Stiff Drink: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #1

by Blair Babylon

  When Gen got home from the office and on the mornings when she didn’t visit her mother, she called for Ruckus’s leash. The two of them had at least some sort of a walk in Hyde Park.

  Within weeks, Ruckus was meeting her at the elevator with the lead in his mouth. Luckily, he understood that she needed to change her clothes and shoes and trotted beside her to her bedroom, drooling around the leather strap in his mouth the whole way.

  Watching how Arthur lived was an education in itself.

  After he returned from business meetings or emerged from that locked room down the hallway from Gen’s bedroom, his evening was scripted for him.

  Mr. Royston Fothergill had Arthur’s clothes ready after he freshened up. His admins bought gifts for him to give to the hosts or supplied whatever else he needed.

  Arthur walked through his life like a prize show horse, groomed and coddled and pranced about the arena to do his tricks.

  No wonder he occasionally went off the reservation with a couple of women to blow off steam.

  Gen was coming to enjoy the evenings out with him more and more. She had never been a party girl, but Arthur was there to smooth over all the social stuff. He whispered notes to her about her law firm’s clients, who they were, what they did, who they were in litigation with, and what they were really like.

  It wasn’t just his warm breath on her bare shoulders or neck that she liked. She was genuinely grateful for his information and guidance.

  And he really could remember everything. He should have been a barrister. That kind of memory is killer when memorizing precedent.

  “Lloyd Payton.” In the crowd by the bar, Arthur turned her so that she saw the man over Arthur’s broad shoulder but the guy couldn’t see Arthur’s lips moving. “Daughter is Sofiah. Currently Octavia Hawkes’s client for a case involving his mill’s shoddy goods. He’s defending it to the hilt, but that mill hasn’t turned out anything of quality since before the War. Be complimentary. Be formal.”

  While they were dancing: “In the black dress with the overabundance of gold jewelry, Isla-Belle Hext. Your chamber-mate David Trent’s client. Suing her divorce attorneys for malpractice.”

  Arthur adjusted her hand on his shoulder like he did pretty much every time they danced their one waltz. No matter how precisely Gen placed her hand, he always corrected her. She wasn’t even sure what he was fixing.

  He continued, “Quite likely she’ll win. Certainly deserves a settlement from someone. Don’t mention it, but tilt your head to the side in commiseration. She should nod in acknowledgment.”

  Over supper, “Prentis Hightower, across the table in the green tie, client of Rupert Hancock, QC. His son Raglan was at university and was hit by a missile that had been fired out of another student’s anus. Seeking compensation for damages and mental distress. Yes, Gen, for being hit by a buttock rocket. Evidently, the burns on his back required skin grafts. Show very subtle amounts of real horror when you ask, obliquely, about his son’s well-being. The lad has suffered quite a bit.”

  Over the suppers, Arthur told Gen tidbits of his life, from boarding school through college and since.

  Over steak for her and butternut squash ravioli for him: “It was easier to sneak out of the dorms at Rolle than from the winter campus in Gstaad. Once I kept a car off campus when I was sixteen, Caz, Max, and I could be at the garage in fifteen minutes. During the music festivals like Montreux and Paléo in the summer, we would skive off school for a week and indulge. I bribed the dorm attendants to forget that we existed. No, no one worried about us. We were three male teenagers with nearly unlimited funds, passports, and no oversight. What’s the worst that could have happened? Well, yes, perhaps a Turkish prison, but it never came to that.”

  Over chicken divan for her and vegetarian lasagna for him: “One time when I was in Las Vegas with friends, we were caught counting cards at blackjack. They couldn’t prove anything, of course. It’s just watching what’s played and keeping track in one’s head so that you can adjust your wagers based on the changing odds. Yes, a lot of people think it’s magic and you know what the next card played will be, but it’s not. It’s statistics. It’s math. Since the casinos started using longer shoes and shuffling before the cards get close to the end, counting cards has become ineffective. I learned it at school. There was a floating poker game in the dorms that went on for years. I kept losing spectacularly to an older boy, Wulfram, and a younger boy, Alexandre. Wulf finally let on that they were counting cards and, out of pity, taught me how. I taught Caz and Max, and we went back and cleaned out the upperclassmen that weekend, though I suspect some of that was pity on Wulfram’s part.”

