Always You: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love Collection Books 5-8)

by Brenna Jacobs

  Geoffrey didn’t wait to comply. He wrapped one arm behind her back to pull her closer then pressed his hand to her cheek as she tipped her mouth to his. Their lips met, and the fingers she’d pressed to his lips traveled to the nape of his neck and clutched at the hair there when he deepened his kiss.

  As they closed the inches between them, Alice knew she hadn’t been wrong about Geoffrey being the perfect guy—or at least as perfect as any person could be. Which was still pretty flawed. But each of their strengths compensated for the other’s weaknesses, making them perfect together.

  Maybe even a masterpiece.

  Epilogue

  Six Months Later

  Geoffrey was late for his flight back to London. His exhibit had gone later than he’d expected the night before—much, much later—and he’d overslept. Since coming out as G, his popularity had exploded, but so had his creativity. It was as though not having to hide who he really was had unleashed all the ideas his fear had kept buried.

  Or maybe having the weight of saving the Grey estate lifted from his shoulders had done it. Within days of revealing he was G and introducing the unicorn to the world, a private investor had come forward offering to finance the Grey museum. He’d purchased Binchley Hall, and the original plans for the museum had moved forward, including the part where Lady Ashburn would continue to live there. The investor had allowed her to lease it back from him for a price almost within her budget. And though they’d agreed to divorce, a clean, sober, and back-to-work Lord Ashburn had agreed to make up the difference.

  Geoffrey also got what was important to him. By selling the unicorn to Preston Clark under the conditions he loan it to the Grey Museum, Geoffrey had been able to purchase the Grey art collection from the investor. The investor was happy to own the land and Binchley Hall but reap the profits of the museum without having to pay the costs of restoring and securing the art when it wasn’t on display. And Geoffrey was happy that he didn’t have to manage Binchley Hall or the Grey estate beyond the art collection.

  Best of all, he didn’t have to part with the unicorn and it was reunited with the two other panels that made it a complete triptych. And Alice had been right about his Re-Collecting piece perfectly complementing not only the unicorn but also the other works in the Grey collection.

  As Geoffrey boarded his flight, he couldn’t help but be grateful things had worked out as well as they had over the past six months. Not perfectly, but pretty close. Now he only wished he knew where Alice was and wondered if she was thinking about him.

  He hadn’t been seated for more than thirty seconds before someone tapped his shoulder. He turned to see a vaguely familiar woman sitting in the seat across from him and wearing a Gucci track suit. She smiled.

  “Do you remember me?” she asked as she leaned forward and offered him her hand along with an eyeful of what was under her low-cut shirt.

  “I’m sorry I can’t place you,” he answered while trying to keep his eyes north of her neck.

  “We met last year on this flight.” She pushed her chest out. “Blythe? Remember?”

  “Ah, of course.” He smiled. That was the flight where he’d seen Alice for the first time.

  As though prompted by the memory of their first meeting, Alice appeared in the doorway of the airplane, stopping to search for him, then broke into a smile as she met his eye.

  Geoffrey stood as she approached their row. “You made it!” He kissed her before moving to let her slide by him. “I was getting worried.”

  “Me too,” Alice said and collapsed into her seat. “But the unicorn looks so great. Mary and her team did an amazing job restoring it. I can’t wait for you to see it.” She wrapped her arms around his and leaned into him, turning her face to him long enough for another kiss before shutting her eyes. “I’m exhausted. When can we put these seats all the way down and sleep?”

  Geoffrey was about to answer when he noticed Blythe staring at him with her mouth open.

  “Oh, pardon me,” he said to her. “Alice, I’d like you to meet someone. This is Blythe.” Alice sat up and leaned around Geoffrey to see Blythe.

  “Blythe,” he continued, “I’d like you to meet Alice Donnelly. My fiancée.”

  Alice offered her hand, but Blythe only took her fingertips for a second before mumbling, “Nice to meet you,” then sitting back and opening her copy of The Tattler.

  “How do you know her?” Alice whispered as their plane backed away from the gate.

