Can't Help Falling

by Kara Isaac

  Emelia skewered him with her gaze. “Three. You have got to be joking. This is saving SpringBoard we’re talking about here. We can’t leave any stone unturned. Twelve. And that’s me being generous.”

  “Ten.” Peter uttered the word in desperation.

  “Twelve.” Emelia smiled with satisfaction, as if she knew she had him.

  “We can’t do twelve. When are we going to look at twelve venues?”

  “This weekend. We need to get it done before it gets busy with the row-off. They’re all scheduled.” She flipped to another screen and there he saw it, his entire weekend laid out in Technicolor glory.

  “Seven? We’re seeing the first one at seven in the morning?”

  “They have two weddings. It was the only time I could get. Besides . . .” She smiled sweetly. “Seven is luxuriously late for you, isn’t it, rower boy?”

  He couldn’t have stopped himself from grinning if he tried. Lord help him, he liked this girl. More than was smart. Why? Why did she have to be so perfect in every way except the one that mattered most? More importantly, how on earth was he going to hold on to his self-control while spending the next seven months planning a ball with the one person he desperately wanted but couldn’t have?

  Seventeen

  “COFFEE?” PETER ASKED THE QUESTION as they got back in the car after viewing venue possibility number four.

  “You just had one before the last place.”

  He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Don’t judge me. I thought all you Americans would consume the stuff intravenously if you could.”

  “I’m not judging you. I’m just . . .” Emelia trailed off before she could ask the guy if he had a bladder the size of a planet. When he’d arrived to pick her up at six forty, he had been clasping a venti-size coffee cup like it was his firstborn. Plus one for her, which she’d made it about a quarter of the way through.

  Since then, he’d had another two. And no bathroom break. And not a single hint that he might need one in the future. She might’ve suspected he’d decided to answer the call of nature somewhere if not for the fact that the only time she’d left his side, for her own bathroom trip, he’d been in the care of the venue’s events coordinator, who had been flirting up a storm with him.

  It was totally ridiculous, since Peter had a good foot on the girl, so most of her eye-batting was directed straight at his armpit. Not to mention, the man himself was completely oblivious.

  “Fine. I guess coffee can wait until after this one.”

  Emelia started, realizing she’d left the conversation hanging and he thought she was still thinking about his caffeine habit.

  “Where to next?”

  Emelia consulted her color-coded list. “Rhodes House.”

  Peter let out a low whistle. “Nice.”

  “Have you been?”

  “Not personally, but I’ve heard of it. Didn’t realize we had that kind of budget.”

  Emelia consulted her spreadsheet. Rental cost was eight hundred and forty pounds including tax, which put it midrange of all the places on her list. “It’s pretty reasonable, actually.”

  Peter glanced at her but didn’t say anything as he pulled out into the road. Emelia tried to look anywhere except out the windshield. Even after a couple of months, driving on the left still caused her blood pressure to climb like one of those never-ending stair climbers at the gym.

  Time to find something to talk about. Anything. “So, is the team ready?” She blurted out the first safe thing that came to mind. Between all the ball organizing, she couldn’t lose sight of the “friendly” row-off that was taking place in a few weeks’ time. Its head-to-head nature was getting more press than she’d imagined. She could only hope the money would follow.

  Peter kept his eyes on the road. “More than. They’re all still feeling pretty cocky from the big win.”

  “Is it weird? Being on the other side?” She regretted the question almost as soon as she asked it. Good one, Emelia. Nothing like reminding the guy of what he can’t do.

  His fingers tightened as he changed down a gear. “Very.”

  She waited for more but realized after a few seconds it wasn’t coming.

  “How’s your shoulder doing?”

  “Not great.” Another two-syllable answer. She’d interviewed rocks more talkative than this guy.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Peter pulled in front of the gray mansion she’d seen in the website photos. In real life, it was even more impressive. And enormous. Four huge stone columns lined the front of the verandah, with another four behind them, guarding the black front door. The entryway of the house, covered with a dome-shaped roof, connected onto a Colonial-style building.

