Stiff Drink: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #1

by Blair Babylon

  Gen scuffed her shoe on the wooden floor under her desk. “I don’t know why he would say that.”

  “Because he trusted you. He thought that anyone else in your chambers might not understand how best to handle it.”

  Horace had been overly sentimental, sometimes, even though he had that polished British reserve.

  She said, “I think someone else should handle your case. I’m just a pupil barrister. I’ve only been arguing cases for a few months, and always with Horace making sure I knew what to say. I’m not qualified. You need a senior barrister, probably a QC, someone with a lot of experience and who understands the British legal system better than I do.”

  Lord Severn smiled at her under the light cast from the single ceiling bulb in her office. “Now I’m sure that you’re too intoxicated to see yourself home. A barrister would never say such a thing, otherwise.”

  “Maybe it’s because I’m not a good barrister.”

  “Horace thought otherwise, and I trust his judgment.”

  “You’re drunk,” she said.

  Lord Severn laughed. “Perhaps, but you’re worse off than I am. Let’s get you to the car. You’re far too drunk to be walking around, giving away your cases.”

  “You should listen when I tell you to dump me. I gained a first at Oxford. I’m smart.”

  Lord Severn glanced around her tiny office. “Do you need anything? Should you take your laptop or lock it up for the night? Do you have a jacket? It’s chilly out there, even for January.”

  She scooted her chair back from her tiny desk and grabbed her jacket off the back of it. “Everything stays here. Just need to lock my office door.”

  “All right. Let’s go.” He held out his hand, palm up.

  Gen recoiled from his grabbing hand. “I can walk fine. I don’t need help.”

  Those silvery-gray eyes of his tracked how she swayed as she held onto her desk, and even in her drunken state, she could see that he didn’t look drunk at all.

  Not at all.

  Not even a little.

  Why not?

  The high heels on her shoes felt broken, and every time she walked, her ankles flexed like she was going to fall over. “I don’t need help,” she repeated, wobbling around her desk.

  “Of course not,” Lord Severn said. “But I’m here if you would prefer a hand.”

  Gen snagged her purse off the floor and stumbled past him and out of her office. “I don’t usually get drunk like this.”

  “I should expect not.” Lord Severn followed her out and watched her twist the metal key in the knob. He tilted his head, examining the outdated lock set on her door. “Is that the only lock on your door?”

  “I’m very junior here. Not much is kept in there.”

  “Merely my personal phone number and contact information, copies of my passport and credit history, and my friends’ private information, amongst others.”

  “Oh, yeah. I should do something about that.” The floor wiggled under Gen’s feet, so she leaned against a wall to steady herself.

  “I’ll send someone over tomorrow to upgrade that. Come, now. The car is waiting.”

  Gen staggered down the hallway beside Lord Severn until they reached the staircase. The offices upstairs had been remodeled with modern furnishings like any law office anywhere in the world.

  Dang it, they had already passed the elevator, and going back would make her look weak and drunk.

  Marble stairs stretched down to the ground floor: long, imposing, centuries old, and slick as satin.

  Gen gripped the banister so hard that her knuckles inside her hand groaned.

  “You could hold my elbow.” Lord Severn jutted his elbow out to the side as if to assist her down the staircase at cotillion.

  She said, “I’m fine. Don’t grab me.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “Last time, you tried to pummel me.”

  “And I’ll do it for realsies this time.”

  Yet, Gen eyed his arm. Merely an elbow offered as a handle didn’t seem as threatening as a hand grabbing at her and ready to shove her down.

  Lord Severn stood with his elbow akimbo. “Shall we?”

  Gen might fall headfirst downstairs because she was so stupidly wobbly.

  The other option was to hold onto his arm. Not him holding her, but her holding onto him.

  She was as skittish as a thunder-spooked colt. Ridiculous.

  Falling down the stone stairs and dying was not the best alternative, though.

  She had to find a way over, around, or through things, unless she wanted to live her life like a gun-shy gopher.

  Without looking, she curled her fingers under his arm.

  His arm tightened against her hand, pulling her to his side.

  Gen didn’t let go.

  She was fine. She was just hanging onto him. He wasn’t grabbing her.

  It was different.

  She told herself that again.

  It was different.

  Under the fine fabric of his shirt, Lord Severn’s biceps muscle twitched, a tremor in the hard globe of his upper arm. Against the backs of her fingers, muscular cords wound around his side.

  He must have a lot of spare time to hit the gym.

  Lazy noble jerk.

  Warmth filtered through his shirt to her hand, and a hint of cologne that smelled like apple pie spices and warm wood clung to him.

  “Shall we?” he asked.

  Gen nodded. She walked down the stairs, trying not to fall on her face and crash down the steps nor accidentally mash her body against his.

  Her hand shook on Lord Severn’s arm, no matter how hard she tried to steady herself.

  Damn.

  Lord Severn looked around the dark wood of the staircase as they walked down. “My grandfather was admitted to the bar in Lincoln’s Inn.”

  “Your grandfather was a barrister?” Gen concentrated on breathing slowly and not hyperventilating.

