All Bets are On

SIX


Rule #7 A player won’t want to waste time when there’s nothing in it for him. Set up a date that involves him doing something generous, something outside his comfort zone—and watch to see if he tries to wriggle out of it.





A lovely leafy street in Wimbledon. The address was for a large and beautiful three-storey house on the right. Balloons hung from the front door in pastel pink and white and a retro-style painted sign ‘TO THE PARTY’ pointed its arrow shape towards the wrought-iron-gated path at the side of the house.

Harry got out of the car, the word ‘PARTY’ flashing like a neon warning sign before his eyes. What the hell kind of favour were they meant to be doing for Tilly? He considered just calling Alice with an excuse, then realised he couldn’t because as of yesterday she had no mobile phone. He locked the car and walked cautiously towards the house.

She appeared through the side gate as he approached.

‘Great, you’re on time,’ she said, all smiles.

He stared at her aghast.

‘Why on earth are you dressed as a fairy?’

‘This?’ she said, glancing down at herself as if she could have possibly forgotten she was wearing a floaty purple net dress and pink tights. Her hair was fastened up with some glittery ribbon and she had a pink flower painted on one cheek. She turned and led the way down the path. ‘The costume adds to the fun of it, according to Tilly. And I’m all for being professional—even though I’m only doing her a favour I want to take it seriously. This is her own business, after all. She’s built it up from scratch.’

He followed her, wondering in what universe being professional equated to wearing fancy dress. He felt as if he were in some surreal dream.

The path opened up into a huge garden behind the house, bathed in warm September sunshine. A close-cropped green lawn lined with beautifully manicured beds ran the length of it with trees offering shade at the end. Nestled in the corner was a painted wooden children’s playhouse with a ladder. Pink and white bunting was draped along the hedges and between trees, fluttering lightly in the breeze. Double French doors at the back of the house opened onto a broad stone-flagged terrace. No sign of any other people. Alice led the way to the bottom of the garden where there was a cloth-covered trestle table and a couple of chairs, and began unpacking items from an enormous box.

‘What exactly is Tilly’s business?’ he said, more on edge by the second.

When he’d seen the ‘PARTY’ sign he’d imagined waiting staff or maybe outside catering. Whoever owned the house was obviously minted and having a garden party. That would have been fine. He could hand round drinks and nibbles for an hour without any problem. Then with Alice indebted to him he could take her on for a lazy lunch somewhere—there were some gorgeous places in Wimbledon Village—and from there if he played his cards right the bet could be won before dark.

Alice shrugged.

‘Party entertainment, I guess you’d call it. Face-painting, party games, that kind of thing. She does children’s birthdays or family parties where they get her in to occupy the kids while the adults mingle.’ She laid out a row of coloured paints on the trestle table. ‘Trouble is, she double-booked herself.’

She spoke with the disapproving air of someone whose life was so organised they never double-booked anything. Ever.

‘She’s finishing off at another party and she’ll be here in an hour or so to take over. We just need to hold the fort for the first bit of it, as the kids arrive.’

She stood to one side and indicated the chair.

‘Sit down, then, while I do your face.’

He stared at her in disbelief.

‘Are you insane? I do not want my face painted.’

She totally ignored him.

‘I’m not as good as Tilly, but I sometimes help her out and she gave me a crash course last year. I’m good enough to keep things ticking over until she gets here, but I could do with a warm up. Now, what would you like?’

She began counting off on her fingers.

‘Puppy, monkey, tiger...’

‘None of the above.’

He couldn’t believe she was actually suggesting this.

She made an exasperated noise and plastered her hands on her net-skirted hips.

‘You know, I really didn’t take you for someone who doesn’t have a sense of humour.’

‘It isn’t about having a sense of humour. It’s just that when I do a party I like to be the one mingling with the grown-ups with a glass in my hand. I don’t do family parties, I don’t do fancy dress and I especially don’t do kids. It’s that simple.’

Gnawing his own arm off felt preferable right now to entertaining a gang of children. He’d more than done his stint of that in the past.

The bright smile faded, the expression on her face not disappointed exactly, more resigned. As if this was exactly what she’d expected of him.

‘Fine,’ she said, trying to feign nonchalance. ‘You can always bail. Just back out. I’ll manage on my own.’