  “Oh. Wow.” For a second, Emelia was speechless and glad they’d both dressed up for the day in smart casual clothing, instead of the pair of jeans she’d been tempted to put on. But even in her knit dress, the towering building made her feel like she should apologize for not wearing designer cocktail attire.

  Getting out of the car, they crossed the sidewalk and approached the doors, stepping up to the porch, whose ceiling was so high she had to tilt her head back to see the top.

  “Good morning.” A thickset man with slicked-back gray hair and fierce eyebrows opened the door before she had even knocked.

  Emelia stared at him for a second. If Carson from Downton Abbey had a brother, this guy was it. “Good morning, I’m Emelia Mason. We have an appointment at ten o’clock to tour the venue.” She pulled out her snootiest voice. The one she’d always used to get herself into parties she had no business being at.

  The man inclined his head. “Miss Mason. My name is Stuart Goldfinch. I will be showing you around Rhodes House today.”

  “Nice to meet you. This is Peter Carlisle.”

  The man’s ramrod posture grew even straighter. “Mr. Carlisle. Of course.” He was practically fawning as he held out his hand to Peter. “Welcome to Rhodes House. May I say, I was so sorry to hear about your retirement? But of course, such great luck for the Blue Boat to have you with them.”

  “Thank you for seeing us on such short notice.”

  Emelia stared at him. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who could put on the posh accent. Peter suddenly sounded like he lived in a palace and regularly took tea with the Queen.

  “It is our pleasure. Now please . . .” The portly man gestured into the mansion.

  Emelia tried to take in the soaring walls of oak and stone, the huge windows giving a glimpse of extensive gardens. It had looked gorgeous on the website, but that didn’t even come close to doing its grandeur justice. She barely listened as the man rattled off the selling points of the venue. Room sizes, layout options, they all flowed over her head. She hoped Peter was taking it in, because she was ready to sign on the dotted line.

  This was it. She could feel it in her bones. She could see men in tuxes and women in gowns dancing. Tables set with silverware and huge arrangements. Waiters in white gloves with silver trays.

  Before she got her hopes up, she knew she should double-check . . . “Now, as I said on the phone, the ball is going to be in early December. Is it correct you’ve still got a weekend available?”

  “Yes. Generally, our weekend dates are booked far in advance. But it has just so happened that this weekend we’ve had a cancellation for the first Saturday. Fate, may I suggest?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Now, you’ll see in our brochure we have a number of excellent catering firms we partner with. I can guarantee you they all serve exquisite cuisine. Fit for royalty, one might even say, should any be joining you.”

  “I’m sure,” Peter said evenly.

  Emelia half listened to the exchange as she flipped open the brochure she’d been handed. A set of numbers seared her retinas. Oh. Wow. Oh. No. She read them again, hoping that maybe she was seeing things wrong. But no, that had been the first time. This venue wasn’t the reasonable eight hundred and forty pounds she’d thought it was. Try adding a zero
. Try eight thousand four hundred pounds.

  “Emelia?” The way Peter was looking at her suggested it wasn’t the first time he’d said her name.

  “Yes?”

  “Would you like to see the gardens?”

  “Yes.” Her voice sounded weak. “Some air would be excellent.”

  Emelia had realized her mistake. Peter had seen it the instant her pupils had dilated as she’d read the brochure and her face had gone a shade paler. He’d known there had to be an error the moment she’d called Rhodes House “reasonable.” Sure, if she was secretly a multimillionaire heiress.

  Maybe he should’ve asked more questions. But he couldn’t bring himself to ruin the satisfaction she derived from her perfectly coded and mapped spreadsheet. And, he had to admit, there was a certain amount of fun in watching her discover something was ten times more expensive than she’d thought when she was making him suffer through twelve potential locations.

  “You okay?” He bent his head toward hers, lowering his voice so their escort couldn’t hear.

  Emelia licked her lips. “There’s . . . I seem to have . . .” She must have seen something in his expression because she promptly whacked him on the arm. “You knew!” She hissed the words under her breath.

