CHAPTER TWENTY – SYLVIE
I pressed my fingertips to my face and stared at the scene in front of me through my splayed fingers with nothing but pure disbelief and rampant infuriation.
I was being humiliated.
“How can I possibly cheat at this game?” He laughed, leaning back against the sofa. “The pieces are right in front of you.”
“I don’t know, but you’re cheating somehow, you bastard.”
“Sylvie, just face it. You’re just really, really shit at this game.”
“How can anyone be bad at Connect-4?”
“I don’t know, but you are.”
I huffed and grabbed my glass. “I bet you always win at Rock, Paper, Scissors, too, don’t you?”
“I have been known to come out on top more often than not.” Thomas’ lips curved into a little smile. “Maybe we should call it quits on this one for tonight.”
“But I want to beat you.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen tonight.”
I huffed and set my empty glass on the coffee table. “Then at least let me drown my sorrows in your wine.”
He raised his eyebrows and pressed his wine glass against his lips. “Aren’t you the one who said drinking around me is a bad idea?”
“Yes, but I need to drink because of you, so the situation is completely different now.”
“Has it suddenly become a good idea?”
“If I ever think anything to do with you is a good idea, that’s when you need to make me stop drinking.”
“So, the key is to get you drunk enough that you enjoy my company.”
“I highly doubt that’ll ever happen.”
“It sounds like it’s a possibility,” he countered, getting to his feet and setting his glass next to mine. “And given that you kissed me while you weren’t that drunk, I’m intrigued to find out what you’d try to do if you were.”
“I did not kiss you deliberately!” I called after him.
God knows why I did.
I knew he was only saying it to wind me up, but reacting to him was like a reflex. Like when a doctor smacks their little hammer tool against your knee and your leg goes ‘boing.’
Really, at this point, I should have been able to control myself, but he just brought something out of me.
Crazy.
It was my crazy that he brought out.
Ugh.
If tangled Christmas lights were a person, they’d be me.
Or my feelings, rather.
This man was a nuisance.
“Pick one.” Thomas set down a bottle of wine, a bottle of gin, and a fancy bottle of whiskey, turning each one until I could see the name on the label.
“What is this?” I asked, scanning each one.
“Me trying to get you drunk enough to enjoy my company.”
“Thomas, this is an emergency sleepover, not Fresher’s Week. Calm down.”
“Yes, but the more you’re drinking, the more you’re warming up to me. The Sylvie of two weeks ago would never be in my house playing Connect-4 with me.”
“That’s appreciation for not leaving me stranded in the snow. Don’t think too much into it. You’ll give yourself a headache.”
“Sylvie, I’ve had a headache ever since I ran into you at the café.” He dropped back down onto the floor in front of the bottles and moved the Connect-4 board to the side.
“Look at that, we have something in common after all.”
His lips tugged to the side. “Make your choice, or I’m not playing you in Connect-4 again.”
“What are you, a child?”
“If I am, it’s a huge problem since you kissed me.”
“I didn’t kiss you.”
“You kissed me. Face it.”
I leant back against the sofa and folded my arms across my chest. “That wasn’t a kiss. Not really.”
“How so?” He raised his eyebrows.
“If I’d wanted to kiss you properly, I’d have kissed you properly. And you’d know the difference between that and that accidental peck.”
Something sparked in his eyes. “Someone’s a bit confident in her kissing skills, isn’t she?”
I reached for the wine and cracked the screw cap. “Well, when someone can bring a man to his knees with a kiss, she’s allowed to be confident.”
“Bring a man to his knees? Really?”
“I said what I said.”
“Have you ever brought a man to his knees?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
I swung my gaze towards him, lifting my wine glass to my lips. “You.”
“I don’t remember falling to my knees after you kissed me.”
“No, but it’s been a week since I accidentally hit your lips instead of your cheek with the smallest tipsy peck, and you keep going on about it.
The way I see it, you’re on your knees now.
” The smallest of smiles crept onto my face.
“Especially since you’re trying extremely hard to get me drunk.
Are you trying to coerce me into kissing you again, Your Grace? ”
His expression darkened. The eyebrows that were raised just a second ago pulled together in the middle of his forehead in a deep furrow, and any trace of a smile disappeared from his face as if I’d just insulted him.
He held my gaze for a hot second before he got up and crossed to the bar in the corner of the room. He returned with a whiskey glass clasped tightly in his hand, and he calmly set it down on the coffee table before he proceeded to open the whiskey and pour it.
Then, with a mirroring of my move, he held the short glass close his lips and met my eyes. “Bold of you to assume I need to get you drunk to have you kiss me, Miss Harding.”
“Bold of you to assume you could convince me to do such a thing while sober,” I retorted dryly, still holding my glass to my lips, holding his gaze.
“Fortune favours the brave,” he said without missing a beat. “If you’re so confident, why don’t we lay that kiss on a bet?”
“Forgive me, but this feels like something set up solely to benefit you.”
