“Don’t you?” he asked, his soft lips turning down. “Didn’t what I said mean anything to you?”
“You mean the fun part?” I crossed my arms. “Not really.”
“The part where I told you I love you. Because I really do, Bridget. Do you…couldyou love me too?”
It wasn’t fair of him to ask that while I was wrapped in his heat, in his scent. While he looked so delicious in his crisp white shirt and a hand-tied bow tie that had gone slightly askew when he shrugged off his coat. Love?
“Look deep inside yourself,” he said. “Could you walk away and never see me again? Would you want to?”
I ripped off his coat and flung it at him. “Goddammit, Cole!” I stepped away and turned toward the house so I didn’t have to look at him. Earlier, I’d planned to do exactly that: live the rest of my life in the absence of Cole Campion, hoping he’d move to a different city and I’d never hear his name again.
Was that what I wanted?
I took a deep breath of air that smelled cold and fresh and not at all like Cole. I looked up at the stars, shimmering faintly between the clouds. I could be like them: burning bright in their spheres, separated from each other by vast distances. It would be lonely, sure, but it’d also be safe. No one would mock me for dating a man I’d worked with. Ayoungerman who didn’t know life before computers could fit in your pocket. I stood in that reality for a second, then five more.
Then I remembered what we’d so briefly had last weekend. A lover. A partner. Someone who looked after me and saw me as an equal. Someone who told me he loved me and wasn’t afraid to say it in public.
I didn’t want to be a star. No matter what people might say.
I whirled and leaped toward him, flinging my arms around him and burying my face in the starched cotton of his shirt. “No. I want you.”
His arms went around my back. “That’s what I thought. What I hoped,” he amended. “Could you love me? Someday? I’ll wait.”
“I…I think I already do. That’s why it hurt so much when they kicked me out. I could’ve worked with you. Or under you. But I didn’t want you to work there without me.”
“Say it?” His hands pressed into my back. “Please?”
Warm and safe and loved, I looked up into his eyes, which were dark pools in the dim light. “Cole Campion, I love you with my whole heart.”
He pressed me to his chest. “And I love you, Bridget O’Brien, with everything I am.”
“Good. Let’s go inside where it’s warm,” I said. But the truth was, everywhere was warm sunshine and sandy beaches, as long as I was with him.
40
MIDNIGHT MASS
COLE
“Caitlyn!” I shouted from Bridget’s parents’ kitchen. “We’re leaving.”
“What?” Bridget pulled her hand out of my grasp. “You’re leaving? Now?”
“No, sweetheart.” I kissed her berry lips and hoped her lipstick rubbed off on me so I could prove to the world we’d claimed each other, and she was mine.“We’releaving.”
“No.” She crossed her arms.“We’renot. It’s Christmas Eve. We haven’t even had dinner yet. And after dinner, we go to Mass.”
I stepped closer. “I have better plans. There’s food at my place. Then we can get cozy in front of the fireplace with that cabernet you like, and after Caitlyn’s asleep?—”
She slapped her hand over my mouth. “We have an audience.”
For the first time, I noticed the other people standing in the kitchen. Bridget’s sisters, some older people who were probably her parents, aunts, and uncles, and even a couple of red-hairedkids watched us, some wide-eyed, and others—the sisters, mostly—glaring at me. Apparently, I had a reputation in the O’Brien house.
I switched tactics. “Hey, everyone.” I stretched my face into a grin, which wasn’t hard now that Bridget had said she loved me. I tugged her to my side. “I’m Cole Campion, and I’m Bridget’s boyfriend.” Bridget’s small hand slid up to my lapel, and she smiled at me. Point, Campion. A lightness expanded in my chest, and I snugged her tighter.
A man with Bridget’s kind eyes stepped forward and held out his hand. “Declan O’Brien. Bridget’s father.”
I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, sir. And you must be Bridget’s mother.” I flashed my most winning smile at the petite gray-haired woman beside him, who earlier had insinuated I was too young for Bridget. Her daughter had inherited her firm jaw.
