Page 18 of Saving Mr. Bell

“Are you expecting me to bring you breakfast in bed?”

“You should,” I shot back. “It’s the least you should do.” I might be resigned to my plight, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t remind Arlo every chance I got that I was here under duress, my stay as temporary as I could make it. As soon as the weather cleared and enough of the snow melted, he could drive me back to Salzburg and I could get on with my life.

He appeared in the bedroom's doorway and I met his gaze in the mirror as he studied me. “Why do you look better in my clothes than I do?”

I rolled my eyes. “If you’re fishing for compliments, you kidnapped…” His expression had me self-correcting before he could get his knickers in a twist about me flinging that word out there again. “…you borrowed the wrong man.”

“Borrowed?” Arlo’s lips twitched. “You make yourself sound like a cup of sugar.”

I winked. “Well… I can be quite sweet.” Shit! Was I flirting? Did I want to flirt with Arlo? He wasn’t my usual club bunny twink with gym-honed muscles, but there was no disputing him being good-looking. Arlo was more your classically handsome male with chestnut brown hair, blue eyes and symmetrical features all rounded off with good bone structure. Would he flirt back?

“I just came to say your breakfast is getting cold.”

That was it? I flirted with him and that’s what I got. It was probably as well, but it rankled. It might be a tad egotistical of me, but I was used to more of a reaction. Whether because of my looks, my fame, or a combination of the two.

After the fry-up yesterday, breakfast was a healthier affair of home-made porridge, making me think the previous day’s had been a deliberate attempt to counteract some of the alcohol in my system. Which was… Well, it was damn thoughtful was what it was. It was good porridge, Arlo not bothering to hide his pleasure when I told him as much.

Once breakfast was done with, both of us happy to concentrate on eating rather than talking, I retired to the sofa while Arlo unpacked one of the boxes he’d pointed out the previous evening with a childlike enthusiasm far more charming than it had any right to be. “Do the stars of some of those hard-hitting documentaries of yours know you go giddy over glittery snowmen?”

Arlo lifted his head from his scrutiny of what was indeed a glittery snowman. A pink one at that, although there appearedto be blue ones as well. From what I could tell, it was a tree ornament. I decided not to spoil Arlo’s fun, as he held it between finger and thumb and watched it spin, by pointing out that there was no tree to hang it on. He was an intelligent man; he’d work it out eventually. It was possible an unopened box might contain one, but I doubted it, none of them big enough unless the tree was tiny. In which case, the hulking snowmen would dwarf it.

Arlo grinned. He had a nice smile. I’d thought so six years ago, and it hadn’t deteriorated since, probably because that wasn’t a thing with smiles. “Are you asking if I shared my love of tacky Christmas ornaments with the head of the mafia? Funnily enough, it never came up.”

“He was Italian,” I mused. “They’re big on family, right? I bet they really go for it at Christmas. You missed an opportunity there. You could have bonded and got him to admit some stuff that would have won you accolades.”

Arlo’s response was to throw the snowman at me. I snatched it out of the air one-handed and subjected it to scrutiny. Up close, it looked more classy than it had from a distance, and I could see why it had mesmerized Arlo, the sparkles catching the light. “My mother loved Christmas,” I said, unable to keep the note of melancholy out of my voice.

“I know,Rudolf Bell,” Arlo said.

Yeah, my name was a nod to just how much she’d loved the festive period. Not the Bell part obviously, although it had crossed my mind that with her and my father being such polar opposites, that it was possible she’d married him for his surname. But definitely teaming a name already linked to Christmas because of a certain red-nosed sleigh-pulling creature with a surname that also had a link. And then, of course, there was my middle name. My middle name that no one in the world apart from my father and me, and possibly some other relatives, knew. Which made the next words out of my mouth, especiallyto someone who made his living by ferreting out facts from people, difficult to understand. “You should hear my middle name.”

Arlo dropped the miniature Christmas tree he held like it was a hot coal to stare at me like I’d just fed him the juicy tidbit to end all tidbits. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a Christmas-themed middle name as well.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“What is it?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He shuffled closer, the boxes forgotten for the time-being. “Yeah, I would.” His brow furrowed, like he was thinking hard. “The notes I had on you when I was making the documentary never mentioned a middle name. I would have remembered.”

I smirked. “Well, there are certain things you swear everyone to secrecy about. As far as I’m concerned, when people ask, I don’t have one.”

“Interesting!” He narrowed his eyes. “I bet I can guess it.”

“I bet you can’t.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes taking on a hard glint that, despite it having been years since I’d last seen it, I recognized as his professional stance. “Angel?” I shook my head. “Holly?” Another shake. “Snow? Icicle?”

I frowned. “Wouldn’t that be more winter themed than Christmas?”

The suggestions came thick and fast after that until they bordered on things more ridiculous than the truth. Which was impressive, considering.

“Blitzen?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” I drawled with a derision the suggestion deserved. “My middle name is the other twelve reindeer.”

“Imagine,” Arlo said with a laugh. “There wouldn’t be room on the birth certificate.” He gave a sigh. “I give up. Tell me.”

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