Love notes Read online

  Love Notes

  By

  Avis Exley

  Published by Avis Exley at Smashwords

  Copyright 2012 Avis Exley

  Author Note

  Avis Exley opened her first romance novel at the age of fourteen and has been reading and writing them ever since. A slave to research, she’s travelled the world in the company of international playboys, property magnates, ultra-successful businessmen, medieval knights and even a Viking prince. A typical day sees Avis lying on a silken cushion and sipping champagne whilst auditioning handsome, well-muscled men for a starring role in her next story.

  Although brought up in the English countryside, Avis heard the streets of London were paved with gold and headed for the capital. It was love at first sight. She instantly fell for the city’s history, energy and iconic sights, and she’s so proud it’s been the focus of the world during the Jubilee and Olympic year. Now London and Britain’s lesser-known locations provide the inspirational backdrop for the first of Avis’s novels to be released in e-book form. Find Avis Exley’s extracts on Tumblr, Pinterest and Facebook to see if you can fall in Brit Love too.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Please help prevent copyright infringement

  E-books are so easy for illegal sites to copy redistribute without any payment going to authors. This e-book is only available through Amazon, Lulu or sites related to Smashwords and is not being offered for sale anywhere else. If you downloaded this from any other website, it’s an illegal copy and I’d be grateful to hear where you found it. [Don’t worry, I won’t make you pay for it again!]

  If you’ve enjoyed this book, please tell your friends about it, or lend them your e-book reader so they can read it for free, but please don’t share the electronic file. Pirate sites prosper at the expense of authors – so put the money where it deserves to go and there’ll be plenty more books for you to enjoy in the future.

  Thanks so much for your help, Avis xx [email protected]

  Copyright  2012 Avis Exley

  All rights reserved. This e-book [or any portion thereof] may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Whilst I’d love the characters to be real, this is a work of fiction. Except for London’s iconic hotels and landmarks, all other names, characters, events, places and brands are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  Advisory – 18+ content. This hot romance is intended for an adult audience only.

  To make this story even more exciting, it has its own Tumblr and Pinterest pages, with pictures of the novel’s iconic locations and story extracts. Share the romance by finding out more about the book’s settings and visiting the places the characters live, work and fall in love.

  Pinterest http://pinterest.com/avisexley/ Tumblr http://avisexley.tumblr.com/

  Please friend me on Facebook too http://www.facebook.com/AvisExleyRomanceAuthor

  Chapter One

  “I hate England!’ Marty Cooper glared out of the helicopter window at the rain-soaked Yorkshire countryside, barely visible in the gathering dusk. “How the hell can they say God was an Englishman when he created this miserable place? Does it always rain?”

  He had no idea Erika had switched off her headphones shortly after take-off so she wouldn’t need to listen to his constant complaining.

  Everything about Marty Cooper irritated her these days – from the way he rushed his food, to the fact that his mobile phone was pressed permanently against his ear. His loud, lazy drawl, barking and whinging into the phone, had become the soundtrack to her life lately and she tuned out as often as possible.

  “…it’s like stepping back two hundred years every time I set foot here,” he continued, nudging Erika with his knee until she looked at him. “We need to get back to the States as soon as possible.”

  Erika lip-read the last although she knew well enough how he felt. For two years Marty had shouted down every suggestion that she return to England for a break and invented one excuse after another to keep her in Los Angeles – her concert tour had to be extended because every date had sold out; the record company were pushing for the next album and there was a penalty clause in her contract; there were guest appearances booked on one talk show after another; a commitment to record the soundtrack for the next big rom-com movie.

  This endless round of appearances month after month, had eventually brought Erika to the point of exhaustion – and it wasn’t just those around her who’d noticed. Celebrity magazines ran articles on how painfully thin she’d grown and their photographs highlighted the signs that she hadn’t slept properly in months.

  More seriously, her lowered immune system meant she’d caught every cold and virus going and a series of throat infections had taken their toll on her voice. To a trained ear, its once-sweet tones had been reduced to something far more stretched and raw until every note put irreparable strain on her throat.

  Erika thanked heaven for the New York doctor who’d finally recognised her precarious state of her health and ordered her to rest for at least a month. He’d even recommended a colleague in London – a throat specialist who looked after the world’s most famous voices – finally giving Erika the perfect excuse to return home, against all of Marty’s better judgement.

  “I still say California would have been better for your health than Yorkshire,” Marty continued above the noise of the helicopter, not caring that Erika wasn’t answering. He enjoyed the sound of his own voice too much to ever fall silent. “Sunshine, the beach, windows that don’t let this stinking weather in. What’s to choose?”

  Fortunately for Erika, the flight from Leeds airport to the hotel was mercifully short and she clung to the fact that, within a few minutes, she’d be in her own room with a locked door between her and Marty Cooper. If she had her own way, she’d stay there for a year, letting in no one except room service and the occasional beauty therapist.