And from the tone in her voice he knew with a flash of clarity exactly what this was.

A test.

Her response to yesterday’s discovery that the boating-lake date had been a little less than impromptu, followed by his admittedly deliberate refusal to kiss her. He’d put himself out there, told her she could choose what they’d do today, and she’d thrown this into the mix. He could jump ship; there was nothing making him stay here. Except he knew perfectly well that if he did, any chance of winning the bet would be over. And he would have let her get the better of him.

Definitely not acceptable. If anything it made him more determined than ever to have her.

He’d known all along that convincing her he didn’t deserve his reputation was the way to win her over. And here was the opportunity to take a big step in that direction.

He sat grudgingly down in the chair.

‘Can’t you do something a bit tougher?’ he grumbled. ‘Spider-Man maybe?’

She stood in front of him and dabbed a brush in a pot of something on the table. He suddenly realised he was eye level with the soft creamy skin of her neck and décolletage as she leaned over him and he could smell the light scent of her perfume, something lemony and fresh. He settled back a little in the chair. Maybe there were compensations to the situation. He could quite happily look at that view for a while.

She tilted his chin upwards gently and he felt the light tickle of the brush as she stroked his cheek with it. This close he could see her with absolute clarity. The tiny scar that broke the smooth line of her upper lip, just to the right of the cupid’s bow. That one little flaw seemed to highlight the full softness of her lips, painted lightly in a pale pink sparkly gloss, slightly parted. There was something so alluring about the way her tongue crept into the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on what she was doing. To look was to wonder how it would feel to take that delicious lower lip between his own. One gentle move and he could pull her into his lap on the chair and find out exactly how she tasted. Delicious heat began to pool low in his abdomen.


Like a bucket of cold water sloshing over him, all thoughts of passion disintegrated as the mingled shouts of excited children kicked in at the front of the house and built to a crescendo as they poured down the path.

‘Finished,’ she said, standing back and looking at him appraisingly. ‘Perfect timing. It’s all kicking off now.’

She grabbed a mirror from the table and held it in front of him with a grin.

‘Pirate,’ she said. ‘You already had the stubble—it was just a matter of adding in a few scars and a bit of eyeliner. You might want to pop on an eyepatch or something—accessories are in that big box over there.’

He stared at his reflection in disbelief. What had she done to him? What might she do to him if he let her have free rein over this relationship?

He felt a sudden tug at his sleeve and tore his eyes away from his insane reflection to look down.

Small blonde girl with winning expression looking up at him.

He felt as if he were sailing back madly through time; the day was feeling crazier by the second. She looked just as Susie had when she was in her first decade—before her baby blonde hair took on its teenage light brown colour. He’d been in his mid-teens then. Straight home from school so she wouldn’t be left home alone while their mother was goodness knew where.

He forced himself to smile down at her when what he wanted to do was exit the garden and never look back.

‘Want your face painted?’ he asked, glancing around for Alice. ‘She does a very good fairy.’

Small blonde girl shook her head so fast her hair swished about.

‘I want to be a pirate,’ she said. ‘Like you.’

* * *

Turned out painting faces was the easy part. Tilly had failed to mention the mayhem that a gang of under-tens could cause when faced with forming a queue.

‘Wait your turn...wait your turn...’ Alice chanted desperately, moving the glitter pot out of reach for the hundredth time. The adult party was now in full swing up on the terrace at the top of the garden, middle-class parents quaffing champagne and stuffing themselves with posh nibbles. She’d dispatched Harry up to the house to fetch a jug of water, where he was immediately hijacked by the yummy-mummy set. With hindsight, emphasising his resemblance to Johnny Depp by giving him a pirate twist had been a huge mistake. The next time she looked he was totally surrounded and she was the only one left in the place paying an iota of attention to the increasingly unruly small child contingent.

‘Wait your turn!’ she snapped.

The fairy outfit was itchy hot against her skin and she was rapidly losing her cool. What the hell had made this seem like a good idea? So preoccupied with putting Harry’s interest in her to the test, she’d succeeded in plonking herself way outside her own comfort zone.

Harry elbowed his way through the throng of kids and put a jug of water down on the table alongside a flute of champagne.