  “Of course not,” he scoffed. “My grandfather was an earl.”

  Oh. Right. “Why was he admitted to the bar?”

  They were about halfway down the staircase.

  Lord Severn said, “We wolfish earls must have something to do with our free time. My grandfather read law at Oxford and served on certain committees in the House of Lords.”

  “I read law at Trinity College at Oxford.”

  “Trinity is an excellent college. Everyone seems to love it. I did.”

  “You were at Trinity? Did you take a degree?”

  “Oh, yes. A while ago, a few years ahead of you, I’d wager. But it doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course, it matters. What course did you take?”

  He shrugged, and his arm under her hand rose. “Modern Languages.”

  “That must have been hard. I barely passed French.”

  “I read Spanish and Russian.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “Not particularly. There were quite a lot of classical books to read in the course. I rather thought that we would speak the languages, but uni is an education in many ways, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes. Many ways.” Gen felt herself laugh and almost choked on it.

  Wow, Gen was impressed with herself, that she could hold onto Lord Severn’s arm and laugh at his jokes and not freak out or climb up on the banister like an overweight, ungainly spider monkey to get away from him.

  Maybe she should have been impressed that Lord Severn was so skillfully distracting her.

  Well, he was a party animal. Everything was just fun and a great time had by all, right? He was probably very good at getting people to relax. That’s why people flocked to him.

  That’s why women flocked to him.

  She asked him, “So are you doing anything with your degree?”

  With his other hand, he patted her fingers that were wrapped around his arms. “Nothing to speak of.”

  “Then why did you go to university?”

  “As I said, we wolfish earls must
have something to do with our free time. I went to university for a few years before embarking on my depraved and debauched lifestyle.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right. I’m supposed to be lecturing you about the deplorable ways you spend your time and money.”

  “It appears that I’ve taken up rescuing damsels in distress tonight. Is that more to your taste?”

  Somehow, they reached the bottom of the stairs and the safety of the ground floor.

  Gen had made it. She hadn’t freaked out or fallen or yanked her hand away and tumbled down the stairs.

  Halle-freaking-lujah.

  She caught her breath, and just as she started to drop her hand away from Lord Severn’s arm, he settled his other hand over her fingers.

  It didn’t feel like he was intentionally trapping her, just steadying her.

  She did feel a little trapped, but she didn’t shake him off. She could handle this.

  Gen considered making her fingers go limp and letting them slide out of his arm, but Lord Severn continued to talk about the history of Lincoln’s Inn and his family’s long connection with the law society, telling her about the history of the art that they passed.

  His arm warmed her fingers, too. Gen’s hands were always cold.

  And, to be frank, Gen was holding onto the arm of one of the most notorious playboys and eligible bachelors in England. Every time Lord Severn looked at her or asked her something about herself, it was like he glowed from the inside, and she warmed from his light. Even now, with his fingers gently holding hers, when he smiled down at her as they walked through the antiquated building past the dark wood and stone of the lobby, she felt like he liked her.

  Maybe he did.

  Oh, she was being silly. Horsey-faced Gen wasn’t in the same league as His Venerable Hotness, the Right Honorable Lord Severn.

  She must be drunk.

  But she could enjoy the moment.

  Lord Severn rambled on about King Charles II as if he had known the guy while they walked through the lobby, out the front doors, and along the sidewalk.

  Just outside the portcullis, a car was idling, waiting for them.

  Lord Severn finally let go of her fingers, and she jerked her hand back to her side. She stood, fidgeting, while he opened the rear door for her. When she finally climbed inside, her high heel caught on the rim of the door, yanking her foot.

  Somehow, she saved it and just sat down hard on the pillowy leather. Sprawling across the seat with her fanny in the air was totally par for the course, but not this time.

  Gen’s hand felt abnormally warm.

  She held her fingers to her chest. Her hand had been trapped by his arm against his ribs for several minutes, and she hadn’t panicked at all. Surely, this was some kind of a new record for her. Someone ought to be proud.

  Lord Severn climbed into the other side of the car. “Unfortunately, I can’t take you home with me. Your fellow barristers would talk. So, where shall I take you?”

  “That might be the only way to keep you out of trouble, if I hung around you and hounded you day and night.”

  He chuckled. “Let’s hope it never comes to that. All those ethics rules about barristers and their clients would surely get in the way.”

  “You know about those, huh?”

  He winked at her. “It’s come up once or twice.”

  Gen peered at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you should read my file carefully. Horace wasn’t my first barrister at your law firm.”

  Shock cracked through her. “No!”

  “Certainly. I think that’s why I was assigned to him.” Lord Severn asked, “And what’s your address, again?”

  Had she told him her address to begin with?

  It didn’t really matter.

  Gen rattled off the address to him. “In Islington. It’s not too far off. About fifteen minutes.”

  Arthur told the driver, a lady in her sixties with short, gray hair visible above the seat back, to take them to the address. The car pulled away from the curb, rocking Gen back in her seat.

