She tried to put the thought from her mind and concentrated on getting ready. By the time she’d finished, it was ten to seven and Roland still hadn’t come back from work. Given that he’d asked her to be ready for seven, if he turned up in the next few seconds it wouldn’t leave him much time to get ready to go out. But surely if he’d been held up at work or in traffic he would’ve called her?
Had she just made a huge mistake and agreed to a ridiculous deal with someone who would turn out to be as unreliable as her father? Someone charming who would let her down? That would mean she’d gone from one extreme to the other: from thinking of marrying a sensible man who didn’t make her heart beat faster, to dating one who’d break it without a second thought. That wasn’t what she wanted. At all.
Maybe she should call the whole thing off and find herself somewhere else to stay until Bella’s flat had dried out.
She was about to start looking up hotels when the doorbell rang. Even though it wasn’t strictly her place to answer the door, maybe it was a delivery or neighbour who needed something and she really ought to answer. When she opened the door, she saw Roland standing on the doorstep. He smiled and handed her a single red rose. ‘Hi.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. Then she noticed the way he was dressed. He was wearing a formal dinner jacket, with a bow tie—and she was pretty sure that wasn’t what he’d normally wear to the office. ‘But—but...’
‘But what?’ he asked, his dark eyes glittering; clearly he was enjoying the fact that she was completely wrong-footed.
She gestured to his suit. ‘You didn’t come back here to get changed.’
‘I can hardly sweep you off your feet if you see all the domestic stuff first,’ he pointed out with a grin. ‘I came home at lunchtime to pick up my clothes and I got changed in the office.’
‘Oh.’ Feeling stupid and vaguely pathetic, Grace stared at the floor. Why hadn’t she thought of that? And that was why he was here at precisely seven o’clock—the time when he’d asked her to be ready. Of course he wasn’t unreliable. She’d jumped to conclusions and been as unfair to him as he’d been to her.
Roland reached out, gently put the backs of his fingers under her chin and tilted her chin until she met his gaze. ‘Hey. This was meant to make you feel special, not awkward,’ he said. ‘But I did warn you my dating skills are rusty. I’m sorry I got it wrong.’
If this was Roland in rusty mode, heaven help her when he was polished. ‘It’s not you, it’s me being stupid,’ she mumbled. ‘I’d better put this rose in water—and it’s lovely. Thank you.’ And now she was babbling like a fool. He must be really regretting making that deal with her.
As if he could read her mind, he said quietly, ‘Grace, just relax. This is about having fun.’ Then he leaned forward and brushed his lips very lightly against hers, which sent her into even more of a tizzy. Every nerve end in her lips tingled and her knees felt as if they’d turned to soup.
‘You have two minutes,’ he said.
She just about managed to get her head together enough to ask, ‘Where do you keep your vases?’
‘Um—I don’t have any, which is a bit pathetic given that my sister Philly is a florist.’ He flapped a hand dismissively. ‘Just use a glass for now and we’ll sort it out later.’
The momentary confusion on his face made her feel a bit better. She put the rose in a glass of water in the kitchen, then joined him again at the front door.
‘Your transport awaits, madam.’
She had no idea what she’d been expecting—but it certainly wasn’t the gleaming silver Rolls-Royce that waited for them by the kerb, with a chauffeur at the wheel wearing a peaked cap.
‘A Rolls-Royce?’ she asked.
‘In design terms, I prefer this to a stretch limo,’ he said with a grin, and helped her into the car.
‘Are you quite sure your dating skills need polishing, Roland?’ she asked when he joined her in the back of the car. ‘Because I think you’ve already swept me off my feet tonight more than I’ve ever been swept in my entire life so far.’
He inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘Good. That’s the plan.’
They stopped outside a restaurant in Mayfair. The chauffeur opened the passenger door for her, and then Roland was by her side, tucking her arm into his elbow and leading her to the restaurant.