  Over Vegetable Wellington, herbed vegetables wrapped in golden, flaky puff pastry that shattered between her teeth, Arthur whispered, “When we’re in a crowd, you mustn’t say excuse-me and pardon-me to get through. I think you said them twenty times in a row.”

  “But, that’s polite,” Gen said, confused. “Being polite is very British.”

  “Yes, but we don’t say that when we squeeze through crowds,” he whispered. He glanced around and dropped his voice further. “British children are taught that when one belches in public, one says ‘Excuse me.’ One says ‘Pardon me’ when one audibly trumps in public.”

  Gen felt faint. “Oh, my. So when I was getting through the crowd—”

  “People were probably wondering what you had eaten to cause such gastric distress.”

  “Oh my God!” They all thought she had left a trail of burps and farts through the crowd like a gaseous river of napalm floating behind her.

  Gen considered crawling under the table. She asked him, “So, what do I do when I need to get through a crowd?”

  Arthur said, “One contorts oneself into a knotted rope to fit through any available space, apologizing afterward, of course. There’s often a great deal of saying ‘I’m sorry,’ and sometimes a standoff of insisting, ‘No, after you.’”

  “And if a person doesn’t see you and doesn’t move?” Gen asked.

  “Well, then, it’s perfectly obvious that both of you must stand there until one of you is dead.”

  Sometimes at night or in stolen moments, but always when they were alone, Arthur’s voice would deepen to those compelling, sexy tones that made the hair on the back of Gen’s neck stand up.

  He convinced her to let him touch her elbow and shoulder with his fingertips while they talked, to sit beside her on the couch with their thighs touching, or to sit opposite her at tiny cafe tables, their knees encroaching on each other’s space, and talking quietly, almost nose-to-nose.

  In those moments, sometimes she couldn’t breathe with the warmth of his body washing over her skin, left half-bare by the strapless or backless evening gowns, or the subtle scent of his cologne, cinnamon and fresh-cut wood and musk.

  And always, his eyes.

  His silvery eyes glinted in the moonlight, shone in the daylight when he laughed, and turned to molten metal when he looked at her and thought she wasn’t looking.

  Gradually, Gen got stronger.

  At the charity events, when she didn’t shrink back from men as much, she got an approving nod from Arthur and sometimes a wink. When a client of Octavia’s shook Gen’s hand with both of his and then grabbed her elbow in his enthusiasm, Gen smiled at him, and then Arthur smiled at her.

  She didn’t feel so shaky inside. Even her voice strengthened when she spoke in court, and Arthur’s glances from the gallery warmed her.

  Expensive, designer dresses were filling her closet at Arthur’s apartment, each more sparkling than the last. Room was running out.

  Gen didn’t bother to lock her bedroom door anymore. Arthur was a perfect gentleman in every respect.

  Through it all, there was a very quiet, very subtle flirtation between them. Whenever she said the word “coffee,” even in the car, even if they passed each other in the kitchen in the morning, he looked up and into her eyes, a reminder that after this was over, she had promised
that they would go for coffee together.

  And just every now and then, sometimes when he caught her eye, there was a moment, a connection, a reliving of those fifteen soul-baring minutes on the couch where something happened between them as they stared into each other’s eyes.

  Still, when she went shopping for new ball gowns for the never-ending society and charity events, he came along under guise of staying with her for she was his babysitter. When she showed him new dresses that the fussy and very strict Graham had stuffed her into, Arthur’s eyes turned to shining, liquid silver.

  One time, for an event somewhat less formal than most of the charity balls and receptions, Graham allowed her to be seen in a black dress that skimmed the tops of her knees. It was too tight, Graham fussed, too cinched in the waist for a voluptuous woman such as herself.

  When Arthur had seen her in it at Harrods, his eyes had traveled from the tips of yet another pair of Christian Louboutin red-soled pumps, up her legs, lingering on her calves and thighs, and over her body. He had started to stand up from his armchair as if an instinct had seized him, but he settled back into the chair and smoothed his bright blue tie into his suit jacket.

