“That is exactly what it feels like. I am not a vindictive person, Galahad, and I do not want revenge as I firmly believe that the good life my sisters and I have now is revenge enough, but…” She sighed heavily as she stared out to sea. “For myself, to close the door on his treachery and bolt it shut, for my own foolish pride I would like my final memory of my dealings with him to be different. Not the frightened pleas of an immature girl but the damnation of a grown woman who no longer wears blinkers and who knows, through personal and professional experience, all the pain and suffering a child goes through when a parent abandons them. I want to be able to look him dead in the eye and dispassionately tell him that he and all the other feckless fathers—and mothers—out there are not only going to rot in hell but are going to languish there forgotten when their children succeed in life despite them. Unmissed. Unmourned. But most of all unforgiven.”
There was nothing dispassionate about the fire burning in her lovely eyes. A heat that explained why she worked so tirelessly for those orphans. She was righting the wrongs of her own past through them. “I’d like to spit in his eye.” A naughty smile toyed with the corners of her mouth. “Or perhaps shop him to the authorities like you did Gervais. Or more likely do both. I envy you that.”
“So the prim, proper, and pious Miss Venus actually does want revenge?”
“Perhaps a little bit.” She held her finger and thumb an inch apart, her fine eyes dancing again exactly how he liked them before she looked away. The light in them clouded slightly. “Despite all your opinions to the contrary, Galahad, I’ve never been the prim and pious paragon of virtue any more than you are apparently all bad.”
“Was that a compliment? A concession? Are you unwell, Miss Venus? Do you need to lie down?” He leaned closer to scrutinize her face as if he had never seen it before. “Only I barely recognize you when you’re not looking down your nose at me.”
She offered him a begrudging smile. “Much to my chagrin, and against all my better judgment, it appears that I am finally starting to like you.”
“That feeling is alarmingly mutual, Miss Venus.” He smiled, meaning it, until she wrenched her hand from his elbow to yank him to face her.
“For the record, I’d like you more if you stopped calling me MissVenusto vex me, you wretch.”
He chuckled as he shook his head. “Not a chance. I enjoy vexing you too much to ever give it up. But as a concession to our truce, and because you are starting to like me and I am starting to like you, I’ll drop the Miss—Venus.”
Then, because her plump lips twitched in mirth while she looked down her nose in feigned disdain.
Because the snowflakes glistened in the moonlight as they attached themselves to her riot of curls.
Because fate had brought them here. Tonight. Together. And here was special.
Because her hand was still in his and his hand was in hers, and because that felt right.
Because this was exactly where he wanted to be and because hesuddenly needed to, Gal tugged her closer and, before he thought better of it, softly pressed his mouth to hers.
Her fingers briefly flexed against his as she instinctively stiffened in surprise, but straightaway, like the snow that found his face, she melted against him. Sighing against his lips as she kissed him back. It wasn’t a passionate kiss, yet it filled him with desire. Neither was it hurried. Instead, it was a tentative but lazy exploration as they tasted each other. Just a taste—but still charged with so much emotion and significance that it overwhelmed him.
Knocked him sideways.
Left him so out of control and off kilter, he had to loop his arms around her waist to steady himself. Pull her closer until her lush body was flush with his. Then closer still when she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Gal was dizzy, but in a good way. The sort of way in which all the blood inside his head twirled in happy circles. Beneath his ribs, his heart seemed to be shooting fireworks into his chest as it beat stronger and surer than it ever had before. He became so aware of all his nerve endings that even the gentle but erratic rise and fall of her breathing made them rejoice at the contact. Almost as if his body had been waiting for this precise moment and this precise woman to burst into life, and Lord help him, he had never felt so gloriously alive as he did right now. Like he could sprint across the top of the ocean or fly like a bird.
Who knew a simple kiss could wield so much power? Be so potent? So poignant? So all-consuming he never wanted it to end.
But end it did. At her instigation.
Her mouth stilled against his then kissed him deeply one last time. She stepped back to stare wide-eyed as she worried her bottom lip with her teeth. As if she, too, had been stunned by the intensity of what had transpired between them and couldn’t make head or tail of what it meant.
“That was… um… rather…”
“Unexpected.” Bemused himself by awe and wonder, Gal couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. “It also suddenly makes things… us… more complicated than ever.” Was he ready for this? Ready to allow someone past his defenses? Ready to relinquish some control over his life to another?
“I suppose it does.” Her golden brows furrowed. “Maybe we should… ignore it?” Her expression was more questioning than appalled. Testing the waters. Testing him. “Forget that it happened?”
“I can assure you, that isn’t going to happen. That was some kiss, Venus.” As much as it scared him, he didn’t have the wherewithal to lie about it. “Pretty… spectacular in fact. For me at least.”
Her slightly awkward, slightly shy smile of acknowledgment rather than horror made his guarded heart swell. “I wonder what it means?”
He found himself grinning as he shrugged, not caring for once that the path ahead wasn’t clear. “I’ve always enjoyed a puzzle and so does that big ol’ brain of yours, so between us we’ll figure it out.”
“I’m not sure my brain will make any sense of this puzzle tonight.” A bubble of laughter escaped as she blushed, and he wanted to catch it in his fist and keep it forever. “Me and you, Galahad? Really?”
“I know…” While his head was horrified at this uncharacteristic and reckless foray into the uncertain and unguarded, his heart was soaring. Flying.
Bursting.
