Hard Liquor: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #2

by Blair Babylon

  “What would I do, put on one of those dresses and parade up and down the stairs of my mom’s little row house? How pathetic would that be?”

  “You’ll have this.” He reached over to his dresser drawer. “In the morning, while you were busy, I ran over to the vault. We didn’t have time for you to choose, so I picked this up for you.”

  In the dim light, Gen saw a glimmer of scarlet in a golden glow. “Is that—”

  “There wasn’t time for us to select an engagement ring together. I wanted to marry you. I wanted to spend every minute of every day of my life with you.”

  “I shouldn’t accept that.” Not if they weren’t getting married.

  He caught her left hand in his and fit the ring on her finger. “Please. When you want to, move it to your right hand, or take it off, but take it.”

  She clenched her fist. “I won’t take it off.”

  He told her, “It’s from the Elizabethan era. Margaret Spencer, the Duchess of Somerset, my however-many-greats grandmother, had it made.”

  “The one who was Queen Elizabeth’s special friend.”

  He nodded. “The spymistress, the one who built the Finch-Hatten family and saved England several times over.”

  Gen opened her hand to look at the ring.

  Because the ring was centuries old, she had expected the gold band to be hammered smooth, maybe a cup of gold around a cabochon sphere-shaped stone or egg-like drop of red, and a loop for the finger. Most English jewelry from the Middle Ages looks plain like that.

  This ring was exquisite.

  The scarlet center stone, a ruby, was faceted, and it sparkled inside with scarlet fire. Golden filigree flanked the gemstone. Delicate white and blue enamel had been poured into the gold setting. It looked like a Faberge egg turned into a ring. “My God, Arthur.”

  “That’s quite a step up from ‘my lord.’”

  She backhanded him on the arm. “It’s amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “It’s Italian, which makes it exceedingly rare in Elizabethan England, considering how the Pope didn’t particularly care for the Tudors after that dust-up with Elizabeth’s father.”

  Oh, history. “But it’s part of the estate. If you lose tomorrow, it will belong to Christopher.”

  “Fuck him. Right now, it’s mine to dispose of as I please, and he won’t notice its absence. If he had given a whit about the history and holdings of Spencer House, he might have had a chance of noting that it is gone. His failure to notice will be the natural result of his willful ignorance of his own ancestry and place in British history.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “I’m sorry that we didn’t get to Paris to have something bespoke made.”

  “It’s perfect. It’s absolutely perfect.” She held her fist to her heart. “And I’ll never take it off.”

  “I want you to take it off, eventually, when you want to. I want you to go on and have a good life, a life with a husband and a family and love all around you.”

  “I want you. I don’t want anyone else.”

  “This is hard enough as it is, but listen to me. If you find someone to love and have a family with, and if you can do that, then I’ve been a good friend to you. I’ve helped you. If you don’t, then I’ve hurt you. We agreed that no matter what happened, we were friends. So, if I was a good friend, if I helped you, have a good life and find someone who loves you to share it.”

  Gen wrapped her arms around him. “I don’t want to let you go.”

  “We must be British about this,” he said. “You have to speak in court tomorrow, and then I must walk into what will probably be a white van. It’s always a white van for some reason. We can’t make a scene. We can’t draw attention to it. You will go back to pretending that this was a sham relationship that you agreed to for the lawsuit, and your law chambers will thank you for it. I will quietly slip away so that no one hurts either one of us. Agreed?”

  Gen nodded, even though she didn’t want to.

  She really didn’t want to.

  He kissed her. “We have tonight.”

  “We only had ten days,” she said.

  “Tonight will have to be enough for us.” He kissed her, slowly again, and his lips moved to her neck. “I’ll make tonight last forever.”

  Gen wrapped her arms and her body around him as he shifted in her arms, kissing her again.

  “How could you make it last forever?” she whispered.

  He kissed her nose, then trailed his lips around her jawline to her ear. “By making you wait.”

  Gen wished she had not asked.

  For long minutes, then forever, he teased her, kissing her and moving above her, his long hardness rubbing against her stomach as he pressed her arms around his neck.

  Too quickly, her body began to crave him, yearning for every brush of his fingertips on her breasts and his hands under her back, holding her to himself.

  She was straining against him, trying to find an angle that caused him to slip inside her, when he braced his forearms around her head, kissed her softly, and spread her legs with his knees. He rolled a condom on and settled himself upon her.

  The soft head of his cock nudged her entrance, and she squirmed, rocking her hips up, but he shushed her. “Quiet, my love. Look at me.”

  Gen forced her eyes open. She was still breathing hard. “What?”

  “Look at me.”

  When she was gazing at him, he began to push inside her.

  Every time, it was shocking, the pressure and then deep fullness of him. He made sure that she was ready, but his size and hardness spread her body inside.

  He was so slow, pressing into her, as he watched her. Lamplight shone on him, glimmering on the dark blue ring around the silver in his eyes and the tattered ends of blue and red ribbons trailing over his shoulders. His body moved in hers, smooth undulations that sent deep friction through her.

  Every time she began to lose herself in the pleasure of his lovemaking, Arthur whispered, “Look at me.”