  That night, when she wore the too-short and too-tight dress with the fuck-me shoes, Arthur’s hands had floated around her, not touching her, not being grabby and groping, but his fingertips almost skimmed her shoulder, her neck, and her bare knees. When they sat opposite each other, knees almost touching, he reached down to hover his hands near her shins a dozen times.

  When she crossed her legs, he ran a finger over one pointed tip of her shoe.

  Gen watched his fingertip stroke the leather and didn’t move.

  Their eyes met, and Gen didn’t look away for long minutes.

  Neither did Arthur.

  One Friday night, late, hours after they had come home from another soiree and had danced with Arthur whispering secrets into her hair about the other guests, her clients, and himself, hours after she had gone to bed, the long handle on her door rattled.

  Gen sat up on the loveseat couch that she was sleeping on, her hair spilling around her shoulders and her tee shirt stretched tight over her breasts. She held up the blanket that she had wrestled off of the bed. “Arthur?”

  The door creaked open in the dim light from the cityscape twinkling through the window behind her.

  No one came in.

  Something clinked and jingled near the floor, however.

  Gen sat up farther and looked down.

  Ruckus had trotted in, holding his leash in his mouth, and flopped on the floor beside the couch.

  The next morning would be Saturday. Ruckus had figured out that Wednesdays and weekends were his long-walk days in Hyde Park, and the little dog was ready whenever she was.

  Trust that pooch to figure out how to read the date, or maybe Ruckus also had access to Mr. Royston Fothergill’s shared calendar.

  She laid back down on the couch and went back to sleep for a few hours.

  Gen thought that she and Arthur were getting along splendidly. If someone had asked her to wager, she would have bet that they were becoming fast friends and their affectionate relationship would be obvious to anyone who observed them. They always seemed to be laughing together, whether in public or even in stolen moments in the apartment.

  And there was that naughty sparkle in his silvery eyes when he looked at her.

  So when Gen’s pupil mistress called them both into her office to give them a dressing down, Gen could barely sputter.

  A MAN AND A PLAN

  Once again, Gen and Arthur sat in hard chairs in front of Octavia Hawkes’s imposing desk, shame-faced.

  Octavia Hawkes stood by the window, her back to them, not even deigning to look at them.

  Arthur whispered to Gen, “I told you about the time that headmaster at Le Rosey caught me in that girl’s closet, braced against the walls so that I was flat against the ceiling, yes?”

  Gen snickered. “I don’t think Octavia is going to make us shovel sidewalks during our free period for a week in punishment. What did you do this time?”

  “I did nothing,” he whispered. “I am as pure as the driven snow. It’s what made me think of it.”

  Gen laughed out loud at that but caught herself before Octavia fired her butt.

  Arthur mused, “I still hate snow. I always finagle to spend Christmas with Caz in California or Max in Monaco, or wherever he has ended up.”

  Octavia Hawkes stood by the window, her hands clasped behind her back, staring out as the late winter sunshine lit her smooth face. She said, “No one believes you.”

  Gen said, “He hasn’t done anything wrong for months. I just checked. There are no new pictures, nothing.”

  Octavia said, “No one believes you two are a couple.”

  Gen’s jaw dropped open. “What—us? Why not?”

  “Evidently, you are ‘stiff’ together. There is no ‘chemistry’ between you. You do not pass ‘the sniff test.’” Her sarcasm emphasized the quotation marks.

  Gen looked at Arthur, who shrugged. She defended them, “We dance together in public at least a couple times a week. He’s draped all over me like kudzu.”

  Arthur straightened. “I do not hang all over you like a teenager—”

  Octavia said, “The gossip pages are saying that you two have less chemistry than any rock musician turned actor.”

  Arthur frowned. “Surely that’s not true.”

  “God, yes. It’s absolutely true,” Gen said. “Rock stars really can’t act.”

  And they both snickered like schoolchildren.

  “Enough!” Octavia shouted. “Now, Gen, I’m pleased to see that the quality of your work hasn’t diminished, and you are getting enough done here at the office—”

  Well, that was good. Gen tried to relax a little.