  “It’s not important.” Geoffrey shook his head, then laced his fingers through hers. “Where were you? I thought for sure you’d beat me here.”

  “Talking to your mother. She called me,” Alice said nonchalantly.

  If the force of the plane leaving the ground hadn’t already been pushing Geoffrey into his seat, Alice’s words would have done the job of knocking him over.

  “Mum called you?”

  Alice grinned and nodded. “To thank me for saving her from, and I quote, ‘certain humiliation’ by alerting you that the Monet was a fake days before she was due to meet with a potential buyer.”

  “That was nice. And a big step for Mum to say the words aloud rather than writing them.” He wasn’t entirely sure he believed Alice, but stranger things had happened. None that he could think of off the top of his head, but certainly something.

  “It was nice, even if it wasn’t entirely true. Did you tell her I told you the Monet was a fake?” She narrowed her eyes and squeezed his arm.

  “I didn’t say you said it. I said you alerted me. Which you did.” He tapped her nose, and she narrowed her eyes more. She hated having her nose tapped, and he liked how cute she looked when she got mad. He tapped her nose a lot.

  “Did she thank you for your part with the unicorn, too?”

  “She did, but she’d already given me a handwritten thank you months ago when I began curating your collection. When she still didn’t quite know what to do about me.”

  The one stipulation Geoffrey had made sure to include in the terms of the agreement with the investor was that Alice would be the curator of the museum. Lady Ashburn was happy to back him on that point when she learned of Alice’s part in saving the Grey family, even if she still hadn’t been excited about Alice’s relationship with Geoffrey. But, as she got to know Alice, she came to appreciate that he’d found such a smart woman to curate her family’s collection, and she was particularly grateful that, years before, Geoffrey had stopped her from tossing the unicorn in the rubbish pile.

  “I told her you’d proposed,” Alice added.

  The air went out of Geoffrey’s chest. “How did she take it? Did you tell her how? Or where?” A year before, his mother had given him a ring that had been in their family for generations with the instruction that it be used as an engagement ring for whomever he chose to marry. Of course, she’d thought Clarissa would be his choice. He didn’t know how she’d feel when she found out he’d given it to Alice.

  Alice rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “I told her you had surprised me at the end of our hike to the Hollywood sign by getting down on one knee and giving me the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen. Then I thanked her for picking it out for you and said that I knew it must have been an heirloom.”

  “Oh, you’re good.” The plane leveled off, and Geoffrey buried his nose in Alice’s hair, breathing in the smell of her sage and lavender shampoo.

  “Good enough for a kiss, I’d say.” She opened her eyes and tipped her chin. He cupped it in his hand and drew her face toward his, kissing her tenderly. There would be time for passion, but at that moment he handled her with the same care he did his unicorn painting. He hadn’t realized the painting’s real value and purpose until he’d seen it with the panels it had been separated from for so many centuries. Once he saw the complete picture it was part of, he couldn’t imagine it ever being alone again.

  And in that moment, he also knew he had to spend the rest of his life with Alice. He’d started planning hi
s proposal to her that very day.

  They broke apart, and Alice laid her head on his shoulder again. He kissed the top of her head and whispered, “I wasn’t complete until I met you. You’re my missing piece.”

  She nuzzled her head against him, whispering back, “And you’re mine.”

  <<<<<<<>>>>>>>

  I hope you enjoyed Alice and Geoffrey’s story!

  Leave a review of Gambling on a Gentleman

  a sweet romantic comedy

  BRENNA JACOBS

  a sweet romantic comedy

  BRENNA JACOBS

  Chapter 1

  Zoey Williamson hoisted the second of her two overstuffed suitcases onto the bed, yanking at the zipper. Stupid thing always got stuck. When the suitcase finally fell open, Zoey sighed. The tiny closet in the tiny guest bedroom at the front of her grandmother’s house was not going to accommodate all these clothes. She looked out the window and down the familiar driveway to the street, where half an hour before, she’d tipped and said goodbye to her Uber driver. When he’d pulled up to the house, nostalgia had overwhelmed Zoey and she’d nearly leaped from the car, but staring at her too-full suitcase, spilling jeans and dresses onto the bed, her exuberance faded. Nana’s house held so many memories, most of them happy. It was the house her mother had grown up in, the house Zoey had visited as a child every Christmas and every July. Coming to visit this time should have felt like a happy homecoming. Instead, it felt like a manifestation of her failure.

