Always You: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love Collection Books 5-8)

by Brenna Jacobs

She’d been right—and she obviously had more willpower than he had. But he’d still enjoyed spending the night texting her.

  And the unexpected kiss that had ended the night.

  He’d particularly enjoyed that.

  “Clearly something’s wrong.” Ardis pressed the button to unmute the phone, then whispered, “This problem you get to solve on your own.”

  Geoffrey sighed and took the phone from her, waiting until Ardis had shut the door behind her to answer. “Hello, darling.”

  “Darling? You’re going to darling me after the pictures in the paper?” Clarissa didn’t raise her voice when she was angry, but her sarcasm got louder. It was currently at the level of wailing baby on an airplane.

  “What pictures? I’ve only just woken. I haven’t seen any pictures.” Nor did he have the patience or energy to keep playing games with Clarissa. If she was angry with him, she should come out and say it. Or yell it.

  “I’d think you’d have some idea that kissing a woman in the middle of the Tate would lead to some photographs being taken. Who is this tart anyway? I’ve never seen—”

  “Where did you see this?” Geoffrey bolted upright and grabbed his cell phone from the bedside table.

  “In The Tattler. Where else?”

  Geoffrey Googled the tabloid, and when its front page popped up, it was even worse than he’d imagined. The headline read Does Lord B’s Fling Mean No Ring? Underneath it was not only a picture of him and Alice kissing at the Tate, but also the picture taken two nights before of him and Clarissa at dinner. Her empty left hand was on his chest, her lips were on his cheek, and there was little question that at least one of them thought they were a couple. What was it Clarissa had said? She expected a ring soon? Or something like that? Undoubtedly that was somewhere in the article.

  “Where did this picture come from?” He couldn’t quit looking at it, worrying what Alice would think when she saw it.

  If she saw it. It was a British tabloid, after all. She’d have to go looking for it to find it, and he doubted she read the tabloids.

  “Well, it seems from a very romantic outing to the Tate. That much is obvious.” Clarissa snapped her syllables. “And it’s obvious she’s the woman you’ve hired as your curator. What’s less obvious is why you would be kissing her in public when we’re on the verge of being engaged.”

  “Does it say who she is in the article?” Geoffrey hoped not. Alice’s anonymity needed to be protected.

  “No, I’m just assuming. Would you like to confirm my suspicions?”

  Geoffrey sighed. “No. I’d rather no one know who she is, for her own privacy.”

  “Including me? Do I get to know, or am I expected to pretend I haven’t been publicly humiliated?”

  Geoffrey climbed out of bed. He couldn’t say what he had to say lying down. He needed to be moving. “I don’t think it’s important that you know who she is, Clarissa,” he began gently. “What’s important is that nothing more than that kiss happened between us.”

  “I’m supposed to believe that? You shared one innocent kiss that didn’t mean anything?” Her voice didn’t get louder, it got steelier. Like ice forming on a pond, growing thicker and harder to crack the lower the temperature dropped. “That’s not what it looks like in the picture.” Everything about Clarissa reminded Geoffrey of an icy pond.

  “It was more than one kiss, but nothing more than kissing.” Geoffrey raised his eyes to the ceiling and raked a hand through his hair. “And I never said it didn’t mean anything.” He skated carefully, knowing he was on dangerous ground.

  A long pause followed, and Geoffrey feared Clarissa was going to crack and suck him into the depths of her anger. Silence was more terrifying than shouting. Too much of the unknown lay in it.

  “I’m not sure how to respond to that. Am I supposed to feel better that this woman means something to you? That she’s not just a fling?”

  “No. I suspect that makes things worse.”

  Another silence followed, until finally Clarissa spoke. “Is this where you break up with me? Or shall I go first?”

  “I can have Ardis prepare a statement that you had broken up with me shortly after the photo of us was taken.” Geoffrey walked toward his closet to pick out something to wear. Someone in Lady Ashburn’s household would be informing her any minute now about the picture, and he would have to do some damage control. She would know exactly who he’d been kissing at the Tate.

