Christmas with Her Ex
Christmas with Her Ex
Fiona McArthur
Christmas Eve on Europe’s most opulent train is going to be an experience of a lifetime for midwife Kelsie Summers. And it is in more ways than one – because brooding obstetrician and the man she jilted, Connor Black, is on board too! And her ex is hotter than ever!Cooler-than-cool doc Connor doesn’t like surprises. Seeing Kelsie again is his worst nightmare – especially as their kisses still make his heart skip a beat. When they're thrown together for a few short days at Christmas there’s bound to be consequences!
Mother to five sons, FIONA McARTHUR is an Australian midwife who loves to write. Medical Romance
gives Fiona the scope to write about all the wonderful aspects of adventure, romance, medicine and midwifery that she feels so passionate about—as well as an excuse to travel! Now that her boys are older, Fiona and her husband, Ian, are off to meet new people, see new places, and have wonderful adventures. Fiona’s website is at www.fionamcarthur.com
Christmas
with Her Ex
Fiona McArthur
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader
Who can resist the romance and glitz of the world’s most glamorous train journey? Certainly not Alison Roberts and I. So we travelled in olde world style from Venice to London on the famous Orient Express, always with the idea that we would write these books.
And what a magical journey it was. From the canals of Venice to the soaring Italian Dolomites, crossing snow-covered valleys and burrowing through the mountains of the Austrian Alps, with men in tuxedos and women in sequins… It’s a journey we will never forget.
I’d love you to share the journey with my heroine, Kelsie Summers, an independent midwife who has always dreamed she’d ride this train one day, and Connor Black, the man she left outside the register office fifteen years ago.
Offering his seat to Kelsie in Venice two days before Christmas is bad, but leaving her alone with his meddling grandmother is a hundred times worse. Connor can’t believe his bad luck, or the surge of emotion as he looks at the woman he crossed a world to get away from after she broke his heart.
Through the next thirty-six hours and into the night the train blazes a trail across the countryside, past the bells of railway crossings and the flashes of light, while its occupants sleep in their little beds until dawn outside Paris. Such fabulous fun as Kelsie and Connor rediscover and then lose each other again while the train shoots through the tunnel to England and the white cliffs of Dover, past keeps and stone walls and English backyards, until it reaches the bustle of London and the magic of Christmas.
I wish you a happy journey!
Fiona xxx
To my darling husband,
who watched our travels via internet banking,
with words of caution and judicious injections of funds,
and the fuzzy but fabulous use of Skype.
Table of Contents
Cover (#ud57ef0f2-760c-56b4-9763-72de3b878397)
About the Author (#ud4906d84-f229-5483-9299-54d6d851acb4)
Title Page (#u6b0564c1-b1ef-5423-9b7e-86d7b03a7337)
Dedication (#ub2e94059-b21f-55ec-8826-510779763f61)
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#u9fbd4274-2c15-5d9b-a5a6-5d76ae17ebff)
THE SEAGULLS WERE screaming—or maybe it was him. Twelve-year-old Connor saw the wave lift his mother and tumble her over and over.
He was running but it was too late.
He should have told her not to go back. The words had been on his lips.
He should never have held them back.
‘A quick look for Daddy’s ring,’ she’d said. ‘I must have dropped it in the rock pool.’
But he’d known the tide was coming in. The last wave had made them run from the rocks. And now…
‘Look after your mother,’ Dad had said, and he hadn’t. He should have said, No! Dont go. The waves are too big. They’ll sweep you out. You don’t have time.
The wave… And then another…
And then there were people—shouting, helping. Reaching his mother as he couldn’t. They’d get her.
But, no. A man was carrying his mother towards the sand, and his mother was limp like the seaweed that washed this way and that in the waves.
Her long hair was touching the sand as they came closer. He saw her face—and he knew nothing would ever be the same.
He knew he should have stopped her. He knew it. He knew it. Now… the way she was lying… .he knew something awful had happened.
He’d disobeyed his father. His mother was dying and he knew it was his fault.
CHAPTER ONE (#u9fbd4274-2c15-5d9b-a5a6-5d76ae17ebff)
AS KELSIE SUMMERS floated in her gondola past St Mark’s Square she thought of last night’s Christmas-themed mass at St Mark’s Cathedral and she rubbed the goose-bumps on her arms at the memory it evoked. The strings of Christmas fairy lights over the Bridge of Sighs had winked last night and now, though extinguished, they still decorated the canals and bridges of Venice on her way to the station.
Her bag was full of nativity scenes in glass and gorgeous Christmas-tree globes for her friends.
Even the crumbling mansions on the Venice waterways had gorgeous glass mangers and angels in their lower windows and she watched the last of them fade into the distance as her gondolier ducked under the final bridge.
The end of two weeks of magic and her trip of a lifetime—and so what if she’d originally planned to share it with someone long gone, she’d still made it happen.
The bow of the long black boat kissed the wharf and the gondolier swung Kelsie’s bag up onto the narrow boardwalk the same way as he held the craft steady, with little effort. She’d chosen the strongest-looking gondolier for just that reason.
She stepped out, in not very sensible shoes but she was a little more dressed up than usual in honour of the coming journey, and then her tasselled-hatted hero abandoned her cheerfully as he pushed off.
Kelsie dragged her bag up the planking to solid ground, or as solid as she could get in Venice, and sniffed away the idea of tears.
Surely she wasn’t weepy just because of the lack of gentlemen to help her move this huge bag! It was because she was leaving Venice. Because her lifelong travel dream was coming to an end.
Modern-day women didn’t need male help, Kelsie told herself, but the Stazione di Venezia, and the Santa Lucia steps, mocked her as she glanced down with a grimace.
A passing Venetian ‘gentleman’ flicked his nicotine-stained finger at the tiny alley that ran up the side of the building for those who didn’t want to hump their belongings up the steps and she smiled her thanks. Bless the inventor of suitcase spinner wheels, and her sense of independence was appeased.
She’d arrived in Venice in a blaze of anticipation via the front entrance to the railway station and it seemed fitting, she wasn’t sure why, to be slipping home to the real world of work and her solitary flat more than ten thousand miles away in Sydney, out the back way.
Though once she’d dragged this bulging brick of a suitcase inside, the train she was about to board was anything but the back way, and she felt her spirits soar again.
The last part of her journey—the one she’d dreamt of since a long-ago friend had mentioned his English grandmother embarked on it every year—had captured her imagination while she’d still been in school uniform. Venice to London via the Orient Express—the world’s most glamorous train journey. And she’d finally made it happen.
Which was why she was wearing her second-highest heels and her new cream Italian suit. Maybe not so glamorous doing it by yourself, she conceded, but still very glam, and stiffened her spine as she entered the cavernous world of departure beside a tourist shop adorned with miniature gondoliers’ hats.
Platform One. She’d entered at the correct platform, arrived at the specified time, so where was the blue and gold emblazoned wagon of the Orient Express?
Kelsie glanced around. Remembered the inside of Saint Lucia from arrival—like any other railway station—grey concrete, cold underfoot, traveller-filled bench seats, matching-luggage families huddled together. Finally she saw a small white sign, very ordinary, very unostentatious, that read ‘Meeting Point for Venice Simplon Orient Express’.
Connor Black watched the shoulders of the smartly dressed woman sag as she peered under her dark cap of hair with the perplexed countenance of the unseasoned traveller as she turned her back to him. Her head dipped down at what must be a horrendously heavy suitcase. It was almost bigger than she was, and he wondered if she’d dare try and perch on top of it.
He sighed and stood to offer his seat, brushing away the niggling feeling that he knew her. Of course he didn’t. He was in Venice. And if he didn’t offer her his seat Gran would poke him with her silver-topped cane as if he were a six-year-old until he did. Gran was his one big weakness and the only woman he loved. Unfortunately she knew it.
He caught his gran’s eye as she nodded approvingly and bit back a grin. Despite her age she looked like a million pounds in her pink jacket and skirt with her snow-white hair fresh from her Venetian stylist. The pink Kimberley diamonds at her wrist and throat glittered under the electric lights. Lord, he would miss the old minx when she was gone. Had to be the reason he was standing here in the first place.
He had very special clients, the Wilsons, a couple he’d worked with for years, whose tenuous assisted pregnancy had been particularly challenging, and they were all on tenterhooks until Connie Wilson had this baby safely delivered. He’d promised her influential husband, and more importantly the nervous Connie, he’d be available twenty-four seven.
So he should be somewhere closer to them, instead of sitting on a train for the next thirty-six hours playing nursemaid to an eighty-year-old lady who should be at home, knitting. But then even he laughed at the idea of Gran doing anything of the sort.
The original grande dame inclined her eyes sideways towards the woman several times and he settled her with his nod. And he’d better be quick about it.
Not used to taking orders from anyone, Connor decided this could prove to be a very long thirty-six hours as he stepped closer to the woman and spoke from behind her. ‘Excuse me. Would you like my seat, madam?’
The woman turned, their eyes met, and recognition slammed him harder than being hit with a suitcase twice the size of hers. Sky-blue eyes. Snub nose. that mouth. The one it had taken him, admittedly in his callow youth, two years to banish from his mind. A face that seemed outlined with a dark crayon line instead of the blur every other face was.
Fifteen years ago. Kelsie Summers.
‘Or perhaps you’d rather stand.’ Luckily that was under his breath because his grandmother’s eagle eye had spotted his reaction.
Stunned blue eyes stared frozenly back at his. He saw the movement in her alabaster throat as she swallowed, and then her tongue peeped out. Yes, you damn well should lick your lips in consternation, he thought savagely, when you left me at the registry office, cooling my heels.
He gestured to the seat beside his grandmother with all the reluctant invitation of a toddler giving away his last lollypop.
Damn if he didn’t feel like sitting down again and turning his own back. But that would be childish and he hadn’t indulged in such weakness for a long, long, time.
Stinking bad luck, though, to meet her here, and if he knew his grandmother it would be the perfect diversion for the boredom that, despite her assurances, would ultimately descend on her before they reached London.
Kelsie felt like sinking into the grey concrete, maybe even through that and into the murky bottom of the Venice waterways that were probably somewhere under the railway station.
This was the first time she’d seen Connor since the day she’d run away.
She’d written, trying to explain why she thought she’d ultimately ruin his life if she married him, sent the tear-streaked missive, had watched from around a corner as he’d paced in agitation waiting for her to arrive, committed every line of his worried face to memory because she’d never see him again.
Though one glance at his face this morning when he’d recognised her and she could tell there still might be something he wanted to say to her about all that. As time had gone on she’d had a little more insight into how he might have felt. She swallowed nervously.
Fifteen years ago, as a teenager, she’d wanted to expect more from herself, too, had wanted her own career, and even then she’d had a core of sense and clarity that the more romantic Connor had lacked. She had wanted to be a wife who brought more to the table than hero-worship.
She’d seen, through eyes that had seen it before between her mother and father, that her deference and his growing tendency to take control might just bring more than order to her sometimes scattered life.
Connor would always be her hero, but as the wedding date had grown closer, slowly it had sunk in further that she hadn’t wanted to rely on Connor all her life. She’d wanted to be a woman her husband could be proud of and she wouldn’t have been able to do that under his very protective wing.
Well, they were adults now. He’d morphed into a gorgeously handsome hunk with just a touch of silver at his temples—where had those years gone? she wondered in awe. He certainly wasn’t nineteen any more, and they’d been far too young to elope anyway. Everyone had told her that. She was also a very different woman now, she thought as he gestured her, less than graciously, to his seat.
‘Thank you,’ Kelsie said. Not much else she could do. He didn’t answer as she sat down, just looked at the older lady in the gorgeous pink designer suit next to her and raised a mocking eyebrow. ‘I’m having coffee. Would you like me to get two, Gran?’
‘Three.’ The older lady turned a sweet smile her way. ‘Do you take sugar?’
Kelsie blushed when she realised the woman’s intent. No. No. He wouldn’t want to buy her coffee, and when she glanced at Connor his smile had such a bitter sardonic tilt to it she lifted her chin. ‘White, no sugar. Thank you.’
Connor couldn’t believe his stupidity. He’d just wanted to walk away, get his head together—not that he wasn’t over her, good grief it had been years ago, but it had been a shock—and coffee had seemed a good excuse. Of course, now the conversation was open there would be no stopping Gran from pumping Kelsie. Her name echoed in his brain and travelled through his body and stirred every nook and cranny into alertness. He shook his head to be rid of it and sighed. Gran would burrow for all the information she could get.
If he’d stayed around and damped down the friendliness, instead of sloping off, he might have been able to hustle Gran onto the train and only bad luck would have made them meet again.
Too little, too late, too bad, and he’d just have to move on, he thought as he picked up the pace and clenched his fist in his pocket. Now he really needed the coffee to wash away the bitterness at the back of his throat.
