Page 36 of Risky Game

“Fuck,” he whispered.

I was near tears.

He sounded pissed.

This was hysterical to me. Only the man I wanted could kiss me without thinking because he had me confused with… whatever… or whoever…

“Be good, Amelia, and I can’t wait to hear all about your tumbling today!”

The door closed behind him, and Amelia popped around the corner to the kitchen.

“Did my daddy kiss you?”

And oh dear. She was not happy.

The hilarity of what happened vanished. “Sometimes friends give each other kisses on the cheeks.”

“So you and my daddy are friends?”

“Yes, and I work for him.”

Perhaps if I made it seem like no big deal, because I knew that kiss had been no big deal, even if the soft imprint of his lips was now a brand on my cheek, Amelia would forget about it.

Her round eyes narrowed, and she frowned. “I don’t kiss my friends. But my mommy and daddy kiss each other all the time.”

I was sure that wasn’t true, based on what Logan had said about his marriage, but I certainly wasn’t going to argue with her. Instead, I shrugged and headed to the kitchen to make my own breakfast.

“Mommies and daddies kiss too. And in some places, like France, people kiss each other’s cheeks when they say hello and goodbye.”

And could we please stop talking about kissing?

He hadn’t meant it. It was obvious. The whole thing was… a slip of the lips or something.

No big deal.

And I was definitely not telling Gina or anyone about this. She’d have a conniption.

After I put my bagel in the toaster, I turned back to Amelia. “So tell me your favorite thing to do at tumbling classes.”

“Are you going to kiss me?”

“Me?” I jolted and looked over my shoulder at her where she had her arms crossed over her chest, squeezing herself tight.

“Daddy said you were going to be my friend, but you don’t kiss me like Daddy kissed you.”

We really needed to get off the kissing train.

I crouched down in front of her. “I’d like to be your friend, Amelia. But we don’t have to be friends today, and I would never kiss you or do anything you don’t want me to do. But if someday you think we’re close enough friends and you’d like to give me a kiss on the cheek, I’d sure like that. Okay?”

God, I wanted to reach out and touch her. Assure her everything was going to be okay, and all I wanted for us was to get along. Before I could think of the right thing to do or say, she shrugged.

“Maybe. Can I get my shoes on?”

We didn’t need to leave for her tumbling classes for thirty minutes, but if putting her shoes on distracted her from any further kissing talk, I’d let her do anything she wanted. “You bet.”

She ran up the stairs and while she was gone, probably making a mess of her room and digging through a bucket that held at least thirty pairs of different shoes, I slathered cream cheese on my bagel. Ate my bagel. Cleaned up the kitchen.

And I didn’t spend a single second thinking of that kiss and how I wished it could have been real.

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