Chapter 16 - Kiss Me Like You Mean It

“Or should we assume the whole thing is an act?”

The room went quiet enough for Callum to hear a glass touch a table somewhere behind the reporters.

He looked at the columnist.

Then at Ailsa.

She was already looking at him.

They had answers for almost everything else. Private proposal. No wedding date. Separate professional lives. Arguments turned into proof of familiarity. They could probably talk their way around this too.

But the woman had not asked for another answer.

She had pointed at the one obvious thing they had never done.

Ailsa’s eyes dropped, briefly, to his mouth.

That ended the debate.

Callum leaned closer without touching her.

“Do you want me to answer that?” he asked quietly.

Only she could hear him.

Her gaze returned to his.

For half a second, the room disappeared from his attention. There was only the question and the fact that he would not move until she answered it.

Ailsa’s chin lifted.

“Kiss me like you mean it.”

Callum stopped thinking.

He put one hand against the side of her neck, slow enough for her to pull away.

She did not.

Then he kissed her.

The first contact was exactly what the situation required.

Controlled.

Public.

Convincing.

Her mouth was warm beneath his, and Callum kept the kiss brief enough to look spontaneous rather than staged. His thumb rested below her ear. Her hand came to the front of his jacket.

Someone in the room laughed softly.

Problem solved.

He should have stopped there.

Ailsa kissed him back.

Not the polite pressure of someone completing a performance. Her fingers closed in his lapel and drew him the fraction closer that cameras did not need.

Callum felt the change like a missed step.

He kissed her again without breaking contact.

That second movement belonged to neither the columnist nor the audience.

Ailsa’s breath caught against his mouth.

His hand tightened before he remembered himself and eased it immediately. She did not retreat. Instead she tilted her head, and the kiss changed again, less careful now, still restrained by the room around them but no longer created by it.

Callum had spent days learning how to read her permission in pauses, offered hands, explicit limits.

Nothing about this felt ambiguous.

That was worse.

He wanted to know what she would do if there were no cameras.

He wanted to know what he would do.

The thought was enough to bring him back.

Callum ended the kiss.

Ailsa’s fingers remained curled in his jacket for one beat after his mouth left hers.

Her eyes opened.

Neither of them moved.

The room erupted.

Applause. Laughter. A shouted comment from somewhere near the back.

Callum barely heard any of it.

Ailsa released his jacket.

He let his hand fall from her neck.

Distance returned between them by inches.

It felt absurdly large.

The columnist who had asked the question was smiling now.

“Well,” she said. “That answers that.”

Ailsa reached for her water.

Her hand was steady.

Callum knew hers well enough by now to notice she picked up the wrong glass.

His.

He said nothing.

She took a sip, realized it, and set it down again without looking at him.

The moderator moved quickly to the next question.

Callum answered something about the foundation’s investment program. He heard his own voice functioning normally and found the experience deeply irritating.

Beside him, Ailsa crossed one leg over the other.

The ring on her finger caught the lights.

Fake.

The word should have restored the correct proportions.

It did not.

Another reporter asked whether the couple planned to remain based in Edinburgh.

Ailsa answered first.

“We both work here.”

“And will you live together after the wedding?”

“No wedding date,” Callum said.

The answer came easily.

Ailsa glanced at him.

He did not look back until the reporter moved on.

The remaining questions lasted six minutes.

Callum counted every one.

When the moderator finally thanked the press, people began to stand. Conversations broke open across the room. Phones were already raised, replaying whatever footage had been captured.

His chief of staff appeared at the side of the table.

“That worked,” she said.

Ailsa stood. “Wonderful.”

Her voice was perfectly normal.

Callum rose beside her.

His chief of staff looked between them and, with the survival instinct of an experienced executive, changed the subject.

“The car can be brought around in five minutes. There are cameras at the main doors.”

“Of course there are,” Ailsa said.

Callum offered his arm.

She looked at it.

Yesterday she would have taken it without hesitation for the performance.

Tonight she paused.

The pause lasted less than a second.

It was enough.

Ailsa placed her hand on his arm.

They crossed the room together.

Every person who stopped them now seemed pleased by their engagement. A donor called them convincing. Someone else told Callum he had been keeping secrets better than anyone suspected.

Ailsa smiled at the appropriate places.

So did he.

Neither mentioned the kiss.

Near the exit, the columnist intercepted them.

“I hope you’ll forgive the question.”

“No,” Ailsa said.

The woman blinked.

Then Ailsa smiled.

“But I respect the commitment to your profession.”

The columnist laughed.

Callum did too.

There it was again.

That dangerous ease from the afternoon. The part of the arrangement that no longer required rehearsal.

Only now he knew what her mouth felt like.

He opened the door.

Cameras flashed outside.

Callum placed his hand near Ailsa’s back and stopped before contact.

She noticed.

Ailsa gave a small nod.

He touched her.

They walked into the lights.

“Callum! Ailsa! Over here!”

“Was that your first public kiss?” Callum asked.

“Any comment on people questioning the engagement?”

Ailsa leaned toward him just enough to be heard.

“We solved one problem.”

“Yes,” Callum said.

“You look unhappy about it.”

“I’m not unhappy,” Callum said.

“That sounds ominous.”

Callum looked down at her.

Her expression was composed for the cameras, but color still sat high on her cheeks.

“You told me to mean it.”

Ailsa’s smile froze for half a heartbeat.

Then the car door opened.

She got in first.

Callum followed.

The door closed, cutting off the cameras and the noise.

Suddenly there was no audience.

Ailsa sat beside him with six inches of leather seat between them.

Callum had never been more aware of six inches in his life.

Neither reached for the other.

The driver pulled away from the curb.

Ailsa looked out the window.

Callum looked straight ahead.

The public problem was over.

Everyone believed them now.

Callum did too, at least about one thing.

He had wanted that kiss.

And performance had stopped being the reason before it ended.