Funny how feelings he’d thought he’d forgotten rolled in his belly like it was yesterday, and he searched for the anger that had finally obliterated the hurt of her no-show at their wedding. The one person he’d thought he could trust. Damn her.
The forgotten embers flared and the heat of it gave him pause. The rational person he was now frowned it down and locked it away. Douse it. It was water under the bridge, and there were plenty of bridges in Venice to let it wash away, quite symbolic really.
It was just the shock. Not a huge deal after all. He began to feel better.
Sitting uncomfortably on a seat she didn’t want, Kelsie watched Connor Black stride away, the man who used to be her best friend, so tall, so rigidly straight, waves of disdain emanating from him like mist from the canals, and she remembered the last time she’d seen him. She hadn’t expected it would be fifteen years before she saw him again.
The elderly lady next to her leaned closer and the serene scent of Arpège perfume drifted across the seat. Kelsie inhaled it with a pang and the penny dropped that this must be the woman who rode the Orient Express whom Connor had talked about all those years ago. The reason Kelsie had sketched in this journey on her bucket list.
The elderly lady twinkled up at her, her faded blue eyes shone, brightly inquisitive, and despite the pit that had just opened Kelsie couldn’t help a small smile back.
‘I’m Winsome Black. And if I’m not mistaken, you know my grandson, Connor?’
‘Kelsie Summers. I knew him a long time ago.’ She sighed for the idealism of a young Connor and her part in fracturing it.
Winsome snorted. ‘Must have been memorable because I rarely see any expression cross my grandson’s face and that was a positive grimace.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ Kelsie couldn’t help the rueful smile that escaped. True, it hadn’t been a happy face on poor Connor, and she couldn’t help another swift peek to where extraordinarily broad shoulders were just disappearing into the station coffee shop.
He’d changed. A lot. She blinked the last image away. He’d always been a favourite with the girls but she’d bet his wife hated having him out of her sight. Where would they be now if she hadn’t run away?
‘So you’re that Kelsie!’ It wasn’t a question. ‘How fascinating.’ This was accompanied by a demure smile and an even brighter twinkle in the eye of the older lady, and Kelsie almost wished she’d followed Connor. Her thoughts must have shown because Winsome touched her arm.
‘Don’t go. I’ll be good. But it’s Christmas in two days. You could humour an old lady’s curiosity just a little.’ Not waiting for permission, Winsome launched into her cross-examination. ‘Are you married?’
Not a lot she could do about this, Kelsie thought as she accepted the inevitable, so she settled back for the interrogation with what composure she could muster. ‘No.’
‘Why not? A young, attractive woman like yourself must have had her chances.’
Kelsie shrugged. ‘I didn’t marry the man I did love. So I wasn’t going to marry one I didn’t.’
Winsome looked dubious. ‘I think that makes sense.’
‘And I love my independence and my work.’ She hadn’t meant to sound defensive. She wasn’t feeling defensive!
‘I know someone like that.’ Winsome shook her head at a thought she didn’t share. ‘So you’re not even engaged?’ Inquisitive faded blue eyes twinkled at her again.
Kelsie lifted her chin. ‘No.’ Her life was good just as it was.
Winsome sat back. ‘Connor’s not married either.’ She acknowledged Kelsie’s narrowed gaze and obviously decided she’d pried enough. ‘I’ll stop.’
Kelsie raised her brows. ‘You seemed to have acquired the salient information.’ And imparted a bit as well. Why wasn’t Connor married?
‘My modus operandi, dear.’
‘I consider myself warned,’ Kelsie muttered to herself, but there was food for thought in her new knowledge. How could that be?
As if she’d heard the thought, Winsome added, ‘He’s been very busy with his career.’ Then she smiled and Kelsie wasn’t so sure she trusted the unholy glee in the older woman’s face. ‘And here he comes.’
When Connor arrived he handed Kelsie her coffee without a glance and ignored her murmured thanks.
Winsome accepted hers with all-seeing eyes and directed her attention to her grandson and pretended to sigh. ‘I’m disappointed with the waiting room for the world’s most glamorous journey.’ There was a special twinkle in her eyes as if she knew a secret no one else did.
Connor glanced at the tiny white sign alone on the concrete. ‘Me, too. If only I could make it happen for you, Gran, I would.’ He snapped his fingers.
As if conjured up, like Mary Poppins’s sister, a young woman in a gold-edged royal-blue skirt and high-collared jacket high-heeled her way across the concourse towards them, pushing a tall wooden reception desk on wheels. Another equally well-dressed young woman pushed a covered luggage trolley.
Kelsie blinked. It wasn’t luggage on the trolley. It was furniture.
The hostess directed her junior to unroll a plush, deep red carpet stamped with a blue and gold insignia and then… magic.
Kelsie blinked again as within seconds a large circular waiting area sprang up in an empty space on the grey concrete. The beautiful oak reception desk, also sporting insignias, two potted palms in four-legged oak pots, also on wheels, a gold-edged name plate on the desk and a bowl of roses. Kelsie thought they looked suspiciously real.
The young hostess snapped open a box of labels and turned to the bemused crowd. ‘Who is first?’ She smiled and then disappeared from view for a moment behind the surge of patrons.
‘I can see why you travel with him,’ Kelsie whispered to Winsome as they stayed seated to allow the crowd to thin, and Winsome nodded complacently.
At that moment the unmistakable sound of a diesel engine and rattle of wheels on rails heralded the arrival of the world’s most famous train and everyone paused to look.
Shiny blue carriages, with burnished gold edges and gold lettering, and gleaming panes of glass all came closer until the brakes screeched as the wheels locked on the rails and inched to a stop.
The anticipation in the air rose like the smell of diesel from the train.
Thank goodness for the distraction, Kelsie thought with relief. It was the perfect excuse to put some distance between her and Connor. She turned to Winsome. ‘May I leave my bag here while I go and have a closer look?’
Winsome patted her leg. ‘Of course.’
Kelsie stood hastily and without glancing at the man looming over her she carried her disposable coffee cup to the platform and began to wander up the length of the train.
Such shiny gold trim around the windows and gorgeous lettering proclaiming ‘Express Eurpeen’ above the glass, but it was that chance to peer in, that glimpse into a bygone era that attracted her. Each cabin held an ornate bench seat with tiny lace-covered tables and a dainty pink lamp next to a delicate orchid that danced in a slender crystal vase, and everywhere rich, dark panelling glowed in the dim light with exquisite parquetry. She couldn’t wait to see which tiny cabin was hers.
Not to mention the relief of being able to hide her face from the steely glance of the man she’d jilted more than a decade ago.
Back on the bench Winsome Black raised her brows quizzically. ‘She’s very striking.’
‘Hmm.’ Connor didn’t want to think about Kelsie Summers and he certainly didn’t want to talk about her. He tried not to glance up the platform but his gaze strayed disobediently before he whipped it back. She still had the whippet thinness he remembered but had gained subtle womanly curves that beckoned anyone with a spoonful of testosterone without her even trying. Typical.
He snapped his teeth together. ‘If you give me your ticket I’ll check your baggage in. I imagine it will take a while before all these people are checked in and the luggage loaded.’
His grandmother had declined to allow him to care for the tickets. He wasn’t used to it. the whole ‘not being in command’ thing. And he knew she regularly lost things so he’d be glad when he’d secured the damn things and they were on the train.
His mind drifted unexpectedly. Kelsie used to lose things all the time too.
He snapped back to the present and the frown he sent his grandmother must have been more ferocious than he thought because she burst out laughing.
‘And will you cut off my head if I don’t?’
‘What?’
‘Give you the tickets. You have serious control issues.’ She shot him a penetrating glance. ‘Thinking of other things, were you?’
Lord, he’d forgotten how easily she read him. ‘No.’ He took the tickets she offered. ‘And thank you,’ he added, his voice dry. This journey could prove very tiresome if Winsome decided to tease him for most of it.
He moved into line behind a young woman buried in what looked like a 1940s ankle-length trench coat two sizes too large for her, and the fur of the collar was pulled up around her ears. When she darted a look at him all he could see was the bridge of her nose under her dark glasses and the thick black hair scraped back off her high forehead.
‘Buon giorno,’ he said.
‘Buon giorno,’ she whispered back, and turned away.
Maybe she was a very young secret agent? This trip had the makings of a farce already, he thought sardonically, and glanced ahead to another older lady around his grandmother’s age, though not as well looking come to think of it, accompanied by a younger woman.
He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. That could be an answer. Distract Gran with a kindred spirit. Maybe arrange to have them sit together at dinner. He glanced at the girl. She had a nice smile so even if Gran tried to pair him off with someone else, it wouldn’t be too bad. Anywhere away from Kelsie Summers.
Truth be told, he didn’t understand why he was dwelling on such a chance encounter with a woman he’d once fancied in his youth. Well, maybe a little more than that but it wasn’t like he’d carried her with him for all these years—or been celibate. Far from it.
Neither had he found anyone else he could think of joining his life with, a sardonic voice inside suggested, and he impatiently brushed that thought away. A full-time relationship was the last thing he required. He seriously didn’t have time.
The line moved forward and he wondered idly where the luggage for the woman in front was.
Which made him shoot a glance back at where Kelsie’s Suitcase-asaurus Rex was, and decided it was the biggest damn thing he’d ever seen and even she’d have trouble losing that. He wondered if she knew she couldn’t have it in the cabin with her and then shrugged.
And why was that his problem? What was wrong with his brain today? Thankfully the line moved forward and he directed his thoughts to move on too.
His eyes drifted back when the line stopped again. Her suitcase was still there. Might have been a stretch to think that someone would steal it anyway but…
She was back. Sitting next to his grandmother, and they looked like they were having a lovely conversation. He groaned and tried not to crush the tickets in his clenched hand. Kelsie had always been a great listener. He turned back to the line.
Insidiously, while he stared at the back of the head of the woman in front, his mind drifted to all those plans they’d had when he’d been young and stupid. Plans he’d built in his head during those impressionable teenage years that you never seemed to forget. No matter how hard you tried. The only one he had ever shared them with had been Kelsie because she’d been so much a part of his life then.
The first plan had always been—marry Kelsie. Keep her safe.
Then—become a doctor.
The third—take her to Venice on the Orient Express when they could afford it, because it was the one thing she really did have a fantasy about.
God, he’d been so stupid. he shook his head and returned to the present as the line moved forward again. But there had been other plans and he guessed he’d at least achieved them.
He was a research-based obstetrician. Dealing with infertility. Well respected. His gran would say world renowned but he would have said he was more recognised for being happy to share what he’d learnt. He’d been very busy during the last fifteen years so it was no wonder he hadn’t married.
Gran had informed him she despaired he’d find a wife before she died. No doubt she was pretty keen to see it happen but as far as he was concerned there were a lot of research projects he’d be happy to leave the family fortune to.
In fact, he had a horrible feeling this whole trip had some romantic connotation he was missing and it wasn’t really about diverting Gran’s mind from her recent loss. Something along the lines of if he wouldn’t marry for good sense then he’d better marry for love.
Couldn’t see it happening on a damn train but she’d muttered about some bloke she’d fallen for in her distant past whom she’d met on this train, and he just hoped the old man hadn’t turned in his grave when she’d dropped that little bombshell.
His grandfather had been the father he’d lost the same year he’d lost Kelsie and he’d always thought his grandparents perfectly matched at least. Funny how things in life weren’t always as you expected.
Like meeting Kelsie again after all these years.
CHAPTER TWO (#u9fbd4274-2c15-5d9b-a5a6-5d76ae17ebff)
KELSIE GLANCED AT her watch. Ten thirty-five and the train left at ten fifty-seven. She should find her carriage but seriously she wasn’t ready to sit down just yet.
Winsome and her grandson had boarded, and Kelsie carried her tiny overnight satchel—thank goodness for outrageously expensive wrinkle-free clothes—and she tried to slow her agitated feet to an inconspicuous amble.
She’d been almost the last to get her ticket, mainly because she’d wanted to stay well clear of Connor, and had walked up and down the platform ostensibly admiring the ornate carriages but really walking off her agitation at seeing him again.
Connor Black. She’d loved him like a brother since fifth grade when he’d moved from being annoying to mysteriously compelling. Not that all boys had been mysterious—just Connor.
For an only child, having Connor as her friend had seemed an impossible dream, until he’d come across her being bullied by a mean-streaked older boy who’d found the purse she’d lost one afternoon, late in the spring. She could almost smell the scent of falling orange blossoms, and blood, in the orchard where it had happened.
The ensuing bout of fisticuffs had left Connor with bruised knuckles and the other boy with a black eye and split lip, for which Connor had received a caning from the school principal the next day. The thought still made her cringe because it had been her fault.
But Connor had shrugged it off as no account and her hero-worship had been sealed.
She glanced into a window of the train and her reflection smiled ruefully back at her. He’d looked so heroic, his shirt torn, his eyes narrowed as he’d warned the other boy, his gentle grasp of her hand as he’d led her away.
