Andy drained his glass, licking the last remaining drop from his lips.
I’d never been jealous of a drop of champagne before, but I suddenly was.
I’d kissed him now, and I wanted to keep doing it. Without needing an excuse, without it being for show.
I wanted to kiss Andy behind closed doors, where no one but the two of us could see.
“Mother always wanted me to marry Will’s younger sister,” I explained, pulling myself away from that particular dangerous line of thought. “My uncle is the Duke of Hartsworth, you see, and joining those two families together, even through a nephew and a younger daughter, would consolidate a lot of power and influence. Imagine her delight when she thought I could marry the eldest son. The woman petitioned fiercely to pass marriage equality laws for the specific purpose of clearing a path for me to end up with Will.”
“Wow.” Andy blinked at me. “Have you noticed your family’s a mess? Because…”
“I’ve noticed,” I said wryly. “I suppose I make rather more sense to you now.”
“You’re shockingly well-adjusted,” Andy said. “I mean, considering.”
“I shall take that as a compliment.”
We were getting somewhere. If all it took to make things right between us again was letting Andy tease me, he could tease me all he liked.
I was about to tell him that I wanted us to be all right, that I couldn’t bear to think he was unhappy or that he felt awkward around the one person he actually knew in the entire country, but the approach of a familiar, hideous red-and-green ensemble stopped me in my tracks.
Pippa. Smiling like she’d had three flutes of champagne too many for her lightweight constitution.
Andy immediately shrank back, and I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t like her, either.
“What are you two doing, gossiping in the corner like old maids? And you, Kit, keeping our new friend all to yourself! Shameful, you ought to be sharing.”
She reached out to grab Andy’s wrist, tugging him forward.
“Leave him be,” I said, but Pippa wasn’t listening, already dragging Andy out into the middle of the floor.
I could see where this was going, but I was powerless to stop it. The more I objected, the worse it would be.
I knew, I’d been in Andy’s position often enough. I couldn’t protect him, and worse, I couldn’t even warn him. Hadn’t thought to.
Stupidly, I’d imagined these people might’ve grown up in the intervening years since college.
“Everyone say hello to… I’m sorry, darling, Kit never gave us your name. Terribly rude of him.”
“Andy,” Will supplied, an unpleasant smirk on his face.
“Andy,” Pippa repeated, practically purring. “He ispretty, Kit. But I suppose you can afford him. Americans come a bit cheaper, don’t they?”
“You’re drunk,” I said, putting a hand on Andy’s arm only to have him snatched further away from me, tugged directly under a sprig of mistletoe over his head.
Pippa looked up with a gleam in her eyes. “Share, Kit,” she said, challenging. “Weren’t you taught to share?”
I didn’t normally think of myself as a jealous person—or a brave one—but I couldn’t let this go on.
With a flash of anger welling up in my chest, I stepped between Pippa and Andy and hoped like hell that I wasn’t making another mistake, that Andy wouldn’t be angry about me intervening on his behalf like this.
But it was the only way to put a stop to it.
“He’s not a bloody toy,” I growled. “Let go of him.”
“Or what? You’ll make me? You’ll let everyone here see you manhandle a girl—your own cousin?”
This wasn’t the first time Pippa had said something like that to me, but it would damned well be the last.