  All she wanted to do was sleep, eat, read and take some long walks across the moors to gradually build up her strength again.

  She owed herself this time and nothing short of an earthquake would dislodge her from England before the month was up, no matter how much Marty complained

  The rain cleared slightly allowing a distant view of the hotel and Erika’s heart lifted. All the way back from Los Angeles she’d pinched herself, unable to believe she was actually going to England. It was purely psychological but she’d felt better the minute she’d set foot on British soil, as if drawing new energy from finally being home.

  She touched Marty’s arm and pointed at the country house hotel half hidden by leafless trees but his reaction was rather less enthusiastic than hers and he grimaced. The helicopter touched down on the front lawn, the rotor blades slowing as a porter unfastened the door. Within an instant, Marty was out, had taken the umbrella from the porter’s hand and was sprinting across the lawn toward the hotel.

  “Don’t worry,” Erika said to the embarrassed young man. “You have no idea how often I’ve dreamed about standing in cold, English rain. This is heaven.”

  She inhaled deeply, feeling the icy air burnish her sore throat and sting her lungs. The occasional gust of wind whisked her breath away and the r
ain lashed at her cheeks but she was in no rush to go inside, despite the drips that found their way under her coat collar. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so unobserved – not a camera in sight – and she savoured the feeling by slowing her walk.

  When she eventually stepped inside the hotel she found it exactly as she’d remembered it. It had been five years since she’d last been there but it every detail had remained the same as the picture in her head. A perfect re-creation of understated luxury, where country-house elegance met boutique hotel, and all were underpinned by Yorkshire hospitality. The pressures peeled away like layers of uncomfortable clothing and the knots of tension across her shoulders began to slacken as Erika finally relaxed.

  “It’s a pleasure to have you staying with us, Miss Fenn,” the desk manager said.

  Erika glimpsed curious faces peering at her from around the office door and smiled again, knowing the staff would have been warned to keep their distance and that she didn’t need to worry about being pestered here.

  She picked up her key and was half way to the lift when she heard Marty calling her back.

  “I’ll see you downstairs in an hour,” he said, breaking off from a complaint over the size of his suite. “I want to go through the schedule for the next month.”

  “Schedule?” Erika thought for a minute she must have misheard. “There is no schedule. I’m here to rest, not work.”

  “No one stands still in this business for that long. I’ve lined up meetings in London with the European tour promoters for the day after tomorrow…”

  “I don’t care.” Erika cut him short, made brave by her return to England and the jet lag nagging behind her eyes. “I’m here to relax and, right now, my schedule involves having a bath, going to bed and probably sleeping for the next two days.”

  “So what am I supposed to do?” Marty’s threadbare patience finally gave way and he shouted so loudly everyone in the lobby turned to listen. “We’re not exactly in downtown L.A. here and there’s enough rain coming down outside to float the Ark. Now you want to abandon me for the next two days.”

  “The next month, actually.” Erika dropped her voice, determined not to make a scene like Marty’s. “And in any case, I didn’t ask you to come. I can sleep, read, walk and swim perfectly well without your help. Do us both a favour – catch the next train to London.”

  “And leave you here alone? I have my assets to protect. You wouldn’t be safe without me.”

  Erika objected to being described as an “asset” but let it go. The sooner she escaped to her room, the better.

  “Hotel security is perfectly adequate,” she told him instead. “And most of the time I’ll be either locked in my suite or walking the grounds. Plus, no one even knows I’m here.”

  Marty raised his eyebrows at her naivety. “Are you kidding? The whole world knows you’re here by now. Anyone at the airport, or the hotel, could have phoned the press. This time tomorrow, the place will be crawling with paparazzi.”

  Someone living in the harsh glare of publicity didn’t need reminding that there was no real hiding place and that information was a commodity to be traded to the highest bidder. However, Erika failed to see how the presence of Marty – a heavy drinking, unfit, insomniac – could add anything to her personal safety, but she knew better than to say so.

  “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” she told him. “In the meantime, I’m going to bed.”

  Marty’s protests followed her to the lift where the porter waited. Anticipating her need to escape, he put himself between Erika and Marty and closed the doors, leaving Marty looking as though he would cheerfully have strangled Erika had she not been the goose that laid the golden eggs.

  It had been Erika’s intention to sleep until noon but it was barely light when she woke the next morning. She stretched, turned over and tried to fall asleep again but she’d been in bed for fifteen hours, her body clock was still on Los Angeles time and she felt wide awake. After tossing and turning for a few more minutes she propped herself up on a pile of pillows and switched on the TV in time for the six-thirty headlines.

