But of course it had. Damnable man. She pushed away from the door and paced the floor.

Why did he have to dwell on that long-ago kiss? Why did he have to bring all that back up? Why did he have to go on and on about everything he remembered? Why did he have to make her feel again all that she had put behind her? Why did he have to come back into her life?

And why did he have to kiss her now?

He had taken her as much by surprise now as he had then. Certainly, that long-ago kiss hadn’t been her first. But it was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She had felt that kiss down to her toes and into her soul. No, she hadn’t forgotten anything.

And tonight?

She blew a long breath. She was no longer an inexperienced nineteen-year-old girl. She was thirty years of age, a widow, a woman who managed her own life. A woman who made her own choices. A woman who knew what she wanted.

And yet, when he had kissed her tonight, it was every bit as wonderful as it had been that first time. Even more perhaps, because she’d waited to be kissed like that again for eleven years. Her husband, dear man that he was, had never made her toes curl or her knees weak. No man ever had. Blasted, blasted man!

Once again, Grayson had appeared right when she intended to marry another man. Of course he hadn’t said he loved her, but any fool could see it was entirely possible. It was, well, bothersome. It brought back all sorts of feelings she much preferred not to have. And only added to her doubt.

She’d been entirely too busy organizing her Christmas farce to pay any attention to the doubt nagging at the back of her mind about Nikolai. But tonight, when he had been right on the verge of declaring himself, she wanted nothing more than to stop him.

For as long as she could remember, she’d wanted a prince with a kingdom and a castle. She’d wanted to be a princess. Nikolai was certainly handsome and dashing and charming and really, well, perfect. But while the girl she once was wanted a prince, the woman she was now was beginning to think perhaps one should look for more in the man one would spend the rest of one’s life with than the dreams spun from fairy stories. Besides, did one really want to spend the rest of one’s days with a man who smiled and nodded quite as much as he did?