When we got to the house, the first thing I did was grab a flute of champagne from a passing waiter. The second thing I did was remember I wasn’t meant to be drinking and toss it into one of the many, many floral displays. Had Krys Baxter-Ragsdale gone home? I couldn’t hear sneezing.
“Why did you ditch the fizz?” Alaric asked. “Neither of us is driving.”
“You heard Piers earlier. I don’t want a repeat of last time.”
“Shame.”
“Everyone thinks you’re moonlighting as a gigolo. Doesn’t that bother you?”
Alaric snagged two more drinks and passed one to me. “A glass won’t hurt. It might even take the edge off. Come on…” He steered me towards the open French windows. “Let’s go outside. Most of the vultures are hanging out by the snacks.”
He was right—the terrace was quieter, even if it brought back memories of our previous shenanigans out there. My thighs clenched just from thinking about that evening.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I muttered.
“Do I care what people think of me? No, I only worry about the things that matter. And what matters is that I’ve got the prettiest girl at the party on my arm.”
Heat rose up my cheeks.
“But I need to apologise,” he continued. “My comment earlier was uncalled for, and I’m sorry.”
“What comment?”
“The one where I suggested paying for your services. I felt the way you stiffened.”
“Oh, no, no, it wasn’t because of you.”
“Then it was Piers? That jab you made about hookers being his bag? You caught him?”
I quickly shook my head. “Can we not discuss this? It’s mortifying, and you’re my boss.”
“We’re not at work today. This afternoon, I’m your friend above all else. If you want to vent, feel free.”
“Please, no.” I downed the Veuve Clicquot before I realised what I was doing. And if you’re wondering how I knew it was Veuve Clicquot, the banners draped over the ice buckets were a dead giveaway. “Have you ever had a sexual experience so mortifying you wished you could sink into the ground?”
“Sure. You want me to go first? A few years ago when I was in France, I met a girl at a music concert, and some privacy seemed like a good idea.”
“I’m not listening. It was a rhetorical question.”
I pressed my hands against my ears, but then just for good measure, I removed one for long enough to grab Alaric’s champagne and knocked that back too. And still he kept talking.
“So we meandered through the woods and found the perfect spot. Quiet, secluded, tucked away off the beaten track… And we got a little busy. Only to realise that nesting above our heads was a pair of ovenbirds, literally the only ones in the country, and what we thought was dense undergrowth was actually a cleverly disguised hide filled with twitchers. Some of them had cameras. Most of them had binoculars. One gent had a mild heart attack, which was how we found out. They all started panicking and someone called an ambulance.”
I gasped and covered my mouth.
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not. If you look at birdguru.com and search for ovenbirds near Antibes, you can still find a picture of my ass.”
I absolutely wouldn’t be doing that…until I was safely tucked away in the privacy of my own bedroom.
“What happened to the man? Was he okay?”
“Fortunately, I underwent a reasonable amount of medical training in a previous job, so I asked around for aspirin and then kept him comfortable until the doctors took over.”
A bridesmaid walked past and gave me an odd look. I realised I was holding two champagne glasses up to my ears and hurriedly dropped my hands. Oops. Alaric was watching me closely, but what could I say? His tale was funny, whereas mine was more… Wait a second… What did he say?
“You were fooling around with a girl?”
He shrugged as I dumped the glasses on a waiter’s tray. “I’m forty years old, Beth. I’ve never been a saint.”
“But…but I thought you were gay,” I blurted. Oh, hell. I clapped my hands over my mouth, then mumbled through them. “Not that being gay isn’t perfectly fine, of course. And I realise some men don’t come out until later in life. My old showjumping trainer, he was married for years, but then he got divorced and moved to California with a guy who made magnetic horse blankets.”
“What makes you say that?” Alaric asked mildly.
“The blankets? They sent me one as a gift.”
“No, why do you think I’m gay?”
Oh dear. Was it too late to drown myself in the swimming pool?
“Because…because you dress well?”
“Beth…”
“Okay, okay. Uh, Judd might have mentioned it. To Gemma. That you were with Ravi. And Emmy said Ravi was gay and so I just assumed… Can I go home now?”
“I’m not gay, Bethany. I’m bi, and so is Ravi.”
“What does that mean? Actually, forget I asked. I sort of know, I mean, logically…”
“It means I fall for personalities rather than body parts.”
“Oh. Oh!” I thought about his words for a second. The champagne was already going to my head, so the cogs whirred kind of slowly. “That really sounds quite lovely.”
“Lately, I’ve been more into women. Well, one woman. And not exactly into her, but…”
“Who?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, just brushed his lips over mine.
“Feel free to slap me.”
No, I didn’t want to do that. I dropped the two champagne glasses into a flower border—they’d done their job now—and wrapped my arms around Alaric’s neck.
“Can I kiss you instead?”
He didn’t wait for me to make the first move. When our lips met, I forgot where I was and who might be watching and melted against him. My head screamed that smooching with my boss was a terrible, terrible idea, but my heart beat it into submission. My toes curled in my shoes as Alaric’s tongue teased the seam of my lips, and I let him in on a
