You Belong to Me (Stevens Book 6)

Chapter 1

Alice sat in the lobby of the hotel waiting and watching.  She had been sitting in the same place for three days and had seen Rainer Stevens at least half a dozen times without gathering up the nerve to talk to him.  How did one approach a famous international news correspondent who also freelanced for some of the most famous publications in the country or even the world for that matter?

She had to talk to him soon because staying in the same hotel as him was eating up her minuscule savings and she could not, in good conscience, loiter. This meant that she had to actually be a paying guest of the hotel and Rainer Stevens traveled in style, otherwise she would have never stayed in such an expensive hotel. 

Alice gave a little sigh looking over her shoulder to make sure he hadn't slipped in another way when she wasn't looking. The only good thing about staying in a hotel this upscale was that the hotel employees were tactful and never assumed to question anything a guest did; like sitting in the lobby for two days straight.

The reason she was stalking Rainer Stevens was to gain access to the writer Steven Douglas. Alice had to get an interview with the famous author, her doctoral dissertation depended on it.  The problem was that Steven Douglas was a recluse.  He had only given one interview in his fifteen years of writing and that had been to Rainer Stevens who was known for getting the interviews that no one else could. She was hoping to convince him to give her Douglas's publicist's information and also put in a good word for her.

She had chosen the subject of Steven Douglas's works and how they all covertly carried themes of modern current events throughout their story lines as a subject for her dissertation.  Douglas had been able to express his views in such a way that the reader was so entertained that they didn't realize that he was making a decisive and complete political statement.

She wanted to have her dissertation done by fall because that was when she was scheduled to start teaching at a university in New York and since it was her first teaching position she didn't want anything to interfere with it.

Alice also had other motivators besides her actual dissertation, she had been working her way through school for the past eight years as a receptionist for a small magazine and the editor had promised her a nice sum if she could get an interview with Steven Douglas, a sum that she was counting on to see her through the summer.

It was a long shot she knew but she needed the interview otherwise she would have to begin again on the dissertation which meant a whole year of rewriting, and if she didn't get paid for the interview then she would have to do the one thing she had sworn she would never do. Ask her parents for money to see her through until the fall.

Her parents were always pointing out her faults and comparing her to her sister, they didn't do it to hurt her and in their minds they were encouraging her to try harder to up her game.

She pushed all of these very stressful thoughts from her mind and settled in with her favorite Steven Douglas book, deciding to wait all night if that is what it took, but no matter what she would talk to him the next time she saw him.

*******

Alice slowly opened her eyes to a pair of shocking sky blue ones, blinking slowly she found herself unable to turn away.  They were nice eyes that had a look of caring to them and they crinkled a bit at the corners which meant they laughed a lot. She gave a slow warm smile in response and feeling comfortable and safe she started to close her eyes again on a sigh. What a lovely dream she thought just before she heard a warm low laugh which caused her eyes to fly open.

"What, where, who?" She braced herself becoming tense.  The eyes backed off a bit and she saw the face attached.  It was him, it was Rainer Stevens and boy was he gorgeous, no wonder women went nuts for him.  He was close enough for her to see that his reddish blond hair had been well cut so that it lay in short thick waves and the golden red stubble that covered his very strong square jaw was a sharp contrast against his tanned skin and perfect white teeth.