Christmas with Her Ex(40)
She had serious trust issues. He knew her parents had been very unhappy before they’d separated; her father had drunk a fair bit and maybe it wasn’t about him at all. Maybe she was terrified of falling in love and committing to one person for ever? Well, she wasn’t the only one. His phone rang and he turned away from the door and stared unseeingly out the window as he answered it.
Kelsie swept out of his compartment with her cheeks hot but not as hot as her temper. Did he want her to say he wasn’t a one-night stand? And why was it all about his honour? He made her so angry but she just couldn’t pinpoint why. She’d said the one thing she’d known would alienate him and reminded herself why she hadn’t thrown herself on his chest.
As she flounced through the bar car, she decided against any form of male company, ever, and she glared at Winston Whatsit the Third when he stood up and smiled at her until he shrank back in his chair.
His terrified reaction did something to restore her good humour. Yes. That’s right. She was a woman to reckon with, wasn’t she? A black widow. Thank goodness she didn’t need a man to make her feel like she had a perfect life.
When she reached her compartment she resisted the urge to dig out her bottle of limoncello she’d bought as a last-minute impulse in Venice and pour a generous slosh into her glass. Grrrrr, she thought as she glared at the bottle made famous in the lemon groves of the Amalfi coast. She’d like to bury someone in the lemon groves on the Amalfi coast.
Connor sat with his grandmother and stuffed his frustration, anger and disappointment in Kelsie into a sealed box somewhere under his diaphragm, where it sat like a lump.
He saw his grandmother open the yellow envelope and then frown across at him. He was in trouble. Well, what was new!
Winsome pointed the paper at him. ‘What did you do to that poor girl?’
What had she done to him was more like it! ‘Which poor girl?’
His gran’s eyes almost disappeared as she glared at him and for the first time in half an hour he felt like smiling. ‘Don’t play with me, Connor. You know I mean Kelsie.’
He couldn’t believe he was the one being scolded when he had been the one ill used. The whole thing was the result of two incompatible people butting their heads against a brick wall. But he did hate to see his gran upset. ‘Nothing. She’s fine.’
The letter was waved his way. ‘She’s apologised for not joining us for brunch.’
He sat forward. Caught his grandmother’s eye and held it. ‘That poor girl has been forced into our company the whole trip. She’s probably having lunch with Winston Whatsit the Third.’
His grandmother looked a little hurt that he’d suggested she’d forced their company on Kelsie. He saw the pang of guilt cross her face and truly regretted that. But before he could apologise she’d absorbed his next comment.
‘Eh? With who? Who’s he?’ Diversion was always good with Gran. Lowered the blood pressure.
‘Fellow at the bar. He fancied her, I think.’
Another death stare. ‘And that doesn’t bother you?’
Not at all. Kelsie wouldn’t touch a man that drank to excess with a ten-foot pole. He knew that much. ‘Why should it?’
His grandmother gave her most impressive snort yet. ‘Hmmmph! Because you’re damn well in love with the girl, that’s why.’
The humour abruptly left the conversation.
He was seriously fed up with this whole situation. In fact, thanks to his grandmother and a certain person who would remain nameless, he’d probably acquired a phobia about trains for life!
‘Kelsie Summers and I are not meant to be together. That’s the end of it.’ He stood up. ‘I’m going to the bar.’
‘Well, I’m going to lunch!’
‘I hope you enjoy your brunch, Grandmother,’ he said very calmly and quietly. ‘I’m afraid I won’t be joining you either.’
Kelsie picked at her brunch with a very nice lady who was recovering from cancer and had become a naturopath.
She talked to Heath, the waiter, who had also been born in Sydney, like she had, and a lovely couple who had saved for five years to enjoy the journey on their tenth wedding anniversary. Max must have loved them.
She struggled through fluffy eggs with Scottish salmon, lobster with truffle sauce and a small slice of white Christmas cake with VSOE chocolates on the side.
Oh, my goodness, she thought as she placed her hand protectively over her stomach and put down her silverware.
It wasn’t gluttony, it was diversion from not looking through into the next cabin where she could see the back of Winsome’s head. Or not searching for the dark one that would be close by.