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“Does it change your mind?” he asked quietly.
“Does what change my mind about what?”
“Knowing that we were close as kids. Does it change your mind about pretending I don’t exist when we leave Scotland?”
I swallowed. “I thought we had a deal about that anyway.”
“We do, but that was before. Does it change your mind?”
“I don’t see why it would. I wasn’t kidding when I said I avoid this kind of thing. My life is far more peaceful without it.” I paused. “But I will honour the silly little agreement we made, so you’ll just have to win bingo.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to change your mind?”
“Nope.”
“Then we have a problem.”
“Why? What problem?”
“If you win the bingo thing—which I did to humour you, by the way—then it doesn’t matter, but if I win… it’s a problem.”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. This is why we’re in this mess. You either use too many words or too few,” I huffed, tilting my head back to look at him and put a tiny bit of space between us. “Can you just spit it out?”
“Fine. I want you to win bingo.”
“Why on Earth would you want that?”
“Because then it doesn’t matter if I do this.” He cupped the back of my neck and drew me closer, bringing my face to his, pausing right before our lips touched.
Oh, my God.
He was going to kiss me.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Seeing if I could get away with this without you punching me,” he muttered, brushing his thumb over the back of my neck. “So far, so good.”
“Have you thought about what you’re doing?”
“Yes. Hence why I want you to win bingo. If you’re never going to speak to me again, it doesn’t matter if I give in and kiss you, does it?”
“This is a bad idea. Terrible, truly.”
“I know.” With a sigh, he released me and got up. “Come on, Cinderella. Let’s go upstairs before our fire goes out.”
I swallowed and stood up, wrapping my arms around myself.
God.
He hadn’t kissed me.
My skin had tingled at the very thought of it. The apprehension of waiting, of him being so close, of the feeling that this time he might…
I knew it was a bad idea, but it was a bad idea I wanted to indulge in. Even if only for a few moments, I’d wanted the answer myself, to find out what it really felt like to have his lips pressed against mine.
But he didn’t do it.
And I was far, far too upset about that.
