“That’s backstabbing. It’s unethical.”
“He’s doing it to everyone else. When I mentioned it to Octavia, she was very keen to have the link. Said that she suspected something sordid like that all along.”
“Still, I can’t expect to succeed just by tearing everyone else down.”
“You’re not,” Arthur said, “but James Knightly did something rather despicable, ratting out his mates after cheating and skiving out on their punishment. That’s the sort of thing that one would want to know about a chap before deciding to work with him for the next few decades or hand him sensitive material about your clients.”
“Yes, but—”
“Your pupil mistress might not like it if you tore down her notice.”
“Okay. Say, have you told Maxence and Casimir that this might very well be the last time you’ll see them yet?”
Rustling like static filled the phone. Arthur muttered, “Hasn’t come up yet.”
Gen dragged her feet, walking out to the bulletin board to tack the horrid thing back up, but someone else had beat her to the punch and nailed the thing back up. The creases were smoothed out like someone had worked hard to scrape them flat.
If anything, it looked worse now, like James Knightly had tried to dispose of evidence and been caught out again.
Well, that wasn’t her fault, either.
Tea Time, Again
IN the largest conference room of the law chambers, Gen handed steaming cups of tea to Octavia Hawkes and David Trent while sucking chocolate cookie crumbs out from between her teeth. She had scarfed three cookies in a fit of stress eating and then tried to swish the crumbs out with tea, but the scalding tea had just melted the chocolate into her gums.
James fucking Knightly sidled up to her. “Have you measured the willies of any of your other clients?”
Fuck him. “Wow, even you believed it. I guess I’m getting better at British things like making stuff up to cover what’s really going on,” Gen said.
James looked confused, his blond eyebrows dipping. David Trent and Octavia pretended to study their tea but didn’t walk away.
Gen continued, “That must be why I’m bringing new clients into chambers instead of merely being assigned clients.”
James stepped backward, holding a chocolate cookie halfway to his mouth.
“And I’ll bet you posted that video, James, selling out your mates again. Narcing on your friends at every opportunity seems to be quite a habit with you, doesn’t it?”
Gen was proud of how British that was: insulting a person and then asking them to agree with it.
Octavia raised one eyebrow as far as she was able, and David Trent lifted his teacup to his mouth to hide his grin.
Saving the Booze from Christopher
GEN arrived home—
No, not home.
She breathed hard, leaning over, as she set her purse on the entryway table next to the fresh, dark red roses.
Not home.
Gen arrived back at the posh London penthouse that belonged to the estate of the Earldom of Severn. She walked to the living room overlooking Hyde Park treetops with Ruckus trotting at her heels.
Yes, that was accurate.
She hated it.
Gen snapped the lead off of the dog after their brisk after-work walk in the park. He bounded into the front room like a tiny, crazed, white deer.
Arthur, Casimir, and Maxence were lounging on chairs and couches, all holding cut-crystal highball glasses. From the glazed looks in their eyes—silvery-blue, emerald green, and darkness—they’d been drinking for a while. Even Arthur, who so rarely got even tipsy, looked like a film of ice had been poured over his silvery eyes.
She asked, “You guys okay?”
Arthur raised his glass. “No use letting Christopher get the good stuff. He wouldn’t appreciate it. He’d probably use it to make figgy pudding or something for the children.”
Maxence and Casimir chuckled.
Casimir was sitting upright in a chair, jiggling ice in his glass and looking like he might turn liquid and spill onto the floor.
Maxence was lying on the couch, his long legs hanging over the arm of it, holding a brandy snifter in his hand that dangled over the edge. He curled up to sip the brandy and then resumed staring at the ceiling.
He saw Gen standing in the entry and craned his neck to look at her from upside down. His black eyes raked her, and his voice was almost velvety in its darkness when he said, “Well, hello, beautiful.”
Arthur’s eyes cleared a bit. “Hey, Pope Fuckitall. Keep your eyes off of her.”
Maxence giggled and rolled up to sitting on the couch to pour more brandy into his glass. His aim was off, and he almost slopped some onto the coffee table but saved it at the last second.
“How much have you guys had?” she asked Arthur.
“Not sure.” He gestured to the coffee table, where probably thirty bottles stood half-full.
“Jesus, Arthur!”
“Ah-ah,” Maxence tut-tutted, but he was laughing.
“Have you guys eaten?” Gen asked him.
Arthur squinted at the other guys. “Did we?”
Casimir said, “Breakfast at Spencer House.”
“You guys haven’t eaten since breakfast? Holy cow!”
Maxence started tut-tutting again but must have realized that she had pulled back from blasphemy that time. He gestured to the bottles, spreading his arms in an almost affectionate gesture, and slurred, “Liquid lunch.”
“Where’s Miranda and Fothergill and the rest of the staff?” Gen asked. “Miranda usually takes better care of you than this, and Old Foggy Bottom would have sniffed and handed you guys food whether you wanted it or not.” Gen had picked up the nickname from some of the housekeepers that cleaned her room and liked to chat.