Thomas tipped the Connect-4 board upside down. The red and yellow chips slipped out of the rivets and scattered across the coffee table, and as he separated them into two coloured piles, he smirked at me. “Of course, it is. Why would I bet on something I think I’m going to lose?”
Hmph.
The bastard had me there.
“Are you aware how ridiculous this is? You’re a thirty-year-old man who is head of a three-hundred-year-old aristocratic household, and you’re betting a kiss over a game of Connect-4 with a woman who’d rather smack you with a fire poker than kiss you.”
“Yet that woman has still not said no to my ‘ridiculous’ suggestion.”
“That woman is in shock,” I replied curtly. “So, what is this? If you win, I have to let you kiss me?”
“No. When I win, you have to kiss me and bring me to my knees, as you so succinctly put it.” He pushed the yellow chips over to me with a smile on his face.
“I want the red ones.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve been red all night,” I harrumphed. “And you keep winning. I want the red ones.”
“Fine. Let’s switch.” He did a quick change of the piles. “Red or yellow, you’re going to be putting your money where your mouth is where your kissing skills are concerned.”
I picked up the first red chip and narrowed my eyes at him. “What if I win?”
“Are we really entertaining that?”
“Stranger things have happened in the last couple of weeks,” I mumbled. “If I win, what are you doing for me? And you can’t say kiss me, because that’s cheating.”
“Bugger.” He tapped his long fingers against the table, tilting his head to the side. “I’ll do whatever you want for twenty-four hours.”
“Are you telling me you’ll be my slave for twenty-four hours?”
“That’s how confident I am.”
“Hm.” I touched the red chip to my nose. “Is that twenty-four straight hours or twenty-four business hours?”
Thomas’ lips twitched up. “Spoken like a true businesswoman. It would be your win, so I’ll say it’s your choice.”
I dropped my chip into the board as I met his eyes. “Deal.”
***
“Now, how should I have you serve your hours of slavery?” I mused, gently swilling the wine in my glass.
Thomas glared at me. “You cheated.”
“I did not cheat. I told you red was the lucky colour.” I paused. “That and you were too cocky.”
“Or you just have hidden Connect-4 skills.”
“What actually happened is that the prospect of having you at my beck and call for twenty-four whole hours was just too tempting, so I had to really think it all through. Humbling you in the process was merely a bonus.”
He sighed heavily, dropping his head back on the sofa so he was staring at the ceiling. “Sometimes I think I’m starting to understand you, then shit like this happens, and I realise you might just be one of life’s greatest unsolved mysteries.”
“Like the identity of Jack the Ripper?”
“Or the location of Cleopatra’s tomb.”
“I’ll go with the tomb. There are too many possibilities for Jack’s identity, but we really don’t know where good ol’ Cleo is resting.”
“In the morning, remind me to change your name in my contact list to ‘Cleopatra’s Tomb.’”
“Oh, I will. Then I’ll call you every five minutes and hope I one day get to hear you explain to someone why that’s my name in your phone.” I grinned as I put my empty glass on the coffee table, then swung my legs up onto the sofa and adjusted a cushion under my head.
“I have no idea how I could possibly explain that to anyone,” Thomas said dryly, but there was a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Are you going to fall asleep there?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m merely getting comfortable while thinking about how to abuse my authority over you for twenty-four hours.”
“Abuse your authority, hm?”
“Absolutely. I’ve been dreaming about this for twenty years. I’m not passing up the opportunity to make you my slave.”
He covered his face with his hand. He could hide his smile all he liked, but there was no way to hide the full body shake that came with his silent laughter. “Let me guess; it’s not going to be a twenty-four-hour block, is it?”
“I was thinking random sessions of two hours to keep you on your toes. Of course, I’ll have to do the maths to make sure I use up all the hours before I leave again, but I’m sure I can make it work.” I smiled over at him.
Thomas slowly dropped his hand onto his lap. “Do you ever think about staying here?”
“In Castleton?”
“No, South Africa.”
Moron.
“I guess,” I said slowly, rolling onto my side to face him as I stifled a yawn. “It’s not like I hate it here, and that’s not why I left, either. I just knew I wouldn’t be able to achieve my dreams if I settled here after university.”
“Do you feel like you have?”
“What, achieved my dreams? In a way, I suppose. I have my own business, after all, and I’m pretty good at what I do. I make good money, and I’m always booked to the point I turn brides away, so I guess I have.”
“You don’t sound too excited for someone who’s achieved their dream.”
My lips curved up slightly, but I quickly brought my hand to my mouth to cover a yawn. The warmth of the fire combined with the wine was getting to me, and there was the hint of sleep flickering at the edges of my consciousness.
I really had to get up, but I was too damn comfortable.
“Maybe I don’t. But there’s more to dreams than just professional success, isn’t there?” I tucked my hand under my head, briefly closing my eyes. “I might appear to have it all professionally, but I’m still only human, and I get jealous like everyone else.”
“You get jealous? There’s something new.”
His words were snarky, but there was a softness to his tone. One I could see in his gentle smile when I forced my eyes open in a sleepy glare.
“Of course I do. I love Hazel, but that doesn’t mean I’m not jealous of her.”