The moment the conference room doors closed behind them, the noise faded to something bearable. Not silence — the reporters were still out there, and Alicia could hear the muffled sound of questions continuing through the walls — but enough quiet that she could finally hear herself think.
Unfortunately, thinking was the problem.
She walked beside Alexander down the private corridor, her heels quiet against the floor, her jaw set. She was very deliberately not thinking about the kiss. She was thinking about the announcement, the cameras, the way three hundred flashbulbs had gone off at once. She was thinking about all of that.
She was not thinking about the kiss.
Alexander walked with his hands in his pockets, perfectly composed, exactly as he had looked before the conference and during
