Mismatched Under the Mistletoe - Jess Michaels Page 0,25
“Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?”
She glared at him and he smiled. At least they hadn’t entirely lost their ability to banter. No matter what came out of this party and whatever was about to happen, he didn’t want that. That was what had kept him from pursuing her. He’d rather long for her than lose her because he had pushed too far.
And yet here they were. She bid her farewells to the group and started up the stairs with just a backward glance toward him. He waited a few moments, chatting with Lady Hickson and Lady Mulberry for a brief moment before he excused himself and went up the stairs himself.
He glanced down to make sure no one was watching, and when it was clear he was safe to do so, went right instead of left into the family wing of bedchambers. He counted the doors, just as he’d done a dozen times over the years when he’d come here. Counting his way to her, but never doing anything about it when he got to her chamber.
Today he lifted his hand and hesitated. Emily had claimed she didn’t want to destroy their friendship, and he had insisted they didn’t have to do that. But he knew that was a lie. Just a kiss had changed things between them. Anything more and…well, he wouldn’t think of it.
He knocked, and there was a flutter of movement from within before Emily opened the door. She ducked her head out, checking in the hall before she motioned him in.
“I was careful, I assure you,” he said, noting how pale her cheeks were and how she worried her hands before her after she closed the door behind him.
He took a step away from her and looked around the private parlor. He’d never been in this room, and he smiled because it looked so much like her. He smiled because it looked nothing like Andrew, and that made all of this much easier.
“A pretty view,” he said as he moved to the window and looked down over the garden. In the distance he could see the lake, and judging by how the birds were waddling on its surface, it was frozen by the cold.
“Y-yes,” she said softly. “I have always loved that view. I’ll miss it when this room is no longer mine.”
He turned toward her. “No longer yours?”
She shrugged. “Andrew has been gone a long time, and his family has indulged me by allowing me to still call this home my own. But I know you’ve heard that his younger brother has found a bride. Once they are married, it would be wrong of me to continue to pretend I am Lady Rutledge and that this home is mine. I need to…to move on.”
He frowned. He happened to agree with that assessment, for his own not entirely selfless reasons. But he didn’t want her to use whatever was happening between them as some unwanted push toward her next chapter.
“Emily,” he said softly.
She took a long step toward him. “I-I don’t know what to do, Cav,” she said. “I’ve always known what to do, especially when it came to you and me. I’ve always known what we were. But now it’s all…different.”
He nodded as he moved toward her, closing the distance between them until he could touch her hand if he reached out. He didn’t yet. Emily had always been the sort who needed to talk things out. He wasn’t about to rush her past that.
“You know better than most that things can’t stay the same,” he said. “In the end, we’re always going to have to move.”
“But toward what?” she whispered. “I’ve put off deciding that so long and now it’s here. And everything is suddenly so confusing. And then you kissed me—”
He held his breath as she looked at him, her gaze fluttering over his lips like she was reliving that kiss.
“—you kissed me and my head is spinning and I don’t know what to embrace or fear now. I just know that nothing can be the same again. And I’m afraid of that and I’m thrilled by that and—”
He did reach for her then, and tugged her against him. She broke off her sentence, her breath going short as he cupped her chin and tilted it up toward him. The last time he’d kissed her, he hadn’t planned for it. It was a volcano after years of pressure building up beneath the surface.
This time, though, he savored it. He lived