  “Ow.” He rubbed the spot above his elbow. The girl packed some power.

  “You’ve been having a great time, haven’t you, Smirky McSmirkster. Watching me fall in love with a place, thinking I’d found the venue bargain of the century.” Her words were sharp, but a touch of a smile hovered at the edge of her lips.

  “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

  “As is no doubt evident, the gardens are award winning.” Their tour guide spread his arms and gestured around him. Peter had to admit the garden was impressive. If he had almost ten grand to spare, they would’ve won him over.

  “They have entertained many a distinguished guest.” The man waggled his caterpillar eyebrows at Peter meaningfully. Peter wished he would stop. Emelia wasn’t stupid. He didn’t want to rouse her suspicions. Didn’t want her knowing who he was until she needed to. Emelia was one of the few people he didn’t have to worry about being a groupie. A rowing one or a peerage one. He preferred to keep it that way for as long as humanly possible.

  “Well, that’s that, then.” Emelia slumped into the passenger seat after they left the twelfth, and final, venue for the day.

  “What was wrong with that one?”

  Never before had Peter imagined how hard it could possibly be to find a ball venue. Over the last twelve hours, Emelia had knocked off every place they’d visited. For reasons Peter would have never even thought to consider. This was why guys had as little as possible to do with planning things like this.

  “I thought it was fine.” It had been nice enough. A ballroom at one of the big hotels. Maybe not exactly unique, but nice, with staff who clearly did the big-event thing all the time.

  “Fine isn’t enough. To save SpringBoard we need spectacular.” Emelia blinked rapidly.

  Wait, was she . . . Peter stepped a bit closer. She was close to tears.

  “Hey.” He rested his hand lightly on hers. “It’s okay. We’ll find something.”

  Emelia blinked some more and swiped her hands across her eyes. “I know we will. I just thought . . . I just wish . . .”

  “What?”

  She was silent for a second, then she sucked in a breath.

  “I just wish I’d never seen Rhodes House.”

  It was like a kick to his solar plexus. “I’m sorry. That was all my fault. I shouldn’t have let us go there. I just didn’t want to be the one to tell you your perfect spreadsheet had a critical error.”

  That got half a smile out of her. “No, it was mine. I don’t know why I thought something so great would cost so little. I guess I just thought that maybe, if there was a God, this was His way of making some magic happen.”

  He’d thought it wasn’t possible but at that, he felt even worse.

  “I just saw it there, you know. We walked in and I could imagine a huge ball. The kind that would get people writing the huge checks we need. I just felt like it was it. And I know I’m being super picky about all the other ones we’ve seen. It’s just that once I saw that one, nothing else has measured up since.”

  Which pretty much summed up how he felt about her.

  “I’m sorry.” She ran her hands through her hair. “You have more important things to do than this. Look at you. You’ve been slammed with Boat Race stuff the last few months and now you’ve spent the day driving me around ball venues. Plus everything you’ve been doing for the row-off.” She sucked in a breath and straightened her shoulders. “It’s okay. We’ll find something even better than Rhodes House. I just need to broaden the parameters. We can reconvene after the row-off. I need to focus on that now anyway.”

  The combination of disappointment and determination did him in. If he’d had eight and a half grand, he would have handed it over there and then.

  So he offered up the only thing he did have. The one thing that was going to force him to reveal to her what he’d been avoiding. “I might know somewhere else we can look at.”

  Eighteen

  “AND CAMBRIDGE TAKES THIS ONE by four point seven seconds!” Emelia could barely hear the announcer’s words over the sound of people yelling, clapping, and stomping. An hour into the row-off and her ears were ringing. Apparently the passing of the Boat Race had done nothing to dull the competitive spirit between the Oxford and Cambridge crews.

  Peter had really been the one who had pulled off the event. Somehow between him and Sabine they’d managed to get almost every single crew member to agree to be part of the fund-raiser, as well as the two coxes. All Emelia had to do was organize ticketing and logistics.

