”

They were approaching the edge of one of the little woods that