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The plan had been a quick, simple kiss to shut up my brother. But the second my lips touched his, that plan disintegrated. There was nothing quick or simple about the way his lips brushed against mine, like he was seducing me with his mouth before his tongue darted out, softly gliding against my lips until they parted on a gasp and he deepened the kiss.

I’d never been kissed like this. Like my kiss gave him life. For a man as self-restrained as Harry usually was, his kiss was filled with sensuality and passion that took me by surprise and had my knees going weak.

I forgot about Eric, the mistletoe, and that this was supposed to be a performance for an audience. I forgot about all the excuses I’d given myself at three a.m. for why this couldn’t be real.

Because this kiss didn’t feel like pretend. It didn’t feel like something I could rationalize or explain away. It felt like the first honest thing I’d done in five years.

My fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt and I felt him inhale—a slow, shaky breath through his nose—and somehow knowing he was affected too, that his steadiness had a crack in it that I’d put there, made my heart race even faster.

When we finally pulled apart, it was only by inches. His forehead rested against mine, his hand was still on my jaw, and I was breathing hard for someone who’d just had a five-second kiss.

Or a ten-second kiss.

Or however long it had been because I genuinely had no idea. Time had stopped being relevant the moment his mouth touched mine.

“…Okay, well,” Eric said from somewhere behind me. His voice sounded far away and slightly strangled, like he’d expected a cute peck and gotten something he wasn’t prepared for. “That was, uh…yeah. You guys don’t need mistletoe for that. Also that was a much more PG-13 kiss than the PG one you should’ve given in front of Mom and Dad.”

Oh my God. I totally forgot about my parents watching.

I let out a breath that was supposed to be a laugh but came out a little too shaky as I stepped back, putting space between Harry and me because if I stayed close, I was afraid I might kiss him again.

“Sorry. Got a little carried away,” I said, and my voice sounded almost normal. Almost.

Harry didn’t say anything. He just watched me with those gray eyes that always saw too much, and this time I couldn’t come up with a single lie to tell myself about what I saw looking back at me.

EIGHTEEN

I couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss.

The details were seared in my mind now—her fingers curling into my shirt, the gasp when I’d deepened it, all of it replaying on a loop I couldn’t shut off. But it was the look on her face afterward that kept pulling me back. Like she wanted me as much as I’d always wanted her but was terrified at the same time.

So I wasn’t surprised that she’d spent the rest of yesterday pretending it never happened. This morning had been much of the same.

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t cost me to watch her seal that wall back up and smile like it was easy. Because that kiss had meant everything to me, and she was acting like it was nothing. The distance between those two truths was becoming harder to swallow with every hour that passed.

But I was a patient man, and I knew the wait would be worth it.

She was worth it.

Today’s Christmas event was helping at a charity toy drive at the local community center. Sally had organized the whole thing from collecting donations from local businesses to coordinating volunteers and setting up stations for wrapping and sorting. According to Eric, she’d been running this event for over a decade, and it was one of the biggest in the area.

The center was a wide-open space with fluorescent lighting and fold-out tables arranged in rows. Boxes of donated toys lined the walls, and a handful of volunteers were already sorting when we arrived. Someone had strung Christmas lights along the ceiling beams, and there was a table near the entrance with a large coffee carafe and a tray of cookies. Holiday music played low from a small speaker on the check-in table, loud enough to fill the gaps in conversation, but low enough that people could still talk to each other without having to yell.

The whole thing was the polar opposite of the charity events my mother organized back in Connecticut. Those had valet parking, catered hors d’oeuvres, and name tags printed on cardstock with the Gordon Foundation logo embossed in gold. My mother’s events raised six figures each and generated tax write-offs. Sally’s event had homemade cookies and actually felt like it was about helping people. Although, after the last few days, my opinion of Sally Lowe was very similar to my opinion of my mother. I didn’t like the way she treated Sam, and if things didn’t turn around soon, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold my tongue.

Sally moved through the room like a general surveying her troops, but unlike the last few days, she had a sincere smile on her face as she spoke to each of the volunteers. She was very different from how she’d been at the house, and I’d almost go so far as to say she was magnetic and the kind of organizer who made everything look effortless because she’d already done the hard work behind the scenes. It struck me that Sam had inherited that from her—the ability to walk into a room and make every person in it feel seen. But Sam didn’t turn cold behind closed doors. She beat herself up—more than any of us had even known—but she wasn’t a cold person by nature.

Sam’s dad drifted toward the heavy lifting tasks, like moving boxes from the back storage room to the sorting area, and Jordan helped him. Eric stationed himself at the wrapping table and immediately started a competition with another volunteer over who could wrap faster.

Sam stood near the entrance for a moment, taking it all in with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Then she squared her shoulders and headed toward the sorting station.

I followed her. I’d follow her anywhere at this point. That wasn’t even a question anymore.

“You can sort by age range,” one of the volunteers explained, a woman in her fifties with a Mrs. Claus sweater and reading glasses on a chain. “Infants, toddlers, five to eight, nine to twelve, teens. Tags go on each one with the age group.”

Sam nodded and got to work. I settled in beside her and started pulling toys from the nearest box.

She was good at this too, which really shouldn’t have surprised me since she was good at everything she tried. She made small talk with the volunteers while she sorted through the toys, complimenting Mrs. Claus Sweater on her earrings and then asking the other girl our age where she went to school and what she was studying. She even made a joke about a toy dinosaur that had everyone at the table laughing.