Switching Places (Escape Into Romance) (3 page)

The boy looked a lot like his father. They both had the same light brown hair with very dark brown eyes. Both were tall but the boy was a lot slimmer than Matthew. Matthew had the body of a mature man. Muscular. Solid. She wondered if he worked out. Little thoughts like that ran through her mind and she was sure she must be blushing.

Matthew was aware of Angela's scrutiny as he went about serving customers. It unnerved him a bit. Cody just looked amused and Matthew longed to be able to wipe the smug look off his face. But considering that he had just fallen in with Cody's little game, he might not have the right to say anything anymore. What was he doing? Why wouldn't he just tell her the truth and let her leave?

Finally the crowd thinned out and he flicked a quick look over to where Angela had been standing the entire time. He felt flustered when he caught her staring at him. Heat rose in his chest. He looked at Cody, who was grinning from ear to ear at him now. Matthew growled half-heartedly at the boy and he scampered away to serve another customer.

Matthew left their stall and slowly made his way over to where Angela was standing. "Sorry. I don't mean to ignore you but I didn't expect it to get so busy here so fast. You must be bored just watching us serving customers?"

Angela grinned at him. "No, not at all. It is actually kind of interesting. But I do have some stuff of my own that I need to do. For work."

"Oh that's right. You're a reporter?"

She looked at him oddly. "Right. Like I told you. That's the reason I'm here. Well. And to meet you."

She lowered her eyes a bit when she said it. He had the greatest desire to reach out to touch her face.

He had to break this off. He needed some perspective. "Uh, well. Maybe we can catch up for a coffee or something at the end of the day?"

Angela smiled back at him. "That sounds like a great idea. I don't really know Sydney at all, though."

Her smile was contagious. He liked the way it lit her eyes. He could always tell her what Cody had done later. Couldn't he? "Why don't you meet us back here at six o'clock? We should be done for the day. We could go somewhere together?"

"Okay, I'll see you then." She started to walk off and when she was a few feet away from him she turned and gave him a little wave before being swallowed up into the crowd.

Matthew blew out a breath as he turned to go back to his stall. When he walked by Cody, he cuffed the boy in the back of the head. But he smiled as he did it.

After a fruitless few hours trudging around the expo asking questions and getting shut down by everyone she spoke to, Angela started venturing back towards Matthew's stall when she was waylaid by a shifty looking man.

"I hear you've been asking lots of questions, lady." Angela felt her skin crawl as the man leaned in closer to her. He was a slight man, reedy thin, with a lean face and eyes that never looked directly at her as he spoke. "What do you think you're playing at? Hm?"

What had her boss been thinking sending her on this assignment? She was hardly equipped to deal with it. "Excuse me, please." She went to move past the man. Even with all these people around her, she didn't feel safe this close to him.

He wrapped a scrawny arm around her shoulders and she failed to suppress a shudder. "You listen up real good, little Sheila. Stop asking questions right now and go back to where you came from. Otherwise..."

"Angela, is everything all right?"

She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Matthew's voice coming from behind them. The creepy man dropped his arm away from her and scurried away quickly into the crowd. Matthew moved in to take his place and wrapped his arm around her. Where the creep's arm had felt menacing, Matthew's gave her a sense of comfort. Now that he was here with her she started to shake.

He felt the way her body trembled. "Hey. What was that all about?"

Before she could find the nerve to answer him he steered her over to his stall and gently helped her down into a seat. She tried to suck air into her lungs but she found she couldn't breathe. Realizing that she was beginning to hyperventilate Matthew shoved a paper bag at her and she sealed it over her nose and mouth and breathed in deep. After a few breaths she started to feel better.

"Now...you want to tell me what that was all about?" He put a strong hand on her knee.

She looked up into his concerned eyes and wished she didn't have to admit to being a failure at her job. "He was warning me off."

Matthew's face twisted into a scowl. "Warning you off what?"

