Gambling on a Gentleman: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love)

by Brenna Jacobs

  “Hopefully it will stop soon, but we’re safe for now,” he said as he pulled quiches out of the bag. “Which one? Prosciutto and mushroom? Or veggie?” He held each one up alternately.

  “Prosciutto, please.”

  He handed it to her then peeked in the bag again. “There’s limoncello and some kind of dessert in here too.” He pulled a bottle from the bag and twisted off the cap before handing it to her.

  Alice took it from him, then waited for him to open his own bottle before clinking hers against his. “To Ardis. She sure knows how to pack a picnic.”

  “To Ardis.” Geoffrey smiled, and Alice decided she was quite possibly on the most romantic date she’d ever been on.

  If it was a date. She wasn’t sure. She was sure she shouldn’t date her boss. In which case, it was the most romantic “business outing” she’d ever been on.

  Geoffrey handed her a fork, and they ate in silence, listening to raindrops hit the umbrella and watching the boats on the Thames. A few people seemed to recognize Geoffrey, but they merely nodded. No one even attempted to take a picture, as far as Alice could tell anyway.

  “London is a really lovely city. I’m excited to spend some time here,” she said.

  “I’m excited to have you spend some time here,” Geoffrey answered, then stole a bite out of her quiche. “That is quite good. Well done, Ardis.”

  Alice went to help herself to a bite of his quiche, but he moved it away before she could. Alice glared at him and tried again with the same results, but she had a hard time holding back the grin tugging at her lips. She sat back against the bench and waited patiently until Geoffrey had only a few bites left. Then she pointed down the river. “What’s that bridge over there called?”

  As soon as Geoffrey turned his head, she stealthily picked up the last bite with her fingers and popped it in her mouth. “It’s Tower Bridge,” he answered, but at the sight of her full cheeks he narrowed his eyes before looking at his empty box.

  “You Americans.” He shook his head. “You’re very tricky.”

  “Yes, we are, that’s why we always beat you when it comes to wars and things.” She lifted her eyebrow.

  “Careful there. I lost a few ancestors in those wars.”

  For a moment she wondered if she’d actually offended him, but the way his eyes danced told her she hadn’t.

  He put their garbage in the paper bag, then stood and held out his hand to her. “Are you ready to see where Anne Boleyn and Jane Grey were beheaded?”

  “Well, obviously.” She put her hand in his, and it fit so naturally there that she almost forgot she was holding hands with her boss. Alice quickly pulled away, but as they approached the entrance, the crowd of people forced her to put her arm through his.

  He gently maneuvered them around the long line to the entrance where he showed his pre-purchased tickets that got them right in. Unfortunately, that was the last time they were able to bypass any lines. “Still think that VIP tour was a bad idea?” he whispered as they waited to see the cell where Anne Boleyn had been imprisoned, and she laughed. “At least tourists usually don’t know who I am.”

  “That’s a bonus.” Waiting in lines was fine with Alice because it gave her and Geoffrey plenty of time to talk. He hadn’t visited the Tower before, but he knew a lot of the history behind it. When they got through the long line to the Crown Jewels toward the end of their visit, Geoffrey leaned close to her and pointed to one of the crowns. “I may be trying to impress you, but I’ve seen the Queen wear that one,” he whispered.

  “Really?” she said too loudly.

  He pressed his finger to his lips to shush her and looked side to side before shaking his head. She laughed and pushed him. “You big liar. What else have you told me that isn’t true?”

  He grabbed the hand she’d pushed him with and pulled her close. “It’s not entirely false. I’ve seen her wear it in pictures.” Geoffrey grinned and let go of her hand, but she could still feel the warmth his touch left behind.

  “That’s not the same thing, and you know it,” she managed to say as they walked shoulder to shoulder out of the jewel house.

