The Importance of Being Alice by Katie MacAlister Read Free Book Online

on psychic energies to allow negativity to take over one’s thoughts. Or something along those lines—I have to admit to tuning out when she goes into her psychic energy spiel.
    â€œDay One,” I said aloud when I woke up almost twelve hours later. I was still lying on top of the bed, fully clothed, although evidently my new roomie had taken pity on me and draped a blanket over me. I looked around the smallcabin, saying aloud, “He’s not here. Huh. I wonder if I snored him out of the room.”
    â€œNot quite, although you did snore.” Elliott emerged from a minuscule bathroom that I vaguely remembered visiting in the middle of the night. “You appeared to be extremely tired. I assume you are feeling much better, and will be leaving the cabin shortly?”
    â€œSubtlety isn’t your forte, is it?” I asked as I took off my shoes and socks, and used them to gesture at his laptop, already open and running on the tiny table. “What sort of man works on his vacation?”
    â€œOne who is more interested in the quiet offered by an empty cabin,” he said, his gaze drifting over to frown at the explosion of clothes that poured out of my travel bag. I remembered his travel iron and neat socks, and smiled to myself. I wasn’t an overly messy person, but tiredness the night before, and a natural tendency to get distracted easily, had left my side of the room far from tidy.
    I tossed my dirty socks and shoes on the ground next to my bag, and knelt down to dig out a light dress and clean underwear. “Like I said, not strong on the subtlety. What is it, exactly, that you plan on doing once I’m out of the cabin? Because I’ll know if you touched my things.”
    He looked shocked. “I beg your pardon?”
    I waved a pair of undies at him. “If you have some sort of lingerie fetish, I’ll know.” I thought a moment, and tucked my shoes into my bag. “Or feet fetish. My stuff is off-limits, OK? I don’t want to have to keep locking my bag, but I will if I have to.”
    Elliott’s shoulders stiffened. “If you were a man, I’d take offense with the suggestion that I have any desire to either fondle or steal your belongings.”
    â€œIf I were a man, I’d have a problem with the fact that I had packed lingerie.”
    He stared at me in incomprehension.
    â€œIt was a little joke.” I gave him a doubtful look, then continued. “What sort of books do you write?”
    He sighed the sigh of a martyred man. “Fiction. And since I know it will be your next question, yes, I am published. I write espionage novels featuring a deaf former spy named Liam.”
    â€œWow, that sounds . . . intense. Is espionage just an interest, or are you a former spy, too?”
    â€œI’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
    I stared in horror at him. Was he serious, or just pulling my leg? He didn’t look like he was joking, but then, some people had great deadpan delivery of lines like that.
    No, he was joking. He had to be joking. He was a baron, after all. He couldn’t be a baron and a spy. Could he?
    â€œAs it is, I am very late on a book, and since my family’s activities ensure my home is less than conducive to productivity of any kind, I accepted Patrick’s offer of two weeks in which to write unmolested.” He gave me a stern look. “Despite the snoring, and the fact that you were evidently raised without such things as wardrobes, bureaus, or other devices intended to store clothes outside of a suitcase, I anticipate getting a good chunk of this book finished by the time we arrive in Budapest.”
    â€œI was supposed to get married in Budapest,” I said sadly, thinking about all the work I’d done arranging with the U.S. embassy to have the marriage in Hungary.
    The expression on his face was almost comical in its surprise. “I am not looking for a