  She watched him, holding her palm to his cheek and the other on his shoulder, while he pulsed in her, every slow thrust closer and closer to sending her over the edge.

  His eyes and his gaze stunned her.

  For those moments, with their bodies connected and rippling together, with their gazes locked and their arms around each other, he saw farther into her than anyone else in her life. Her body and soul were open to him, penetrated by him, as he stared into her eyes.

  She tightened, and her breath quickened.

  He saw and plunged farther inside her.

  Her body tangled around his, knotting inside and with her limbs around his, as he stroked inside her.

  Her eyes fluttered even though she tried to keep them open, blackness flickering over his face and his eyes above her, intermittent gaps in his intent gaze on her.

  Their connection was heart to heart, soul to soul. Even the break of her orgasm and pulsing roar through her body and mind didn’t break the cadence within her that was Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.

  He whispered in her ear, “Remember, no matter where I am, no matter where I go, I will always love you. Always.”

  Enough

  ARTHUR rocked into her as his response swept through him, a moment of blankness and bliss like the apex of flight before he fell into her body again, pumping his seed into her, even though he was wearing the condom.

  His last time with Gen, and he might die tomorrow.

  As a desolate lifetime without her loomed before him, he wondered if he would welcome a last view of darkness and the cold press of a pistol to the back of his neck instead.

  He was still deep within Gen, her velvety skin cool against his hard flesh.

  Her softness under his body comforted him, dulled that ache that drove him.

  He must not tell her. He might frighten her.

  Her hand stroked over his hair, soothing him.

  Oh, God. He was lost.

  Her arms folded arou
nd him as he trembled.

  He breathed, “I love you,” against her skin and heard it returned in her soft voice.

  It had to be enough.

  Begging A Favor

  GEN was dozing in Arthur’s arms, asleep even though she had meant to stay awake so she didn’t miss a minute with him. The sheets were soft under her, and this open bed was even more okay than the canopied one.

  In the dark, Arthur said, “I need to beg a favor of you.”

  “Anything,” she said.

  “Would you take Ruckus?”

  She propped herself up on one elbow, trying to see him in the dark. A slim line of light ran over his face from the windows. His eyes were open and shining in the faint light.

  Gen asked, “Why can’t you take him with you?”

  “I don’t know where I’ll end up,” he said. “It’ll almost certainly be somewhere small.”

  “That’ll be quite a change for you.”

  “It wouldn’t be fair to a dog to take him someplace like that,” Arthur said. “You have a garden. He loves you. He would be happy with you.”

  Gen reached down and scratched Ruckus, who was sleeping by Arthur’s feet on the bottom of the bed. His tail flapped on her foot as she scratched. “Yeah, I’ll take him.”

  Arthur said, “I’m glad I won’t have to worry about him.”

  Betrayal

  GEN arrived in the law chambers at six o’clock in the morning. She had dressed in a business trouser suit except that she was wearing running shoes. Her feet needed a break, so she would change into her chunky-heeled work pumps later.

  Octavia was waiting for Gen in her office, her arms braced wide on her desk as she glared at the documents. Her mouth was contracted to the smallest red dot that Gen had ever seen, and anger rolled off her tense posture in waves.

  Gen skidded to a stop. “Dear God, is there something else?”

  “No,” Octavia said. “Nothing new, just the same problem as before, coupled with the several phone calls that we received yesterday from clients, expressing concern that our firm is associated with a known traitor.”

  Gen said, “Well, it will be over with today, and it’s too late to do anything about that.”

  “No, it’s not.” Octavia’s jaw didn’t move as she snarled. “Sun Tzu said, ‘He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.’”

  “What on Earth are you—”

  Octavia’s seething anger suddenly made sense to Gen. Before you can do something reprehensible to a person, you had to hate them, first.

  Gen crumpled into a chair and let her face fall into her hands. “We can’t abandon Arthur just hours before his hearing. We can’t.”

  “Yes, we can, and we should,” Octavia said.

  “I won’t. I swear to God, I won’t.”

  “That’s a brave proposal,” Octavia said, a British term that means My God, you’re being stupid. “You can be Atticus fucking Finch if you want to, but I’m sure as fuck not.”

  Surely Octavia wouldn’t—

  Gen’s mind couldn’t complete that horrible thought. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You won’t abandon him,” Octavia said, her lips sucked down to a red point. “But I sure as Hell can walk away from this train wreck.”

  “Oh, God, Octavia. I can’t go in there alone!”

  “Yes, you can.” Her voice was steely with resolution. “It’s April. You’re now officially in your second six-month rotation for your pupillage, and you are qualified to accept cases and speak before the bar. This isn’t even a proper court, so anyone can speak, anyway. You’ve been adequately trained, I should think. You can defend Arthur Finch-Hatten, the traitor, all by yourself. If I stand down, chambers has some plausible deniability from the blow-back that will inevitably occur no matter what the outcome today.”

  “So you’re not coming?” Gen asked. She tamped down the hysterical shriek at the end. “You’re not going to be there at all?”

  “I shan’t sit at the table,” Octavia said. “I think it’s better for everyone if I maintain some professional distance. I’ll be in the gallery.”

