The edges of his mouth curled upward. He couldn’t help himself.
She nodded. “Oh, yes. There it is.”
“Do you want to talk about…this?”
Kelsey stared at him with disbelief. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”
“Yes, but you’re also the one who should be the die-hard romantic, not me.”
“Touché.” She went back to work on her snowman. “There’s not much to discuss. We kissed. It’s over. And we shouldn’t do it again.”
“Shouldn’t do what again?”
“Kiss.”
He might have been thinking the exact same thing, but he hadn’t expected her to say it. “You didn’t like it?”
“I liked it,” she admitted, much to his relief. “But it isn’t going anywhere—we aren’t, I mean. We’re so different. Too different. And the wedding’s right around the corner. That has to be the priority. We can’t be distracted.”
“Do I distract you, Kelsey?”
“Sometimes. But your kisses really distract me.” She flipped her hair behind her shoulder. “Do you understand what I’m getting at?”
Will wasn’t certain. He wasn’t certain about anything right now, which told him exactly what needed to be said. Kelsey was right. “No more kisses.”
She nodded. “No more kisses.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
February 12
The next day, Kelsey sat at the kitchen table. Outside the window, glistening snow covered the ground.
She rubbed her tired eyes, fighting yet another yawn. She should be asleep, not daydreaming about kisses and babies and Will. But she was doing exactly that, and she’d done the same last night.
No more kisses.
Yesterday, Will’s lips had her standing on the edge of heaven, or maybe the edge of hell. She couldn’t be certain which. All she knew was that it had felt good and right and the way it was meant to be between a couple. Self-preservation had her trying to keep herself from careening over the edge. Telling Will they shouldn’t kiss again seemed like the easiest way. It would be easier to stop drinking water or even breathing. She touched her trembling lips with a fingertip. She could still taste him, feel his warmth.
You’d be a wonderful mother.
Will had blown her away with his compliment. She never wanted to put any child through what she had gone through growing up, but her aversion to parenthood ran deeper than that. She never planned to marry, and she truly believed with all her heart, a child deserved two parents who loved each other and lived together and were married. Will would probably laugh at her traditional view on family, but she didn’t care. That was how she felt, and that was why she would remain single with no kids. The unmarried life had always been what she wanted. The life she enjoyed.
So why was it suddenly not enough? Why did the thought of having a baby suddenly seem so appealing?
Will.
Will and his family of pure romantics.
That was the only explanation. All their happily-ever-after, one-love-in-a-lifetime mumbo-jumbo was messing with her brain. A part of her wanted to believe, but she couldn’t close her eyes to the reality of marriage: infidelity, unhappiness, divorce. She’d seen too much to ignore the truth.
Kelsey needed a diversion. Anything would do. She grabbed the Life section of the paper and flipped open the front page. The feel of the newspaper brought back memories of reading the Sunday funnies with her grandfather. Now, she got her news online. Her eyes focused on a headline in the gossip column: “Hollywood’s Golden Couple To Split.”
Talk about vindication. This was what she needed to reaffirm all she believed and what her heart told her was true. So what if Will’s kisses could melt an icicle? That didn’t mean squat when it came to marriage. She leaned forward to read the article. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?” Will asked.
She glanced up to see him carrying Midas into the kitchen and setting him in front of his food bowl. “Another pair of clients are divorcing. The husband has been romantically linked to one of his co-stars, but his publicist denies any other parties are involved in their breakup.”
