How to Tame a Silver Fox novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Bet

Arlen sets the terms of the game and Albert moves him into the east wing next to her room.

I lunged for the page, and Arlen held it over his head.

He didn't have to stand up to do it.

"That's mine," I said.

"It's got my name on it. Technically it's ours."

"It's a private document."

"It's a plan to seduce me on a Tuesday, a Thursday and the night of your father's engagement party." He tilted his head. "Phase two involves a bathrobe. Phase four involves a candle. I'd like to know what happens in phase five."

"Nothing happens in phase five."

"The page ends at phase four."

"Because I ran out of ink."

He laughed.

It was low and short, and it landed somewhere under my ribs where I didn't want it.

I yanked my mother's robe tighter and glared at him.

"You've known since Tuesday," I said. "You let me kiss you."

"You kissed me. I was polite."

"Polite."

"I didn't stop you. That's not the same as wanting you to stop."

I stared at him.

I had spent four days imagining a man who would be flustered, or pompous, or a little disgusting.

I had not imagined a man who looked at me like a chessboard he was happy to lose a piece on.

"Why aren't you telling my father?" I said.

"Because he'd fire me, and I'd miss you."

"You'd miss me?"

"I'd miss the notebook." He folded the page along its old crease. "Here are my terms."

"You don't get terms."

"Six weeks. The party is on the nineteenth. If you can make me say I've fallen for you by then, I'll resign from the firm myself and go quietly."

"And if I can't?"

"You hand your father the key to the carriage house and stop fighting the pavilion."

My throat went tight.

That key was the last thing my mother's hands had held that I still owned.

I wore it on a chain under my shirt, and he had never seen it, because I never took it out.

"You'd bet my mother's studio on a game," I said.

"I'd bet it on you." He held up one finger. "Three rules. You do the seducing. I don't touch first. And if your father asks me a straight question, I answer it straight."

"That's cheating."

"That's honest."

"You're forty-one."

"And you wrote that down twice, with an exclamation mark."

I looked at him, and I looked at the blueprint on the table.

It was a house with a wide porch, and it wasn't ours.

Six weeks was plenty if I played this right.

"Fine," I said. "Six weeks."

"Good."

"You're going to regret this."

"Probably." He handed back the page. "Lock the door on your way out, Willa. There's a lot of weather coming."

I crossed the wet lawn with my face on fire.

I did not sleep.

At seven the next morning I came downstairs in jeans and the cardigan I use when I want to look innocent.

My father was in the dining room with his coffee and the paper.

Sabrina sat beside him, cutting a grapefruit into perfect segments.

Sabrina Woodbury was thirty-four, blonde and polished, and she smiled the way people tip a waiter they intend to fire.

She had moved into the house in June.

She had been rearranging my mother's furniture ever since.

"There she is," Sabrina said. "We were just talking about you."

"Were you?"

"Arlen's moving into the east wing today."

I froze with a hand on the toast.

"The guesthouse needs a new roof," my father said, without looking up. "Contractors start Monday. He'll be in the room beside yours."

"The room beside mine is my mother's sewing room."

"It's a bedroom, Willa. It's been a bedroom for a year."

"Since you let Sabrina redo it."

"Don't start."

I started to say something, and then I felt a presence at the French doors.

Arlen stood on the terrace in a gray sweater, holding a single duffel bag.

It was one bag, as though he were a man who had never planned to stay long anywhere.

He met my eyes and gave me the smallest nod, acknowledging a bet.

"Morning," he said.

"Morning, Arlen," Sabrina said.

She put down her knife.

She looked from his face to mine, and I watched her do math.

"Well," she said brightly. "How nice. You'll be neighbors."

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