Lucy felt the burning in her cheeks as she relived the moment in the foyer. “Come on, Lucy, spill,” prodded Chloe. “You’ve turned into a strawberry. She said something.”

Lucy sighed, knowing her friends would not let her off the hook until she told them. Damn her tell-tale cheeks. “It was just something about Will and me making lovely babies together.” Chloe’s eyes widened as a bark of a laugh escaped; even she wouldn’t say something like that.

Jules imagined the scene and a throaty laugh took hold. “Oh, my god! That woman is hysterical! You and Will …” She chuckled some more.

“Um, Lucy?” Chloe scrutinised Lucy’s face, which had gone from pink to full-blown red. “Anything else you wanna tell us?”

Lucy’s hand flew to her cheek, feeling the warmth under her palm. “Well, fuck,” she said. Her friends blinked at her in surprise. She didn’t drop that word very often.

“Lucy?” Jules’s eyes narrowed and her smile started to fade. There was a beat while she scrutinised Lucy’s face, then realisation struck. “Oh,” she said, her mouth forming a perfect facsimile of the sound. “You and Will?”

“Nothing’s happened, not really,” said Lucy, racing to reassure her friend. “We just kissed, that’s all.”

“You kissed him? What the hell, Lucy?”

There was no way Jules wanted Lucy, who was completely oblivious to how beautiful she was and what effect she had on men, anywhere near her brother—especially after what had happened with his ex-girlfriend.

“It’s just silly, really … just a bit of fun,” Lucy lied. It wasn’t like that for her, but she would give anything to wipe that look from Jules’s face.

Jules scowled at the screen, her mind filled with thoughts of Will falling hard for Lucy, then Lucy disappearing back to England and abandoning him. Poor Will. “Well, if that’s the case, Luce, then just stay the hell away from him, okay? The last thing he needs—”

“So, Jules,” Chloe cut in, not wanting their Christmas call to devolve into an episode of The Real Housewives. Besides, what was the big deal if Lucy and Will got together? Wasn’t he, like, twenty-seven or something? “How was the orphans’ Christmas?” She was again putting off her news, if only to keep the peace and, thankfully, it seemed to do the trick.

With Chloe’s interruption, Jules’s mind switched gears, away from thoughts of Colorado and her brother, homing in on the memory of Matt and his goodbye kiss. Yes, it was a cheek kiss, but it had lingered even longer than his Merry Christmas kiss, almost like a promise of something to come. A smile slid slowly across her face as she conjured an image of his dimples.

Lucy, however, felt as though she’d been slapped. She knew that Jules and Will were close, but she’d never seen this side of Jules before—not directed at her, in any case. How in the world was she going to make things right with Jules?

“Jules! Are you off with the fairies or something?” Chloe’s voice pulled both Lucy and Jules back into the conversation.