  Well. That wasn’t entirely true. Zoey was happy to be visiting—scratch that—living with her grandmother. She’d been the obvious choice to move to L.A. while Nana recovered from her stroke. Her parents were in Illinois where her Dad was still working, and her Mom was busy being grandma to Zoey’s niece and nephew while simultaneously functioning as primary caregiver to Zoey’s other grandparents. Even though Zoey had to upend her life in Chicago and move halfway across the country, it was easier for her than anyone else.

  Still, she could have done without her mother’s parting shot. “Really, Zoey, you don’t have anything tying you down. No family, not even a boyfriend.”

  Mom had at least softened the blow with an encouraging hug and the optimistic suggestion that she might “meet someone” while she was in California. Taking a three-month vacation from the industry you’ve fought to be a part of for years? Who cares? There are new men in California! All sacrifices are worth it!

  “If this is one of your ploys to get me married, it isn’t going to work,” Zoey had told her mother, though even if she’d never admit it out loud, she wouldn’t mind a little bit of casual California dating. Nothing serious, of course. Not unless she found someone who loved frigid, snow-filled winters like she did. Her mom might have been a California girl growing up, but Zoey was a Chicagoan through and through.

  Even work had made it easy on Zoey; the station where she’d anchored the morning news for the past two years had recently gone belly-up, leaving her and all of her co-workers trying to find a new foothold in the competitive Chicago market. But rumors had been circulating for months that the evening news anchor on Channel 4—a bigger and better station—was getting ready to retire and so Zoey had opted to take her time in committing to something new. It was a long shot for Zoey to even dream of the job. She was too young. Too inexperienced. But there was also talk that the dying network news industry needed fresh faces to stay relevant, to connect with younger viewers. What was she if not a fresh face?

  Still, sitting around Chicago doing nothing, waiting for a rumored retirement to happen so she could swoop in and claim the job had proven worse than Zoey had anticipated. In the end, she hadn’t been all that hard to convince to take a little break in Los Angeles. It helped that her grandmother was quite possibly her favorite person on the planet.

  Zoey glanced around the rest of the small room. The dresser in the corner might hold her pajamas and underwear, but her jeans, her shoes…they’d have to stay in the suitcase. Or maybe she could buy some sort of shelving unit to push into the bottom of the closet space? Shelving would definitely help.

  Zoey’s need for organization was important enough to override her ineptitude when it came to anything like home improvement. And IKEA wasn’t that far away. She had a master’s degree; she was smart enough to follow a set of IKEA instructions.

  Zoey crossed the tiny hallway into her grandmother’s living room, where Nana sat in a recliner, her home health aide, Cassandra, sitting beside her. Cassandra had given Zoey quite the education when she’d first arrived, detailing all of the ways in which Zoey would need to watch out for Nana.

  “Ms. Emily,” Cassandra had said, “does not like that she has lost so much of her independence. She will try and do all kinds of things she isn’t ready to do yet. She’ll tell you she’s ready to try walking on her own, when really, she needs to be working on holding a fork. You have to be firm with her.” Cassandra had glanced at Nana then, who had rolled her eyes. “Whatever you do, don’t leave her alone.”

  Not leaving Nana alone had sounded intimidating at first; Zoey had some savings, but she’d assumed she’d have to get a part-time job to help cover her personal expenses for the duration of her stay. How would that ever work out if she couldn’t leave Nana’s side? But after seeing Cassandra’s schedule, it wasn’t nearly so overwhelming. Cassandra would be around every day until five. It was only evenings and weekends that Zoey was the primary caregiver.