For the rest of that year he’d taken to walking her home, the absolute best part of her day, and she’d never felt unprotected again, even when Connor had gone off to boarding school, because the letters between them had kept them close. Because home hadn’t been such a grand place, with her mother gone and her dad not much use at conversation unless it had been to give an order.
Her dad had expected her to follow the rules, and had been worse since Mum had finally rebelled and left. Although thankfully the fighting had stopped, her dad was so distant Kelsie had felt rudderless in the world until Connor. She’d wash up, do the housework and her homework, and take herself off to bed at dark, and dream of escaping to the city with Connor.
Except for Connor’s correspondence, hers had been a lonely existence, lightened when holidays had come around and Connor would find her and the two would slip away to dream together.
Connor had always been full of dreams. His real mother had drowned in a tragic accident when he’d been twelve and he was always going to be a doctor, always going to save the world. And Kelsie had believed him.
When Connor went to university they would marry. Elope, Connor said, because everyone would say they were too young.
But she was content to wait until Connor said it was time and she began to have dreams of her own. To be a nurse. To be free of her father’s dictatorship. Be with Connor and gladly follow him to the ends of the earth. He’d arrange everything because that’s what he liked to do, and it was easier to say yes.
Finally the day arrived. Her dad forbade her to leave, Connor had forbidden her to be late, and the similarities suddenly dawned on her. Had she been using her romance to escape her father’s control, only to fall into the same trap?
It was an uncomfortable thought that wouldn’t go away now that it had surfaced. It was all so confusing when Connor had been so good to her.
He’d secured rooms for them near his new university, the registry office was booked, and he’d bought her a short white dress for her to wear on the train when she travelled to meet him. He’d admonished her not to daydream and miss the train. Not to lose the ticket. As if by mentioning it he could influence the vagrancies of fate.
She thought about that. And then the doubts crept in just as the hands of the little watch Connor had bought her crept closer to the time they would meet.
She loved Connor. Could see the goodness in him. How much he cared about her. But was she ready to tie herself to another man who would run her life for her so completely? Was she always going to make Connor sigh when she needed rescuing?
Was that what she wanted?
If she was having these thoughts, was it fair to rush into this and maybe one day do what her mother had done and abandon ship?
Of course she didn’t want that but she knew if she tried to explain some of these thoughts to Connor, he’d brush them away as nerves.
But the seeds of doubt grew into full-grown wisdom trees on the train as she twisted the hem of the white dress between her fingers and watched the stations flash by.
Until, finally arriving, Kelsie hung back.
She loved him. The man was a serious hero. Too much of one to spoil his chance of the career he was destined for by dragging him back by her doubts. Or expect him to marry her just because he’d proposed in an impulsive moment. So she sent a note saying she was safe but she wasn’t coming.
They were both too young and she wasn’t able to contemplate being a burden on him. Plus there was the matter of her threatened independence. He deserved so much more but she hadn’t been brave enough to tell him.
She had already seen herself frustrate him when she lost things, seen his doubts after he’d impulsively proposed, knew how much easier it would be for him to realise his dreams of becoming a doctor unencumbered by a young, unskilled bride.
The next day, after a lonely night in a sleazy motel she ran to her only other relative, her mother’s much older unmarried sister, a midwife in Sydney, and that’s when her life really began to change.
She’d come a long way since then. A long way.
All the way to Venice.
Kelsie blinked at the reflection in the window—the face staring back at her wasn’t hers. A woman, eyebrows raised in disapproval at her invasion of privacy, stared back haughtily and Kelsie blinked. Wake up.
Her cheeks heated as she walked away. She’d been staring into the past—not the window. If she didn’t watch out she’d spoil her once-in-a-lifetime trip worrying about a man who had every right to hate her.
Because maybe she should have waited to find out if Connor had agreed with her reasons. Talked about it with him. But by then it had been too late, and she’d lost touch and the confidence that he would forgive her.
And her career had taken off until the serene, confident maternity unit manager she’d become barely resembled the young girl who’d run away instead of getting married. Except for the occasional misplaced item when she was tired.
Kelsie strode purposefully up to the immaculately presented, blue-suited guard, his quaint round porter’s hat stiff with its gold-trimmed peak, the whole confection jammed importantly on his head. She presented her ticket as he held out his white-gloved hand.
‘Welcome to the Orient Express, madam.’ He bowed, took her satchel, assisted her up the steps like precious cargo, and once she was safely aboard gestured for her to follow him up the narrow wood-panelled corridor.
Finally aboard the Orient Express, she could feel a smile plastered on her face.
‘Come this way, please.’
The air inside swirled pleasantly cool around her still-hot cheeks and hinted of different perfumes and metal polish and cedar oil and old wood. Kelsie couldn’t help glancing into the cabins as she followed him, interested in her fellow passengers, she assured herself, not nervously checking for Connor, and most of the passengers looked up and smiled back.
The cabin before hers held a young woman who seemed huddled in her coat, but the door was pulled shut as soon as she passed.
Kelsie winced. She was going to have a good time if it killed her or she had to kill somebody else—namely Connor Black for making her doubt herself.
The conductor stopped at her cabin and gestured grandly. ‘Your seat, madam.’
Kelsie obediently sat. Not quite sure what she was supposed to do as the conductor gently hung her satchel on a big brass hook.
He stepped back, facing her, and smiled, his teeth even and white, his blond hair crew cut around his ears. ‘Allow me to introduce myself.’ He bowed again. ‘I am Wolfgang. Your steward.’
Volfgang, she repeated to herself with an inner smile.
His English was precise and she guessed that, unlike herself, he was probably fluent in several languages. ‘I vill be caring for your needs, and those others also in this car, on our way to Calais. There you vill change for the Tunnel crossing.’ His precise English and accent matched his name and he suited the surroundings so appropriately, she had to smile, outwardly this time.
‘Thank you, Wolfgang.’ Kelsie perched on the long tapestry seat. The hanging neck pillows suspended by tapestry cords divided the seat into two. She realised she’d been lucky enough to face the direction they’d travel, thank goodness, and maybe she was even the single occupant for the next thirty-six hours. Hmm. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.
No. It was a good thing. She would imagine Agatha Christie with her and breathed in as she replaced the smile on her face.
Everything was perfect.
The little cabin was perfect, even prettier from the inside than it had looked when she had peered through the windows, and she noted there was only one crystal champagne flute on the pristine embossed Orient Express coaster on her tiny table so she probably did have the cabin to herself.
She sat in solitary splendour, surrounded by the different-coloured woods of the parquetry wall panelling as they glowed with light, and she noted more brass hooks holding the deep blue silk bathrobes and velour slippers, one of which she could don should she wish to slip into something more comfortable. How decadent. Though perhaps not, especially at eleven in the morning.
‘Observe there is a sink for washing your face and hands if desired.’ Wolfgang pressed a lever and the tiny bench opposite transformed into a basin and taps. ‘There is a water closet at both ends of the car.’ He stared at a point at the top of the window to avoid meeting her eyes. ‘It is preferred that passengers refrain from use while the train is at a station.’
Good grief. Now, that’s a salubrious thought. She chewed her lip to hold in a laugh as she nodded. ‘Of course,’ she murmured.
He inclined his head. ‘Then excuse me. When our journey begins I will return with champagne and also to record your preference for the first or second dinner sitting.’
Kelsie was tempted to ask which sitting the Blacks were on so she could choose the other but contented herself with, ‘Thank you.’
She sat for a minute longer, trying to decide what to do when he left.
‘Acqua Panna.’ Kelsie sounded the words out on the complimentary water bottles on the bench of the washbasin hidey-hole. ‘Acqua has to be water.’ She picked one up, cracked the seal and took a sip as she surveyed the amenities.
Facecloths, a hand towel, a beautifully boxed cake of soap she might just keep to remind her of the journey, toothbrush and paste, an art deco folder holding postcards and embossed VSOE paper and envelopes.
Now she’d pretty well covered the contents of the cabin.
She put the bottle back and stared at the angled wooden divide opposite. They were really quite snug, these compartments, standing room only before the wall of the adjoining cabin. Someone coughed next door and she heard it quite plainly but couldn’t distinguish the voices.
At least she didn’t have an infectious companion locked in with her. She grinned to herself just as the train whistle shrieked a warning of departure.
Kelsie stood and reached hastily for the table to steady herself as the carriage jerked, and peered out the window. They were easing out of the station. Her grin was back and the excitement of finally fulfilling her dream made her want to laugh.
When she poked her head out of her cabin door other occupants had crammed into the corridor and were watching through the windows opposite as the world shifted, and she could imagine the wheels on the tracks below them begin to turn and pick up speed. They slipped past two bushy islands on their little spit of railway tracks on the way to the mainland of Italy.
With a sense of urgency to take just one last look at Venice, she squeezed past an older couple in the tiny corridor and walked to the far end of the carriage, where she was able to pull down the sash window on the door she’d entered the train by.
When she leaned out the cold wind blasted her face and she could see Santa Lucia station disappearing into the distance.
She looked the other way and a dark-haired man had his head out the window half a dozen carriages up. A very familiar face turned her way and Connor Black surveyed her coolly.
Only one thing to do. Kelsie waved.
CHAPTER THREE (#u9fbd4274-2c15-5d9b-a5a6-5d76ae17ebff)
CONNOR PULLED HIS head in and ran his hand through his hair. He’d stuck his head out to blow thoughts of Kelsie Summers away. Fine chance of that now!
At least she wasn’t in their car—she was in the last one—and he hadn’t wanted to know that. He just hoped they’d chosen the right lunch sitting to avoid her.
Funny how much importance avoiding Kelsie had assumed. He hadn’t spent that much brain activity on a woman for years and far too much on her today.
When he returned to their connected double cabins the steward was there.
He waved away the offered champagne. ‘No, thank you.’
His grandmother gasped and leant forward to take the glass.
‘For goodness’ sake, Connor. If you won’t drink it, I will.’ She waved at the man and the obliging fellow bowed and put the second glass next to the other one.
Great, Connor thought. Now Gran was going to get tipsy and she’d be uncontrollable. This trip was assuming nightmare proportions. ‘I’ll drink it.’
‘Good.’ His grandmother sat back smugly and he realised he’d been conned and she’d never intended to have two glasses. He sighed and had to smile. She winked.
‘Much better. You don’t lighten up enough, my boy.’
He narrowed his eyes at her but he couldn’t stay cross. She was a minx. ‘It’s my training. Normally, I’m responsible for people’s lives.’
‘You’ve thought you were responsible for people’s lives since you were a child. Makes you bossy.’ His grandmother shrugged that away. ‘You’ve been too responsible for too long. You’re becoming downright boring.’
Connor froze in the act of sipping and frowned at her. Did she mean that? Nobody else had complained—but, then, who else was there to complain?
There was a distance between him and most people that he’d acquired early, since the loss of his mother and advent of his stepmother, to be precise, and had never lost. His patients wanted him to optimise the course of their pregnancies. Fertility assistance required set boundaries of safety and precautions. Still, her comments seemed a bit harsh. ‘You don’t know the real me, Gran.’
‘Hmph.’ She snorted and he looked at her quizzically. So older ladies really did that?
She snorted again just to prove it. ‘Hmph. Nobody knows you. Except maybe that girl at the end of the train.’
So this was what it was all about. And how the heck did she know where Kelsie was sitting? He’d bet Winsome had bribed the porters already, though goodness knows when as he’d only been gone a few minutes. The she-menace had probably rung the bell as soon as he’d left.
She knew them all by name because she’d been on this train every year for the last twenty years with his grandfather. Her yearly birthday trip in February she’d missed this year because of his grandfather’s death.
That had really knocked her badly and Connor, alarmed his grandmother might just fade away with grief, had hired a nurse to look after her for a few weeks to ensure she ate enough to survive. She’d begun looking much like her old self since he’d agreed to share a last journey on her favourite train.
But he was very aware this was her first Christmas without her husband and they’d decided this was as good a way as any to get over the lead up to festivities on her own.
So this was effectively a ten-month delay on her birthday train trip.
He didn’t understand how she didn’t get bored.
He was halfway there already, and it would be worse if it wasn’t for the unexpected arrival of Kelsie Summers, and they were only a few minutes out of the station.
He sighed. So she was all over the fact that Kelsie was here! He should have known.
He enunciated carefully, as if to a child, ‘You’ve blown it all out of proportion. She was a kid at my school and I was like the big brother she never had.’
His grandmother nodded and he could tell she wasn’t listening.
She proved it. ‘When you came to me you told me you’d been going to marry her.’
‘Childhood nonsense. An impulse.’ He shrugged. ‘The girl is nothing to me now.’
She nodded, all sweetness and light, and his head went up. ‘I’m pleased. I wouldn’t like to see you upset.’
For some reason he didn’t like the sound of that, or the way she’d said it. She glanced out the window and then back again and a horrible premonition hit him just before her next words.