‘You didn’t lose any time,’ she snapped, nodding at the glass. ‘You’re meant to be helping out, not joining the party.’

He held a placating hand up.

‘Chill out, will you? That glass is for you. They insisted. It would have been rude to refuse.’

She grabbed the flute and downed it in one as he looked on with a bemused expression on his face. Turning, she saw that three of the kids were now holding brushes and another was dabbling small fingers in the cerise paint pot and wiping them on the tablecloth.

‘Right,’ she said, trying to channel calm when she felt like standing on a chair and snarling at them all to go away. ‘If you’ve finished chatting up the mums, maybe you can help me control the damn kids.’

He grinned at her.

‘I thought you said it was just a matter of professionalism, getting them to form an organised queue...’

She turned in despair to watch the mayhem. Kids were now sifting through the accessories box, lobbing false beards, fright wigs and scarves through the air. Oblivious, the party carried on up on the terrace, the kids’ unruly shouts drowned out by music and the sound of champagne corks popping.

‘Yeah, well, I wasn’t counting on the parents just taking a step back,’ she said. ‘I mean, what am I, a babysitter? No-o-o!’ she squawked as the jug was knocked over and water spread across the table taking bright streaks of face paint with it. She frantically tried to mop up. ‘I mean, any excuse to palm the kids off and party. When I have a family I’ll be taking responsibility a bit more seriously. I mean, they’re children, not pets.’ She glanced around as the accessories box was finally upended. ‘Although I’ve seen chimps that are better behaved.’

He watched her meltdown, vaguely amused smile playing about his lips, laid-back as ever.

‘Finished?’ he asked, when she paused for breath.

‘Finished.’

‘Right, then.’ He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a supportive squeeze. ‘There’s safety in numbers, right? United front. I’ll keep them occupied, you tackle the mess, and then you can face-paint them one by one.’

Ten minutes later and her services were no longer the main attraction. He’d got a football from somewhere and it seemed playing a game with pirate Harry was much more fun than getting your face painted by the grumpy fairy. She watched the grin on his face as he passed the ball around and cheered them on, looking as if he was loving every minute just as much as the kids were. No one misbehaving now; it was more fun to play the game. Who would have thought it after his insistence that he had no interest in kids and no desire to spend time in a family atmosphere? Harry was a natural.

Standing on the sidelines was suddenly not enough. Why the hell was she trying to keep up some stupid professional impression when she could be joining in the fun? Dumping the brushes on the table, she kicked her shoes off and made a run for the ball.

The little blonde girl with the pirate face paint clamped the ball under one small arm and made a mad dash for the two fright wigs on the grass that represented a goal. As a couple of bigger boys moved in to tackle her, Alice swooped in, picked the girl up and ran with her and the ball at full pelt for the goal. She had it in her sights, was certain she was going to reach it when she too was tackled around the waist. She fell to the ground with a squeal. Small blonde girl made it over the line with the ball while Alice lay on her back on the soft grass, giggling uncontrollably. Harry lay next to her laughing, his arm still clamped around her.

‘What the hell is this?’

Alice jumped and turned to see Tilly leaning over them, wearing a clown suit.

‘Well, you two certainly look like you’ve got things under control,’ she said, raising a false comedy eyebrow. ‘Not. Maybe I should have left one of the kids in charge.’

* * *

Harry wiped face paint off while he waited for Alice to get changed. Ten minutes later she emerged from the house wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt. Tilly waved to them as they left the garden, a row of perfectly behaved children in front of her.

‘See that?’ Alice said. ‘I don’t know how she does it.’

‘We were much more fun,’ he said, slipping an arm around her shoulders and noticing that she didn’t make a move to pull away. Maybe the past surreal hour had been worth it.

‘Lunch?’ he asked.

She nodded and smiled.

At a traditional-style pub in Wimbledon Village they found a cosy corner table and ordered baguettes and a joint side of fries.

His eyes were drawn to her face again and again. She’d taken the glitzy ribbon out of her hair and now it fell in soft waves to her shoulders. The only fairy evidence left were a few specks of glitter clinging to her lower lip, pulling his eyes in and inviting him to kiss them off. The image of her giggling next to him on the grass lingered in his mind. That funny, undone, enthusiastic girl was nothing like the starchy woman he knew from the office.

