mouth to speak, then stopped and sighed. “Yes. I know.”
“I’ve gathered the Savitts have had a spot of trouble with the inn over the past couple of years.”
“Yes.” She waved that off. “Well, the trouble started before they were together, when my aunt died several years back. Briar almost lost the business, but thankfully some investors swooped in and saved it from going under, just around the time she and Cole met. It doesn’t feel right, though, not completely. Briar’s still innkeeper and the inn is doing well again, but the family name isn’t on the books anymore. It’s a weight on them both.”
“And you,” Gerald surmised, wise eyes combing her face.
Olivia nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is.... Wait, why are we talking about this?”
His eyes dropped to her waist and he took a step closer to her, closing the space between them. “I realize I’ve disrupted your life without any warning. So, I have a proposition to make it up to you when all of this is settled.”
She tried to step back to keep from getting lost in that teasing aftershave of his. Her back came up against the side of the arbor and the jasmine still blooming around it. “What?”
The light dappled onto his face as a smile warmed it. “If this doesn’t end the way I want it to between you and me, I’ll pay what Briar and Cole owe to their investors and restore the inn in their name.”
“You’ll...what?”
“Perhaps it will make up for my intrusion into your lives,” he told her. “You’re good people. Your cousins certainly don’t deserve to have anyone mucking about their lives. It’s the least I can do.”
“No,” Olivia argued. “It’s too much.” When he opened his mouth to insist, she stopped him. “Look, I know who you are. I know you have more money than God. But buying things isn’t the way to woo me.”
Gerald raised his brows. “Duly noted, Mrs. Leighton. But this has nothing to do with wooing you. This is me doing what I view is the right thing, for your family, since you are all welcoming me into your lives—even if only for a short while.”
Olivia scanned his face carefully, looking for flaws. There had to be a catch. Some angle he was trying to play to win his bet against her.
He pursed his lips. “You would deny your cousins peace of mind, after all they’ve been through?”
She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “No matter what I say, you’re going to do whatever you want, aren’t you?”
Grinning, he lifted his hands to her face. He cupped one hand over her cheek and brushed her hair back from the other. “Look there. We’re beginning to understand one another already. You know not much will stop me from getting what I want—you. And I know you would do anything for your family. Even if it means putting up with a gentleman like me.”
Her brows came down over her eyes. “Who said you were a gentleman?”
“Do you not like gentlemen, love?”
Despite the fact that she had more than a few notches on her bedpost, Olivia didn’t have much experience with so-called gentlemen. This was all new, rocky terrain. And she was very much afraid that this gentleman might make all the men she’d slept with before him dim in comparison.
She glanced back to the inn. “Do whatever you want. Just... I don’t want them getting attached to you. I don’t want them buying into this...” She gestured between them. “Whatever this is you’re trying to make happen between us.”
His eyes dimmed. “Have you so little faith in men?” Both his hands gripped her face now. “I won’t hurt them. And I won’t hurt you, Liv. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She thought of her lack of faith more as keeping the status quo of low expectations. Raising them only meant being disappointed. She wanted to believe Gerald when he said he wouldn’t hurt her—and that right there was trouble. Stick to the status quo, she told herself firmly. Or you will most certainly get hurt...whether he intends to hurt you or not.
Grabbing his wrists, she lowered them from her face and released them. “This isn’t going to work, you know. I hope you’re still prepared for that.”
“I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to change your mind,” he told her.
“Why?” she demanded. “Marriages based on one night of passion have terrible track records.” “Trust me, I know,” she almost added then closed her mouth quickly.
“I don’t believe that’s always the case,” Gerald said thoughtfully.
She raised one brow. “Are you always this idealistic when it comes to relationships?” she asked.
He reached up again to brush a hand back through her hair, lowering his face close to hers so the green of his eyes all but swallowed her. “I prefer to think of it as faith.”
She frowned. “Were your parents blissfully happy or something?”
“No. Their marriage was a rudding disaster and a bitter one at that.”
Olivia lifted her shoulders, disbelieving. “I was wrong, then. You’re not idealistic. You’re just plain crazy.”
“We’ll find out, won’t we?” he said. Before she could stop him, he bent down and touched his lips briefly to hers.
Off balance, she staggered, her mouth suddenly very dry and her heart dancing on twinkle toes.
Backing away toward the shore, he grinned at her stunned expression. “Tonight at the tavern. I’d like to see you again in your element. You can fix me a drink, and I might steal a dance.” Winking, he turned away and left her standing under the shade of the arbor.
As she watched him stroll away, all confident strides and whistling a jaunty tune, Olivia caught herself lifting her hand to her lips.
Hell. She had to pull it together.
“LIV, I THINK you’ve gone and married Jude Law,” Roxie said in a whispered hush as she all but crawled onto the kitchen counter to better see the man strolling around Briar’s garden beyond the windows.
Olivia rolled her eyes. “I can’t catch a break with this guy.”
“You know—” Adrian pitched in, lifting her mug to her lips and tilting her head to better admire Gerald from the back as he turned to inspect a row of azaleas “—I think he’s more Colin Firth.”
“You would,” Olivia snapped. “And you’re no help, by the way.”
“Sorry,” Adrian replied. “Couldn’t resist ribbing you a little. It’s nice for a change.”
“He’s out of my league,” Olivia said matter-of-factly.
“I didn’t think anyone was out of your league,” Roxie claimed. “You could have anyone.”
Adrian snorted. “You have had anyone.”
“Jerk,” Olivia said, but without much heat. It was the truth. She wasn’t picky when it came to the men she invited into her bed...so long as they were agreeable to leaving it the following morning. “This is Gerald’s type we’re talking about, not mine. Audrey Hepburn is more his speed. Not Marlene Dietrich.”
“Don’t knock Marlene,” Cole, standing close by, advised.
“There’s nothing wrong with Marlene or you,” Roxie helpfully intoned. “Not that that matters because Gerald is so taken with you. When he looks at you, he just lights up.”
“Roxie,” Adrian said with a smirk, “you’re such a romantic.”