  The news included an item from the channel’s celebrity reporter, speculating whether Erika Fenn had landed in England and she laughed. There followed rumours of a private jet arriving at Leeds Airport and a helicopter bound for an unknown destination, with a list of possible hotels in the area.

  Marty had been right after all. Her arrival in Yorkshire was already an open secret and she had to trust that the hotel was rather more discreet. Intense speculation over her whereabouts was followed by excited interviews with fans, as well as a report about her leaving behind a very handsome, broken-hearted lover in L.A.

  It was complete fiction, of course. She and Ben Ridley were nothing more than very good friends, thrown together by the Hollywood media circus when he’d just landed his first starring role in a major action movie and Erika’s second album had gone multi-platinum. In this rarefied position at the top of the Hollywood A-list, it was hard to trust anyone, so Erika had become increasingly close friends with Ben and his brother, Richard. They were the only people Erika could kick back and be herself with, each of them knowing that their secrets were safe within their little circle and that they had somewhere to escape the pressures of the movie and music industries.

  As photographs of Erika and Ben flashed up on her TV screen, Erika had to admit they made a great couple and, had they met under different circumstances, or in a different world, they might have been able to make a relationship work. However, they had neither the time, nor the energy for dating. Between performing, rehearsals and public appearances Erika had little enough time for sleep, let alone the rumoured intimate dinners or romantic trysts.

  Despite being feted as one of the most beautiful women in the world, fame and fortune had done nothing for Erika’s love life and there were nights she couldn’t bear the loneliness of her empty bed.

  Determined not to brood on the last time she’d actually kissed someone, Erika switched the TV to a music channel and flung back the covers. One of her own videos came on and she joined in, realising that it was the first time in months she’d sung for the sheer joy of doing so. She danced part of her stage routine on the way to the bathroom, although it had considerably less effect in her pyjamas than in a clinging stage outfit. She was glad that Marty couldn’t see her sloppy footwork – he’d have been highly critical, as always.

  When she slipped out of her pyjamas she took a good look at herself and winced at how thin she’d grown. Always tall and slender, the combination of her punishing schedule, Marty’s enforced diets and athletic stage routines had melted away every spare ounce of flesh, leaving her body angular and fragile.

  She’d ordered new jeans and warm tops online and had had them delivered direct to the hotel, only to find the jeans hung off her hips and the sweaters looked oversized on her underweight limbs.

  However, a long, untroubled sleep, had made Erika’s dark eyes shine and her cheeks had lost some of their pallor. She therefore left off her make-up and pulled her shower-damp hair into an artfully-untidy top knot, suddenly looking both extraordinary young and unusually inconspicuous. Instead of having one of the most recognisable faces in the world, she could have been any one of a hundred pretty girls blending in with the crowd and barely drawing a second glance.

  In fact, Erika felt so confident about passing unnoticed she decided to eat breakfast in the main restaurant. It was early so there were only a couple of walkers around and she chose a table beside the window with a view out over the gardens. The rain had stopped finally and a watery sun lit the distant hills, promising a cold, clear, late-autumn day and she couldn’t wait to get outside..

  She ordered coffee while deciding what to eat, her mouth watering at the thought of a huge cooked breakfast after five years of starting every day with muesli and fruit salad.

  When her eyes drifted across to the view, she sighed contentedly, slipping into a daydream and
imagining all the songs she could write with this landscape as her inspiration. Snatches of melodies and lyrics snapped into her head and she couldn’t resist humming to help her work out the next musical phrase or rhyme. She wished she’d taken a notepad down to the dining room and made a mental note to put one in her pocket before she went out.

  But as she let creativity filter back into her, she became aware of a sound that separated itself from the background noise and pierced her subconscious.

  A man’s voice.

  English, not American. Educated and assertive. Immediately familiar and yet her mind fought against believing what her heart was telling her. It couldn’t be, she thought. Not here. Not now.

  But it was and Erika’s pulse arrested before beating treble time.

  Aiden Thirstan.

  The last man on earth she expected – or wanted – to see. What the hell was he doing at her hotel?

  She didn’t dare turn in case he saw her – not that she was capable of movement. Her fingers gripped her coffee cup so tightly she was afraid it would shatter but, when she put it down, it rattled loudly against the saucer.

  Holding her breath, she prayed she hadn’t drawn attention to herself and that she could slip out unnoticed once he sat down.

  Why had she been stupid enough to risk eating breakfast downstairs? After five years of dodging prying eyes she should have had more sense than to venture out without first checking the guest list.

  The voices by the dining room door stopped and Erika exhaled in relief. But then she heard muffled footsteps approaching across the thick carpet and her heart beat louder than a drum solo on one of her raunchier hits. She put her hand to the side of her face, blocking her view of the doorway and wished that closing her eyes could make her disappear.