  The rain had stopped when they went back outside, and the sun was attempting to peek through the clouds. They’d done the entire tour, and Alice wasn’t sure what was next. She didn’t want the day to end, but she’d already asked him to join her at the Tower. How could she ask him to spend more time with her? He wasn’t technically her boss yet, but he would be in three weeks. If she kept asking him out, she’d look like she wanted more than just a professional relationship with him. And the fact he was practically English royalty didn’t make things any better.

  “So where to next?” he asked, much to her surprise.

  She should say something about exploring on her own, but again, the words that came out of her mouth were the ones the rational side of her brain was telling her not to say. “If you’re up for some exercise, I was going to do a self-guided walk around Old London.”

  He bowed and held out his arm to her. “I would be honored if you’d allow me to be your tour guide.”

  Alice’s heart pounded as she put her arm through his. “With pleasure, Lord Grey.”

  The woman in front of them looked over her shoulder at them, and Geoffrey looked over his own as though he were trying to see the same thing she was looking for.

  When the woman moved on, Geoffrey leaned close and whispered, “How about we stick with Geoff today?” Then with Alice’s arm still through his, he opened the umbrella to cover them both. Not from rain, but from peering eyes.

  They left the Tower and walked along the Thames toward London Bridge, talking as they watched boats pass under London Bridge and Tower Bridge. “Did you know that’s not the original London Bridge?” he asked, pointing down the river.

  “I did. That one is in Lake Havasu, Arizona now.”

  He slowed his steps and raised his eyebrows. “If I’m going to be your tour guide, you have to allow me to guide you.” His mock sternness made her giggle like a little girl, which in turn made her laugh from embarrassment.

  “Please, continue.”

  The idea that the famous Lord Grey was playing tour guide, and that she had her arm linked through his, was so surreal she could have been in a Salvador Dali painting. Never, in a million years, would she believe something like this could happen to her if it weren’t actually happening. And the most surreal part was that she really liked him. Not because of his title or his great art, but because of who he was. Funny, thoughtful, interesting . . .

  Alice stopped herself.

  First and foremost, Lord Geoffrey Grey-Chatsworth was her soon-to-be boss. She pulled her arm from his and widened the space between them. It wouldn’t do either of them any good for her to go into her position as curator with anything more than platonic feelings toward him. Which he must have realized too, because he acted like he hadn’t noticed and went on telling her about the HMS Belfast which was docked not far from Tower Bridge.

  “See those guns up top?” He pointed to the highest deck. “They fired the first shots on D-day. There are some amazing stories about it, if you’re interested in a tour.”

  “My great-grandfather was there that day. He may have heard those shots.” Alice stared at the large ship, wondering if the great-grandfather she had vague memories of had been awed by its size the way she was.

  “My grandfather was a commander in the Navy. He was there that day too.” Geoffrey followed her eyes to the ship, but they stayed there only briefly before he turned his gaze back to her. She felt his eyes on her face and hesitated to look at him after she’d just resolved to not think of him as anything more than a boss. But she couldn’t help herself. His eyes were magnetic. Or maybe it was the dimple in his chin. Or the jaw that could have been chiseled by Michelangelo himself.

  “It’s nice to think of our families fighting together to preserve freedom and restore peace, isn’t it?” He held her gaze, and between the words he’d said and the
magnificence of his face, all she could do was nod.

  Geoffrey tipped his head toward the trail which Alice took as her cue to continue walking. They followed the path in relative silence with only the blare of a ship’s horn and the chatter of passersby to interrupt her thoughts. A smell hung over the river that reminded her of Los Angeles. She took a deep breath and realized the smell was salt. She took another deep breath to make sure, but it was as briney as the first.

  “Why does it smell like the ocean?”

  “Ah, fun fact about the Thames.” He raised his pointer finger like a caricature of a science professor, except he was being serious, which made it totally adorable. “It’s actually an estuary and not a river. It rises and goes down with the tide.”

  “Really? I feel like that’s something I should have known.”

  He smiled at her. “Another fun fact about the ‘Jewel of London’: in 1957 it was declared biologically dead because it was so polluted nothing could live in it.”