  Like Peter had suggested, the crew members from the same seat in the Boat Race were pitted against each other in a head-to-head battle over one mile. Not only had it meant all they’d had to do was relocate four ergs—two for racing and two for warm-up—onto the gymnasium floor, but with the big screens they’d put up, the place was packed full of spectators. Family members, friends, rowing groupies—they’d all somehow been convinced to part with twenty pounds each to watch.

  And that was before Sabine had pulled a rabbit out of her hat. She’d somehow gotten some BBC sports commentator—whom Emelia didn’t know from a piece of pine but everyone else was giddy over—to commentate the event, with highlights screening on some sports show later in the week.

  It still wouldn’t be close to the kind of money they needed to be pulling in, but hopefully it would create momentum. And that was what the first event was about.

  “This next one is going to be a dead heat. John and James are pretty much identical in height and weight.” Sabine made the observation from where she stood a few feet away on the sidelines. Emelia had been exactly right about Peter’s ex-girlfriend. Blond, petite, and gorgeous. She’d walked into the gym at six a.m. and immediately taken charge of all the things Emelia had no clue about and Peter hadn’t thought of. The only thing she couldn’t get her head around was whether Sabine was the coolest ex-girlfriend in the world or making a play to get her man back. If it was the second, she was one of the best players Emelia had ever seen. Not so much as a hint of neediness or desperation.

  Even in a pair of jeans and T-shirt, there was no hiding Sabine was a top-class athlete. From her perfect posture, to the muscles that rippled under the denim, to the determined set of her jaw, it oozed from her. It wasn’t difficult to see why she was an elite-level cox. Or why Peter had once dated her. Or that pretty much any other guy in the room would have jumped at the chance. Emelia felt like a pudgy Amazon next to her. “I understand you’re a cox for the Olympic team. That’s impressive.”

  “Thanks.” Sabine kept her eyes on the two rowers next up as they finished their warm-up. The roar in the room had dulled to the buzz of conversation as people waited for the next race.

  “Thanks so much for yo
ur help. I’m sure it’s obvious I’m way out of my depth when it comes to anything to do with rowing.” For some reason Emelia felt the need to fill the conversational void.

  “If you don’t know rowing, you can never know Peter. Not really.” Sabine didn’t so much as glance Emelia’s way.

  Her pointed delivery hit Emelia like a barb in the side. Left her breathless for a moment. “I think you underestimate him. He’s more than rowing.” She delivered her own sting back.

  Sabine swung around, ponytail bouncing. “Of course he is. But what have the last ten years of his life been about? Rowing. It’s what he ate, slept, and breathed. It was what he dreamed about. It was why he trained twelve times a week for years. It’s what he would still be doing if he hadn’t been sidelined by injury. The fact that he can’t is what breaks him every day. Have you even Googled him? Do you have the faintest clue how great he was? How far he could’ve gone?”

  Emelia just stared at her.

  “No. Well, let me enlighten you. He was a shoo-in Team GB for the eight. He would’ve been competing at Rio. And I would have bet everything I had that the question wasn’t if he got his team to the podium, it was just where. He was that good.”

  “But he’s not.” Emelia wasn’t even sure what she was doing. It wasn’t like she and Peter were dating. It wasn’t like they were anything. So what was she fighting for exactly? “I may not know much about his injury, but I’m guessing that it’s bad to have taken him out of rowing this long. Maybe he will never row at that level again. That’s reality. No matter how much any of us may want it to be different, it’s just not. So you’re right. I haven’t lived in your little rowing bubble. I don’t get it all. But he doesn’t live there anymore either.”

  Sabine jammed her hands in her pockets and sucked in a breath. “Look, I’m sure you’re very nice. You have a cute accent and you seem smart enough. I’m sure you’re very refreshing with your naivety about rowing because he’s hurting. At some point, when he starts his comeback, the fact that you don’t know anything about what he loves isn’t going to be cute, it’s going to be irritating. The fact that you have no insight into what drives someone to train that brutally for so long will mean you can never really get him. So I have nothing against you, but you are not right for him.”