“That’s my sister’s addiction.”
“I know. You read crime and nonfiction. But I’m trying to give you a bad gift, remember?”
“Right. You’re good at this. Bad gifts, I mean.”
“I know you.”
That was true. In fact, it was a little unsettling just how well he knew her.
His hands were thrust deep into his pockets. He was standing close to her.
“It’s Christmas in two days,” she said. “You don’t have time to buy a gift so that isn’t going to work. You can just say you got tired of seeing me in a hoodie, or that you were appalled by my chocolate habit, or I wouldn’t go to big noisy parties with you—there are endless reasons.”
“I happen to like your hoodie. It makes me smile. And I’m not a lover of big noisy parties, either, and the people closest to me will know that, so neither of those excuses are going to work.”
“We’ll think of something else.” She paused. “Do you haveany bad habits I don’t know about that might provide useful material in a breakup?”
“Several.”
“And they are—?”
“I’ll disclose them at the appropriate moment. As we are supposed to be displaying togetherness, this isn’t that moment. Put your arms around me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your sister is about to join us.”
“What?” Her heart rate doubled. She couldn’t deal with Rosie now. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can. Put your arms around me.” He pulled her against him and she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Her heart was thudding.
“Thank you, Will.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth. “For what?”
“For not raising your eyebrows when I announced we were together. For not yelling ‘you have to be kidding me’ or ‘do you really think I want to spend the rest of my life with Becky?’ For being such a good sport and not saying the wrong thing. When we get back, we’ll announce that you’re going to be spending Christmas with your parents as planned because it isn’t as if you get back up north to see them that often, and that after the party tonight, we won’t be seeing much of each other until we’re back in London.”
“All right. Although I’ll have to think what I’m going to say to my parents.”
That was a complication she hadn’t considered. “Do your parents have to know?”
“Your mother will be on the phone to my mother before Santa squeezes his extra-large self down the chimney.”
“I’ll tell her not to say anything. I’ll emphasise that we never meant for this to come out this way and we want to do it together, at the proper time. I’ll say this is Jamie’s moment, orwe think everyone should focus on Christmas—I don’t know. Something.”
They heard Rosie calling their names but they both ignored her.
Becky shivered as a few flakes of snow landed on her hair.
Will brushed them away and then he cupped her face in his hands, studied her for a long moment and then lowered his head and kissed her.
It was so unexpected she almost jumped, but his mouth was warm and skilled, his kiss slow and deliberate, and instead of jumping she kissed him back, her fingers curling into the front of his coat as she tried to balance herself. Kissing didn’t normally make her head spin, but today her head was spinning.
Keeping one hand locked behind her head, he used the other to hold her against him and she found herself pressed against the hardness of his thighs, anchored in place by the solid strength of his body. She forgot that it was snowing and she was freezing, she forgot that he was doing this to convince her sister, she forgot everything except the exquisite intimacy of his kiss.
When he finally lifted his head she was glad he was still holding her because she felt dizzy and slightly disconnected. Also disappointed that he’d stopped.