  “You’re kidding. That’s so sad.” But glancing at the shimmering blue river with birds flying over it, she wondered if Geoff had all of his facts correct.

  “Yes, but the story gets better. It’s actually a tale of redemption.” His voice rose and he stuck out his chest like he was on stage at the Old Globe instead of standing on the banks of the Thames. “Due to the conservation efforts of the city and industries that had been dumping runoff into the Thames, the river has come back to life. It’s teeming with fish and invertebrates. We even get the occasional stray whale.”

  “Wow. That is a good story.” Alice scanned the water as though a stray whale might show up.

  Geoffrey leaned close and in a more serious voice said, “If a river can come back from the dead and be this beautiful, there’s hope for the rest of us, wouldn’t you agree? Even for someone like my father.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Alice watched him from the corner of her eye. She wanted to believe him, but if she saw any doubt in his face, she would lose the sliver of hope he’d given her for her own dad.

  “I do.” He nodded. “I hope every day that my father will be the person he could be, but he’s got a lot of demons to fight. No one else can come in and clean him up like people did with the river, but I can keep encouraging him.”

  Alice had to think through that idea for a while before she could say anything. Should she take the same approach with the father she hadn’t spoken to in years? Encourage and have hope in him? Even love him?

  She moved closer to Geoffrey, wanting to put her hand in his again, to feel anchored to him and his belief in change and redemption. But touching him, leaning on him, would move them in a very different direction. It would send a clear signal that she saw him as more than an employer.

  Which, if she were being honest with herself, was a picture she could easily paint.

  Chapter Eleven

  After dropping Alice at her hotel, Geoffrey returned home thinking of her the entire way. He couldn’t remember having ever enjoyed London as much as he had with Alice. After spending a few hours touring the HMS Belfast, there wasn’t much time to finish their self-guided tour through old London, and so he’d offered to finish it with her the next day.

  She’d hesitated before saying, “I feel like I shouldn’t take advantage of your generosity again.”

  “If it makes you feel better, we can include the Tate Modern in our tour. Then it’s business, not just pleasure,” he added quickly before she could say no. “I can introduce you to some of the people I know there.”

  “Then, yes, please. I would love to have you be my tour guide again.” She’d smiled, then looked at him with those brown eyes that had intrigued him since the first moment he’d seen them. “I feel like I’ve learned as much about life today as I have about London.”

  That was not something he’d heard before. Usually the only comments he heard about his views of life were that he needed to figure out what he wanted to do with his. Usually those comments came from his mother. Not that he blamed her for worrying about him. She’d seen what living without any real purpose had done to his father.

  Geoffrey had wanted to ask Alice if she’d like to have dinner with him. If he weren’t afraid he’d come off looking like a creepy boss, he would have. But dinner two nights in a row would definitely send the message he liked her for more than her art expertise. Which he did. And he suspected she felt the same.

  “Quite a pickle,” he said to himself as he walked into his flat and threw his car keys on the entrance table then walked to the kitchen to get something to eat. If he hadn’t hired her, he’d be free to ask her out. But she certainly wouldn’t have wanted to spend time with him if he hadn’t offered her the job, and she would have been headed back to America for good. At least this way they could get to know each other better while curating the museum. If they really did have the connection he thought they had, they could figure out what to do from there.

  In the meantime, he’d spend as much time with her as possible over the next few days, even if he had to get some work in to justify it.

  The doorbell rang, pulling him out of his thoughts. He checked his security camera on the counter and saw Clarissa standing outside his door. For a second, he debated pretending he wasn’t home until he heard her voice.

  “Let me in, love.”

  The sound of it deepened his regret for not asking Alice to dinner. Spending the day with her had driven home how much he really didn’t enjoy being with Clarissa anymore. Maybe the months he’d spent apart from her had also done that, but he’d never had a day with Clarissa like the day he’d had with Alice. Time with Clarissa usually ended with them doing what Clarissa enjoyed. Like shopping at Harrod’s. He hated shopping.

