I put down the ingredients, then rest my forearms on the bar. I lean toward her… and press my lips to her forehead.
I move back a few inches, and she lifts her face to look at me. I pause, waiting to see if she’ll sit back, but she doesn’t move. Slowly, giving her time to react if she wants to, I lean forward again, and this time I touch my lips to hers.
She sighs, her breath a whisper across my lips, and tilts her head a little to the right. So I kiss her again, no tongues, justpressing my lips to hers, once, twice, and a longer third time before I finally move back.
She meets my eyes, and we study each other for a long moment.
“Fake engagement,” Thea says from where she’s sitting at the coffee table. “Yeah, right.”
Chapter Twenty
Chessie
Kingi just laughs and finishes off Thea’s sandwich, but I bite my bottom lip and study my coffee cup. What am I doing letting him kiss me? Haven’t I got enough to worry about, without falling for this gorgeous guy? Kingi has great potential to break my fragile heart. I still believe that this Cinderella will never get her prince, and she’d be foolish to even contemplate it.
I watch Kingi as he starts preparing the vegetables. He does it like a guy—making a mess, slicing unevenly, and then chopping as if he’s got a personal vendetta against the onion and carrots, but I’m impressed that he even cooks. Tamati’s skills extended to opening a can of beans and putting bread in the toaster.
While I was on the phone to Mum, I half-listened to him talking to Thea. He’s so good with children and young adults. He manages to be both approachable and kind of fatherly. He’s going to be fantastic at the Foundation.
“Do you want kids?” I ask.
He doesn’t look up, busy chopping the celery. “Gotta find a wife first.” He gives me a brief smile, then carries on.
“When we were at dinner with Orson and Scarlett, you said you don’t think marriage is for you. Is that because your parents are getting divorced?”
He shrugs. “I think it’s a lot to ask of people to stay with someone for the rest of their life. The fact that so many marriages end in divorce supports that. And lots of people have affairs. Breakups are hard. Why put yourself through that?”
“I do get that.” I lean my head on a hand, watching as he heats up some olive oil in a pan. “But you’d make such a great dad.”
“I’m terrible with babies.”
“Everyone is at the beginning. Don’t you think it would be nice, though, to make a baby with someone? A little piece of you and them to cherish?” I feel a pang inside as I say it, a tug deep inside me I haven’t felt before.
He studies the pan for a moment, then tips up the chopping board and scrapes the vegetables into the hot oil. Some of them go onto the hob, and he spends a moment picking them up and popping them in the pan before he starts tossing them in the hot oil.
Is he going to answer me? It doesn’t look like it. Is that because he’s considering it for the first time? Or because he definitely doesn’t want children, and he just doesn’t want to say?
I think about that weird tug I felt deep inside. I haven’t given a lot of thought to having my own kids, but I’ve always known I want them eventually. It’s the first time I’ve felt broody, though. Maybe it’s just being near such a perfect example of masculinity. He makes my ovaries ache.
“You want kids?” he asks.
“Eventually.”
He looks over at me and meets my eyes, and it makes me catch my breath. He holds my gaze for about ten seconds, then looks back at the pan and continues frying the vegetables. He doesn’t say anything more, but my heart continues to race for a bit.
“Can you open the tin?” he asks.
I get up and go around the breakfast bar, find the tin opener in the drawer, and open the tomatoes while he starts frying the mince. Once it’s done, I take it over to him and lean a hip against the worktop next to the hob and watch him.
“How did the meeting with Sabrina go?” I ask.
“Ah, it went very well, thanks to you.”
“Me?”
“Your advice about the North Wind and the Sun proved very useful. She admitted she’s not pregnant.”
I inhale, and I know my face has lit up, because he smiles. “Oh.” Heat rushes through me, along with another wave of emotion. I bite my lip, waiting for it to die down.