Stiff Drink: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #1

by Blair Babylon

  Arthur walked in, his wrist turned out as he peered down his shirt sleeve cuff. “I’ve dropped my cufflink down my sleeve again.”

  “Come here.” Gen cupped her hands. “Shake it out.”

  Arther held his arm up and jittered his hand, shaking loose the tiny bit of metal. Gen snatched the glittering thing before it hit the floor. Dark blue glittered amongst the gold. “Sapphires?”

  “My grandfather was a judge in India for a time. Could you?” He held out his right hand, wrist up.

  “Sure.” She threaded the cufflink through his sleeve and snapped it closed. The faint scent of his cologne wafted from his sleeve: warm, apple-pie spices, clean wood, and musk. “There you go.”

  “Thank you.” He checked it, testing the bar in back. “Yes, it’s closed. I was having such trouble with it.”

  “You’re so right-handed,” she said. “Sometimes I’m surprised you can cut your food with a knife.”

  “This is a rather formal event,” he started.

  “Because the others weren’t?” she laughed.

  “This one, more so.” He paused. “This is a bit embarrassing.”

  “Did I do something wrong?” Gen glanced at her dress, nerves jiggling because she didn’t know if this dress was appropriate or underdressed or too garish. “Is this dress not right?”

  “Oh, no. You look beautiful.” He smiled, and his smile was a little sultry but mostly kind. “You’re perfect. Your dress is lovely. It’s not that. From what Graham tells me—”

  “Oh, no. Did he say that my dresses cost extra because it takes too much material to cover my butt?”

  “No!” Arthur laughed. “He said you needed jewelry.”

  “Oh.” Gen didn’t have any expensive jewelry, nothing like what the duchesses and models would be wearing. Her mother had a nice aquamarine pendant and earrings. They could stop at her home and grab that.

  Arthur picked up a black velvet case that had been sitting on the entryway table. “I had some things retrieved from Spencer House. These belong to the estate, not to me, personally. If you like them, I can have replicas made.”

  He opened the case.

  Nestled inside the black velvet, a galaxy center of fiery pinpricks glowed, thousands of them.

  “Oh, Arthur,” she breathed. “How beautiful.”

  “I can have one made for you that’s just like it if you want.”

  She touched the swirls of diamonds on the necklace with just her fingertips. “No, no. I wouldn’t dream of accepting such a thing as a gift. It would be amazing to wear it for just one night, though.”

  Arthur lifted out the necklace. “Turn around.”

  Gen pivoted. She didn’t have to lift her heavy hair out of his way because she had twisted and pinned the damp mass onto the back of her skull.

  Arthur’s hands came over her head and laid the necklace over her collarbone. So many diamonds decorated the collar that the weight was significant. Silvery wires and settings, probably platinum, held all the stones together.

  She asked, “Where did you get such a thing?”

  “Inherited it like everything else,” he said.

  “It must be old.”

  His fingers brushed her neck as he fiddled with the clasp. “Tudor era. Queen Anne gave this set to my several-greats grandmother. There. All done.”

  “She knew the queen?” For the thousandth time, rich people were weird. Gen turned around.

  He held out his closed fist. “Oh, indeed. There are portraits of her at Spencer House.”

  Gen held her hand under his fingers, and he dropped two earrings that looked like mutant, crystal raspberries into her hand. She said, “I’d love to see the portraits someday.”

  “Would you?” His voice rose just a little, almost wistful. He got back into the jewelry case and came up with a bracelet and a ring.

  “Sure. I mean, this is her stuff. It would be neat to see a picture of her and to see the whole house.”

  “It’s in the country,” Arthur said. “We would have to take a few days. A weekend. It’s not open to the public until June, so we could go up one of these weekends. Here.” He held out a thick string of diamonds between his fingers.

  Gen laid her left arm on the bracelet. “You sound like you don’t spend a lot of time there.”

  “Every moment I can,” he said, clicking the bracelet clasp. “During the summer, it’s open on weekends for viewing. I spend those weekends here, but in other months, I escape London for weeks at a time.”

  “It sounds like it’s your private retreat.”

  He held out the ring, holding the circle in his long fingers. “I’d love to show it to you if you can stand the drive and the countryside and the mud of the deer park. Most people don’t care for it. They prefer the excitement of London.”

  He was still holding out that ring, a diamond ring, like he meant to put it on her finger.

  Okay, there are very few instances in life when a man puts a ring on a woman’s finger, and they are reserved for very specific occasions. Most guys would have dropped the ring into her hand like Arthur had the earrings, not held it out to put it on. Too much symbolism.

  Arthur was still holding that circle out, and the look in his gray eyes here in the dim entryway could have been mistaken for seriousness.

  Gen held out her right hand, fingers spread. “Oh, I could handle some peace and quiet. I miss the quiet of my dad’s ranch in Texas. These events are fun, but staying in would be nice, too.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said, slipping the ring over the proper finger of her right hand. “We’re to watch a movie sometime, aren’t we?”

  She needed to lighten this up, right now. “That’s right, buddy. You promised me a movie and take-away.”

  He chuckled, and then he glanced down the entryway. “We have a moment,” he said.

