“From what?”
“That terrible Margery Brown woman. She cornered me before the dinner and wanted me to spirit her daughter away from her son-in-law. I saw you seated next to her and you’ve had my sympathy all evening.”
“You should have joined us.”
“Perhaps if I were a braver man.”
“Or a masochistic one.”
“That too.” He grinned. “She spent a long time telling me how much she loved visiting London although it was clear she’s never actually been. I told her I hadn’t been there, either, but she didn’t believe me. She’s one of those people who assumes everyone with a British accent has been to London.”
I didn’t tell him that I thought he lived in a castle there. “You haven’t?”
“Oh no, I grew up there, I just very much wanted the conversation to end.”
I smiled. “I completely understand.”
“I also happen to be a very poor liar, as it turns out.”
Again, that made one of us. But he did not need to know that. “While she was busy trying to convince you to woo her daughter, she was trying to off-load her youngest son on me. Although I think she rescinded the offer when she found out I hadn’t gone to college.”
“Really?” His eyebrows lifted slightly, reminding me that I probably shouldn’t have shared personal information, but what was the harm? It wasn’t like I was ever going to see him again. He asked, “You didn’t go to university?”
Right. He assumed I was like him. Which wasn’t a big jump, given the clothes I had on and the fact that I was here. “No. Did you?”
“Oxford.”
“Of course.” I should have known. Honestly, it was a bit surprising he hadn’t already brought it up, as people who’d gone to prestigious schools usually did. “Do your business cards have ‘Oxford alum’ on them?”
“No, they say ‘Earl of Strathorne.’”
Right. He didn’t need to boast about anything. His entire life was one big brag.
There was more than one new thing happening in this conversation. The first was that I’d never had this experience before, this rush of getting to know someone for no other reason than I was just honestly curious about him. There was nothing I was trying to take from him, no information I wanted to extract to use against him later, no manipulating him to get what I wanted. Every relationship I’d ever had contained some element of manipulation on my part—it had been an incredibly hard habit to shake. I’d worked to overcome it, justifying it at the time by telling myself that the type of men I dated needed to be handled.
But there was nothing I wanted from Griffin. He seemed like a decent person. It was just this organic encounter, and while on one hand it was wonderful, it was kind of scary on the other.
My mom had raised me to fake confidence in any situation I stepped into. Because confidence, real or otherwise, would carry you through just about anything. But I was sitting here realizing just how out of my depth I was with the Earl of . . . whatever, that place he’d just said. That was my second realization—he lived a completely different life than mine.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do about it. Just leave?
If I did that, I didn’t think Alice would ever forgive me.
But if I stayed . . . I hadn’t ever met a man quite so charming and all around yummy in every way imaginable.
It might be dangerous if I stayed.
“Is there somewhere you have to be?” Griffin asked.
I knew what I should do. What the smart thing would be.
No one had ever accused me of being smart, though.
CHAPTER SIX
“No. There’s nowhere else I have to be. Tomorrow I’ve got to spend time with a five-year-old, but tonight I’m free.”
My eyes widened in shock at my own stupidity. Again, it was like he’d hit me with some kind of truth serum and I was confessing things I’d planned to keep quiet about. Because I liked that—thanks to my couture dress and designer shoes—he thought I was like him. Moved in the same circles. How could he not come to the wrong conclusion? It would be kind of hard to keep up the illusion if he knew I was a nanny.
Although maybe that would be the right move. He would quickly excuse himself and I could sneak past Margery Brown and go back to the hotel and focus all of my energy on the Crawfords.
Why didn’t I want that to happen? Why did I want to stay in this romantic room with the snow falling outside and the roaring fire next to us and this impossibly sexy man sitting near me?
Huh. I think I just answered my own question.
“Five-year-old?” he repeated. “Wait, were you at the playground at the Royal Paramount yesterday?”
“Um, yes?” How did he know that?
“Is that a question or an answer?”
“An answer.”
He grinned, and it was utterly disarming. “I saw you there. That’s three times in two days we’ve been in the same place at the same time. I think we were fated to meet, Miss Diana Parker.”
I had been feeling the exact same way for the last couple of days—but it was entirely different hearing him say what I’d been thinking.
“That or you’re moonlighting from earl-ing as a stalker,” I told him.
“No. Definitely fate.”
“I don’t believe in fate.” Karma, yes. But fate? Fate was a fickle wench who had no place in my life.
“One doesn’t have to believe in something for it to be true.” His entire body shifted toward me and for one panicked second I thought he was going to kiss me. For reasons I couldn’t have explained, I could not go there with him. I didn’t think I’d ever recover.
Where was the tough girl? The one my mother had so carefully cultivated? Who could hurt people without thinking twice? The one with no heart to hurt? Something about this man made me feel all exposed and vulnerable. As if the act of accepting this job and coming out to Colorado had made me leave all of my old armor out on the battlefield so that this entire exchange was starting to make me feel a little shaky.
Griffin seemed to pick up on this as he leaned the opposite direction, against the back of the couch. Making a lot of space. Which was both a relief and a disappointment. “Does that mean you’re staying at the Royal Paramount?”
“Yes. In the Presidential Suite.” I didn’t know why I’d added that last bit on.
Okay, in the spirit of radical honesty (at least when it came to admitting things to myself), yes, I did know why: I was trying to impress him.
And from the raise of his eyebrows, it seemed to have worked.
I assured myself that I wasn’t technically lying about anything. Whatever conclusion he jumped to was out of my control, right?
Yeah, I wasn’t buying it, either.
“We tried to get that particular suite, but it was already taken.”
“That’s not surprising. Apparently the Crawfords reserved it well in advance.” I sucked in a big breath. So much for not tipping my hand.
“Who are the Crawfords?”
My employers. “The people I’m staying with.”
“Friends.”
In a manner of speaking . . . “Yes.”
“Ah. Is that where the five-year-old comes in?”