  “—but I still believe that this little experiment is not working. The main point was to restore Finch-Hatten’s image.”

  “The goal was to keep him out of even more trouble,” Gen said. “The only pictures of him on those damn gossip sites anymore are with me in very non-compromising positions.”

  “Definitely not compromising enough,” Octavia agreed. “This isn’t working, and it’s too risky for you. I believe that you should move out of Finch-Hatten’s apartment and end this charade.”

  “But he’s being good!” Gen said. “The case is all ready to go, and he hasn’t been on the gossip websites for weeks!”

  “This case will rise on its merits or sink on Finch-Hatten’s previous behavior. You would be better served focusing on other cases before the senior barristers decide to whom they’ll offer the tenancy.”

  “The tenancy decision is at the end of September. We won’t even get to trial before that, so I can’t lose it.”

  “There will still be pre-trial motions and judgments, and the gossip is still out of hand. The gossip bloggers have lost the plot about Finch-Hatten and his many women, from strippers to socialites to hookers. He’s their favorite flavor of candy, and they don’t believe that you’re anything but a beard.”

  “What if we make out?” Gen asked. She didn’t slap her hand over her mouth this time, but it was a close call.

  “Gen?” Arthur asked.

  She bulled onward. “Those stupid websites are saying that they don’t believe us because there’s no PDA, so we’ll slobber all over each other a couple of times.” She turned to Arthur. “The hearing isn’t until November. We have months. We should be boring for a bit, hold hands and pecks on the cheeks, and they’ll move on to more scandalous pastures. We can get through this.”

  “You seem adamant,” Octavia said, and she nearly snarled it. A whole world of accusations lived in that statement.

  She turned to Arthur. “Are you okay with that?”

  He smiled at her, a slow, secret smile. “In this, I am in your hands.”

  “Okay, then. Don’t we have a thing tonight?”

  He checked the calendar on his phone. �
�A charity supper and silent auction for pediatric cancer. It’s the Hope Ball.”

  “It’s an actual ball,” she said. “Like Cinderella.”

  “Except that the money goes to charity instead of the royal coffers.”

  “I don’t have a ball gown.”

  “Graham will make sure you do.”

  Gen shot a look at Octavia. “So we’ll make out for the cameras tonight. It’s just to repair his image,” she said. “It’s to control the message. In reality, we are as platonic as neutered house cats.”

  Arthur really frowned at that one.

  “So if they want snogging,” Gen had heard Lee and Rose use that very British word, “we’ll give them snogging.”

  “Snogging?” Arthur asked. “Did you learn that from the Harry Potter books?”

  Gen shot him a filthy look, and they both cracked up.

  “Stop it, you two!” Octavia thumped her hand on her desk.

  “We’ve just been doing our best,” Gen told her, “and the fact that some asinine gossip websites don’t believe us enough is ridiculous. So, we’ll turn it up a notch. We’ll play barrister games with these paparazzi-pseudo-journalists, and they’ll lose. They’ll never realize how they’ve been played. It’s only a few more months—”

  “Eight months,” Octavia insisted.

  “—and we’re pretty much set to go into the hearing. And he’s been squeaky clean—”

  Arthur chuckled again.

  “—for weeks.”

  He kept chuckling.

  “Oh, my God, stop it.” And yet Gen was pretty close to laughing with him.

  “Fine.” Octavia glared at them. “You may try that. It is only eight more months,” she sighed. “What trouble could you two get up to in eight months?”

  Yeah, that was as ominous a statement as Gen had ever heard.

  FIRST KISS

  Standing in the entryway next to the elevator doors, Gen held a handful of her silver beaded skirt, sweeping it to the side to get it out of the way while she checked the hem behind herself. The back of the ball gown—not just an evening gown but a ball gown—dragged on the floor just a bit, maybe six inches, while the front allowed the tips of her high heels to peep out. She suspected that the back was a train. People were going to be stepping on it all night. Maybe she could find a couple of safety pins and fashion it into a bustle instead, but Graham might have a cow if he found out she had altered the lines of one of his picks.