  “Pippa will be here in six minutes,” Gen said, checking her phone. She let absolute certainty drop her voice because Pippa was always, always on time.

  “Yes,” Arthur said. “Six minutes.” He bit one side of his lower lip, and he looked at her from the sides of his eyes.

  They hadn’t had even a moment to themselves after the meeting in Octavia’s office that morning, the one where Gen had insisted that they suck face in public that night.

  After work, Oliver had picked Gen up in the Rolls and driven her to the apartment, where she had barreled upstairs to shower. As she sprinted through, Mr. Royston Fothergill had informed Gen that Arthur was in his master suite, readying himself, and it appeared that he would be prompt.

  Gen’s hair was still damp underneath from where she had nearly finished blow-drying it, but she was standing by the elevators at the appointed time.

  But now, this was indeed the first time that she had seen him, and Arthur was studying her like he wanted to say something, still biting one side of his lower lip with his straight, white teeth.

  Finally, he said, “About what you told Octavia Hawkes this morning—”

  “Not out here,” Gen said. “Come on.” She strode away into the apartment.

  “Hey! Where are you—Gen!” Footfalls chased her into the apartment.

  She couldn’t go back to her guest bedroom. Housekeepers had rushed in as soon as Gen had walked out, armed with toilet scrubbers. She needed privacy to talk to him about making out in public tonight because she didn’t want to be embarrassed to death in front of the people who took care of Arthur.

  Behind her, Arthur said, “Hey! Pippa will arrive to collect us in just a minute. Where are you going?”

  Gen gathered up the hem of her dress so that she wouldn’t step on it and rip the gown down the front. Having to change her clothes would make them late. “We need to talk.”

  “Wait up!” He jogged a few steps and careened around her in the kitchen, his black dress shoes slipping on the tile. He grabbed the shining counter.

  “There are housekeepers in my room,” she said. “We need privacy.”

  “Come on,” he s
aid. “My room is free.”

  Gen followed his broad back, dressed in one of his matte black tuxedoes, through the kitchen and toward the other corner of the apartment from hers.

  To his bedroom.

  He held one of the double doors open for her. “If you think we should speak privately.”

  Gen stopped, her high heels skidding on the dark wooden floor.

  It was just his bedroom. Arthur had been a perfect gentleman in many other situations where there was no one else around. If he wanted to hurt her, he’d had ample opportunity. This was no different.

  It was just his bedroom.

  Gen swallowed hard and forced herself to walk past him and over the threshold.

  Okay. She had made it.

  Inside, wide windows opened the room to the sunset sky, streaks of neon gold and amber slicing the sky with fire. French doors led out to yet more of the balcony that wrapped all the way around the building. Topiaries cut into green cones and spirals stood outside, planted in terra cotta pottery, and a thick, column-studded railing looked like a sturdy barrier.

  Gen focused on the balcony and the breakfast table with four upholstered chairs outside.

  Even though the bed was probably ten feet away from her to her left, Gen could feel it over there. The suffocating, white comforter and the malformed blobs of the pillows crouched.

  Arthur shut the door behind her. The clicks of the knob and lock popped off the walls and brittle glass.

  “We should talk.” She stared at the thick moulding on the closed door that looked like walls within walls, an illustration of a prison.

  Arthur repeated, “Pippa will be arriving for us very soon. The schedule—”

  Sweat stung her forehead near her hairline. She blurted, “I think you should kiss me tonight.”

  Arthur didn’t look excited. Indeed, he inhaled through his nose, and he looked down and sideways at her, leery of what she had said.

  “I told Octavia that we would make it look better,” she said, “like we really are a couple.” She flicked her hands, trying to shake the crazies out of her fingers.

  “I’m concerned.” Arthur’s voice was pitched very low.

  “I think we should—concerned?” Panic wrapped around her throat, and her voice squeaked.

  “We’re standing here in private. I’m two feet away from you.” He canted his head to the side, inspecting her face and neck. “My hands are in my pockets. I’m not reaching for you. I’m not touching you, and yet I would say that you are about ten seconds away from a panic attack.”

  Gen slumped and let her butt rest against the wall behind her. Tremors ran through her legs and shook the floor under her. “I am not.”

  “Now you sound British, not saying what you mean, except that I don’t believe a word you are saying. To be properly British, you have to make the other person believe it.”

  Frustration vibrated in her bones. “You Brits are all closed in yourselves, trapped in your little shells of propriety and in manipulating other people. You can’t even move, you’re so trapped. You can’t even say what you mean.”

  “That might be so,” he admitted. “But if I were to kiss you in public and you reacted badly, the websites would have all the confirmation they needed that our so-called relationship is a sham. If the press were to say that I am engaged in a public-relations facade, it would look worse at the trial.”

  Such an unemotional evaluation of their situation.

  Arthur was more English than the heirs to the throne of England, and he was trapped in an English castle of his own making.

  But so was Gen. She was trapped in a dungeon of stupid panic.

  She hated it.

  Gen pulled herself upright and, with two steps, closed the distance between them. His tuxedo touched the beads of her gown over her chest. Even though he was six foot-four or taller, with her super-high heels on, she stood almost as tall as he did.