‘So it should be fine with you that while you were admiring the view I sent her an invitation to join us for lunch.’
Kelsie’s golden envelope arrived, along with her glass of champagne, its embossed VSOE paper and the spidery writing giving a clue to its origin. She’d bet it came from Winsome.
Wolfgang hovered as she opened it and glanced at the bottom. Sure enough, the flamboyant W rolled into an exuberant salute. ‘Please. Come!’
An invitation to join them for lunch at the first sitting. Fun. Not! How the heck did she answer this?
‘Perhaps I should return for your answer in a few minutes?’ Wolfgang wasn’t slow on the uptake.
She guessed he’d been exposed to many such missives and their impact.
Kelsie smiled gratefully. ‘Thanks, Wolfgang.’ His head disappeared from the door and Kelsie looked down at the embossed paper again. So how did she decline politely?
She sipped her champagne, the golden fluid so surprisingly light and dry that the bubbles jumped and tickled her nose until she took it away from her mouth and looked at it. So this is what the other half drank?
Like drinking golden sunshine—no hardship at all—and she needed the courage to make a decision so she took a bigger gulp.
Or maybe she should go? Maybe that was what needed to be done. Surely inside Connor Black there was still a vestige of the hero she’d admired as a young girl and that man might understand her adolescent thinking all those years ago. He’d been her best friend and she had let him down.
The perennial questions of youth had been so important back then.
The indecision of it all. Who does he think I am? Who do I want to be? And if I went with him would I have any choices left to me? That had been the big one.
She still believed she’d done the right thing, but she shouldn’t have been such a coward about it.
Maybe it wasn’t too far-fetched that they could reconnect as friends. She hated the constraint she’d caused between them and the added bonus was she genuinely liked his grandmother.
If she sincerely apologised then surely a lot of the ill feeling would be over? It seemed he didn’t mind if she came to lunch so that was a good sign.
And afterwards she could get on with enjoying her trip. Soak it all up in the way she hadn’t yet started to do because of remembering her youth and Connor and her last-minute aborted wedding.
The whole trip would be over by tomorrow evening and she would have wasted it dwelling on the past.
She felt a strange sense of settlement as the decision was made. Funny how things worked out.
Wolfgang returned with the bottle of champagne and offered her a refill. She appreciated his generosity in the circumstances. ‘You can tell her, yes, thank you.’ She looked at her brimming glass. ‘Just make sure I don’t fall over on the way to lunch.’
He nodded with a smile. ‘My pleasure, madam. I will return at five minutes to the hour to escort you to the correct dining car.’
‘Lovely, thanks.’
Kelsie put down the glass and glanced at her watch. Eleven-thirty. And how long would lunch go on for? It couldn’t be too long because the second sitting had been set for an hour and a half later and they’d have to reset the tables.
She glanced at her satchel, still unpacked. Clothes!
As the magnificent scenery of the white-capped Italian Dolomites passed, Kelsie refreshed her make-up, brushed her hair, and with a certain excitement hung up her clothes for the meal after this one.
Her aunt had always stressed it would be black tie for the evening meal on the train when she’d first mooted the idea of realising her dream, and Kelsie wanted everything to be ready when she came back after lunch.
They’d often laughed about Kelsie wearing off-the-shoulder velvet on the Orient Express, and while it wasn’t velvet or off the shoulder, the black uncrushable gown was suspended by gold links of chain above her breasts and fell from beneath her bust to the floor.
Keslie studied the gown as it swayed gently on its hanger, almost Grecian in appearance, the accompanying chain belt dangling loosely at the side. the saleswoman had said it accentuated her height. She might need that if she was going to be passing Connor in the bar car.
Kelsie brushed the creases from her suit and changed the fine pale pink silk scarf for a Nile-blue one that made her smile and gave her confidence.
Her aunt had always promoted blue scarves or necklaces. ‘Excellent for the throat chakra, you know. Allows conversation to flow.’ Well, Kelsie thought, she certainly wanted to ensure her communication skills were premium. This could be a good day for blue.
She dived back into her jewellery bag and added blue earrings and a necklace, a little over the top, she conceded, but she wanted her mouth to function well and every bit helped.
Wolfgang arrived as she’d retouched her lipstick so she squared her shoulders and picked up her purse.
‘Please follow me, madam.’
‘Thank you.’ I’d love to, she thought sarcastically as nerves fluttered in her stomach. No. This was going to be fine.
She wobbled a bit on her heels as they walked, though she did improve the further she went. Wolfgang didn’t seem to have any problems with the slight swaying of the carriage but every now and then Kelsie raised her hands for balance, just in case, as they rattled from side to side, and placed her feet carefully on the blue carpet.
At the end of each car the wood panelling reached new heights of intricacy, with the inlaid parquetry glowing with colour. Someone, maybe even Wolfgang, was handy with the cedar oil and polishing, but she had to admit the decorations were truly beautiful examples of a bygone era.
And then she saw the bar car. ‘Oh, my.’
An absolute delight, the long curved bar was lit softly by lamps, and there was an ebony baby grand piano, the white ivory keys silent but, like the young passenger standing at the bar nursing his glass, waiting for the time it would be played.
Wolfgang inclined his head at the man, and Kelsie smiled as well. It wasn’t hard. He was young, extremely good looking, with an admiring smile. Maybe she could spend some time in the bar before dinner.
Of necessity the carriages were all narrow, and the bar car was no exception. Tiny window seats for two slim people huddled together on one side of the narrow walkway, and on the other side a lengthwise set of couches that allowed people to sit side by side and look across the aisle and out to the magnificent scenery opposite. Tiny tables with ice buckets and wine or dishes of nuts were scattered along the length of the car.
They passed into and through the first dining car—plush velvet, crystal glasses, white-coated waiters—and into the next, which was just starting to fill with well-dressed patrons. And everywhere Christmas decorations had been discreetly tucked into unexpected corners and there was a muted background of carols playing.
Connor and Winsome were already there and Connor stood as she entered, tall, broadly jacketed, and austere as Wolfgang stopped beside their table.
Then her new friend turned and deserted her, or it felt like desertion, and she fought the urge to follow Wolfgang as Connor indicated she should take the seat next to him. She hadn’t expected that. She gulped.
Kelsie stiffened her spine and slid across to the window opposite Winsome, trying not to shrink away as her ex-fiancé sat back down beside her.
It was a good thing she didn’t have to look at him, a very good thing, but the warmth from his leg radiated heat her way even though he wasn’t actually touching her.
As the waiter flicked her serviette and floated it onto her lap in a stirring of air she could smell Connor’s aftershave, tangy and very masculine.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured to the man, fingering the fine linen in her lap nervously, and then looked across at Winsome. ‘Thank you for the invitation,’ she said politely, like a little girl and then inclined her head towards the fourth setting. ‘Is someone else joining us?’
The two exchanged a look but Winsome answered. ‘We’re not sure. Apparently the other single passenger is feeling unwell and may not join us for lunch.’
‘Oh. That’s a shame.’ Truly a shame. A bit of diversion to leaven the stolid silence at the table wouldn’t have gone astray.
‘And who is your travelling companion in your cabin?’ Winsome asked. ‘I always wondered what happened if you ended with someone terrible.’
She had to laugh at that. ‘I’m on my own. It’s lovely to stretch out.’
‘Oh. How fortunate. But if you get lonely just come and find us.’
Kelsie smiled and murmured her thanks, but along with Connor she didn’t comment on his grandmother’s invitation.
‘Would madam like a drink?’
How many hospitality staff were there? She hadn’t seen the waiter arrive and she declined after a glance at the embossed wine list and thought of the glasses of bubbles she’d already downed. ‘Water, please.’
‘Sir?’
Connor raised his dark brows. ‘Perhaps a glass of wine with lunch?’ He glanced at his grandmother. ‘We are celebrating your deferred birthday after all. Champagne?’
‘Absolutely. Thank you.’ Winsome obviously enjoyed the good life. ‘Surely you’ll share a glass with us, Kelsie.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘It’s a very belated birthday and I hate waste.’
Kelsie inclined her head to the waiter. ‘One glass, then. Thank you.’ What the heck. She might just need it because the vibes coming off the man beside her and even Winsome seemed strained.
It was beginning to look like Connor hadn’t been too pleased after all with the invitation his grandmother had issued. She had the sudden horrible thought that maybe he hadn’t even known she was coming until she’d arrived.
A different waiter appeared and stood poised with pen over notepad as he took Winsome’s order and then turned to her. ‘Your preference for the meal, madam?’
Kelsie looked back at the menu in her hand. ‘The broiled lobster and potato and chive whirls, thank you. And the Christmas pudding.’ He nodded and lifted a brow at Connor. ‘Sir?’
Kelsie glanced to her left out the window and counted to ten, told herself to relax, breathe, as Connor gave his order, and almost envied the freedom of the tumbling stream that ran along beside the railway line. It looked freezing outside and every now and then they passed another house with a decorated Christmas tree in their window. The cold outside would almost be preferable to the stifling atmosphere inside.
Connor had ordered, the silence lengthened, and his leg seemed to be sending off waves of heat from beside hers, until finally she turned to his grandmother with a forced smile. ‘The countryside is lovely.’
Connor was at a loss. Damn his grandmother’s meddling. He felt unexpectedly blown away by the pulsing awareness he could feel just sitting next to Kelsie and that awareness was consuming him.
But as he watched her struggle for conversation, despite his own turmoil he could feel himself soften as she tried to carry the conversation by herself. She’d always been more of an enthusiastic listener. He’d probably bored her silly over the years. He should lighten up and help her out, if only for Gran.
‘So tell us about Venice.’
He said it at the same time as she turned to him and blurted out, ‘I’m so sorry I hurt you, Connor.’
Good grief. He hadn’t expected her to go straight for the jugular. He felt his face heat, something it hadn’t done for years, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. He resisted the urge to turn his head and see if anyone else had heard.
All the frustration and anger he’d damped down at the station an hour ago rose again. The last place he needed it was right here in front of everyone, and now she’d apologised he’d have to be all amenable and say that it was fine.
Well, it wasn’t! She’d gutted him. But he didn’t want to say that either, so he wasn’t going there, and hopefully, with a hint, she would just drop it.
‘Perhaps we could leave that for a less public place.’
He heard the sting in the words as soon as they were out, and regretted it. The sudden blankness of her expression almost hid her shock—but he knew it was there. A part of him even mourned the Kelsie who would have shown every emotion, but this new woman was made of sterner stuff, it seemed, and for the first time he wondered if she would give as good as she got if he really let go.
But she said, ‘Of course,’ and he watched her long fingers play with her scarf, his senses ignoring his cold logic of disliking her, and marvelled that the material was the exact colour of her eyes.
Then she smiled with apparently unruffled composure at his grandmother. ‘Venice was gorgeous with the decorations and fairy lights, wasn’t it? Where did you stay?’
They carried on the conversation without him.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_031088f6-48c2-540b-a71d-313a3a1d312e)
CONNOR WISHED NOW he had sat opposite Kelsie so he could see her face because while her profile, he had to admit, was achingly familiar, he wanted expressions and he wasn’t getting any.
Not that he deserved what He wanted after such a harsh come-back to her apology. Not at all like him to speak before he thought and be unkind. He couldn’t remember that last time he’d let his mouth get away from him. Consideration was in his life blood.
He was known for his unflustered take on the most emotive issues and that was why he did so well with infertility issues. Someone had to offer a clear mind. And keep it that way.
His grandmother was expounding on the virtues of the Hotel Cipriani, across the Grand Canal from the Doge’s Palace, and he listened with half an ear as his libido poked him and suggested that even if he didn’t want to talk about it maybe it would be a good idea to work out just why Ms Summers had left him high and dry all those years ago.
It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t crossed his mind once or twice since he’d last seen her.
The one time he’d tracked her down, after a mutual acquaintance had mentioned her on one of his visits back to Australia, he’d phoned and spoken to a fellow named Steve, her fiancé apparently, and that had been that.
He glanced at her bare fingers and wondered dryly who’d run away this time? Him… or her again?
Maybe she was one of those serial bride-to-bes who made a habit of leaving at the last moment.
He remembered a movie his grandmother had made him watch and steeled himself towards Kelsie again. He wasn’t sure whether it was because of the past or in response to the definite attraction he could feel pounding between them, but he was finding it hard to concentrate on anything else except the woman sitting so close to him.
He didn’t like that either.
‘So you spent the whole time on your own?’ The voice was his but the tone belonged to a different person. Not what he’d intended and he saw his grandmother lift her brows in reproof.
Kelsie coped admirably. ‘I joined tour groups and made friends at the hotel.’ She raised her own finely arched brows at him. ‘I’m a good mixer.’
