A Valentine Kiss. Christy McKellen

made a run for the front door.

      ‘Where you’ll be staying isn’t the only thing we should talk about,’ he said, once they were inside the house.

      Mila turned to him when she’d taken off her coat. The light drizzle had sprinkled rain through his hair, and her fingers itched to dust the glittering droplets away.

      Another reason I should stay away from you.

      ‘Yes, I know.’

      She moved to the living room and started putting wood in the fireplace. It had become a routine—a ritual, almost—and it comforted her. Perhaps because it was so wonderfully normal—so far from what she’d grown up with. ‘We need to talk about the event—about how we’re going to plan something I did in six months in just over one.’

      She saw a flicker in his eyes that suggested that wasn’t what he was talking about. She supposed she had known that on some level. Which was why she had steered the conversation to safer ground. To protect herself. Now she just had to remember that for the entire time they spent together...

      * * *

      ‘Is it possible?’ Jordan asked, watching Mila carefully. Something about her was different, and it wasn’t only her appearance. Though as she sat curled on the couch opposite him—to be as far away from him as she could, he thought—the cup of tea she had left the room to make a few moments before in her hand, he could see that the old Mila was still there.

      His heart throbbed as though it had been knocked, and he found himself yearning for something that belonged in the past. His present—their present—involved planning an event to save his family’s vineyard. And his family no longer included the woman he had fallen so hard for, despite every logical part of him...no matter what his heart said.

      ‘It’s going to be difficult,’ she conceded, distracting him from his thoughts.

      ‘What do you think we should start with?’ he asked, deciding that the only way he could focus on their business arrangement was by talking about business. But then she shifted, and the vanilla scent that clung to her drifted over to him. Suddenly he thought about how much he had missed it. About how often he’d thought he’d smelled it—had felt his heart racing at the thought that she’d come to find him—only to realise that it had been in his imagination...

      ‘Well, the conditions of your father’s will stipulate that we try to replicate the original Under the Stars event as much as possible. But, considering the season...’ she looked out at the dreary weather ‘...I’m not sure how successful that will be.’

      As she spoke she ran a finger around the rim of her cup. It was a habit for her—one she reverted to when she was deep in thought. Once, when he’d teased her about it, she’d told him that one of her foster mothers had hated it when she’d done it. The woman had told her that she was inviting bacteria, and that Mila shouldn’t think they would take her to the doctor if she got sick.

      It was one of the rare pieces of information she had offered him about her childhood, and she had meant for him to be amused by it. But instead it had alerted him to the difficulty of her past. Since he knew how that felt, he had never pushed her for more information.

      ‘I don’t think he thought this through,’ he said, to stop his thoughts from dwelling further, but only succeeding in shifting them to his father.

      ‘No, I don’t think so either,’ she agreed. ‘He meant well, but in his head this idea was romanticised. We would do an event together, just like the one where we met, and it would remind us of how we felt that first night.’

      The dreamy look on her face made his heart accelerate, and for the first time Jordan wondered if his father had been right. But nostalgia wasn’t enough to save a broken relationship.

      ‘And then he’d have facilitated our reunion through his death,’ she ended, the expression he’d seen only moments before replaced by sadness.

      His heart ached. ‘He always said he wanted his death to mean something.’

      ‘Especially after your mother’s,’ she said softy.

      His eyes lifted to hers, and the sympathy he saw there stiffened his spine. ‘Maybe.’

      He didn’t speak about his mother’s death. He had been five when it had happened and he had spent most of his life till then watching her suffer. Because she hadn’t done anything about her cancer soon enough. Because she had chosen him.

      The memory made him think about whether his father had designed his will as a punishment for Jordan. To get justice, perhaps, for the fact that Greg had always blamed Jordan for her death. Something Jordan had only found out years after his mother had passed away. It would be the perfect way for his father to make his death ‘mean something,’ Jordan thought, especially since Greg had made his will after Jordan had left to cope with the loss of his son, of his wife. It was something he knew Greg hadn’t approved of, despite the fact that although Greg had been there physically, in all the ways that had mattered, Greg had done the same after Jordan’s mother had died...

      Jordan lifted his eyes and saw that Mila was watching him in that way she had that always made him think she saw through him. He only relaxed when she averted her gaze.

      ‘We have six weeks to do this—which means that the event is going to happen in winter. And this rain suggests that the weather has already made a turn for the worst.’

      He was grateful for the change in subject. ‘It also means that the grounds in the amphitheatre won’t be suitable for the public.’

      ‘Actually, I don’t think that will be a problem. When your father got sick, he couldn’t take care of the vineyard as well as he’d used to. So we minimised operations. We closed up the amphitheatre since we wouldn’t be using it, and concentrated our efforts on the wine.’

      ‘How did you do that? The area is huge.’

      She shrugged. ‘I had a connection with a tent and marquee supplier, and he designed one for us. I’ll take you to see it tomorrow, if you like...’ She trailed off. ‘You know, I could probably get him to customise the design so that the top of the marquee is clear. That way the event would still be in the amphitheatre—’

      ‘And still be under the stars,’ he finished for her.

      ‘Why do you look so surprised?’

      ‘I’m just...’ He was just what? Surprised to see her throw herself into a task like this when he couldn’t remember the last time she had shown interest in anything?

      ‘I’m good at my job, Jordan,’ she said flatly when he didn’t continue.

      ‘I wasn’t saying that you weren’t,’ he replied.

      The look she shot him burned through him, and he found himself bristling in response. It simmered when he saw a slight flicker in her eyes that made her look almost vulnerable, and he wondered why he couldn’t tell what had caused her reaction. He should know her well enough to be able to... Except he didn’t, he realised in shock.

      ‘I’ll draw up a list of everything that needs to be done and give you a copy once I have,’ she said tightly as she stood, and Jordan could see that tension straightened her spine. ‘We can discuss things then.’

      She walked to the door and grabbed her coat.

      ‘Where are you going?’ he demanded, anger replacing the shock of only a moment ago.

      ‘Out,’ she replied, and slammed the door on her way out, leaving him speechless.

      The woman who had walked out through that door—who had got angry at nothing and left before they could deal with it—was not the woman he had married. Or was she? a voice mocked him, and briefly he wondered if he was angry at Mila for seemingly acting out of character, or at himself for not knowing his wife well enough to be able to tell.

      The thought spurred his feet forward, and he was