  “That’s very generous of you.” Clarissa’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “Clarissa, we both know this wasn’t going to work, even if we both wanted it to. We were never together for the right reasons.” Geoffrey scrambled to find any words that might make her feel better, or at least less rejected. “We really haven’t been a couple since I left for America.”

  “If you’re trying to justify cheating on me, don’t bother. You can’t make this better by attempting to rewrite history. We had an understanding, and if you no longer felt the same about us, you should have been honest about that.”

  Geoffrey stopped in front of his closet, letting her words sink in. “You’re right, Clarissa. I haven’t been fair to you.” His eyes drifted over the neat rows of clothes. Many of his favorites had been chosen or given to him by Clarissa. “Things happened very quickly with Al—the woman in the picture. I wasn’t searching for someone to replace you, but I suppose I also wasn’t as committed to you as I let you think I was, and I apologize for that. I feel terrible about hurting you.”

  Clarissa scoffed. “Let’s be clear about one thing. You’ve embarrassed me, but I’m not hurt. You haven’t made me cry, Geoffrey. If anyone is going to be hurt by this, it’s you, because I can guarantee you Daddy won’t be approving any loans for your little museum. Nor will any other bank, if he has anything to do with it.”

  “Clarissa—”

  The phone went dead.

  Geoffrey sank into the wingback chair in his walk-in closet and put his head in his hands. He didn’t know what he felt the worst about: not being honest with Clarissa about how his feelings for her had changed, or that his mistake had cost them the funding they needed for the museum. The funding that would not only pay for the upgraded security and home improvements Binchley Hall needed, along with refinancing the many loans they had on the property, but it would also pay Alice’s salary until they were making a profit.

  No funding meant no museum, no Grey estate, and no Alice.

  Geoffrey barely had time to let that realization sink in, pulling him into a very gray place, before Ardis found him in his closet.

  “Geoff?”

  He took his head from his hands and looked at her. “Yes?”

  “Your mother is calling.” She held his cell phone to him with one hand and a cup of tea in the other.

  He took the tea first and smiled gratefully, although he wished she’d brought something stronger. He took one sip, then took his cell from her.

  “Hello, Mother,” he said with a sigh. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “This is no time to be joking, Geoffrey. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  “This may surprise you, but yes, I’ve got a pretty good idea of how badly I’ve mucked things up.” He took a drink of his hot tea, letting it burn his tongue and his throat. “Clarissa has already made it abundantly clear.”

  “What did she say? Were you able to patch things up with her? We’ll have to rescind the offer to Alice, obviously. Fortunately, she hasn’t signed the contract yet. I can smooth things over with Clarissa’s father if need be . . .”

  “There won’t be any need, Mother.” Geoffrey set his cup on the floor then stretched out his legs and tipped his head back. With his eyes closed, he could pretend this was a bad dream. “It’s over.”

  A long silence followed, and for the first time, Geoffrey saw the similarities between Clarissa and his mother. They were both amazing women who could handle anything that came their way, but they didn’t always care if relationshi
ps were damaged in the process.

  “Whatever you and Alice were doing is over? Or you and Clarissa are over?” Lady Ashburn asked slowly.

  “Everything’s over, Mother.” His voice rose, even though it wasn’t his mother he was angry with. “Clarissa and me, the funding for the museum, whatever I hoped would happen with Alice, my career . . . Should I keep going?”

  “What do you mean, you ‘hoped would happen’?”

  Geoffrey wasn’t sure how to answer that. What had he hoped? That he could kiss Alice again? Definitely. He’d definitely hoped that. That there would be something more with Alice? Absolutely. Why else would he sit for hours in a lounge eating terrible bar food in the hopes he’d get to see her one more time before she left?

  What he’d hoped would happen is that they’d have a happily ever after.