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Fiona McArthur
Christmas Eve on Europe’s most opulent train is going to be an experience of a lifetime for midwife Kelsie Summers. And it is in more ways than one – because brooding obstetrician and the man she jilted, Connor Black, is on board too! And her ex is hotter than ever!Cooler-than-cool doc Connor doesn’t like surprises. Seeing Kelsie again is his worst nightmare – especially as their kisses still make his heart skip a beat. When they're thrown together for a few short days at Christmas there’s bound to be consequences!
Mother to five sons, FIONA McARTHUR is an Australian midwife who loves to write. Medical Romance
gives Fiona the scope to write about all the wonderful aspects of adventure, romance, medicine and midwifery that she feels so passionate about—as well as an excuse to travel! Now that her boys are older, Fiona and her husband, Ian, are off to meet new people, see new places, and have wonderful adventures. Fiona’s website is at www.fionamcarthur.com
Christmas
with Her Ex
Fiona McArthur
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader
Who can resist the romance and glitz of the world’s most glamorous train journey? Certainly not Alison Roberts and I. So we travelled in olde world style from Venice to London on the famous Orient Express, always with the idea that we would write these books.
And what a magical journey it was. From the canals of Venice to the soaring Italian Dolomites, crossing snow-covered valleys and burrowing through the mountains of the Austrian Alps, with men in tuxedos and women in sequins… It’s a journey we will never forget.
I’d love you to share the journey with my heroine, Kelsie Summers, an independent midwife who has always dreamed she’d ride this train one day, and Connor Black, the man she left outside the register office fifteen years ago.
Offering his seat to Kelsie in Venice two days before Christmas is bad, but leaving her alone with his meddling grandmother is a hundred times worse. Connor can’t believe his bad luck, or the surge of emotion as he looks at the woman he crossed a world to get away from after she broke his heart.
Through the next thirty-six hours and into the night the train blazes a trail across the countryside, past the bells of railway crossings and the flashes of light, while its occupants sleep in their little beds until dawn outside Paris. Such fabulous fun as Kelsie and Connor rediscover and then lose each other again while the train shoots through the tunnel to England and the white cliffs of Dover, past keeps and stone walls and English backyards, until it reaches the bustle of London and the magic of Christmas.
I wish you a happy journey!
Fiona xxx
To my darling husband,
who watched our travels via internet banking,
with words of caution and judicious injections of funds,
and the fuzzy but fabulous use of Skype.
Table of Contents
Cover (#ud57ef0f2-760c-56b4-9763-72de3b878397)
About the Author (#ud4906d84-f229-5483-9299-54d6d851acb4)
Title Page (#u6b0564c1-b1ef-5423-9b7e-86d7b03a7337)
Dedication (#ub2e94059-b21f-55ec-8826-510779763f61)
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#u9fbd4274-2c15-5d9b-a5a6-5d76ae17ebff)
THE SEAGULLS WERE screaming—or maybe it was him. Twelve-year-old Connor saw the wave lift his mother and tumble her over and over.
He was running but it was too late.
He should have told her not to go back. The words had been on his lips.
He should never have held them back.
‘A quick look for Daddy’s ring,’ she’d said. ‘I must have dropped it in the rock pool.’
But he’d known the tide was coming in. The last wave had made them run from the rocks. And now…
‘Look after your mother,’ Dad had said, and he hadn’t. He should have said, No! Dont go. The waves are too big. They’ll sweep you out. You don’t have time.
The wave… And then another…
And then there were people—shouting, helping. Reaching his mother as he couldn’t. They’d get her.
But, no. A man was carrying his mother towards the sand, and his mother was limp like the seaweed that washed this way and that in the waves.
Her long hair was touching the sand as they came closer. He saw her face—and he knew nothing would ever be the same.
He knew he should have stopped her. He knew it. He knew it. Now… the way she was lying… .he knew something awful had happened.
He’d disobeyed his father. His mother was dying and he knew it was his fault.
CHAPTER ONE (#u9fbd4274-2c15-5d9b-a5a6-5d76ae17ebff)
AS KELSIE SUMMERS floated in her gondola past St Mark’s Square she thought of last night’s Christmas-themed mass at St Mark’s Cathedral and she rubbed the goose-bumps on her arms at the memory it evoked. The strings of Christmas fairy lights over the Bridge of Sighs had winked last night and now, though extinguished, they still decorated the canals and bridges of Venice on her way to the station.
Her bag was full of nativity scenes in glass and gorgeous Christmas-tree globes for her friends.
Even the crumbling mansions on the Venice waterways had gorgeous glass mangers and angels in their lower windows and she watched the last of them fade into the distance as her gondolier ducked under the final bridge.
The end of two weeks of magic and her trip of a lifetime—and so what if she’d originally planned to share it with someone long gone, she’d still made it happen.
The bow of the long black boat kissed the wharf and the gondolier swung Kelsie’s bag up onto the narrow boardwalk the same way as he held the craft steady, with little effort. She’d chosen the strongest-looking gondolier for just that reason.
She stepped out, in not very sensible shoes but she was a little more dressed up than usual in honour of the coming journey, and then her tasselled-hatted hero abandoned her cheerfully as he pushed off.
Kelsie dragged her bag up the planking to solid ground, or as solid as she could get in Venice, and sniffed away the idea of tears.
Surely she wasn’t weepy just because of the lack of gentlemen to help her move this huge bag! It was because she was leaving Venice. Because her lifelong travel dream was coming to an end.
Modern-day women didn’t need male help, Kelsie told herself, but the Stazione di Venezia, and the Santa Lucia steps, mocked her as she glanced down with a grimace.
A passing Venetian ‘gentleman’ flicked his nicotine-stained finger at the tiny alley that ran up the side of the building for those who didn’t want to hump their belongings up the steps and she smiled her thanks. Bless the inventor of suitcase spinner wheels, and her sense of independence was appeased.
She’d arrived in Venice in a blaze of anticipation via the front entrance to the railway station and it seemed fitting, she wasn’t sure why, to be slipping home to the real world of work and her solitary flat more than ten thousand miles away in Sydney, out the back way.
Though once she’d dragged this bulging brick of a suitcase inside, the train she was about to board was anything but the back way, and she felt her spirits soar again.
The last part of her journey—the one she’d dreamt of since a long-ago friend had mentioned his English grandmother embarked on it every year—had captured her imagination while she’d still been in school uniform. Venice to London via the Orient Express—the world’s most glamorous train journey. And she’d finally made it happen.
Which was why she was wearing her second-highest heels and her new cream Italian suit. Maybe not so glamorous doing it by yourself, she conceded, but still very glam, and stiffened her spine as she entered the cavernous world of departure beside a tourist shop adorned with miniature gondoliers’ hats.
Platform One. She’d entered at the correct platform, arrived at the specified time, so where was the blue and gold emblazoned wagon of the Orient Express?
Kelsie glanced around. Remembered the inside of Saint Lucia from arrival—like any other railway station—grey concrete, cold underfoot, traveller-filled bench seats, matching-luggage families huddled together. Finally she saw a small white sign, very ordinary, very unostentatious, that read ‘Meeting Point for Venice Simplon Orient Express’.
Connor Black watched the shoulders of the smartly dressed woman sag as she peered under her dark cap of hair with the perplexed countenance of the unseasoned traveller as she turned her back to him. Her head dipped down at what must be a horrendously heavy suitcase. It was almost bigger than she was, and he wondered if she’d dare try and perch on top of it.
He sighed and stood to offer his seat, brushing away the niggling feeling that he knew her. Of course he didn’t. He was in Venice. And if he didn’t offer her his seat Gran would poke him with her silver-topped cane as if he were a six-year-old until he did. Gran was his one big weakness and the only woman he loved. Unfortunately she knew it.
He caught his gran’s eye as she nodded approvingly and bit back a grin. Despite her age she looked like a million pounds in her pink jacket and skirt with her snow-white hair fresh from her Venetian stylist. The pink Kimberley diamonds at her wrist and throat glittered under the electric lights. Lord, he would miss the old minx when she was gone. Had to be the reason he was standing here in the first place.
He had very special clients, the Wilsons, a couple he’d worked with for years, whose tenuous assisted pregnancy had been particularly challenging, and they were all on tenterhooks until Connie Wilson had this baby safely delivered. He’d promised her influential husband, and more importantly the nervous Connie, he’d be available twenty-four seven.
So he should be somewhere closer to them, instead of sitting on a train for the next thirty-six hours playing nursemaid to an eighty-year-old lady who should be at home, knitting. But then even he laughed at the idea of Gran doing anything of the sort.
The original grande dame inclined her eyes sideways towards the woman several times and he settled her with his nod. And he’d better be quick about it.
Not used to taking orders from anyone, Connor decided this could prove to be a very long thirty-six hours as he stepped closer to the woman and spoke from behind her. ‘Excuse me. Would you like my seat, madam?’
The woman turned, their eyes met, and recognition slammed him harder than being hit with a suitcase twice the size of hers. Sky-blue eyes. Snub nose. that mouth. The one it had taken him, admittedly in his callow youth, two years to banish from his mind. A face that seemed outlined with a dark crayon line instead of the blur every other face was.
Fifteen years ago. Kelsie Summers.
‘Or perhaps you’d rather stand.’ Luckily that was under his breath because his grandmother’s eagle eye had spotted his reaction.
Stunned blue eyes stared frozenly back at his. He saw the movement in her alabaster throat as she swallowed, and then her tongue peeped out. Yes, you damn well should lick your lips in consternation, he thought savagely, when you left me at the registry office, cooling my heels.
He gestured to the seat beside his grandmother with all the reluctant invitation of a toddler giving away his last lollypop.
Damn if he didn’t feel like sitting down again and turning his own back. But that would be childish and he hadn’t indulged in such weakness for a long, long, time.
Stinking bad luck, though, to meet her here, and if he knew his grandmother it would be the perfect diversion for the boredom that, despite her assurances, would ultimately descend on her before they reached London.
Kelsie felt like sinking into the grey concrete, maybe even through that and into the murky bottom of the Venice waterways that were probably somewhere under the railway station.
This was the first time she’d seen Connor since the day she’d run away.
She’d written, trying to explain why she thought she’d ultimately ruin his life if she married him, sent the tear-streaked missive, had watched from around a corner as he’d paced in agitation waiting for her to arrive, committed every line of his worried face to memory because she’d never see him again.
Though one glance at his face this morning when he’d recognised her and she could tell there still might be something he wanted to say to her about all that. As time had gone on she’d had a little more insight into how he might have felt. She swallowed nervously.
Fifteen years ago, as a teenager, she’d wanted to expect more from herself, too, had wanted her own career, and even then she’d had a core of sense and clarity that the more romantic Connor had lacked. She had wanted to be a wife who brought more to the table than hero-worship.
She’d seen, through eyes that had seen it before between her mother and father, that her deference and his growing tendency to take control might just bring more than order to her sometimes scattered life.
Connor would always be her hero, but as the wedding date had grown closer, slowly it had sunk in further that she hadn’t wanted to rely on Connor all her life. She’d wanted to be a woman her husband could be proud of and she wouldn’t have been able to do that under his very protective wing.
Well, they were adults now. He’d morphed into a gorgeously handsome hunk with just a touch of silver at his temples—where had those years gone? she wondered in awe. He certainly wasn’t nineteen any more, and they’d been far too young to elope anyway. Everyone had told her that. She was also a very different woman now, she thought as he gestured her, less than graciously, to his seat.
‘Thank you,’ Kelsie said. Not much else she could do. He didn’t answer as she sat down, just looked at the older lady in the gorgeous pink designer suit next to her and raised a mocking eyebrow. ‘I’m having coffee. Would you like me to get two, Gran?’
‘Three.’ The older lady turned a sweet smile her way. ‘Do you take sugar?’
Kelsie blushed when she realised the woman’s intent. No. No. He wouldn’t want to buy her coffee, and when she glanced at Connor his smile had such a bitter sardonic tilt to it she lifted her chin. ‘White, no sugar. Thank you.’
Connor couldn’t believe his stupidity. He’d just wanted to walk away, get his head together—not that he wasn’t over her, good grief it had been years ago, but it had been a shock—and coffee had seemed a good excuse. Of course, now the conversation was open there would be no stopping Gran from pumping Kelsie. Her name echoed in his brain and travelled through his body and stirred every nook and cranny into alertness. He shook his head to be rid of it and sighed. Gran would burrow for all the information she could get.
If he’d stayed around and damped down the friendliness, instead of sloping off, he might have been able to hustle Gran onto the train and only bad luck would have made them meet again.
Too little, too late, too bad, and he’d just have to move on, he thought as he picked up the pace and clenched his fist in his pocket. Now he really needed the coffee to wash away the bitterness at the back of his throat.
Funny how feelings he’d thought he’d forgotten rolled in his belly like it was yesterday, and he searched for the anger that had finally obliterated the hurt of her no-show at their wedding. The one person he’d thought he could trust. Damn her.
The forgotten embers flared and the heat of it gave him pause. The rational person he was now frowned it down and locked it away. Douse it. It was water under the bridge, and there were plenty of bridges in Venice to let it wash away, quite symbolic really.
