I cough, nearly choking on air, spluttering like a fool. Hearing Diana sayfirstkissis absolutely not the distraction I needed.
Diana ignores me. “It’s a wonderful scene, but it’s really the build up that clinches it. He’s this huge and powerful guy—gorgeous, obviously—and he resents her for making him… feel things.” She swallows, and my attention falls to the motion alongthe column of her throat. “So he gets angry. Fights his feelings, you know? He’s cruel to her and deliberately breaks her heart, so she rushes out into a storm to get away from him. She’s going to die out there in the cold, and he tries not to follow her, but he can’t help himself. When he finds her, she’s freezing. Weeping. Distraught. It wrecks him. He turns into this great big whimpering mess, begging forgiveness and swearing he’ll do anything to protect her. Carrying her home in his arms.”
“And then?”
She snorts a laugh. “Got you hooked?”
“No.”
My response is too fast, and Diana smiles like she knows I’m lying. “Then they kiss. That’s the beat. Remember?”
Unwelcome sensations stir throughout my body—a recurrence of the fluttering sensation that has become so familiar to me where Diana is concerned. “I remember. And is it raining in this scene you like so much?”
“Yes,” she says quietly, turning away from me and staring out of the window again. “All the best things happen in the rain.”
“So nothing good will happen tonight then,” I say, tilting my head to indicate outside, where it’s dry.
“Probably not,” Diana whispers, and for a reason I can’t explain, the tension in the car increases tenfold.
We travel in silence for a few minutes until Diana lets out a squeal and grabs my hand. Her expression is gleeful as she stares out at the city lit up like a Christmas tree, taking in the strings of twinkling lights arching across the width of the street and glittering up lampposts.
“Look at the lights,” she says with childlike excitement. Her fingers slip off mine, but my skin burns where she touched. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
I fist the hand she touched, wondering how she’s so quickly able to shift from one emotion to the next. She doesn’t let awkwardness fester, and I’m grateful. “It is.”
She looks at me. “You don’t have a tree in the house.”
“It’s barely December.”
Her pretty mouth opens on a gasp. “We're more than halfway through the month! And Christmas is a joy. You’ve got to put one up.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t,” I say, realising only after I’ve spoken that I sound churlish.
She quirks her head. “Are you all right? You seem a little out of sorts?”
“There’s a lot on at work.” It’s a lie, or at least there’s no more on than usual. The Castow Management deal, however, has more or less fallen out of bed. Melanie won’t shift; I won’t shift. We’ve reached an impasse, although perhaps tonight will yield results.
The smile falls from Diana’s face at my deadpan response, and she leans forward and says to the driver, “Can you let us out here?”
His eyes meet mine in the rear view mirror, but rather than grant the approval he’s seeking, I turn to her and ask, “Why?”
“Because you look miserable, and it’s beautiful out there. Maybe we can make good things happen tonight, even without the rain.”
“I don’t—”
“Please, let us out,” she says to the driver, and this time, when he glances my way, I give him a nod.
The car pulls to the side of the road, and the driver gets out to open the door for us. The air is brisk, the chill punishing. We’re not dressed for the outside because the car was supposed to take us right to the door; at no point did I envisage needing to be out in the cold, so neither of us is prepared.
“You’re going to freeze,” I say to Diana.
She flashes a tiny smile my way. “No one wears a coat on the red carpet.”
“There’s no carpet. Just the sidewalk.”
Diana’s soft giggle catches on the breeze. “It’s not far,” she says, pointing further down the street. “I’ll survive.”
She shivers, the pink silk dress doing little to protect her from the chill. I curse under my breath, shrugging out of my jacket and holding it out to her.