Of course he was just being sucked in because she was turning out to be such an off-the-wall foil to what had begun to feel like an endless cycle of predictable dating. He hadn’t even realised he was in a rut until these last few days, but now he could see that his cut-to-the-chase game plan, storming in to get to first base as quickly as possible then ending the relationship before it really took hold, inevitably meant that things were always pretty superficial.

Using his cut-to-the-chase policy on Alice would have been an instant failure, so he’d been forced for a change to go softly-softly, get to know her, break down her defences. He hadn’t really banked on any of that being such a laugh. He liked the way she threw herself into everything one hundred and ten per cent. Not enough for her to turn up and cover for Tilly in jeans and T-shirt, she’d gone for fancy dress. She’d joined in with the ball game with the same enthusiasm. In everything she went that step further than she needed to. He wondered with a rush of heat what that trait might mean when he finally took her to bed.

She took a sip of her drink.

‘How did I do, then?’ he asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘That had to be some kind of payback for yesterday—right? I mean, please. Face-painting and a gang of kids?’

‘If anyone got payback it was me,’ she said. ‘Those kids ran rings round me.’


‘Ah, and did it put you off?’

‘What?’

‘Your ticking biological clock.’

So he hadn’t forgotten her wailing meltdown at work last week.

She shook her head.

‘No. Although based on today I might have to take parenting classes.’

He grinned. ‘I don’t know. I thought we made a crack team.’

‘We did,’ she said. ‘You made up for my failings.’

‘Rubbish. I just played good cop to your bad cop. Teamwork. That’s the way it’s meant to be with parenting.’ He took a sip of his drink, thought twice about that comment. ‘When it works right,’ he added.

‘I’ll expect to see you settled down with a tribe of your own one day, then,’ she said. ‘When you eventually meet the right woman.’ She pulled a sceptical face. ‘Not that you’ll know her when you do because you bail out almost as soon as you learn their name. The countdown to self-destruct pretty much starts the moment you ask them out, doesn’t it?’

He toyed with his drink.

‘Don’t count on it.’

She sat back in her chair and looked at him, her eyes narrowed a little, as if she were trying to see inside him.

‘I don’t understand your aversion to kids. Not when something obviously comes so naturally to you. And you didn’t exactly look like you hated every second of it.’

‘It’s different when they’re not your own kids. You can walk away.’

‘You make it sound like you’ve got a secret kid of your own stashed away somewhere.’

She said it with a jokey tone but she was looking at him intently.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

He spoke more sharply than he meant to and saw her recoil a little.

‘Not exactly a kid of my own,’ he said, not wanting to lose the ground he’d made with her. They’d made some kind of connection, a definite step forward. Giving her a bit of background could only take that further.

‘Let’s just say I have a good idea of what it’s like to parent an under-ten. And I also know a bit about bailing out an unruly teen.’

She was watching him expectantly.

He shrugged.

‘I’ve got a younger sister. I spent a lot of time looking out for her when she was small.’

He didn’t make a habit of talking family. His life here in London was geared so much to living in the moment that he hadn’t got to know anyone well enough to want to talk about his past. It was a novelty even to think back.

‘When you say “looking out for her” you mean more than just the usual big-brother stuff? What about your mum and dad—weren’t they around?’

The waitress appeared with their food and he waited until she left before speaking.

‘My father left us when Susie was very young,’ he said. ‘I was about fourteen at the time.’

Alice sliced her baguette in half and added some fries to her plate. She was listening casually to him, grazing at her food, her easy interest encouraging him to go on.

‘What about your mum?’

He sighed.

‘She was there. Some of the time.’

He knew he was being cryptic. So many years of resentment of his mother made it seem unnatural to describe her in a positive way.

He took a deep breath.

‘My mother suffers from mood swings. Dark periods where she’s down to the point where she takes to her bed. Interspersed by other times where she pings to the other side of the spectrum and becomes the life and soul of the party, out every night. Sometimes she’d disappear for days.’

Her face was sympathetic.

‘That kind of instability must be difficult for a small child. Was it a medical problem?’

‘With hindsight I think it was—maybe it could have been controlled. But she would never admit to that, never see a doctor. Eventually my father met someone else and bailed.’

‘What about you?’