  Outside the car, the night air in London was chilly but not bad for January. The buildings slipped by along the sides of the street. The ground floor shops were shuttered and dark, but lights still shone in some of the upstairs windows. Shadows flitted in the bright squares even though it was well after midnight.

  The car’s engine hummed in the quiet.

  To be polite, Gen should make conversation with Arthur Finch-Hatten, who was sitting right over there on the other side of the back seat.

  Right over there.

  The car passed under a street light, and the blaze of light flared on his strong cheekbones and the dimples in his cheeks.

  Damn, he was gorgeous.

  Gen’s brain fuzzed like radiation had turned all her radio signals to static.

  She needed to say something.

  Think, think, think, think, think.

  Let’s see: she could harangue him some more for his carousing.

  No, she had harped on that enough.

  She could talk about the weather or sports or something.

  Gen didn’t know much about sports and was rarely outside during the day except to travel to court. Most of the time when she was out, her face was stuck in paperwork while she rode in taxis or on the train, anyway. The weather was a mystery to her except for a few instances between vehicles and buildings.

  She could compliment him on his incredible physique—the hard muscles around his torso and arm—that she had been feeling up while he had guided her drunken butt down the stairs. Maybe she could ask him to take off his shirt to show her just how ripped he was, just out of curiosity.

  Awkward.

  Topics of conversation, each more stupid than the last, vortexed in Gen’s head.

  Oh my God, she had to say something.

  Now.

  Talk now.

  Gen blurted, “Those little white wigs that barristers wear in court really start to stink if you don’t have them cleaned, and some people never do that.”

  Oh, no. Anything but that.

  Lord Severn looked over at her, startled, his silvery eyes reflecting the bands of street lights that shone in the car as they drove, and his expression cracked into a huge grin. “Do tell.”

  “Um, yeah. They’re traditionally made out of horse hair, so they last forever, but they’re really itchy. Everyone hates them.”

  Lord Severn was still smiling that blast of sunshine that warmed her from the inside, out. He said, “I can only imagine.”

  “And the robes are hot. You have to wear them over a suit, and it gets really steamy. Some of the big guys sweat through them. The bands on the collar are stiff and poke the underside of your chin.”

  “Abominable,” Lord Severn agreed.

  “It’s better to argue cases where you’ve never met the client but only taken instructions from the solicitors. It was kind of disconcerting to actually meet with you in chambers. I keep feeling like I should throw you back to the solicitors and have all of our communication go through them. It’s traditional. The law is more pure when it works like that. I can concentrate on the case and the nuances of the law and the facts instead of—” She glanced over at Lord Severn, so beautiful with his brilliant smile and his gray eyes twinkling in the streetlights and moonlight “—distractions.”

  “Certainly,” Lord Severn said, “but I like to know who is working on my case. Horace and I had lunch several times a month to discuss developments.”

  “He was charging you for his time for those lunches.”

  “Of course he was.”

  “He was charging you while you were at your club,” Gen said.

  “Of course. Otherwise, he would have billed me for reimbursement, too.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “Of course.” Lord Severn’s smile turned a little puzzled, and he tilted his head as he looked at her.

  “All right, then. If it’s
all on the up-and-up,” she said.

  “You’re not going to charge me for this car ride home, are you?” Lord Severn asked, grinning again.

  Damn, he was beautiful when he did that.

  She laughed. “You should charge me cab fare, I suppose.”

  “I think we can agree that each would cancel out the other.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you’ve looked at how much I’m charging you per hour,” she said.

  His eyes twinkled again. “Can you imagine how much it would cost to hire an earl to drive you around?”

  “You’re not driving,” she pointed out.

  “As a companion, then,” he said. “I was auctioned off last year for charity to a very nice duchess in her late forties for thirty thousand pounds. Now if we do the math to arrive at a per-hour fee—”

  Gen asked, “How many hours was it?”

  “There was dinner, and the symphony, so that was a few hours.”

  “And you dropped her off at home at—”

  He raised one eyebrow, but he was still smiling. “About ten the next morning.”

  “Oh! I don’t want to know any more!” Gen was laughing so hard that she grabbed her stomach. “But it does bring down your per-hour rate quite a bit if the date lasted sixteen hours.”

  He laughed. “Well, she did pay an exorbitant sum, and it was for charity.”

  “So it was a charity—” She couldn’t finish the term.

  Lord Severn shook his head, though he was still grinning. “Not at all. Our commitment to services for refugees might have brought us together, but mutual attraction ensured that we were not divided.”

  Gen laughed again. “That’s a nice way to put it.”

  “I’m a nice man.”

  “I’ve heard a lot about what kind of man you are, Lord Severn, but ‘nice’ has never come up.”

  “Call me Arthur, not Lord Severn. What tosh. And don’t believe everything you read on the internet.”

  The car coasted to a stop in front of Gen’s place, a terraced house attached in a long row to the other houses that solidly lined the street. Delicate iron bars covered the dark windows. A bare bulb shone a glaring light above the white-painted front door and touched the red brick of the three-story building in the night.