“Gave them all the night off,” Arthur said. “I’ll have to break it to everyone in the morning, anyway. Couldn’t stand to look at everyone tonight and know that I had to make a damned speech to them tomorrow before heading off to the House of Lords for my execution.”
“Now, now,” Maxence said, swirling his brandy and peering into its depths. “It’s not the worst thing that could happen to you, to give up all the troubles that worldly possessions cause. The striving, the worrying over them, the vanity of them, the lust for more. Avarice was Satan’s sin, you know.”
“That’s Milton, not Scripture,” Casimir told him. “Paradise Lost, and it was pride.”
“It was avarice for God’s position,” Maxence argued.
“No,” Arthur said over their quibbling. “No, I’ve never wanted to give up my family seat and my ancestors’ honor. But the most important thing is,” he turned to her, “Gen, no, we haven’t eaten, and it appears that we’re about to turn on each other. Do you know of any place that delivers?”
Gen smiled at them. “You boys like Indian?”
Something to Remember
MUMBAI Take-Away delivered bags upon greasy bags of food, enough for three starving men with their feeding inhibitions temporarily disabled by alcohol, plus Gen. She laid out the styrofoam clamshells while the guys sheepishly cleared the liquor bottles from the table.
After a moment of wavering, Arthur skipped the Chicken Tikka Masala and ate heartily of the Navratan Korma, Kashmiri Dum Aloo, Malai Kofta, and seven other vegetarian dishes that Gen had ordered. Indeed, the CTM was the only non-veg on the table.
Gen and the three guys talked long into the night, eating clove-scented rice with spicy, creamy sauces and crispy samosas, puff pastry filled with savory potatoes.
As much as Arthur had told Gen about how British he was, Maxence and Casimir told her school stories about him, about his escapades in sneaking off campus and back on again, about nearly killing himself and them a few times, and quite a few stories ended up with him naked in public.
Gen turned to him. “How many times have you been arrested for public indecency?”
Arthur shrugged. “Arrested? None
. Never been caught. Too fast for the bobbies.” He grinned and ate a bite of rice topped with cream sauce.
They talked and drank until late. When Gen stood up to go to bed, Arthur said his good-nights to the guys and tugged her toward his bedroom.
Ruckus trotted ahead of them and walked toward the bathroom where he had extra food and water bowls, just in case he needed a midnight snack.
Arthur closed the door and locked it. “Not taking a chance on those two sods walking in again.”
“You can stay out there and talk with them.” Gen walked over and shut the half-open door to his closet. Those closet doors were always popping open, all day long.
“I’ve been talking to those two wankers all day. I have nothing left to say to them.”
From how fast they’d been talking during dinner, even talking over each other while the three of them were wasted, they did indeed have many things to say to each other.
She walked back to him and smiled. “You’re sweet.”
He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close to his red tee shirt that read “GEEKS WILL CTRL+S THE WORLD.” His chest was even warmer than usual, like it always was when he drank. The heat permeated the thick cotton of his shirt and warmed her.
She slipped her arms around him and hung on.
At first, the hug was companionable, snuggly. He rubbed his hand up and down her spine.
Within a minute, he was exploring the shape of her back, the curves and dips of her body near her waist, and when she raised her head, he kissed her.
It was a long, slow kiss, not starving like when he had kissed her the night before at Spencer House, not calculated to dominate her like the nights she sat naked at his feet. She swore that she could feel the emotion in him, the determination to savor every second they had, every touch of their lips.
Arthur guided her to the bed like when they were waltzing, and he undressed her slowly, kissing her body as her falling business suit revealed each inch.
By her shoulder, his breath brushing her skin, he whispered, “I should have had you in my arms every night. I should have told you months ago that I was in love with you.”
“You were?” she whispered, stretching her neck as he lipped her skin, his strong arm cinched around her waist. Again, she felt held but not held down.
He said, “Ever since that night when I stared into your eyes.”
Gen drew back, startled. “I remember that night.”
“I felt like my life had come down to that one point of staring into your eyes. I felt revealed. A notion floated around my head that you knew everything about me, everything.”
“I wanted to come to your bedroom that night, but I was afraid. I hate that I was afraid for so long.”
He started ripping off his clothes, but Gen stopped him and undressed him herself, peeling his tee shirt off his strong chest and the jeans from his long legs.
Every curve of strong muscle thrilled her as she ran her hands over him, trickling her fingers over the bulges and crevices.
She whispered, “I want to look at you.”
She kissed his palm, and he shuddered, closing his eyes.
She kissed the tattoo of the three shields on his forearm, and he watched her, his eyes glassy again.
She crawled around behind him on the bed and ran her hands over the blue and red ribbon-like tattoos covering his back, the long blue strip that almost ran down his spine except that it was covered by the other tattered red and blue stripes. The ink was pale, watercolored instead of vibrant, and the ends of the stripes faded like they had been torn away or dove into his skin.
She kissed his spine where the blue ink was darkest. “What does this tattoo mean?”
Arthur whispered, his voice rough, “It’s the Union Jack, the national flag of the United Kingdom, deconstructed. The stripes and triangles are all there but rearranged. It took monthly sessions over almost a year. Casimir’s ink took longer. Maxence’s took quite a while, too.”
