A Valentine Kiss. Christy McKellen

still thinking about it. I’m not sure I want to bother her an hour before the event,’ Jordan answered.

      When his father didn’t reply, he sighed.

      ‘Maybe you should call her over so that I can introduce myself, Dad.’

      His father nodded his approval. ‘Mila! Would you come over here for a second?’

      The minute she started walking towards them, Jordan’s heart raced. She was absolutely beautiful, he thought as he took in the perfectly designed features of her face. A small nose led to luscious lips, pink as a cherry blossom and which curved into a smile when she saw his father. The smile kicked his heart up another notch even though her brown eyes watched him carefully, surrounded by the fullest, darkest eyelashes he had ever seen.

      He wondered idly if they were like that with help from cosmetic enhancements, but something told him that everything about her was natural. She made him think of the fields where his grapes grew in the vineyard—of the vibrancy of their colours and the feeling of home he always felt looking at it.

      He didn’t have time to ponder the unsettling thought when she stopped in front of them.

      ‘Mila, you haven’t had the chance to meet my son yet.’ Greg nudged Jordan, and if Jordan hadn’t been so mesmerised by the woman in front of him, he might have wondered at his father pushing him towards her.

      But all thoughts flew out of his head the minute he introduced himself and she said, ‘Mila Dennis,’ and took his outstretched hand.

      He’d thought there would be heat—a natural reaction to touching someone he found attractive. But he hadn’t expected the heat to burn through his entire body. He hadn’t expected the longing that curled in his stomach, the desire to make her his. But most of all he hadn’t expected the pull that he felt towards her—a connection that went beyond the physical.

      She pulled her hand away quickly, tucking a non-existent piece of hair behind her ear, and he knew she had felt it, too.

      ‘It’s lovely to meet you, Mr Thomas.’

      Her voice sounded like music to him and he frowned, wondering at his reaction to a woman he hadn’t even known for five minutes.

      ‘Jordan, please. Mr Thomas is my father.’ He shoved his hands into his pockets and watched as a smile spread across Greg’s face. Jordan felt his eyebrows raise.

      ‘Actually, Mila doesn’t call me that,’ Greg said, and Jordan realised Greg’s smile was aimed at Mila. It was a sign of affection that made their relationship seem more than that of employer/employee. It was almost...familial. Almost, because Greg didn’t even share his smiles—a rare commodity—with his family. With his son.

      He would have to ask his father about it, Jordan thought when Mila’s lips curved in response. But then she looked at Jordan and the smile faltered.

      ‘Well, I think it’s best that I get back. We have hundreds of people coming today. It was a great idea to host a Valentine’s Day Under the Stars event.’

      ‘It was mine.’ Jordan wasn’t sure why he said it, but he wanted her to know that he was responsible for the idea that had brought the two of them together.

      He had a feeling it would be significant.

      ‘Well, it was a great one.’ She frowned, as though she wasn’t sure how to respond to him. ‘I’ll see you both a little later then. Greg...’ She smiled at Jordan’s father, but again it faltered when she turned her attention to him. ‘Jordan...’

      She said his name carefully, as though it was a minefield she was navigating through. He watched her, saw the flash of awareness and then denial in her eyes, and something settled inside him.

      ‘What was that?’

      His father had waited for Mila to leave before asking, and Jordan turned to him, noting the carefully blank expression on Greg’s face.

      ‘I think I’ve just met the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.’

      Greg’s eyebrows rose so high they disappeared under the hair that had fallen over his forehead. And then came another nod of approval.

      ‘I knew you were a smart boy,’ he said, and a warm feeling spread through Jordan’s heart at what he knew was high praise coming from his father.

      * * *

      Meeting Jordan Thomas had unsettled Mila so much that she’d almost lost her headline act.

      When she heard the commotion in the tent they’d set up behind the amphitheatre stage—and saw the sympathetic look Lulu, her assistant and long-time friend, shot her on her way towards the sound—Mila knew she was about to walk into a drama.

      ‘Why would you do this to me on Valentine’s Day?’ Karen, the pretty singer that the whole of South Africa had been raving about since she’d won the biggest singing competition in the country, was wailing. ‘You couldn’t wait one day before breaking up with me? And right before a performance, too!’

      Wails turned into heart-wrenching sobs—the kind that could only come from a teenage girl losing her first love—and Mila felt the telltale tickling of the start of a headache. She took in the chagrined look on Karen’s guitarist’s face and realised he was responsible for the tears.

      She sighed, and then strode to the little crowd where the scene was unfolding.

      ‘What’s going on?’

      ‘Kevin broke up with me!’ Karen said through her sobs, and Mila wondered why she had decided that hiring a fresh young girl to perform at one of the biggest events she had ever planned—for one of the most prominent clients she had ever worked for—had seemed like a good idea.

      And then she remembered the voice in the online videos she’d watched of Karen, and the number of views all those videos had got, and she sighed again.

      ‘On Valentine’s Day, Kevin?’ Mila asked, instead of voicing the ‘What were you thinking?’ that sat on the tip of her tongue. Best not to rock the boat any further, she thought. Kevin, who looked to be only a couple of years older than the girl whose heart he had broken, shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

      ‘Well, ma’am, there was this—’

      He cut himself off when Mila held up her hand, affronted that he was calling her ‘ma’am’ even though she was only a few years older than him. Four, max. She’d also realised that whatever Kevin had been about to say would have caused Karen even more distress.

      ‘Okay, everyone, the show is over. Can we all get back to what we need to be doing? Our guests are starting to arrive,’ Mila called out and then waited until everyone had scattered, eyeing those who lingered so that they eventually left, too.

      When she was alone with Karen, she turned and took the girl’s hand. ‘Have you ever been broken up with before, Karen?’

      Red curls bounced as Karen shook her head, and Mila suddenly felt all the sympathy in the world for her.

      ‘It sucks. It really does. Your heart feels like it’s been ripped into two and your stomach is in twists. It doesn’t matter when it happens—that feeling is always the same. Stays there, too, if you let it.’

      Mila thought about when she had been Karen’s age—of how moving from foster home to foster home had meant that she’d never had someone to tell her this the first time a boy had broken her heart—and said what she’d wished she’d known then.

      ‘But, you know, the older you get, the more you realise that the less it meant, the less it will hurt. And, since Kevin over there seems like a bit of a jerk, I’m thinking you’ll be over this in a week...maybe two.’

      ‘Really?’ The hope in Karen’s eyes made Mila smile.

      ‘I’m pretty sure. And, you know, the best revenge is to prove to him that it didn’t really matter