Amber Leigh Williams - Married One Night

“Good luck with that,” Cole muttered into his coffee.

Olivia mussed a hand over Kyle’s rusty brown crop of hair, leaning down to press a loud kiss to the boy’s freckled cheek. “How are ya, slugger?”

Kyle beamed up at her, displaying a new gap between his teeth. “Great. Gerald gave me a euro.” He raised the small European coin from the table. “Look, Liv! Isn’t it neat?”

“Yeah, how ’bout that?” Olivia said, narrowing her eyes on Adrian across the table.

Adrian shrugged, though the corners of her mouth twitched. “You were right. He is a charmer.”

“Oh, you, too, huh?” Olivia muttered through gritted teeth as she eyed the hardback book next to Adrian’s plate.

Her friend lifted her shoulders again and lowered telling eyes to the coffee in her hands. “Yeah. You’re on your own.”

“Brutus.” Olivia sneered. Cursing, she stalked to the pantry. It was small, but the floor-to-ceiling shelves were all stocked neat as a pin with every label facing outward. The man in question was reaching up to grab a jar of rhubarb jam off the top shelf for Briar, who beamed wide at him as he handed it to her. “Aren’t you sweet?” Briar asked, a pink flush staining her cheeks. “Thank you, Gerald.”

“It’s my pleasure, Mrs. Savitt,” he said. “Your husband’s a lucky man. He has a pretty wife and envious access to all your jams, jellies and homemade treats.”

Briar tittered over him. Actually tittered . Olivia scowled. That was the last straw. “Gerald,” she barked.

Briar jumped, startled at the intrusion. Gerald steadied her with a hand on her shoulder as he turned to Olivia with a beaming smile, one arm laden with mason jars full of jam. “Well, if it isn’t my gorgeous wife.” His eyes dipped over her from head to toe. “You’re looking fine today, Mrs. Leighton.”

Olivia narrowed her eyes on him in a blistering stare. “We need to talk.”

He looked from her furious, gleaming eyes to Briar’s flushed face. “Your cousin’s just been telling me how you used to steal jam from her mother’s cupboard, which is why it’s still kept on the top shelf to this day. She also says you used to steal liquor from your parents’ bar. That’s why they put a lock on the storeroom door.”

Olivia’s frown deepened as she looked at Briar. Her cousin had the gall to look innocent. “I’ll be talking to you later,” Olivia warned Briar. “ You, on the other hand...” She grabbed Gerald’s hand and tugged on it hard to get his feet moving. “Outside. Now.”

“Thank you, Briar,” he managed to say as Olivia hauled him away. “I’m looking forward to sampling each of these. Perhaps you’ll make me some more of those delicious scones to go with them?”

“Of course, Gerald,” Briar answered. “Whatever you like.”

Muttering, Olivia got behind Gerald and pushed him out the screen door before he could respond to her cousin. Grabbing the sleeve of his oxford shirt, she pulled him in the direction of the jasmine arbor where the garden surrounded them, blocking the view from the inn’s many windows. Rounding on him, she crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you doing?” she asked, indignant.

Gerald blinked and lifted a mason jar for her inspection. “Just talking jams. Your cousin’s a gem. The way she talks about you...it’s more like a mother. It’s illuminating.” His grin turned wry. “Do you need a mummy, Olivia?”

Olivia groaned. “I’m not talking about...that. This whole marriage business was to stay between us .”

He narrowed his eyes. “I’m sorry, but I thought they were your family.”

“They are my family—”

“And as your family, who loves you dearly, they’d have a right to know who I am and why I’m staying here. That is, unless you weren’t planning on being honest with them? It was my impression that your relationship with them means a great deal more to you than that.”

Olivia’s mouth fumbled. She raked her hands through her hair in frustration. “You’re just trying to figure me out—get inside my head.” She jabbed a finger into his chest. “Stop it!”

Gerald chuckled. The laughter settled into a warm smile as he turned and set the jars in a neat row on the arbor bench. “You’ve a lovely family.”

She opened her 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.”