"Apparently I've touched a few nerves here. He told me to stop asking questions. But if I don't ask questions I won't get the story that my boss is expecting and he'll likely fire me. It's not even in my field of expertise to be following up on this type of story. Johnson was supposed to do this but he broke his leg and now I'm stuck with it and I'm making such a mess of things..." Angela knew she was rambling but the shock of that awful encounter was starting to set in.

"Okay take it easy." He rubbed his hand along her shoulder to calm her but it had the opposite effect on her. She shivered at the contact. Her body hummed where he touched her. He pulled his hand away quickly, like he had felt it too.

He stood up next to her. "You just sit here for a few minutes. We're nearly finished packing up for the day and then we will get out of here, okay?"

She nodded and watched him walk away. He had a very nice rear view. Broad shoulders filled out his T-shirt nicely and his jeans hugged his ass like a second skin. She squirmed in her seat a bit. This instant attraction to him had taken her by surprise.

What was she doing? She asked herself that again, and again. She was floundering at her assignment here and all she could do was wonder if Matthew felt the same way about her that she did about him. Well, not if he was thinking about her ass like she was thinking about his, but if he…oh, it was just a mess of crossed wires in her brain.

She liked this man. God help her, but right away from the very start, she liked this man.

Fifteen minutes later they were walking out of the pavilion together and were headed towards Matthew's car. Angela briefly thought about what she was doing. She hardly knew Matthew or his son but here she was leaving with them? "Where are we going?"

"That's up to you. We can drop you at your hotel or you can come home with us and have a bite to eat. Or we can hit up a great coffee house I know nearby. What do you want to do?" He smiled at her and looked unintentionally gorgeous as he waited for her to respond.

What should she do? She could hear Jill's voice in her head warning her to be careful but she felt so safe with these guys and her intuition was usually pretty good. Matthew had saved her from that creeper, after all. And would he really do anything to her with his son there?

She smiled back at him. "I would like to come home with you guys. It would be a good opportunity for us to get to know each other better. And I am hungry." She thought that she would be fairly safe with the boy there to act as a chaperone.

From the corner of her eye she saw the look on Cody's face. She could tell he was infatuated with her. His smile gave it away.

"Your apartment is incredible." Angela's eyes were just about popping out of her head at the luxurious surroundings she found herself in. This was one seriously well appointed apartment in the much sought after Karoola building.

Matthew grinned at her enthusiasm. "It's home." He shrugged, trying to downplay it a bit. His wealth and success were still very much a mystery to him. He had been lucky and he wasn't one to flaunt it. He and Cody lived well but quite modestly also. Money wasn't important to him. Living a rich life was what was important.

"Well it's a very nice home." She smiled at him, and he felt that weird feeling in his chest area again. He wasn't sure exactly what was going on but he did know that he was seriously attracted to her. He hadn't felt an immediate attraction like this to a woman in...he couldn't remember how long. If ever.

She turned to look at him and he got lost in the light blue of her eyes. They were the most unique eyes he had ever seen. Pale around the pupil but ringed with darker blue, and almost black on the outer edge. Incredible.

He sighed and then caught himself up. He had been daydreaming about her eyes and her shapely body and she must have spoken to him because she was now staring at him with an expectant look on her face.

He felt himself flush a little feeling like an idiot. He flashed a sheepish look and said, "Sorry, what did you say?"

She let out a little sparkling laugh that tinkled all the way down his spine. He shook himself.

"I said, what is for dinner?"

He laughed at himself then and admitted, "I don't know. I, uh, wasn't exactly expecting company. I mean, wasn't expecting to bring you here. I'm sure there's something around that I can throw together."

She stepped closer to him and that urge to touch him came over her again. "I don't mean to put you out."

"No worries. Come with me into the kitchen."

Matthew could feel Angela's eyes on him as he whipped up an omelette each for them. It was pretty simple; just eggs, cheese, tomatoes, bacon and a few mushrooms. But somehow he felt like a master chef showing off.