It was just the shock. Not a huge deal after all. He began to feel better.
Sitting uncomfortably on a seat she didn’t want, Kelsie watched Connor Black stride away, the man who used to be her best friend, so tall, so rigidly straight, waves of disdain emanating from him like mist from the canals, and she remembered the last time she’d seen him. She hadn’t expected it would be fifteen years before she saw him again.
The elderly lady next to her leaned closer and the serene scent of Arpège perfume drifted across the seat. Kelsie inhaled it with a pang and the penny dropped that this must be the woman who rode the Orient Express whom Connor had talked about all those years ago. The reason Kelsie had sketched in this journey on her bucket list.
The elderly lady twinkled up at her, her faded blue eyes shone, brightly inquisitive, and despite the pit that had just opened Kelsie couldn’t help a small smile back.
‘I’m Winsome Black. And if I’m not mistaken, you know my grandson, Connor?’
‘Kelsie Summers. I knew him a long time ago.’ She sighed for the idealism of a young Connor and her part in fracturing it.
Winsome snorted. ‘Must have been memorable because I rarely see any expression cross my grandson’s face and that was a positive grimace.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ Kelsie couldn’t help the rueful smile that escaped. True, it hadn’t been a happy face on poor Connor, and she couldn’t help another swift peek to where extraordinarily broad shoulders were just disappearing into the station coffee shop.
He’d changed. A lot. She blinked the last image away. He’d always been a favourite with the girls but she’d bet his wife hated having him out of her sight. Where would they be now if she hadn’t run away?
‘So you’re that Kelsie!’ It wasn’t a question. ‘How fascinating.’ This was accompanied by a demure smile and an even brighter twinkle in the eye of the older lady, and Kelsie almost wished she’d followed Connor. Her thoughts must have shown because Winsome touched her arm.
‘Don’t go. I’ll be good. But it’s Christmas in two days. You could humour an old lady’s curiosity just a little.’ Not waiting for permission, Winsome launched into her cross-examination. ‘Are you married?’
Not a lot she could do about this, Kelsie thought as she accepted the inevitable, so she settled back for the interrogation with what composure she could muster. ‘No.’
‘Why not? A young, attractive woman like yourself must have had her chances.’
Kelsie shrugged. ‘I didn’t marry the man I did love. So I wasn’t going to marry one I didn’t.’
Winsome looked dubious. ‘I think that makes sense.’
‘And I love my independence and my work.’ She hadn’t meant to sound defensive. She wasn’t feeling defensive!
‘I know someone like that.’ Winsome shook her head at a thought she didn’t share. ‘So you’re not even engaged?’ Inquisitive faded blue eyes twinkled at her again.
Kelsie lifted her chin. ‘No.’ Her life was good just as it was.
Winsome sat back. ‘Connor’s not married either.’ She acknowledged Kelsie’s narrowed gaze and obviously decided she’d pried enough. ‘I’ll stop.’
Kelsie raised her brows. ‘You seemed to have acquired the salient information.’ And imparted a bit as well. Why wasn’t Connor married?
‘My modus operandi, dear.’
‘I consider myself warned,’ Kelsie muttered to herself, but there was food for thought in her new knowledge. How could that be?
As if she’d heard the thought, Winsome added, ‘He’s been very busy with his career.’ Then she smiled and Kelsie wasn’t so sure she trusted the unholy glee in the older woman’s face. ‘And here he comes.’
When Connor arrived he handed Kelsie her coffee without a glance and ignored her murmured thanks.
Winsome accepted hers with all-seeing eyes and directed her attention to her grandson and pretended to sigh. ‘I’m disappointed with the waiting room for the world’s most glamorous journey.’ There was a special twinkle in her eyes as if she knew a secret no one else did.
Connor glanced at the tiny white sign alone on the concrete. ‘Me, too. If only I could make it happen for you, Gran, I would.’ He snapped his fingers.
As if conjured up, like Mary Poppins’s sister, a young woman in a gold-edged royal-blue skirt and high-collared jacket high-heeled her way across the concourse towards them, pushing a tall wooden reception desk on wheels. Another equally well-dressed young woman pushed a covered luggage trolley.
Kelsie blinked. It wasn’t luggage on the trolley. It was furniture.
The hostess directed her junior to unroll a plush, deep red carpet stamped with a blue and gold insignia and then… magic.
Kelsie blinked again as within seconds a large circular waiting area sprang up in an empty space on the grey concrete. The beautiful oak reception desk, also sporting insignias, two potted palms in four-legged oak pots, also on wheels, a gold-edged name plate on the desk and a bowl of roses. Kelsie thought they looked suspiciously real.
The young hostess snapped open a box of labels and turned to the bemused crowd. ‘Who is first?’ She smiled and then disappeared from view for a moment behind the surge of patrons.
‘I can see why you travel with him,’ Kelsie whispered to Winsome as they stayed seated to allow the crowd to thin, and Winsome nodded complacently.
At that moment the unmistakable sound of a diesel engine and rattle of wheels on rails heralded the arrival of the world’s most famous train and everyone paused to look.
Shiny blue carriages, with burnished gold edges and gold lettering, and gleaming panes of glass all came closer until the brakes screeched as the wheels locked on the rails and inched to a stop.
The anticipation in the air rose like the smell of diesel from the train.
Thank goodness for the distraction, Kelsie thought with relief. It was the perfect excuse to put some distance between her and Connor. She turned to Winsome. ‘May I leave my bag here while I go and have a closer look?’
Winsome patted her leg. ‘Of course.’
Kelsie stood hastily and without glancing at the man looming over her she carried her disposable coffee cup to the platform and began to wander up the length of the train.
Such shiny gold trim around the windows and gorgeous lettering proclaiming ‘Express Eurpeen’ above the glass, but it was that chance to peer in, that glimpse into a bygone era that attracted her. Each cabin held an ornate bench seat with tiny lace-covered tables and a dainty pink lamp next to a delicate orchid that danced in a slender crystal vase, and everywhere rich, dark panelling glowed in the dim light with exquisite parquetry. She couldn’t wait to see which tiny cabin was hers.
Not to mention the relief of being able to hide her face from the steely glance of the man she’d jilted more than a decade ago.
Back on the bench Winsome Black raised her brows quizzically. ‘She’s very striking.’
‘Hmm.’ Connor didn’t want to think about Kelsie Summers and he certainly didn’t want to talk about her. He tried not to glance up the platform but his gaze strayed disobediently before he whipped it back. She still had the whippet thinness he remembered but had gained subtle womanly curves that beckoned anyone with a spoonful of testosterone without her even trying. Typical.
He snapped his teeth together. ‘If you give me your ticket I’ll check your baggage in. I imagine it will take a while before all these people are checked in and the luggage loaded.’
His grandmother had declined to allow him to care for the tickets. He wasn’t used to it. the whole ‘not being in command’ thing. And he knew she regularly lost things so he’d be glad when he’d secured the damn things and they were on the train.
His mind drifted unexpectedly. Kelsie used to lose things all the time too.
He snapped back to the present and the frown he sent his grandmother must have been more ferocious than he thought because she burst out laughing.
‘And will you cut off my head if I don’t?’
‘What?’
‘Give you the tickets. You have serious control issues.’ She shot him a penetrating glance. ‘Thinking of other things, were you?’
Lord, he’d forgotten how easily she read him. ‘No.’ He took the tickets she offered. ‘And thank you,’ he added, his voice dry. This journey could prove very tiresome if Winsome decided to tease him for most of it.
He moved into line behind a young woman buried in what looked like a 1940s ankle-length trench coat two sizes too large for her, and the fur of the collar was pulled up around her ears. When she darted a look at him all he could see was the bridge of her nose under her dark glasses and the thick black hair scraped back off her high forehead.
‘Buon giorno,’ he said.
‘Buon giorno,’ she whispered back, and turned away.
Maybe she was a very young secret agent? This trip had the makings of a farce already, he thought sardonically, and glanced ahead to another older lady around his grandmother’s age, though not as well looking come to think of it, accompanied by a younger woman.
He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. That could be an answer. Distract Gran with a kindred spirit. Maybe arrange to have them sit together at dinner. He glanced at the girl. She had a nice smile so even if Gran tried to pair him off with someone else, it wouldn’t be too bad. Anywhere away from Kelsie Summers.
Truth be told, he didn’t understand why he was dwelling on such a chance encounter with a woman he’d once fancied in his youth. Well, maybe a little more than that but it wasn’t like he’d carried her with him for all these years—or been celibate. Far from it.
Neither had he found anyone else he could think of joining his life with, a sardonic voice inside suggested, and he impatiently brushed that thought away. A full-time relationship was the last thing he required. He seriously didn’t have time.
The line moved forward and he wondered idly where the luggage for the woman in front was.
Which made him shoot a glance back at where Kelsie’s Suitcase-asaurus Rex was, and decided it was the biggest damn thing he’d ever seen and even she’d have trouble losing that. He wondered if she knew she couldn’t have it in the cabin with her and then shrugged.
And why was that his problem? What was wrong with his brain today? Thankfully the line moved forward and he directed his thoughts to move on too.
His eyes drifted back when the line stopped again. Her suitcase was still there. Might have been a stretch to think that someone would steal it anyway but…
She was back. Sitting next to his grandmother, and they looked like they were having a lovely conversation. He groaned and tried not to crush the tickets in his clenched hand. Kelsie had always been a great listener. He turned back to the line.
Insidiously, while he stared at the back of the head of the woman in front, his mind drifted to all those plans they’d had when he’d been young and stupid. Plans he’d built in his head during those impressionable teenage years that you never seemed to forget. No matter how hard you tried. The only one he had ever shared them with had been Kelsie because she’d been so much a part of his life then.
The first plan had always been—marry Kelsie. Keep her safe.
Then—become a doctor.
The third—take her to Venice on the Orient Express when they could afford it, because it was the one thing she really did have a fantasy about.
God, he’d been so stupid. he shook his head and returned to the present as the line moved forward again. But there had been other plans and he guessed he’d at least achieved them.
He was a research-based obstetrician. Dealing with infertility. Well respected. His gran would say world renowned but he would have said he was more recognised for being happy to share what he’d learnt. He’d been very busy during the last fifteen years so it was no wonder he hadn’t married.
Gran had informed him she despaired he’d find a wife before she died. No doubt she was pretty keen to see it happen but as far as he was concerned there were a lot of research projects he’d be happy to leave the family fortune to.
In fact, he had a horrible feeling this whole trip had some romantic connotation he was missing and it wasn’t really about diverting Gran’s mind from her recent loss. Something along the lines of if he wouldn’t marry for good sense then he’d better marry for love.
Couldn’t see it happening on a damn train but she’d muttered about some bloke she’d fallen for in her distant past whom she’d met on this train, and he just hoped the old man hadn’t turned in his grave when she’d dropped that little bombshell.
His grandfather had been the father he’d lost the same year he’d lost Kelsie and he’d always thought his grandparents perfectly matched at least. Funny how things in life weren’t always as you expected.
Like meeting Kelsie again after all these years.
CHAPTER TWO (#u9fbd4274-2c15-5d9b-a5a6-5d76ae17ebff)
KELSIE GLANCED AT her watch. Ten thirty-five and the train left at ten fifty-seven. She should find her carriage but seriously she wasn’t ready to sit down just yet.
Winsome and her grandson had boarded, and Kelsie carried her tiny overnight satchel—thank goodness for outrageously expensive wrinkle-free clothes—and she tried to slow her agitated feet to an inconspicuous amble.
She’d been almost the last to get her ticket, mainly because she’d wanted to stay well clear of Connor, and had walked up and down the platform ostensibly admiring the ornate carriages but really walking off her agitation at seeing him again.
Connor Black. She’d loved him like a brother since fifth grade when he’d moved from being annoying to mysteriously compelling. Not that all boys had been mysterious—just Connor.
For an only child, having Connor as her friend had seemed an impossible dream, until he’d come across her being bullied by a mean-streaked older boy who’d found the purse she’d lost one afternoon, late in the spring. She could almost smell the scent of falling orange blossoms, and blood, in the orchard where it had happened.
The ensuing bout of fisticuffs had left Connor with bruised knuckles and the other boy with a black eye and split lip, for which Connor had received a caning from the school principal the next day. The thought still made her cringe because it had been her fault.
But Connor had shrugged it off as no account and her hero-worship had been sealed.
She glanced into a window of the train and her reflection smiled ruefully back at her. He’d looked so heroic, his shirt torn, his eyes narrowed as he’d warned the other boy, his gentle grasp of her hand as he’d led her away.
For the rest of that year he’d taken to walking her home, the absolute best part of her day, and she’d never felt unprotected again, even when Connor had gone off to boarding school, because the letters between them had kept them close. Because home hadn’t been such a grand place, with her mother gone and her dad not much use at conversation unless it had been to give an order.