‘Susie is ten years younger than me. I ended up stepping in a lot with her. Taking her to school, picking her up, cooking for her, playing with her. Making sure she wasn’t home alone.’

She was watching him, the expression in her eyes soft.

‘You sound like a fantastic big brother.’

‘I wasn’t,’ he said. He stared up at the ceiling briefly, the old pang of guilt smarting because that wasn’t the way he would have had his life, given the choice. ‘Please don’t talk like that, like you’re impressed. There were times when I resented Susie, really blamed her for being so damned needy. Like when I was in my late teens and she was about eight, being difficult, being stubborn. I was at home with her when I wanted to be out with my mates and hating every second of it. So don’t think it was some unselfish act on my part. It wasn’t. My father made a swift exit and I sometimes wished I had too.’

He glanced down in surprise as her hand crept unexpectedly across the table to touch his own.

‘You still stayed though, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘That’s the point. Whether you were glad to or not, you took responsibility. You should be proud of that instead of feeling bad because maybe you would have liked things to pan out a different way.’ She paused. ‘We all have times in our lives when we wish for that.’

He took a long draught of his drink.

‘Family ties,’ he sighed. ‘I decided a long time ago they weren’t for me. I knew when Susie was old enough to manage by herself I’d be free. No one to rely on me or tie me down. Hold me back. The only person I have to worry about these days is me, and that’s the way I want it.’

He picked at the fries on his plate, not really wanting them. She watched him in silence.

‘What about you?’ he asked.

‘I don’t really have family ties like that,’ she said and took a bite of her baguette.

Funny how she’d always wanted them though. Wanted to be needed by her family, indispensable, never thinking of the flipside of it, the responsibility that Harry had experienced. But then she’d never had a sibling.

At least not one to stay for.

‘My family are...’ She searched for the right words. A complete shambles hovered on her lips.

‘Very self-sufficient,’ she said finally. ‘I don’t see much of them.’

‘Do they live in London?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘My father lives in Kent. My mother is near the south coast.’

‘They split up?’

‘When I was thirteen.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I still saw them both, though. Not like you.’

She’d been passed between them like some commodity, not feeling wanted by either. It had felt as if they were arguing over who didn’t have her, not over who did.

‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, meaning it.

She shook her head.

‘Don’t be. It was a long time ago and it was over pretty quickly. My parents never did any long-term thrashing out. My father just left at the first sign of trouble and my mother seemed glad to see the back of him. I never thought that was something to be grateful for at the time. At thirteen you just want them to stay together and keep trying. But in hindsight it was good that it didn’t drag on. Neither of them was happy.’

‘And are they happy now?’

Her mind flashed on her mother, a cougar with a taste for short-term flings, and twenty-something Alejandro, her most recent squeeze. The beauty of living away meant not being introduced to the hideous torrent of unsuitable men. At least her father was doing respectability, although why he couldn’t have tried harder to do it with her and her mother she really didn’t know.

She smiled brightly.

‘My mother is a free spirit. She seems happy enough. My father very quickly found someone else, got married again, had another child.’ Her mouth didn’t even flinch as she added, ‘A daughter.’ She was long beyond the teenage feelings of being replaced because she wasn’t somehow good enough. She was an adult now and she recognised those thoughts as childish. She’d built her own life instead where regard and respect were earned, not taken for granted, and where relationships were worked at.

He didn’t leap in with a rush of sympathy and for that she was grateful.

‘Even after all that, you still want a family of your own.’

She smiled at him.

‘Absolutely. At least I know I can’t make as bad a cock-up as they have.’

And the desire to belong with someone, to be a valued part of a family, had never left her.

‘Of course, the beauty of the short-term no-strings fling is that you never reach the point of cock-up,’ he said. ‘You’re not together long enough to hate one another or be cheated on.’

‘But there has to come a point when short term isn’t enough, doesn’t there?’

‘I don’t see why. It works for me.’ He raised his glass. ‘To the short-term fling,’ he said.

Alice clinked his glass with her own, shaking her head with an I-give-up smile on her lips. With his free hand he reached out and touched hers. Her pulse fluttered in response.

There was more to him than she’d guessed when she’d watched him pick up girls and put them down. Could she really blame him for not getting serious with that kind of childhood behind him? It had obviously left him with a dislike of responsibility for others. This time now was his respite.