  Geoffrey took a deep breath and tried to put on a smile before opening the door.

  “Hello, darling.” Clarissa put a hand on his cheek and kissed him. “Where have you been? I’ve been texting you all day.”

  He pulled his phone from his back pocket and saw he’d missed a number of messages from her and his mother. “I’m sorry. I’ve had it on silent.”

  Clarissa walked past him, taking off her jacket as she did and tossing it on his sofa. “Were you in the studio?”

  That would have been the most reasonable explanation for Geoffrey to forget about his phone for eight hours. He’d done that on more than one occasion. And if Clarissa had given him time to answer or if she hadn’t sounded quite so condescending when she’d said the word “studio,” he would have told her the truth about where he’d been all day.

  “I thought you were planning to shift your focus to opening the estate and Grey museum.” Clarissa sank catlike into the sofa and crossed her very long legs—of which her very short skirt covered very little. She crooked a finger at him, and he wanted to resist her, but there was no denying that Clarissa was a very attractive woman. She should be, considering the time and money she spent keeping her hair auburn, her nails manicured, and whatever else she did to make her eyelashes unnaturally long, her face unnaturally smooth, and her scent irresistible. Geoffrey imagined that the price and the time it took to be as beautiful as Clarissa was more than he could afford.

  He let her pull him toward her until he was forced to sit next to her rather than fall on top of her. She ran her hand through his hair, stopping at the nape of his neck and then kissing him hard. Geoffrey couldn’t help but respond, but it was Alice’s face he pictured as he kissed Clarissa.

  He tried to push Alice out of his head, but she was stuck there. Her smile, the way she brushed her bangs aside with the tip of her ring finger, how her eyes could look so golden brown they were amber, and her heart-shaped lips that he really wished he were kissing. When he had to stop himself from saying her name, he pulled away from Clarissa. It wasn’t fair to her for him to be thinking of someone else while kissing her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked and rubbed her finger along the bottom of her lip.

  He shook his head and stood
. “Nothing. Why don’t we go get something to eat?”

  Clarissa studied him, her eyebrows raised, and her mouth puckered. “I didn’t come over here because I was hungry for food.”

  Geoffrey stared back at her. Had he ever loved her? Definitely not, but he had tried. He’d be crazy not to. Clarissa was fun, beautiful, smart . . . and rich. Her inheritance would ensure he’d be able to keep the family estate. But was that a reason to marry her?

  His mother thought so.

  “It’s been six months, Geoffrey. Am I supposed to keep waiting for you now that you’re back?”

  “I didn’t ask you to wait for me, Clarissa.” Geoffrey had been pushed into doing a lot of things he didn’t want to do for his family but marrying someone he didn’t love wasn’t going to be one of them.

  Clarissa’s mouth pulled tighter. “You certainly implied it.”

  Geoffrey sucked in his bottom lip and chewed on it, then held his hand out to Clarissa. “I’m not ready to pick up where we left off, but I would really like to take you to dinner.”

  Clarissa blinked slowly before taking his hand. “Okay, but I’m not waiting for you forever, Geoffrey. I turned down plenty of men while you were gone. If you’re not interested in making this long term, I’m not going to waste my time. I’m ready to be more than a sometimes-girlfriend.”

  “And you deserve more.” Geoffrey let go of Clarissa’s hand long enough to pick up her jacket and help her on with it.

  He took her to one of their favorite restaurants, Maharaja, a popular Indian place that always made room for them no matter how busy they were. Geoffrey had eaten better food at some of the hole-in-the-wall places in Southall, but Clarissa loved the Maharaja, probably as much for the attention they got there as for the food. If he hadn’t felt the need to make up to her for his lack of interest in reigniting their romance, he would have chosen somewhere quieter and more private.

  They were seated right away at the booth the owner always kept empty in case someone like Geoffrey showed up. Clarissa scooted into the half-moon seat first, stopping in the middle so that she and Geoffrey could sit next to each other.