Gen ran her fingers over the haphazard blue stripes, and most did intersect near the center of his back, where the wings of his lats narrowed to his tight waist. Red triangles were scattered over the stripes. “I see it now. Why didn’t I see it before?”
“It’s sort of a puzzle. I couldn’t have the actual flag on my back, of course. Tends to be difficult to explain when one is encouraging a dictator to reveal his secrets to you because you have no loyalty to Britain.”
“Even then, you knew you wanted to be a spy?”
“Elizabeth recruited me into the clandestine service when I was seventeen.”
“You said that, but it’s so hard to believe. No one should be recruited to be a spy at seventeen. You were a baby.”
Baby echoed in her head.
He shrugged, and his inked skin slid over his muscles. “I rather imagine that’s why she chose me, because I wouldn’t be suspected. It was the only place I felt I belonged.” He turned and took her into his arms. “Until I found you.”
He rolled her underneath him, and his weight settled on her.
If Arthur did leave tomorrow, if he did go with other spies to be “resettled,” then this was it. This would be the last time she touched him, the last time his hands would be on her, the last time she would feel him inside her.
Even the last vestiges of his faint cologne—sweet spices and a hint of clean wood and musk—would float away.
And she would go back to her office and to sitting with her mother with only a few memories.
Too few.
It wasn’t enough. She was dying for him, for something solid and real about him, like he was already slipping through her fingers.
Gen kissed him, holding his face in her hands. She whispered, “Don’t use a condom.”
Arthur lifted his head. “You aren’t on the Pill.”
“I just want to feel your skin, just one time.”
His eyebrows drew together, more worried than frowning. “You might fall pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“Gen, I can’t. I wouldn’t be able to leave if you were pregnant.”
“You’re leaving tomorrow. I wouldn’t even know for two or three weeks. You’ll already be gone.”
He rolled away from her. “I couldn’t. We shouldn’t do that.” He propped himself up on one elbow. Confusion filled his silver eyes, and his dark hair flopped over his forehead. “Did you think you would—” he paused, “—trap me?”
“No,” she said. It wasn’t that. “It’s more like, I was thinking—” she sucked in a deep breath, “since I can’t have you, I wanted a piece of us.”
“A piece of us? Our child?”
She nodded.
“You want to fall pregnant?”
“Yes.” God help her, she did.
“But I have to go.”
“I know.”
“It’s too dangerous for you for me to stay.”
“I know.”
“Gen, I can’t. I couldn’t leave you if you were carrying our child. I couldn’t.”
She lied, “But, my biological clock. I have a biological clock. That’s why.”
“You’re twenty-five. Your biological clock isn’t fully wound yet, let alone ticking.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a mother. I want a child.”
“I’m not the type of man who could just be a sperm donor and walk away.”
“I’m grasping at smoke, here. I’m trying to hold onto something.” She pressed herself against his side. “I love you, and I’m losing you. I feel more alone than ever.”
“I do, too. I don’t want to go.”
“I’m going to be alone forever. I didn’t realize how much I wanted a family.”
He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly to his skin. “I’ll come back. I’ll find you in ten years. You’ll be thirty-five. Then, if your biological clock is ticking, we’ll do something about it.”
“You won’t.”
“I will, if I can. I promise that I’ll try. In ten yea
rs, people will have forgotten about me, or you’ll be tired of being a lawyer and want to come hide with me.”
In ten years, her mother probably would have died, a horrifying thought, and yet it was more terrifying that she might live so long in such a terrible state.
Gen didn’t know which way to hope, and her world felt empty.
She tightened her arms around him and held on, feeling his heart beat against her skin. “Then I’ll wait. I’ll wait ten years until you can come back to me.”
“Don’t wait for me.” His voice sounded tight in his throat.
“I don’t want anyone else. I’m messed up. Maybe you’re the only man I can be with.”
“If I find you and you’re happy, if you have love and a family, I’ll go away quietly. I’ll stand somewhere you can see me for a moment, and I’ll fade into the crowd.”
“I don’t want you to fade away. I’ll want to see you. I’ll want to talk to you.”
“With your husband right there?”
“I’ll tell him that being your fucktoy was the best ten days of my life. It was when I gave everything to you and felt like me again. It was when I met the love of my life and had everything I’d ever wanted for only ten days.”
He wrapped her more tightly in his arms. “Me, too. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted, and I’ve been waiting for you all my life.”
“You don’t have to go. You can hide in my basement or something.”
“You don’t have a basement.”
“I have an attic.” An attic bedroom, anyway.
“If my friends don’t relocate me, others will find me and kill me. If you’re there, they’ll kill you first, and they’ll kill you slowly, and they’ll kill you right in front of me. I can’t stay, Gen. I can’t.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“I don’t want to go, but I can’t stay.”
“I don’t have anything to remember you by, not really.”
“A closet full of dresses.”
“I thought those would belong to the estate because they were bought with estate money.”
“No one cares.”
Hard Liquor: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #2 Page 20