  Gen let her face drop forward into her hands and bent over.

  Octavia sighed. “But we might go over your notes before you walk in. ‘The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought,’ and all that Sun Tzu rot.”

  Final Battle

  FOG prowled London on the morning of the hearing in the House of Lords.

  Pippa drove Gen and Arthur through the traffic to the Palace of Westminster, the fortress of British law and law-making that housed Parliament and its law libraries and records. Towers rose from each end like medieval prisons, and thick walls enclosed the whole building.

  This castle had been like a church to Gen, Rose, and Lee while they had been swotting at uni, the spring of their knowledge and the headwaters of their future.

  Now, it felt like the gate to Hell, where Arthur would fall away from her, maybe forever.

  No, not forever. In ten years, he had said he would come back.

  Pippa stopped the car, and Arthur hopped around to the trunk—boot—to lift out Gen’s rolling file box. He set it on the sidewalk and offered her the handle.

  “Thanks,” Gen said.

  Arthur’s blank expression looked as grim as she felt.

  Black SUVs pulled up behind them. Men in black suits leapt out, followed by Maxence and Casimir. The moral support had arrived.

  Casimir and Maxence stood beside Arthur like guards.

  Maxence stood with his hands folded in front of him, a picture of somber studiousness and maybe suffering from a hangover. Casimir had poured water down him last night before they had stumbled off to the guest rooms down the hall from Gen’s old bedroom, but the dark hollows under his eyes looked like he had the dreaded lurgy.

  Casimir’s dark green eyes flickered over the crowd, and he asked Arthur, “You ready?”

  Arthur said, “Let’s go.”

  They walked into Westminster with the crowd of tourists and MPs. The three exceedingly tall men plus Gen stuck out above the crowd.

  Through the hallway for the committee meeting rooms, Gen strode with her head held high, toting the rolling bag stuffed with the briefs and exhibits that she and Octavia had prepared. The rollie bumped along the thick carpet behind her, making a fuzzy scraping sound audible even over the crowd muttering around them.

  Gen would be arguing her first hearing alone to defend her lover’s lawsuit for everything that he revered in his life, for his very British soul, without even her pupil mistress to guide her.

  A pupil defending such a high-profile case with such personal stakes for her very first solo outing seemed unfair. James Knightly had argued a traffic ticket for his first solo case a few days before, and he had lost because he didn’t cross-examine the police officer correctly.

  Gen took firm hold of her rolling file case and her resolve. She was going to fight this case for Arthur like the pit bull attorney she was, no matter what Arthur thought. He wasn’t going to settle. Even if he did have to go into hiding for a few years, maybe ten years, everything would be waiting for him when he came back. He would walk right back into his life with Spencer House, his plane, and Gen herself. Small dogs like Jack Russell Terriers live around fifteen years. Ruckus would probably still be around, too.

  The door to the committee room loomed ahead of them, and Gen lengthened her stride to meet the challenge.

  The crowd parted, and as they reached the door, Lee and Rose stepped out of the crowd.

  “Hey!” Gen said, raising her head. Awesome. She needed some emo support since she wasn’t getting any from her pupil mistress. “I really appreciate you being here.”

  Rose asked, “May we speak with you privately?”

  Uh oh. “Arthur, a second, please?”

  He walked a few steps away and pulled out his phone, which was far enough for the three girls to speak privately in the noisy, shoving hallway. />
  Casimir and Maxence leaned against the wall beside him, also perusing their phones, and the security guys looked alert around them.

  Lee eyed the three men but turned back to Gen. “You have to dump his arse.”

  “What!” Gen stumbled backward a step.

  Rose shook her head. “You’ve invested every cent that you and your mother have in this career. If you destroy it by defending a traitor, you’ll be left with nothing.”

  “I won’t abandon him mere minutes before his hearing,” Gen whispered to them.

  “You’re cocking it up,” Lee said. “This is business. You can’t let your quim make this decision for you.”

  “My—Oh, my God,” Gen’s jaw dropped open. “You did not just say that.”

  “She’s correct,” Rose said. “You’re thinking with your quim, and I don’t say that lightly.”

  “I cannot believe you,” Gen said. “You’re supposed to my friends.”

  “Friends want what’s best for you,” Rose said. “Friends won’t stand by while you destroy your career defending a traitor.”

  Gen straightened, her spine filling with steel. “I appreciate that you want what’s best for me, and I understand your points. However, I am not thinking with my—my quim. I’m defending my client as I was contracted to do. I will not give up on him like Octavia has.”

  Lee frowned harder, her little face creasing with consternation. “Your pupil mistress gave up on him?”

  Dammit. Gen had given them ammunition. “Yes.”

  Rose said, “So Octavia Hawkes won’t be your second?”

  “No.”

  “So you’re arguing ‘is case all by yourself? Are you pissed?” Lee asked.

  “I’m doing the right thing,” Gen said.

  “Oy, trust the American to think she’s doing the right thing,” Lee said to Rose.

  “And I’m not going to walk out on him now,” Gen said. “I wouldn’t walk out on any other client, either, so you guys can both shut the fuck up.”

  Rose and Lee glanced at each other, and they both shrugged.