All Bets Are On by Charlotte Phillips Read Free Book Online Page A

own voice.
    He turned back to her, grinning.
    ‘Yep.’
    Despite her attempts to avoid him he grabbed her hand and tugged her gently along the decking towards the row of light blue wooden rowing boats.
    She shook her head and tried to dig her heels into the decking, failing miserably in her ballet flats.
    ‘I don’t do boats.’
    He gave an exasperated sigh.
    ‘I’m hiring a rowing boat for an hour, not proposing we cross the Atlantic in a bathtub. Will you just relax for once and enjoy the fact that we are in London, it’s a lovely sunny day and we are together? You want to get back into dating? The first thing you need to do is start loosening up or you’ll get nowhere. Guys don’t like high maintenance, you know. Not in the long term.’
    ‘I am not high maintenance,’ she snapped.
    ‘Prove it, then,’ he said, gesturing towards the boats.
    She tried desperately to focus on her plan, her list, which was the whole point of being here with him. Was she really going to back out at the first small hurdle, before she’d even had the chance to properly talk to him?
    She gave an enormous exaggerated sigh and walked towards the boats.
    The attendant was holding boat number twelve against the deck.
    ‘Usual OK for you, sir?’ he asked Harry. ‘One hour, is it?’
    She stopped in the ungainly act of straddling the water, one foot in the boat, one foot out of it, her coffee balanced in one hand and tote bag in the other, her ears suddenly on stalks.
    The usual?
    There she was thinking that at least he was imaginative, that the impromptu get-close-to-nature boat trip was actually quite thoughtful. But no.
    Was this his date of choice to get a girl out of work mode and inject some fun? How many other girls had been treated to this supposedly spur-of-the-moment trip out?
    Harry was all over the situation like a shot, rushing to gloss over the attendant’s comment, clearly hoping she hadn’t picked up on it.
    ‘I’ll take it from here, mate,’ he cut in, grabbing the edge of the boat himself.
    The usual.
    It took a conscious effort not to shake her head in wonder. But she kept her mouth shut.
    For now.

FOUR
    Rule #3 Be careful not to be seduced by dates that are designed to impress but seem spur-of-the-moment. Chances are it’s been tried and tested with many girls before you.

    Irritably aware that she was wobbling all over the place, Alice ignored Harry’s hand and clambered into the boat on her own. He leapt in and pushed away all in one graceful fluid motion while she perched like a lunatic on the plank seat at the end, clutching her tote bag against her chest in a vice-grip. Realising what an uptight idiot she must look, she slid her bag into the boat behind her and tried to sit back a little without capsizing the stupid thing.
    Harry manoeuvred the oars expertly as if he spent every waking hour rowing girls around boating lakes. As if she needed any further confirmation that this date was no one-off. How many girls had sat in this boat with him in the past? He really was the perfect candidate for player—she couldn’t have chosen better if she’d tried. This was all about what dating information she could gather, testing and fine-tuning the list of rules she’d based on her past experience. And so far he was delivering. In spades.
    As they reached the middle of the lake he rested the oars and let the boat bob gently, leaning down to pick up his coffee from the bottom of the boat. The sun glinted off the water, warming her back gently. A couple of ducks swam past, and the peace and quiet was soothing.
    ‘Not so bad, is it?’ he said.
    ‘It’s lovely,’ she admitted. Her life in the city revolved around concrete and crowds.
    ‘See what you’ve been missing?’
    ‘Yeah, well, if dating just meant having a good laugh and getting close to nature, maybe I wouldn’t have taken the break.’
    Harry watched her. Her hair rippled a little in the breeze as she looked down, picking lightly at the paint on