said. “I just am.”
Quietly he turned to me and put a finger under my chin, tilting it up so we were gazing into each other’s eyes. “Clio, you have no idea how people see you, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“People want to be around you. That’s why they come here and don’t want to leave. It’s not just the scenery, the picture-perfect setting, it’s you as well. You paint this picture of a different kind of life, and you sprinkle your magic dust over it, and they’re spellbound. People want to be where you are. Cedarwood has its own pull, but then there’s you…”
I let out a nervous laugh. “I…”
“You’re intoxicating, and you have no idea how special you are. When we were here renovating with the team, did you not see everyone coming to you every five seconds with inane questions they knew the answers to? Six phone calls from one painter, to query the color you told him a hundred times already? The way they tell you joke after joke just to hear you laugh?”
I double-blinked, sure he was making it up. The team was tight-knit, and we’d had a barrel of laughs. “They were just good guys.”
“They were. But you have this extraordinary power over people, Clio. You make them want to be in your spotlight. They want to be your friend, your confidante. Anything to be near you.”
I couldn’t reconcile the person Kai was speaking about with myself.
His finger smoothed a trace down my cheek and I felt myself lean in to his warmth. “Believe it, Clio.”
Any rational thought escaped, and I was lost in his deep, ocean-blue eyes. Kiss him, Clio. Before I could debate with myself, I reached up to cup his face and pressed my lips against his. A frisson of desire raced through me, provoking jelly-legs. Kai stepped closer, pushing his body hard against mine, and kissed me back, deeper and more slowly. Heat flooded me, and it was all I could do not to gasp when he broke away, with heavy-lidded eyes. How did he learn to kiss like that? It took my breath away.
A second later Amory appeared in the doorway. “We found the cutest cottage… Oh, um, never mind,” she said, ducking back behind the door.
Kai dropped his hands and laughed, calling out to her. “It’s OK, Amory. I’m going to help Micah and Isla with the chalets. I’ll talk to you later, Clio.” He headed out, giving me a look that said this isn’t over as he walked away.
Knowing what was about to come I went to follow, but Amory hooked my elbow as I walked past. “You’re not getting away that easily,” she said, eyes bright. “What happened? Your cheeks are rosy pink and you’ve got those dazed-up manga eyes happening. He kissed you, didn’t he?”
“I kissed him!”
“And?” she said, hopping from foot to foot with excitement.
“And then again you walked in! Do you have some kind of radar?”
She cupped her face. “God, I want to slap my own face! We need a signal, like a napkin on the door handle, or a…”
I laughed. “Amory, it wasn’t planned! It was a spontaneous thing! It’s not like I plan to swoon my way around the lodge, flinging myself against every surface so he can ravish me!”
“Why not?” she asked, her face a mask of seriousness. “It’s your lodge!”
I sat at the kitchen table and cradled my head. “Urgh. I’m thirty-three, almost thirty-four in fact, and I’m acting like a lovestruck fool. He completely befuddles me, and the brain in my head goes on vacation.”
“Lust, pure and simple,” she said with a firm nod. “I’ve seen it before; you’ll survive.”
“It’s more than lust.” I wanted to snatch the words back as soon as they escaped. “Well, what I mean to say is, it’s just, it’s not…”
She rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “Clio, you like the damn man, and he clearly likes you. It’s really a very simple equation. Girl tells boy, or boy tells girl, hey, I really like you, and I want to take this kissing thing a few steps further…”
I held up a hand. “Oh, my God, please don’t school me on how to date a guy.”
She huffed. “Someone needs to!”
“They do not!”
She stared me down, and I knew by the set of her lips that she had a trump card. Damn it, she always had one up her sleeve. “OK, tell me the last guy you admitted your feelings to?”
“You want me to go back through my past boyfriends?”
She wrinkled her brow. “Clio, you dated them for about five seconds. I don’t think you committed to anyone in the whole time you were in New York!”
Damn it, she had a memory like an elephant. “There’s no point dating someone when they’re not The One. Why waste my time?”
“Stop trying to avoid the question. Who have you ever told you’re keen on them? Given them the green light? Fluttered those silky long lashes and said with real words, ‘I, Clio Winters, think you’re a bit of all right, and I’d like to invite you to share my thousand-thread-count cotton sheets for the evening’. Give me a name. One name.”
I let out a peal of laughter. So, I really liked expensive sheets? They made good bedfellows! “I can rely on my sheets, you know? They’re always there, just how I left them. I get into bed and they wrap their silky threads around…”
“Stop! You’re doing it again! When have you ever admitted to any man how you felt? Have you ever?”
I considered it. Had I ever told anyone how I felt without knowing for sure how they felt about me first? There’d really been no one serious except for Timothy… Puppy love, I reminded myself. Too many years ago to count.
“You know, I don’t think I have.” This time I stopped her from interrupting by placing a hand over her mouth. “And that’s only because they didn’t set my world on fire. My heart didn’t race, I didn’t think poetically. If I was away from them, they didn’t cross my mind. Shouldn’t real love be arresting, and stop you in your tracks, make your heart sing, your body tingle, make everything else seem unimportant? And anyway…” I took my hand from her mouth. “Why does it matter? You’ve distracted me on purpose to hear me blather on like a fool.”
“Why does it matter? Because Kai is exactly like you! He’s not going to admit to it, and you’re pussyfooting around him, and I want to grab you two and bash your heads together.”
I just stared at her, so she sighed and continued: “You’re both happy sneaking kisses here and there, but neither of you is brave enough to admit how you feel! He’ll leave, and you’ll pine for him. Admit, even just to me, that he does make your heart sing, your body tingle – that’s how you know what real love feels like.” She folded her arms triumphantly.
I still wasn’t convinced. “He did say the most beautiful things just now, but it was like he was talking about another girl,” I said, slowly.
She laughed. “Oh my God!