  He let out a sigh. “I don’t know. I only know I never felt for Clarissa what I feel for Alice.”

  “Oh, Geoffrey.” The sympathy in his mother’s voice gave him a moment of hope, which she quickly dashed. “You’ve only just met her. You haven’t even known her a week. How can you possibly feel stronger for her than you’ve ever felt for Clarissa? You and Clarissa have been apart for six months; you just need to get to know each other again.”

  “Clarissa and I were over before I met Alice, but I kept putting off telling her. I’d hoped she felt it too and would be the one to break things off with me, but things moved quickly with Alice.” Geoffrey picked up his teacup, took another long sip, then started for the kitchen. He couldn’t hang out in his closet all day.

  “Oh, for the love of . . . You’re being ridiculous, Son. Do you think Alice is interested in something more than your money and your title? Why else would she risk jumping into bed with her boss?”

  “I haven’t slept with her, Mother. Everything I’ve done with her you’ve seen on the front page of The Tattler.” He set his mug on the dining room table then mouthed help to Ardis who watched him from a desk across the room. “And she knows I have no money.”

  “Then she’s an even bigger idiot than I thought, letting her employer kiss her.”

  Ardis crossed the room and showed Geoffrey his calendar on her iPad. He had an appointment with an assessor to take a look at the Monet.

  “And you’re an idiot for throwing everything away to chase after an American nobody. You didn’t read her background check like I did. Her family are not the kind of people you want to attach yourself to.”

  “Thank you, Mother. It’s always nice to know you think so highly of me, your idiot son.” Geoffrey sank into a chair at the table.

  “I’m not accepting any invitations to your pity party, Geoffrey. You know you’ve made a mess of things, and for what? A woman you barely know who is so far beneath you that—”

  “Mother,” he warned.

  “Do not pull a Meghan Markle on us; you are not a prince. You don’t have the luxury of attaching yourself to someone like Alice Donnelly.”

  “Yeah, neither did Harry, but he seems to have figured it out. I’m hanging up now.”

  “Geoffrey—”

  He cut her off before she could say anything else, then tossed his phone on the table next to Ardis. “If she calls back, I don’t care what you tell her, but I’m not talking to her again today.”

  Ardis nodded without saying anything.

  “In fact, the only person I want to talk to today is Alice. If she calls, let me know.” He stood and picked up his tea. “I’ll be in the studio.” He should be on the phone talking to his bankers or else seeking new funding, but that’s not what he was going to do. He was going to sculpt.

  “And if Mr. Barclay calls?” Ardis said to his back.

  Geoffrey stopped in the middle of the hallway. Clarissa’s dad was the last person in the world he wanted to talk to. “I’ll take it.” Clarissa’s threat hadn’t been an idle one. Her father could easily pull the funding he’d promised—both in loans and donations—and influence other bankers to do the same.

  Before going into the studio, he changed from his pajama bottoms into his work clothes. He needed to feel like he was in control of something, and the only place that could happen was in the studio. The fate of the museum was in other people’s hands, and Alice’s fate depended on what those people decided. The only thing he had complete control over was what he created.

  At some point he’d have to call Alice and tell her what had happened and why. It was the middle of the night in LA, and even if it weren’t, it didn’t make sense to tell her everything until he had a much better idea of all the repercussions of his actions. Sculpting would put his mind and his nerves in a better place. He’d lost everything because he’d kissed Alice, but he’d still do it again.

  As long as he didn’t lose her too.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Even though all she wanted to do was sleep after landing in LA, Alice called Geoffrey. When he didn’t answer, she tried to make herself believe it was for the best because she had so much to do, even though she wanted to talk to him more than she wanted to do anything else.

  When she called again the following day, she decided she had to keep things with him compartmentalized. There were the days they’d spent together and the kisses they’d shared in one box, and in the other was the man who’d hired her and was depending on her to make his art collection both accessible and profitable. He could lose everything, including the art, if his plan to open Binchley Hall to the public didn’t work.

