Page 8 of Lipstick Kiss

“Yes, why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because in all the letters you sent me, you never mentioned a boyfriend, let alone a fiancé. Also, you didn’t have a ring on your finger the last time I was home a few months ago for Jason’s wedding.”

“It was a whirlwind affair,” she offered, shoving her hand in her pocket, ashamed she was pleading her case. “I am lovable, you know,” she said, huffing.

Freya lifted her hand to hook her keys on the nail hammered into the door frame. It paused halfway when Luke said, “You’re entirely lovable. Who is he?”

Wait? What? She was thoroughly confused. But she had already told a lie. She needed to continue it. Freya hoped Luke had forgotten all her tells when she lied.

“No one you know,” she said, hearing her snippiness.

Luke took a step forward, leaned his shoulder on the doorframe and folded his arms. He had an affectionate grin playing around his mouth as he spoke. Was she already busted?

“That’s not hard, Freya. I haven’t been back for any length of time in nine years. So I’d be hard-pressed to recognise more than ten people.”

“It doesn’t matter who he is, Luke Turner,” she said.

Now she felt like she was talking like a ten-year-old.

“Yes, it fucking does, Peaches,” he said, stepping closer, holding her face in his hands. “You’re the closest thing I have to a best friend outside my siblings. No one will be good enough for you. So I want to meet the man who has proposed marriage.”

Peaches.It had been years since she’d heard her nickname. Freya tilted her head to the side, snuggling against his palm, feeling warm everywhere.

“What happens if you don’t approve?” she whispered.

“I’ll talk you out of the marriage. Get some dirt on the guy and then convince you not to marry him.”

He was immediate with his response. Was he being brotherly? Wherever this was coming from, he was possessive.

“You’d do that?”

“Fuck yeah, I would.”

She’d never met this side of Luke. Possessive, protective and all fired up. His hands on her face heated her body in areas she wanted his mouth. Freya couldn’t look away from his mouth. She was supposed to behave like an engaged woman.

“Are you going to let me go?” she said quietly, looking but not moving her head to see who was watching.

Luke stepped back onto the pavement and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “What are you up to?”

Trying to get a ring off my finger that cost half a quarter of a million quid.

“Not much. It’s Saturday. What do you want to do?”

“I have a puzzle that needs solving,” he said and grinned.

They’d spent most of their childhood trying to solve the Turner puzzles. It was what kept them amused until he went off to train as a medic and then onto the rigs.

“There is something unsolved?” she asked.

“Yeah, and I think it is going to reveal something massive. I feel it in my gut.”

“You always say that, and it turns out to be something we could’ve found on the internet.”

Luke gave her a mock shocked face and then pouted. “Where is your sense of adventure?”

“I’m not sixteen anymore,” she replied.

“No, you’re not,” he replied, boring holes into the pocket where her hand was still stuffed.

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