Her dad had expected her to follow the rules, and had been worse since Mum had finally rebelled and left. Although thankfully the fighting had stopped, her dad was so distant Kelsie had felt rudderless in the world until Connor. She’d wash up, do the housework and her homework, and take herself off to bed at dark, and dream of escaping to the city with Connor.
Except for Connor’s correspondence, hers had been a lonely existence, lightened when holidays had come around and Connor would find her and the two would slip away to dream together.
Connor had always been full of dreams. His real mother had drowned in a tragic accident when he’d been twelve and he was always going to be a doctor, always going to save the world. And Kelsie had believed him.
When Connor went to university they would marry. Elope, Connor said, because everyone would say they were too young.
But she was content to wait until Connor said it was time and she began to have dreams of her own. To be a nurse. To be free of her father’s dictatorship. Be with Connor and gladly follow him to the ends of the earth. He’d arrange everything because that’s what he liked to do, and it was easier to say yes.
Finally the day arrived. Her dad forbade her to leave, Connor had forbidden her to be late, and the similarities suddenly dawned on her. Had she been using her romance to escape her father’s control, only to fall into the same trap?
It was an uncomfortable thought that wouldn’t go away now that it had surfaced. It was all so confusing when Connor had been so good to her.
He’d secured rooms for them near his new university, the registry office was booked, and he’d bought her a short white dress for her to wear on the train when she travelled to meet him. He’d admonished her not to daydream and miss the train. Not to lose the ticket. As if by mentioning it he could influence the vagrancies of fate.
She thought about that. And then the doubts crept in just as the hands of the little watch Connor had bought her crept closer to the time they would meet.
She loved Connor. Could see the goodness in him. How much he cared about her. But was she ready to tie herself to another man who would run her life for her so completely? Was she always going to make Connor sigh when she needed rescuing?
Was that what she wanted?
If she was having these thoughts, was it fair to rush into this and maybe one day do what her mother had done and abandon ship?
Of course she didn’t want that but she knew if she tried to explain some of these thoughts to Connor, he’d brush them away as nerves.
But the seeds of doubt grew into full-grown wisdom trees on the train as she twisted the hem of the white dress between her fingers and watched the stations flash by.
Until, finally arriving, Kelsie hung back.
She loved him. The man was a serious hero. Too much of one to spoil his chance of the career he was destined for by dragging him back by her doubts. Or expect him to marry her just because he’d proposed in an impulsive moment. So she sent a note saying she was safe but she wasn’t coming.
They were both too young and she wasn’t able to contemplate being a burden on him. Plus there was the matter of her threatened independence. He deserved so much more but she hadn’t been brave enough to tell him.
She had already seen herself frustrate him when she lost things, seen his doubts after he’d impulsively proposed, knew how much easier it would be for him to realise his dreams of becoming a doctor unencumbered by a young, unskilled bride.
The next day, after a lonely night in a sleazy motel she ran to her only other relative, her mother’s much older unmarried sister, a midwife in Sydney, and that’s when her life really began to change.
She’d come a long way since then. A long way.
All the way to Venice.
Kelsie blinked at the reflection in the window—the face staring back at her wasn’t hers. A woman, eyebrows raised in disapproval at her invasion of privacy, stared back haughtily and Kelsie blinked. Wake up.
Her cheeks heated as she walked away. She’d been staring into the past—not the window. If she didn’t watch out she’d spoil her once-in-a-lifetime trip worrying about a man who had every right to hate her.
Because maybe she should have waited to find out if Connor had agreed with her reasons. Talked about it with him. But by then it had been too late, and she’d lost touch and the confidence that he would forgive her.
And her career had taken off until the serene, confident maternity unit manager she’d become barely resembled the young girl who’d run away instead of getting married. Except for the occasional misplaced item when she was tired.
Kelsie strode purposefully up to the immaculately presented, blue-suited guard, his quaint round porter’s hat stiff with its gold-trimmed peak, the whole confection jammed importantly on his head. She presented her ticket as he held out his white-gloved hand.
‘Welcome to the Orient Express, madam.’ He bowed, took her satchel, assisted her up the steps like precious cargo, and once she was safely aboard gestured for her to follow him up the narrow wood-panelled corridor.
Finally aboard the Orient Express, she could feel a smile plastered on her face.
‘Come this way, please.’
The air inside swirled pleasantly cool around her still-hot cheeks and hinted of different perfumes and metal polish and cedar oil and old wood. Kelsie couldn’t help glancing into the cabins as she followed him, interested in her fellow passengers, she assured herself, not nervously checking for Connor, and most of the passengers looked up and smiled back.
The cabin before hers held a young woman who seemed huddled in her coat, but the door was pulled shut as soon as she passed.
Kelsie winced. She was going to have a good time if it killed her or she had to kill somebody else—namely Connor Black for making her doubt herself.
The conductor stopped at her cabin and gestured grandly. ‘Your seat, madam.’
Kelsie obediently sat. Not quite sure what she was supposed to do as the conductor gently hung her satchel on a big brass hook.
He stepped back, facing her, and smiled, his teeth even and white, his blond hair crew cut around his ears. ‘Allow me to introduce myself.’ He bowed again. ‘I am Wolfgang. Your steward.’
Volfgang, she repeated to herself with an inner smile.
His English was precise and she guessed that, unlike herself, he was probably fluent in several languages. ‘I vill be caring for your needs, and those others also in this car, on our way to Calais. There you vill change for the Tunnel crossing.’ His precise English and accent matched his name and he suited the surroundings so appropriately, she had to smile, outwardly this time.
‘Thank you, Wolfgang.’ Kelsie perched on the long tapestry seat. The hanging neck pillows suspended by tapestry cords divided the seat into two. She realised she’d been lucky enough to face the direction they’d travel, thank goodness, and maybe she was even the single occupant for the next thirty-six hours. Hmm. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.
No. It was a good thing. She would imagine Agatha Christie with her and breathed in as she replaced the smile on her face.
Everything was perfect.
The little cabin was perfect, even prettier from the inside than it had looked when she had peered through the windows, and she noted there was only one crystal champagne flute on the pristine embossed Orient Express coaster on her tiny table so she probably did have the cabin to herself.
She sat in solitary splendour, surrounded by the different-coloured woods of the parquetry wall panelling as they glowed with light, and she noted more brass hooks holding the deep blue silk bathrobes and velour slippers, one of which she could don should she wish to slip into something more comfortable. How decadent. Though perhaps not, especially at eleven in the morning.
‘Observe there is a sink for washing your face and hands if desired.’ Wolfgang pressed a lever and the tiny bench opposite transformed into a basin and taps. ‘There is a water closet at both ends of the car.’ He stared at a point at the top of the window to avoid meeting her eyes. ‘It is preferred that passengers refrain from use while the train is at a station.’
Good grief. Now, that’s a salubrious thought. She chewed her lip to hold in a laugh as she nodded. ‘Of course,’ she murmured.
He inclined his head. ‘Then excuse me. When our journey begins I will return with champagne and also to record your preference for the first or second dinner sitting.’
Kelsie was tempted to ask which sitting the Blacks were on so she could choose the other but contented herself with, ‘Thank you.’
She sat for a minute longer, trying to decide what to do when he left.
‘Acqua Panna.’ Kelsie sounded the words out on the complimentary water bottles on the bench of the washbasin hidey-hole. ‘Acqua has to be water.’ She picked one up, cracked the seal and took a sip as she surveyed the amenities.
Facecloths, a hand towel, a beautifully boxed cake of soap she might just keep to remind her of the journey, toothbrush and paste, an art deco folder holding postcards and embossed VSOE paper and envelopes.
Now she’d pretty well covered the contents of the cabin.
She put the bottle back and stared at the angled wooden divide opposite. They were really quite snug, these compartments, standing room only before the wall of the adjoining cabin. Someone coughed next door and she heard it quite plainly but couldn’t distinguish the voices.
At least she didn’t have an infectious companion locked in with her. She grinned to herself just as the train whistle shrieked a warning of departure.
Kelsie stood and reached hastily for the table to steady herself as the carriage jerked, and peered out the window. They were easing out of the station. Her grin was back and the excitement of finally fulfilling her dream made her want to laugh.
When she poked her head out of her cabin door other occupants had crammed into the corridor and were watching through the windows opposite as the world shifted, and she could imagine the wheels on the tracks below them begin to turn and pick up speed. They slipped past two bushy islands on their little spit of railway tracks on the way to the mainland of Italy.
With a sense of urgency to take just one last look at Venice, she squeezed past an older couple in the tiny corridor and walked to the far end of the carriage, where she was able to pull down the sash window on the door she’d entered the train by.
When she leaned out the cold wind blasted her face and she could see Santa Lucia station disappearing into the distance.
She looked the other way and a dark-haired man had his head out the window half a dozen carriages up. A very familiar face turned her way and Connor Black surveyed her coolly.
Only one thing to do. Kelsie waved.
CHAPTER THREE (#u9fbd4274-2c15-5d9b-a5a6-5d76ae17ebff)
CONNOR PULLED HIS head in and ran his hand through his hair. He’d stuck his head out to blow thoughts of Kelsie Summers away. Fine chance of that now!
At least she wasn’t in their car—she was in the last one—and he hadn’t wanted to know that. He just hoped they’d chosen the right lunch sitting to avoid her.
Funny how much importance avoiding Kelsie had assumed. He hadn’t spent that much brain activity on a woman for years and far too much on her today.
When he returned to their connected double cabins the steward was there.
He waved away the offered champagne. ‘No, thank you.’
His grandmother gasped and leant forward to take the glass.
‘For goodness’ sake, Connor. If you won’t drink it, I will.’ She waved at the man and the obliging fellow bowed and put the second glass next to the other one.
Great, Connor thought. Now Gran was going to get tipsy and she’d be uncontrollable. This trip was assuming nightmare proportions. ‘I’ll drink it.’
‘Good.’ His grandmother sat back smugly and he realised he’d been conned and she’d never intended to have two glasses. He sighed and had to smile. She winked.
‘Much better. You don’t lighten up enough, my boy.’
He narrowed his eyes at her but he couldn’t stay cross. She was a minx. ‘It’s my training. Normally, I’m responsible for people’s lives.’
‘You’ve thought you were responsible for people’s lives since you were a child. Makes you bossy.’ His grandmother shrugged that away. ‘You’ve been too responsible for too long. You’re becoming downright boring.’
Connor froze in the act of sipping and frowned at her. Did she mean that? Nobody else had complained—but, then, who else was there to complain?
There was a distance between him and most people that he’d acquired early, since the loss of his mother and advent of his stepmother, to be precise, and had never lost. His patients wanted him to optimise the course of their pregnancies. Fertility assistance required set boundaries of safety and precautions. Still, her comments seemed a bit harsh. ‘You don’t know the real me, Gran.’
‘Hmph.’ She snorted and he looked at her quizzically. So older ladies really did that?
She snorted again just to prove it. ‘Hmph. Nobody knows you. Except maybe that girl at the end of the train.’
So this was what it was all about. And how the heck did she know where Kelsie was sitting? He’d bet Winsome had bribed the porters already, though goodness knows when as he’d only been gone a few minutes. The she-menace had probably rung the bell as soon as he’d left.
She knew them all by name because she’d been on this train every year for the last twenty years with his grandfather. Her yearly birthday trip in February she’d missed this year because of his grandfather’s death.
That had really knocked her badly and Connor, alarmed his grandmother might just fade away with grief, had hired a nurse to look after her for a few weeks to ensure she ate enough to survive. She’d begun looking much like her old self since he’d agreed to share a last journey on her favourite train.
But he was very aware this was her first Christmas without her husband and they’d decided this was as good a way as any to get over the lead up to festivities on her own.
So this was effectively a ten-month delay on her birthday train trip.
He didn’t understand how she didn’t get bored.
He was halfway there already, and it would be worse if it wasn’t for the unexpected arrival of Kelsie Summers, and they were only a few minutes out of the station.
He sighed. So she was all over the fact that Kelsie was here! He should have known.
He enunciated carefully, as if to a child, ‘You’ve blown it all out of proportion. She was a kid at my school and I was like the big brother she never had.’
His grandmother nodded and he could tell she wasn’t listening.
She proved it. ‘When you came to me you told me you’d been going to marry her.’
‘Childhood nonsense. An impulse.’ He shrugged. ‘The girl is nothing to me now.’
She nodded, all sweetness and light, and his head went up. ‘I’m pleased. I wouldn’t like to see you upset.’
For some reason he didn’t like the sound of that, or the way she’d said it. She glanced out the window and then back again and a horrible premonition hit him just before her next words.
‘So it should be fine with you that while you were admiring the view I sent her an invitation to join us for lunch.’
Kelsie’s golden envelope arrived, along with her glass of champagne, its embossed VSOE paper and the spidery writing giving a clue to its origin. She’d bet it came from Winsome.