As they finished their meal and Harry paid the bill she realised she hadn’t thought about her player-list for ages. Her experiment relied squarely on the premise that she didn’t trust him and she wasn’t about to let go of that. But for the first time it struck her that she might actually like him. Of course she was attracted to him, any woman in her right mind would be, but she hadn’t realised they might have any common ground. In her head they had been poles apart. Now she found she liked the way he related to her, liked the way he seemed to wing it in life, and she could sympathise with his background. She knew better than anyone what it felt like to cope with upheaval in your teens.

As he pressed a hand to the small of her back, walking her out to his car, she ignored the zippy jolts it sent up her spine and fixed her mind back on her experiment, on keeping control. Liking him might be an option, but falling for him definitely wasn’t.

* * *

As Harry pulled the car up outside her house all the feelings of nervous anticipation from their previous date recurred one by one. Fluttering stomach—check. Thundery heartbeat—check. Internal debate with self over whether he would kiss her—check.

OK, so she might have taken her eye off the ball a bit over lunch but only because she was thrown by the unexpected glimpse of his background. She was still under no illusions about the kind of character he was right now, in this moment. He was an avoid-at-all-costs player and it really shouldn’t matter how or why he’d ended up that way.

Her hyped-up mind noted immediately that this time he switched off the engine. He turned to look at her, holding her gaze in his. Her heartbeat stepped up another notch and she wet her lips instinctively. How long had it been since she’d kissed a man? Three years? Longer? She wondered if that kind of ability had to be relearned or if you got straight back into it, like swimming or riding a bike.

‘Thanks for lunch,’ she said, because he’d insisted on picking up the tab again despite her protestations. She wondered if that policy might change if he got her into bed and clapped an instant lid on that thought.

He smiled, his eyes creasing gorgeously at the corners, and opened his door. ‘I’ll walk you to the door,’ he said. ‘And then of course I’ll see you tomorrow at work.’

After what had happened the last time he dropped her home, this was a sure sign that he intended to play things differently now. Wasn’t it? Filled with apprehension, she got out of the car too and walked down the path, aware of him close behind her.

At the door he was near enough for her to pick up the deep woody scent of his aftershave. The shadows were long, late afternoon giving way to evening now. Her stomach was a tight knot of tension. She had no clue if the next moment would have him walking away or closing the gap between them and the anticipation took her breath away.

‘Are you going to kiss me this time?’ she blurted out suddenly. ‘Because if you’re not, I’d rather skip all this small talk. I can do without all the angsty wondering if and when you’re ever likely to call. Just get it over with and I can—’

He stopped her mid-sentence, leaning forward, catching the curve of her lips perfectly, deliciously with the gentlest, most featherlight touch. He took her lower lip between his own, sucked gently, making every sense in her body seem to zoom in on that one small connection, the touch of his lips and the gentle stroke of his thumb along her jaw. The knot of nerves in her belly loosened meltingly and seemed to slide downwards, pooling hotly at the top of her thighs.

Her sensible agenda was floundering somewhere at the edge of her consciousness. She slid her palms up over his chest, feeling every contour of the taut muscle through his thin T-shirt. She circled his neck, letting her fingers slide into his thick hair.

His free hand curled slowly around her waist, pulling her against him, moulding her body against his. She could feel the hard muscle of his thighs against hers and her knees felt suddenly elastic, as if they might fold underneath her if he carried on much longer.

And then he was slowly withdrawing from her, still with infinite gentleness, pausing to place a final baby kiss on her forehead before he turned to walk away down the path, back to his car. She watched him go, her heart thundering in her chest, surprise flooding in that he hadn’t pressed things further. That would have been exactly her expectation—men like her ex, men like Harry, didn’t do lingering kisses and slow respectful courting. They cut straight to the chase, kisses to be taken as far as they could go. In the past she’d gone along with it because she’d desperately wanted the relationship to work, to be real. At the expense of her own self-respect.

Harry’s deliberate gentle slowness rocked the foundations of her experience of intimacy. In the depths of her mind she knew she wanted him all the more because he’d walked away. As her knees firmed up and she watched him drive away she felt the undeniable and totally disallowable skip of excitement in her chest.

She’d bucked his usual trend.