Christmas With Her Ex Read Online Free

wouldn’t go away now that it had surfaced. It was all so confusing when Connor had been so good to her.
    He’d secured rooms for them near his new university, the registry office was booked, and he’d bought her a short white dress for her to wear on the train when she travelled to meet him. He’d admonished her not to daydream and miss the train. Not to lose the ticket. As if by mentioning it he could influence the vagrancies of fate.
    She thought about that. And then the doubts crept injust as the hands of the little watch Connor had bought her crept closer to the time they would meet.
    She loved Connor. Could see the goodness in him. How much he cared about her. But was she ready to tie herself to another man who would run her life for her so completely? Was she always going to make Connor sigh when she needed rescuing?
    Was that what she wanted?
    If she was having these thoughts, was it fair to rush into this and maybe one day do what her mother had done and abandon ship?
    Of course she didn’t want that but she knew if she tried to explain some of these thoughts to Connor, he’d brush them away as nerves.
    But the seeds of doubt grew into full-grown wisdom trees on the train as she twisted the hem of the white dress between her fingers and watched the stations flash by.
    Until, finally arriving, Kelsie hung back.
    She loved him. The man was a serious hero. Too much of one to spoil his chance of the career he was destined for by dragging him back by her doubts. Or expect him to marry her just because he’d proposed in an impulsive moment. So she sent a note saying she was safe but she wasn’t coming.
    They were both too young and she wasn’t able to contemplate being a burden on him. Plus there was the matter of her threatened independence. He deserved so much more but she hadn’t been brave enough to tell him.
    She had already seen herself frustrate him when shelost things, seen his doubts after he’d impulsively proposed, knew how much easier it would be for him to realise his dreams of becoming a doctor unencumbered by a young, unskilled bride.
    The next day, after a lonely night in a sleazy motel she ran to her only other relative, her mother’s much older unmarried sister, a midwife in Sydney, and that’s when her life really began to change.
    She’d come a long way since then. A long way.
    All the way to Venice.
    Kelsie blinked at the reflection in the window—the face staring back at her wasn’t hers. A woman, eyebrows raised in disapproval at her invasion of privacy, stared back haughtily and Kelsie blinked. Wake up.
    Her cheeks heated as she walked away. She’d been staring into the past—not the window. If she didn’t watch out she’d spoil her once-in-a-lifetime trip worrying about a man who had every right to hate her.
    Because maybe she should have waited to find out if Connor had agreed with her reasons. Talked about it with him. But by then it had been too late, and she’d lost touch and the confidence that he would forgive her.
    And her career had taken off until the serene, confident maternity unit manager she’d become barely resembled the young girl who’d run away instead of getting married. Except for the occasional misplaced item when she was tired.
    Kelsie strode purposefully up to the immaculately presented, blue-suited guard, his quaint round porter’s hat stiff with its gold-trimmed peak, the whole confectionjammed importantly on his head. She presented her ticket as he held out his white-gloved hand.
    ‘Welcome to the Orient Express, madam.’ He bowed, took her satchel, assisted her up the steps like precious cargo, and once she was safely aboard gestured for her to follow him up the narrow wood-panelled corridor.
    Finally aboard the Orient Express, she could feel a smile plastered on her face.
    ‘Come this way, please.’
    The air inside swirled pleasantly cool around her still-hot cheeks and hinted of different perfumes and metal polish and cedar oil and old wood.