Wolfgang hovered as she opened it and glanced at the bottom. Sure enough, the flamboyant W rolled into an exuberant salute. ‘Please. Come!’
An invitation to join them for lunch at the first sitting. Fun. Not! How the heck did she answer this?
‘Perhaps I should return for your answer in a few minutes?’ Wolfgang wasn’t slow on the uptake.
She guessed he’d been exposed to many such missives and their impact.
Kelsie smiled gratefully. ‘Thanks, Wolfgang.’ His head disappeared from the door and Kelsie looked down at the embossed paper again. So how did she decline politely?
She sipped her champagne, the golden fluid so surprisingly light and dry that the bubbles jumped and tickled her nose until she took it away from her mouth and looked at it. So this is what the other half drank?
Like drinking golden sunshine—no hardship at all—and she needed the courage to make a decision so she took a bigger gulp.
Or maybe she should go? Maybe that was what needed to be done. Surely inside Connor Black there was still a vestige of the hero she’d admired as a young girl and that man might understand her adolescent thinking all those years ago. He’d been her best friend and she had let him down.
The perennial questions of youth had been so important back then.
The indecision of it all. Who does he think I am? Who do I want to be? And if I went with him would I have any choices left to me? That had been the big one.
She still believed she’d done the right thing, but she shouldn’t have been such a coward about it.
Maybe it wasn’t too far-fetched that they could reconnect as friends. She hated the constraint she’d caused between them and the added bonus was she genuinely liked his grandmother.
If she sincerely apologised then surely a lot of the ill feeling would be over? It seemed he didn’t mind if she came to lunch so that was a good sign.
And afterwards she could get on with enjoying her trip. Soak it all up in the way she hadn’t yet started to do because of remembering her youth and Connor and her last-minute aborted wedding.
The whole trip would be over by tomorrow evening and she would have wasted it dwelling on the past.
She felt a strange sense of settlement as the decision was made. Funny how things worked out.
Wolfgang returned with the bottle of champagne and offered her a refill. She appreciated his generosity in the circumstances. ‘You can tell her, yes, thank you.’ She looked at her brimming glass. ‘Just make sure I don’t fall over on the way to lunch.’
He nodded with a smile. ‘My pleasure, madam. I will return at five minutes to the hour to escort you to the correct dining car.’
‘Lovely, thanks.’
Kelsie put down the glass and glanced at her watch. Eleven-thirty. And how long would lunch go on for? It couldn’t be too long because the second sitting had been set for an hour and a half later and they’d have to reset the tables.
She glanced at her satchel, still unpacked. Clothes!
As the magnificent scenery of the white-capped Italian Dolomites passed, Kelsie refreshed her make-up, brushed her hair, and with a certain excitement hung up her clothes for the meal after this one.
Her aunt had always stressed it would be black tie for the evening meal on the train when she’d first mooted the idea of realising her dream, and Kelsie wanted everything to be ready when she came back after lunch.
They’d often laughed about Kelsie wearing off-the-shoulder velvet on the Orient Express, and while it wasn’t velvet or off the shoulder, the black uncrushable gown was suspended by gold links of chain above her breasts and fell from beneath her bust to the floor.
Keslie studied the gown as it swayed gently on its hanger, almost Grecian in appearance, the accompanying chain belt dangling loosely at the side. the saleswoman had said it accentuated her height. She might need that if she was going to be passing Connor in the bar car.
Kelsie brushed the creases from her suit and changed the fine pale pink silk scarf for a Nile-blue one that made her smile and gave her confidence.
Her aunt had always promoted blue scarves or necklaces. ‘Excellent for the throat chakra, you know. Allows conversation to flow.’ Well, Kelsie thought, she certainly wanted to ensure her communication skills were premium. This could be a good day for blue.
She dived back into her jewellery bag and added blue earrings and a necklace, a little over the top, she conceded, but she wanted her mouth to function well and every bit helped.
Wolfgang arrived as she’d retouched her lipstick so she squared her shoulders and picked up her purse.
‘Please follow me, madam.’
‘Thank you.’ I’d love to, she thought sarcastically as nerves fluttered in her stomach. No. This was going to be fine.
She wobbled a bit on her heels as they walked, though she did improve the further she went. Wolfgang didn’t seem to have any problems with the slight swaying of the carriage but every now and then Kelsie raised her hands for balance, just in case, as they rattled from side to side, and placed her feet carefully on the blue carpet.
At the end of each car the wood panelling reached new heights of intricacy, with the inlaid parquetry glowing with colour. Someone, maybe even Wolfgang, was handy with the cedar oil and polishing, but she had to admit the decorations were truly beautiful examples of a bygone era.
And then she saw the bar car. ‘Oh, my.’
An absolute delight, the long curved bar was lit softly by lamps, and there was an ebony baby grand piano, the white ivory keys silent but, like the young passenger standing at the bar nursing his glass, waiting for the time it would be played.
Wolfgang inclined his head at the man, and Kelsie smiled as well. It wasn’t hard. He was young, extremely good looking, with an admiring smile. Maybe she could spend some time in the bar before dinner.
Of necessity the carriages were all narrow, and the bar car was no exception. Tiny window seats for two slim people huddled together on one side of the narrow walkway, and on the other side a lengthwise set of couches that allowed people to sit side by side and look across the aisle and out to the magnificent scenery opposite. Tiny tables with ice buckets and wine or dishes of nuts were scattered along the length of the car.
They passed into and through the first dining car—plush velvet, crystal glasses, white-coated waiters—and into the next, which was just starting to fill with well-dressed patrons. And everywhere Christmas decorations had been discreetly tucked into unexpected corners and there was a muted background of carols playing.
Connor and Winsome were already there and Connor stood as she entered, tall, broadly jacketed, and austere as Wolfgang stopped beside their table.
Then her new friend turned and deserted her, or it felt like desertion, and she fought the urge to follow Wolfgang as Connor indicated she should take the seat next to him. She hadn’t expected that. She gulped.
Kelsie stiffened her spine and slid across to the window opposite Winsome, trying not to shrink away as her ex-fiancé sat back down beside her.
It was a good thing she didn’t have to look at him, a very good thing, but the warmth from his leg radiated heat her way even though he wasn’t actually touching her.
As the waiter flicked her serviette and floated it onto her lap in a stirring of air she could smell Connor’s aftershave, tangy and very masculine.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured to the man, fingering the fine linen in her lap nervously, and then looked across at Winsome. ‘Thank you for the invitation,’ she said politely, like a little girl and then inclined her head towards the fourth setting. ‘Is someone else joining us?’
The two exchanged a look but Winsome answered. ‘We’re not sure. Apparently the other single passenger is feeling unwell and may not join us for lunch.’
‘Oh. That’s a shame.’ Truly a shame. A bit of diversion to leaven the stolid silence at the table wouldn’t have gone astray.
‘And who is your travelling companion in your cabin?’ Winsome asked. ‘I always wondered what happened if you ended with someone terrible.’
She had to laugh at that. ‘I’m on my own. It’s lovely to stretch out.’
‘Oh. How fortunate. But if you get lonely just come and find us.’
Kelsie smiled and murmured her thanks, but along with Connor she didn’t comment on his grandmother’s invitation.
‘Would madam like a drink?’
How many hospitality staff were there? She hadn’t seen the waiter arrive and she declined after a glance at the embossed wine list and thought of the glasses of bubbles she’d already downed. ‘Water, please.’
‘Sir?’
Connor raised his dark brows. ‘Perhaps a glass of wine with lunch?’ He glanced at his grandmother. ‘We are celebrating your deferred birthday after all. Champagne?’
‘Absolutely. Thank you.’ Winsome obviously enjoyed the good life. ‘Surely you’ll share a glass with us, Kelsie.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘It’s a very belated birthday and I hate waste.’
Kelsie inclined her head to the waiter. ‘One glass, then. Thank you.’ What the heck. She might just need it because the vibes coming off the man beside her and even Winsome seemed strained.
It was beginning to look like Connor hadn’t been too pleased after all with the invitation his grandmother had issued. She had the sudden horrible thought that maybe he hadn’t even known she was coming until she’d arrived.
A different waiter appeared and stood poised with pen over notepad as he took Winsome’s order and then turned to her. ‘Your preference for the meal, madam?’
Kelsie looked back at the menu in her hand. ‘The broiled lobster and potato and chive whirls, thank you. And the Christmas pudding.’ He nodded and lifted a brow at Connor. ‘Sir?’
Kelsie glanced to her left out the window and counted to ten, told herself to relax, breathe, as Connor gave his order, and almost envied the freedom of the tumbling stream that ran along beside the railway line. It looked freezing outside and every now and then they passed another house with a decorated Christmas tree in their window. The cold outside would almost be preferable to the stifling atmosphere inside.
Connor had ordered, the silence lengthened, and his leg seemed to be sending off waves of heat from beside hers, until finally she turned to his grandmother with a forced smile. ‘The countryside is lovely.’
Connor was at a loss. Damn his grandmother’s meddling. He felt unexpectedly blown away by the pulsing awareness he could feel just sitting next to Kelsie and that awareness was consuming him.
But as he watched her struggle for conversation, despite his own turmoil he could feel himself soften as she tried to carry the conversation by herself. She’d always been more of an enthusiastic listener. He’d probably bored her silly over the years. He should lighten up and help her out, if only for Gran.
‘So tell us about Venice.’
He said it at the same time as she turned to him and blurted out, ‘I’m so sorry I hurt you, Connor.’
Good grief. He hadn’t expected her to go straight for the jugular. He felt his face heat, something it hadn’t done for years, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. He resisted the urge to turn his head and see if anyone else had heard.
All the frustration and anger he’d damped down at the station an hour ago rose again. The last place he needed it was right here in front of everyone, and now she’d apologised he’d have to be all amenable and say that it was fine.
Well, it wasn’t! She’d gutted him. But he didn’t want to say that either, so he wasn’t going there, and hopefully, with a hint, she would just drop it.
‘Perhaps we could leave that for a less public place.’
He heard the sting in the words as soon as they were out, and regretted it. The sudden blankness of her expression almost hid her shock—but he knew it was there. A part of him even mourned the Kelsie who would have shown every emotion, but this new woman was made of sterner stuff, it seemed, and for the first time he wondered if she would give as good as she got if he really let go.
But she said, ‘Of course,’ and he watched her long fingers play with her scarf, his senses ignoring his cold logic of disliking her, and marvelled that the material was the exact colour of her eyes.
Then she smiled with apparently unruffled composure at his grandmother. ‘Venice was gorgeous with the decorations and fairy lights, wasn’t it? Where did you stay?’
They carried on the conversation without him.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_031088f6-48c2-540b-a71d-313a3a1d312e)
CONNOR WISHED NOW he had sat opposite Kelsie so he could see her face because while her profile, he had to admit, was achingly familiar, he wanted expressions and he wasn’t getting any.
Not that he deserved what He wanted after such a harsh come-back to her apology. Not at all like him to speak before he thought and be unkind. He couldn’t remember that last time he’d let his mouth get away from him. Consideration was in his life blood.
He was known for his unflustered take on the most emotive issues and that was why he did so well with infertility issues. Someone had to offer a clear mind. And keep it that way.
His grandmother was expounding on the virtues of the Hotel Cipriani, across the Grand Canal from the Doge’s Palace, and he listened with half an ear as his libido poked him and suggested that even if he didn’t want to talk about it maybe it would be a good idea to work out just why Ms Summers had left him high and dry all those years ago.
It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t crossed his mind once or twice since he’d last seen her.
The one time he’d tracked her down, after a mutual acquaintance had mentioned her on one of his visits back to Australia, he’d phoned and spoken to a fellow named Steve, her fiancé apparently, and that had been that.
He glanced at her bare fingers and wondered dryly who’d run away this time? Him… or her again?
Maybe she was one of those serial bride-to-bes who made a habit of leaving at the last moment.
He remembered a movie his grandmother had made him watch and steeled himself towards Kelsie again. He wasn’t sure whether it was because of the past or in response to the definite attraction he could feel pounding between them, but he was finding it hard to concentrate on anything else except the woman sitting so close to him.
He didn’t like that either.
‘So you spent the whole time on your own?’ The voice was his but the tone belonged to a different person. Not what he’d intended and he saw his grandmother lift her brows in reproof.
Kelsie coped admirably. ‘I joined tour groups and made friends at the hotel.’ She raised her own finely arched brows at him. ‘I’m a good mixer.’
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Fiona McArthur
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Christmas Eve on Europe’s most opulent train is going to be an experience of a lifetime for midwife Kelsie Summers. And it is in more ways than one – because brooding obstetrician and the man she jilted, Connor Black, is on board too! And her ex is hotter than ever!Cooler-than-cool doc Connor doesn’t like surprises. Seeing Kelsie again is his worst nightmare – especially as their kisses still make his heart skip a beat. When they′re thrown together for a few short days at Christmas there’s bound to be consequences!