The three of them sat down together to dinner. Cody watched the two of them, his father and the woman he had fallen for online, casting furtive glances at each other as they made small talk. This was not what he had expected. Angela was all but ignoring him. Not in a rude way. Just in that way adults had of squeezing out kids. His dad liked her. He could tell. But what was he going to do about it, he wondered?

They finished their meal after a while, laughing and talking all through dinner.

"That was the best omelette I've ever tasted," Angela said.

Angela's praise made Matthew feel all warm on the inside. He shrugged. "It wasn't anything special." Cody sniggered at him and Matthew threw a scowl his way. He didn't want the kid to think he was off the hook for this.

Angela smiled at their antics. "Well, when you manage to burn water, like I do, then this was an exotic meal."

They bantered back and forth between the three of them over a simple dessert consisting of chocolate ice cream. Matthew was caught up in something Angela was saying when Cody excused himself citing homework as the reason. This earned him another scowl from Matthew who began to panic at the thought of being left alone with Angela. After all this situation was Cody's fault. But now it would be up to him to tell Angela the truth.

An awkward silence descended between them. Angela rose from the table and moved over to the large window that looked out upon the Sydney nightscape. Lights twinkled as far as the eye could see and the Sydney Harbour Bridge was lit up like a magnificent Christmas tree over the calm water that was reflecting the lights off its surface. She felt a sense of peace come over her and felt herself relax. She sensed, more than saw, when Matthew came to stand next to her.

She sighed, happy to be where she was. "It's truly something, isn't it?"

"It sure is. I thank God every day for being allowed to live my life here. I don't think I would swap it for anything."

She turned to look up at him. The twinkling lights of the city were reflected in his eyes as he gazed wistfully out of the window. He startled her by suddenly looking her way and taking a deep breath, like he was going to say something that would be the most important thing she had ever heard in the world. She quickly moved her eyes away from him. She could feel him staring at her and resisted the urge to squirm under his scrutiny. But on the inside she was a seething mass of anxiety. His closeness, his presence, was making her jumpy. She had never met a man that affected her like this before.

"Angela." Her name sounded perfect on his lips as he said it. Why couldn't he have met this woman under normal circumstances?

She put her trembling hands together and stared fixedly at the lights of the city around them.

"Angela, I have something I need to tell you." He took a heavy breath. "I wanted to tell you earlier but then I saw you and I couldn't get over how pretty you were and how perfect and, uh, this isn't coming out the way I wanted it to at all."

She laughed at him and finally found the nerve to turn around. "Matthew, you are exactly like you were online. I imagined a lot of different things when I met you, I don't mind telling you. But you…you didn't disappoint."

He felt like her soft words had punched him in the gut. "It wasn't me."

She blinked, not understanding. "What?"

His mouth was suddenly so dry that he had to swallow twice before his voice came back. "It wasn't me. In the online chats. You weren't talking to me."

"Of course it was. Compuking. That's you. right?"

He shook his head.

"But, if it wasn't you…?"

"My son. Cody. He was the one talking to you. But, he's so young he didn't want you to just cut him off. So he pretended to be me."

Angela felt the floor drop out from underneath her. She took a step back from Matthew. He suddenly looked like a stranger in her eyes. "What are you saying?"

"The man you fell for online? It wasn't me. Well, I mean it was me, but not really because it wasn't me talking to you." He was babbling now, trying to explain something that should have been so simple, but he just couldn't seem to make the words come out right.

Angela couldn't believe what she was hearing. This man had seemed so perfect to her. This whole day had been one big roller coaster ride of ups and downs and now it had all come crashing down on her.

Matthew watched her turn away and cross her arms under her breasts as she stared out the window. His heart broke. Should he have continued to lie to her? Let her think that he was the one who had been talking to her all this time? No, he knew he could not do that. Not only did he have no idea what she and his son had talked about, but he didn't want to deceive her either. No matter what it did to his chances of getting to know her, he couldn't lie to her. He honestly liked this woman. She was beautiful and smart and Cody had been right about how many things they had in common.