  Hearing his voice and talking to him about anything but the Grey collection before she started working for him would make it much harder to keep their relationship platonic.

  And with her long list of to-dos, she didn’t have time to spend hours on the phone with him. In the next two and half weeks, she had to wrap up the last few things at the gallery where she’d been working, pack up her apartment and put her things in storage, say goodbye to the few friends she had, talk to an art appraiser about the unicorn painting, and visit her family in Bakersfield.

  So Alice quit calling Geoffrey and spent the next week texting back and forth with him instead, with a promise that they would talk after she’d met with the art appraiser. She hoped once she met with Mary Sonntag, the assessor who’d helped her with her New York client’s Giotto, she’d have good news to share with Geoffrey about the painting’s potential value. If she could get him to open up about his own artwork and the unicorn’s influence on it, she felt certain she could convince him to show his work with the collection. The story of the painting and Geoffrey’s connection to it was compelling enough to gain a lot of attention. And attention meant visitors to the museum. And visitors meant money.

  The morning of her appointment with Mary, Alice could barely contain her excitement. Although all she had were pictures of the unicorn that she’d had blown up to get closer views of different parts of the painting, she hoped they’d be enough for the assessor to want to see the picture in person. There was no reason to bring the painting this far if Mary could tell from the pictures it was more flea market than authentic. Alice didn’t think so, but Mary was the foremost art appraiser in America and Europe who specialized in medieval art. If she didn’t have confidence the painting was hundreds of years old, then Geoffrey could always take it to someone in London for a second opinion.

  Mary’s office was in an unassuming Beverly Hills office building, and as soon as Alice stepped off the elevator, she was there waiting for her.

  “I couldn’t wait to see you!” she said. “If what you suspect is true, then you’ve made an incredible find! Can you imagine? A Giotto hanging in the kitchen?”

  Alice followed Mary into her office, carrying the portfolio with the eight by ten unicorn pictures in it. “I know. I hope I’m not wrong about this. My client needs this to be true.”

  She laid the portfolio on Mary’s cluttered desk and fanned the photos over the papers scattered across the desk. Mary took out a magnifying glass to examine the photos more closely while Alice
took a seat across from her, jiggling her leg up and down while Mary said nothing but “hmm” with each picture.

  When she’d finished, she set down the loupe and leaned back in her chair. Then she smiled.

  “I think you should tell your client to bring it here.”

  “Really?” Alice let out her breath and smiled back. “I knew I was right.”

  “Let’s not get too excited until we have it and I can do some thorough forensic testing, but I’ll be very surprised if it’s not the real thing.”

  “That is very good news.” Even though it was the news she’d expected to hear, Alice was more excited than she could have imagined. And not just because of what it meant for her. This discovery would be even better for Geoffrey and his family. “I can have the painting here by day after tomorrow.”

  “If it’s the real thing, Preston Clark will want to know about it. He’ll likely want to add this panel to his other two, and I imagine he’ll pay a lot of money to do so.” Mary leaned forward and clasped her hands on her desk.

  “I don’t know if the owners want to part with it.” Geoffrey had said himself he wasn’t sure he could part with it, but even if he hadn’t, Alice had seen it in his eyes, and heard it in the way he talked about the painting. “But let’s cross that bridge once we’re certain about what we have.”

  Alice stayed long enough to share a cup of coffee with Mary while Mary examined the photos again, shaking her head in disbelief. Then Alice got in her car, and despite the fact it was still early morning in London, she texted Geoffrey to tell him she had good news.

  Within a few minutes her phone was ringing, and Geoffrey’s number appeared on the screen. She’d hoped he would FaceTime so she could see his face when she told him but hearing his voice would have to be enough.

  “Can you get here by tomorrow with the painting?” she said when she answered the call, skipping any hellos and how are yous.

  “The assessor thinks it’s the real thing?” His voice didn’t hold the excitement she’d expected, but she still relished hearing it again.