Royal Holiday - Jasmine Guillory Page 0,72

he said.

A few minutes before midnight, Malcolm brought a new bottle of champagne to the coffee table and popped the cork.

“And the New Year is just seconds away,” he said, as he poured champagne into both of their glasses. He looked at his watch. “Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . .”

Vivian joined him in the countdown.

“. . . three . . . two . . . one!” they said in unison. They turned to each other and smiled.

“Happy New Year, Vivian,” he said.

“Happy New Year, Malcolm,” she said.

She started to clink her glass against his, but he shook his head.

“You’re forgetting the most important thing about midnight at the New Year,” he said. “The kiss.”

She was forgetting that, as a matter of fact. How many years had it been since she’d had someone to kiss on New Year’s Eve? She’d certainly kissed people on New Year’s Eve, but it had been quite a while since she was guaranteed a kiss on that night. And from a person she truly wanted to kiss.

He took her glass from her and put it down onto the coffee table, then swept her into a kiss that left her breathless. When they finally parted, he brushed her hair back from her face and kissed her cheek.

“Now we toast.” He handed her the champagne glass and picked up his own.

She touched her glass to his.

“Happy New Year. I hope this year ends as well as it began.”

He lifted his glass to his lips.

“Well, I can definitely toast to that.” A wide smile crossed his face. “And you said that without even seeing the one last surprise I had in store for you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. She’d forgotten about his last surprise. Did he think she was in any shape to leave his apartment again tonight, with all this champagne they’d had? Or had he bought her a present?

He laughed out loud.

“I see that look on your face; no need to be so suspicious. I can’t take credit for this, but I love it anyway. Look!” He gestured in front of them at the windows, and she turned to look at what he could be talking about. At first there was nothing, but then:

Fireworks!

They exploded right in front of her, it felt like. Huge white cartwheels of fireworks, bright red pinwheels, sparkling gold fizzy ones. She turned back to him with her eyes wide open.

“Oh my goodness! I can’t believe you get this amazing show, right here on your couch!”

He put his arm around her and pulled her close, as they both stared at the colors lighting up the night sky out the window.

“Me neither, honestly. I didn’t even know I got this view until my first New Year’s Eve here. That was”—he shook his head—“a pretty lonely night, to be honest. I’d told myself I was going to go to bed early and not even bother with midnight or any of that, but I couldn’t sleep, so I wandered out into the kitchen to get a snack just before midnight, and when I turned around, this was right outside the window. I sat down and stared in wonder.” She took his hand and squeezed it, and he leaned down to kiss her cheek. “It’s nice to share this view with someone.”

She turned and smiled up at him.

“I’m so happy I get to share it with you.”

They watched the fireworks in silence for a while, then suddenly, Malcolm dropped his arm from her shoulder and turned to face her.

“Okay, but seriously. What if we keep this up?”

Vivian let her heart soar for a brief moment, before she forced herself back to earth. This had all felt like a miracle—a jewel of a week that would sparkle in her memory for years to come—but this wasn’t real life. She wasn’t some twenty-year-old in a movie who went to a foreign country and fell in love; people like her didn’t get swept up in fairy tales.

“We’re a little too old for long-distance relationships, don’t you think?” she said.

He laughed.

“God yes, that seems way too complicated and difficult. I’m definitely far too old and conservative for something like that. Just . . . we’d visit each other occasionally and have a week like this, then both go back to our regular lives.”

Oh. Of course that’s what he meant. That made sense.

Vivian made herself laugh.

“So you want a long-distance booty call? I’m definitely too old—and conservative—for that.”

Malcolm dropped his eyes