  “Hey, Nana?” Zoey crouched in front of Nana’s chair. “I’m going to run down to IKEA and pick up some shelves for my closest. Do you mind?”

  Nana smiled. “Too many shoes?” Her words held a slight slur, and it took her longer to get them all out, but her eyes were bright and sharp, which went a long way to ease the pain Zoey felt in her chest whenever she thought too hard about Nana’s stroke. They were lucky, the doctors had said. She would likely make a full recovery, regaining the abilities she had lost with time and intentional therapy. It could have been so much worse.

  “You know me,” Zoey said. “I shouldn’t be gone long. Less than an hour.”

  “In and out of IKEA in less than an hour?” Cassandra said, raising her eyebrows. “That’s straight crazy talk.”

  Nana smiled, the lines around her eyes deepening into wrinkles. She reached out and squeezed Zoey’s hand. “No need. I thought of your shoes.” Nana’s words were slurred to the point of being garbled, Zoey only just making out what she said. Nana took a deep breath, her jaw set, before trying again. This time, her words came out a little clearer. “Harry will be here tomorrow to put up shelves.”

  “Harry?” Zoey asked. She hated how hard it was for Nana to communicate, though Cassandra had promised it would get better with every passing day.

  “My handyman,” Nana said.

  “Oh.” Nana had a handyman? “Well, I guess that’s great then.”

  Nana raised her eyebrows suggestively. “I told you about Harry. Remember? You stick around when he comes.” She glanced at Cassandra and smiled. “He’s very handsome. Perfect for my Zoey. He doesn’t have a fancy job, but he does honest work. That matters.” She squeezed Zoey’s hand one more time then dropped it, relaxing her head back onto her chair and closing her eyes.

  Zoey thought back through the many conversations she’d had with her grandmother in the past few months. They talked almost every Sunday; that was a lot of conversations. She’d often mentioned men of her acquaintance she thought Zoey should date; the divorced son of one friend, the grad student nephew of another. It’s possible she’d also mentioned her handyman, though Zoey didn’t have any specific memories.

  It was possible Nana had just been talking to Mom about Harry the Handyman. Those two had endless conversations about Zoey’s waning marriageability with each passing year. Nana wasn’t as vocal about it to Zoey, but only because she was more tactful, not because she worried any less.

  If talking didn’t require so much effort, Zoey was positive Nana would be reminding her now, detail
ing a long list of all the admirable qualities the handyman possessed, right down to his annual income and the presence or lack of a 401k. That’s just the way Nana rolled. She never pestered people for the details of their lives, but they frequently volunteered the information on their own. Nana just got people. Understood them. She had this easy way about her that encouraged people to trust her, to let her into their lives in personal ways.

  Which made Zoey suddenly worried. “Nana, did you say something about me to your handyman?”

  Nana cracked open one eyeball, then shut it again, tilting her head to the side as if feigning sleep.

  Cassandra chuckled. “I’d watch out if I were you. She’ll have your first date planned before you can say IKEA.”

  The next morning, Zoey had almost forgotten the handyman was coming to install shelves. Not so much that she hadn’t taken a few extra minutes getting dressed, making sure her dark brown hair was a little more tamed than usual. She wasn’t expecting much; she didn’t know much about what constituted “very handsome” for Nana. The handyman could be balding and pushing forty. But just in case, she had at least wanted to feel good about her appearance. With her hair finally managed, she forgot all about it and tackled the rest of her to-do list.

  Zoey pushed into her bedroom, a bag of toiletries in her hand, and yelped when she saw a man in her closet.

  Her hand flew to her mouth, silencing her, but not before Harry the Handyman—because obviously it was the handyman and not some random stranger in her closet—jumped, knocking his head on one of the shelves he’d recently installed.

  “I’m so sorry,” Zoey said. “I forgot you were coming. I didn’t expect—”

  The man turned around and Zoey’s words froze in her throat. She knew Harry the Handyman’s face. Everyone knew his face. She closed her eyes for one heartbeat, then two, then turned and walked from the room, closing the door carefully behind her.