Free Improper English by Katie MacAlister

course not!” I wanted to smack my forehead over my stupidity. I may be many things, but I have a rule against dallying with men who are involved elsewhere, and yet that was what I was about to do last evening when the ice cream saved me.
    I looked at Isabella, speechless, wondering if my guilt was written on my face for all to see. “How can you think I would…you know…with Alex? The thing with the ice cream isn’t what you think. It was the only cold thing I had, so I put it on his eye. It melted,” I finished lamely, positive by the look in her cool blue-eyed gaze that she suspected the worst.
    “Ice cream does that,” she agreed easily.
    “Yes, well, you don’t have to worry, nothing happened except I ruined his suit with the ice cream.” I wasn’t about to tell her I got it on my dress as well, because then I’d have to explain just what I was doing on top of him when the ice cream spread.
    A faint line of puzzlement creased her brow. “Why would I worry?”
    Why indeed? I looked at Isabella’s chic silk suit that matched her eyes, and knew I posed no threat to her. Mind you, Alex hadn’t seemed to be repulsed by me the past evening—in fact, he seemed rather to approve of the whole general layout that was me. I grew a bit warm remembering the form his approval had taken, and promptly damned myself for sitting in front of his significant other as I thought about all of the things I wanted to do to him.
    “Are you all right? You’ve turned red. Are you blushing about something?”
    Amusement sparkled in her eyes, proving to me that she had suspected the worst, and clearly felt confident of her own hold on Alex. Still, I felt a little distraction would be timely. “I’m fine, just a bit warm. Where do you think the best place is for me to buy a boom box?”
    “A what?”
    “A CD player. Stephanie either doesn’t have one, or if she did, she took it with her. I’m dying for a little music.”
    While Isabella rattled off a number of shop names, I worked on thinking non-Alex thoughts. I needed to count my traveler’s checks again to see how much money I had left after the morning’s trip to Manuel. I had offered to pay Alex to replace his suit, until he told he how much it had cost. He wouldn’t even accept money to have it cleaned; he just mopped up the worst with the damp dishcloth, scowled something fierce at me, and left.
    “Alexandra, you haven’t heard a word I said.”
    I looked up from where I was squashing my mushy peas into an even mushier state. “I was. You said I should always go to Marks and Spencers for underwear, and Tottenham Court Road for electronics.”
    “You looked like you were a million miles away. You weren’t thinking about—”
    I interrupted ruthlessly. “Just doing a mental count of my money, and wondering if I’ll have enough to last the rest of my stay.”
    Isabella’s gaze dropped. “I’m sorry, Alix, I had no idea you were short. I’ll be happy to pay for lunch.”
    I waved her offer away. “No, I’m not that tight, it’s just that I’ve been a bit extravagant these past couple of weeks, and I need to stick to a budget to make my money last the summer.”
    Curiosity mingled with reticence in her eyes, but human nature won out. She leaned forward and dropped her voice. “Forgive me, Alix, this is unthinkably rude of me to ask, but why did you decide to come to London if you are so short on money?”
    I smiled. I didn’t mind if she knew I was dirt poor. “You know about the agreement I made with my mother.”
    She nodded.
    “Mom is what she calls comfortable, but what everyone else in the world thinks of as affluent, if not downright rich. She’s got more money than she knows what to do with, courtesy of her last husband, but I grew up during the lean years, and things…well, things have never seemed to go right for me. I didn’t make it all the way through college, I had a crappy divorce lawyer who ended up costing me more than the settlement