After the Christmas Party...

Jewel snorted. “You can talk big all you want, but when I look at you I see the truth.”

Scary thought, but somehow she believed Jewel really did see more when she looked than most people did. As if age had given her insight beyond the surface.

“What truth would that be?”

“That you’re a romantic through and through.”

Trinity made a face then put her hand across Jewel’s wrinkled forehead as if taking her skin temperature. “Uh-oh. I think we’d better call your doctor because you’re delirious.”

“And you, my dearie, aren’t fooling this old gal. You crave romance.”

Wondering at why she sounded as out of breath as her patient, Trinity shook her head. “Wrong. Pink hightops were my dream shoes, not glass slippers. I run from romance.”

Riley paused outside Jewel’s door, fascinated by the conversation he was overhearing. Perhaps he should feel guilty for eavesdropping, but he didn’t. He needed an edge with Trinity, something to push him in the right direction where she was concerned, because she confused him.

And frustrated him.

Since the night on the beach she’d gone right back behind her wall, and had also erected a barrier between them. A new barrier because he wasn’t convinced there had ever been a point where she hadn’t had a protective wall between them.

Except perhaps for a few moments there on the beach when she’d been touching his face. When she’d looked at him, touched him, she’d been unguarded.

He’d liked what he’d seen, what he’d felt. A lot.

He wanted that woman, that unguarded Trinity, all the time.

The one he knew was buried within her who claimed to not like Christmas, to not believe in the magic of the season. He wanted to see her laugh as she had in the surf, to let herself loose with him and just embrace life.

Not for her to beg every nurse on the schedule to let her work for them on Christmas Day so she could get out of spending the day with him.

That had almost had him losing his temper. Even now the idea that she’d do that got his hackles up. Then again, perhaps he couldn’t say a thing because he’d already ensured none of them would swap with her, and without bribery.

Just because Trinity claimed not to be a romantic, it didn’t mean the other nurses on the cardiac floor were immune to romance. When he’d told them he’d planned a Christmas surprise for Trinity, they’d all oohed and ahhed. Yeah, the other cardiac nurses were as much suckers for romance as…as he was.

Because he wanted to give Trinity romance and lots of it. He wanted to show her what Christmas was all about.

“Why on earth would you run from romance? Especially in a pair of pink hightops?” Jewel sounded as confused by Trinity’s claim as Riley himself was.

“Because romance is all about building up expectations and making promises that won’t come true, not in the real world, so of course I run.”

That’s exactly how she described Christmas.

“Honey, like I said before—” Riley could just see Jewel’s head bobbing back and forth “—you’ve been hanging out with the wrong Prince Charming.”

Riley frowned.

She’d been hanging out with him.

Was he the wrong Prince Charming for Trinity?

For that matter, did he even want to be a Prince Charming? It wasn’t a role he’d ever envisioned for himself. He worked long hours, was dedicated to his career and would never want to do to a wife and family what his father had.

He wasn’t looking for happily-ever-after, but there was something about filling Trinity’s world with goodness and dreams come true that made him long for the ability to wave a magic wand and give her the world, to slip that glass slipper on her foot and be her Prince Charming.

“I like the man I’ve been hanging with. He’s a great guy.”

Riley’s chest puffed out a bit at her admission. Oh, yeah. That was him she was talking about. She liked him and thought he was a great guy.

“If he’s such a great guy, where’s the glass slippers on your feet and the dreamy look in your eyes?”