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Not immediately.

I take a sip of champagne and pretend my heart is not trying to beat its way through my ribs.

I knew this could happen.

I considered it before I accepted Charlotte’s assignment. I considered it on the flight. I considered it when I walked into the Kensington archive and every morning since.

Ross spends his time between continents.

London is one of them.

I knew that.

Knowing something is possible is very different from seeing him standing twenty yards away.

I angle myself slightly toward Daniel as if the conversation has my full attention.

It does not.

Every nerve in my body knows exactly where Ross is.

Daniel's gaze shifts past my shoulder again.

“Well,” he says, “that explains why half the room just changed direction.”

I already know what he means.

I still ask, “What does?”

“Ross Kensington just came in.”

I almost laugh at the absurdity of being informed.

Instead, I turn slowly.

Ross is no longer standing at the back of the gallery.

He is walking toward me.

There are people between us, and several of them stop him as he crosses the room. He acknowledges each interruption with the kind of effortless courtesy that comes from spending his entire adult life in rooms like this, but he does not stay with any of them for long.

His eyes keep returning to me.

My first instinct is to leave.

My second is anger at the idea that leaving is my first instinct.

I am not twenty-six anymore. I am not standing in a Kensington library waiting for Ross to decide what happens next. I have a company. Clients. A life on another continent. Two little boys who believe I can handle anything because I have spent their entire lives making sure they feel safe enough to believe it.

I will not run across an art gallery because their father is walking toward me.

The thought hits hard enough that I nearly lose my composure.

Their father.

He has no idea.

For one terrible second, every question he could possibly ask races through my mind.