All Bets Are On (8 page)

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.’