of the room, she caught the lapels of Chris’s coat and tugged him closer for a silencing kiss. He stiffened slightly before hesitantly kissing her back. She released him at the sound of a throat clearing behind them.
Her stepfather glanced back and forth between them with his arms crossed. “I’m not a man who enjoys keeping secrets from his wife. She trusts me to tell her the truth. It took me a long time to build that trust, and I don’t intend to lose it. If I find out the relationship between you is not what you’ve presented it to be, I will tell her. So...” A hint of a sparkle lit his otherwise stern gaze. “You’d better not let me find out, and you sure better not tell me anything you don’t want her to know. Furthermore, this conversation never happened. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” they replied together.
He gave them a firm nod before leaving the room. Chris sank onto a nearby chair, then met Adelaide’s gaze with a mix of uncertainty and amusement. “Our parents...”
She perched on the arm of the settee. “They are something else.”
“For sure.”
“I mean, I love them.”
“Of course!”
“But...”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
She shook her head, then reached across the expanse to place a hand on his arm. “We can handle this, though, if we work together. Are we? Working together, I mean.”
He glanced from her hand to her eyes. “As far as I can see, I’m not getting much out of this agreement. However, I’ll go through with it on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“We have got to come up with a better signal to tell each other to stop talking.”
She laughed. “Deal.”
They shook on it, and, in that moment, the years seemed to melt away. She had her best friend back, her study partner, perhaps even her champion. One fateful kiss all those years ago had changed him into her fiancé and, subsequently, something that never should have been. Yes, kisses were powerful things when it came to Chris Johansen. She just had to remember that they were nothing uncommon. Even proposals from him were a dime a dozen. The only thing special about any of it was the heartache that came with it. She’d made it through their last courtship without experiencing too much of that. Next time, she might not be so fortunate. That was why there wouldn’t be a next time—not for her, and definitely not with Chris.
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