  She grabbed his tie near his collar. “So kiss me right now.”

  His silvery eyes widened, healed from the swelling and bruising from the car accident weeks ago. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Kiss me right now. Then we’ll know whether or not I’ll freak out tonight. Then we’ll know whether this looks like a sham relationship or whether it looks real.”

  The reticence in his silvery eyes shamed her.

  Oh.

  Her heart crumpled in her chest.

  It was a sham relationship, as he had called it. Arthur was acting the part of a devoted boyfriend for a few weeks so he could keep his noble title and billions of dollars.

  He hadn’t meant what he had said when they were out in public, and probably not when they had been in that restaurant, either, when he had asked her out on a date, and they had planned to have coffee and watch a movie at home, someday.

  Because being British means not saying what you mean and yet making people believe you.

  She had believed him.

  A few weeks before, he had manipulated her into believing that she could win the Tambling-Goggin v. Pye case in front of Judge Marks so that James Knightly would see her confidence and settle it.

  His suggestion to go on a date must have been exactly the same thing, a ploy to build up her confidence. She had needed to look confident because that was the best course of action.

  Her fist around the dark silver silk of his tie loosened.

  She said, “We don’t have to go through with it if you don’t want to. I understand. Hey, maybe I was just telling Octavia something to get her off our backs. Maybe I was being British, and I didn’t say what I meant.”

  Arthur’s hand touched her bare shoulder, near the strap that held up her dress. “Did you mean what you told Octavia? That we should try to make it appear more real for the cameras and the stupid websites?”

  “I mean what I say. I told Octavia that we would snog in public.”

  The childish word made him close his eyes and chuckle. Oh, the way that his dark lashes brushed his cheeks.

  “Yeah, snog,” she said. “I said we would snog.”

  He shook his head, still laughing, and looked up. “Fine.”

  “Fine, what?” She couldn’t breathe.

  “Fine. We’ll snog. But you kiss me.”

  “Wha-at?”

  His hand touched her waist, and he pressed her spine just a little, guiding her a little closer to his chest. He lifted her other hand and wrapped her arm around his waist.

  His voice was low in his throat, and their lips were only an inch apart. “You, kiss me. Now. Here.”

  His body swayed, brushing hers through their clothes.

  Oh, this was totally different.

  Being kissed meant that she just had to survive it and not freak out. Having to initiate it felt a hundred times harder.

  Arthur said, “Go ahead.”

  “It’s probably a good idea,” she whispered, looking at his lips and watching his gray eyes. His irises had quite a bit of dark blue around the edges of the pale gray. “Because we’re supposed to be a couple. We should have been dating for a while. If we had been dating for a while, we would know where the noses go and stuff.”

  He murmured, “Right.”

  His warm, mint breath feathered over her lips.

  Arthur wasn’t just standing stiffly like a statue that she could bring to life with a kiss. His lips were parted, and his eyes fluttered half shut, not watching her but not mannequin-like.

  She said, “Otherwise, we’ll look awkward tonight. It’ll be obvious. Everyone will know. The gossip sites will say that it was staged.”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  His lips were almost touching hers. He was bending his neck so she could reach him.

  All she had to do was move.

  She wasn’t a drunk, stupid, helpless college student.

  Not anymore.

  Gen pushed with her toes, rising slightly, and brushed her lips across his in the quickest butterfly kiss.

  She pulled back, watching him
.

  He didn’t snap. He didn’t shove her up against a wall and pin her hands above her head or any of the other things that would have scared the shit out of her.

  When her lips left his, he didn’t move. He was unmoving like he was waiting for her.

  “Again,” he said.

  His voice was so deep in his throat when he said that, so masculine, a gentle but undeniable command.

  Gen rose on her toes and kissed him again.

  This time, she touched her lips to his, and his lips parted under hers.

  He was kissing her back, gently, and his other hand stole to her jaw.

  His touch didn’t feel like he was restraining her. His thumb brushed her cheekbone, and his fingers slipped into her hair.

  Gen’s heart swelled, and his tie slid from her fingers, catching on her writing callus. She touched his chest while he kissed her, feeling the hard flesh of him buried under the layers of silk and fine wool, and her hands rose. Muscle swelled under his clothes, and her fingers and palms found the round solidity of his shoulders.

  Arthur lifted his head away from her, and she almost stumbled against him from the sudden lack of resistance. His breathing was high in his chest, the lightest bit of breathlessness. His hands still held her waistline and her jaw.

  He whispered, “Are you all right?”

  Gen nodded. She couldn’t trust herself to speak. Her voice might squeak or crack, or she might say something stupid.

  Something like, Don’t stop.

  He said, “Are you going to be all right tonight, in front of people?”

  She nodded again, rubbing her chin and jaw on his palm. Her face tingled where his skin touched hers. His other hand warmed her waist.

  “During the dancing,” he said. “Not during the supper. Not during the auction. All right? Before the dancing, you should relax.”

  “Okay. I can do that. Okay.”

  A line formed between his eyes. “I’ve never felt like a wolf leading a lamb to slaughter before.”