Chapter 14 Sophia
Sophia
The air smells sharply of pine and frost.
We walk between rows of evergreens dusted in snow, each one perfect in its own way. Tall, symmetrical, reaching for the pale winter sky. The world feels quieter here, the kind of quiet that lives inside you, where everything that’s happened stops echoing for a while.
Yury keeps close but doesn’t touch me, his long strides easy beside mine. Every now and then, when I slip a little on the uneven ground, his hand finds my elbow, firm and steady, guiding me to balance. I can feel the heat of him even through the thick layer of my coat.
“I still can’t believe you actually came here,” I say, glancing sideways at him. His breath fogs in the cold.
“I keep my promises.” His tone is flat, but the corner of his mouth twitches, almost a smile. “You wanted a tree.” He hums low in his throat, scanning the rows ahead like he’s hunting something. “Let’s find you one worth starting a tradition with.”
We walk deeper into the farm. The owner, a wiry man in a thick flannel jacket, waves when he spots Yury. The respect is instant, instinctive. It’s strange watching that power ripple around him out here, where everything smells like sap and snow instead of gunfire and money.
“You terrify everyone,” I tease.
He looks down at me, one dark brow lifting. “Even you?”
“Maybe a little at first.” I tug at my mittens, pretending to study the trees. “But then I realized you don’t scare me. You make me aware of myself.”
He stops walking. The silence between us thickens until I can hear my own pulse.
“Explain that,” he says quietly.
I shrug, though my heart is racing. “When you look at me, I stop thinking about fear. I think about what I am. What I could be.”
His gaze sharpens, heavy and unreadable. Then he nods once, like he’s storing the words somewhere private. “Good.”
We keep moving. Snow falls from the higher branches in soft bursts, landing on my hair. I laugh, brushing it away, and he reaches over to dust a few flakes from my shoulder. His glove trails down my sleeve, his hand lingers near mine.
When our eyes meet, the warmth in his looks nothing like control.
“Too small,” he says abruptly, nodding at a tree beside us. “You deserve something bigger.”
I roll my eyes with a grin; the double entendre isn’t lost on me after last night and this morning.
We stop in front of a tall spruce, branches full and symmetrical, snow settled like lace along the needles. I touch the lowest branch, and it bounces gently under my fingers.
“This one,” I say.
He circles it once, studying it like it’s a deal he’s about to make. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
He gestures to the farmhand waiting a few paces away. “We’ll take it.”
The man nods quickly, then hurries off to fetch a saw. Yury watches him go, then looks back at me. “You’re smiling.”
“Because this feels…” I hesitate. “Normal. Like it’s exactly where I was always meant to be.”
He steps closer, his voice dropping. “You smile like that and it makes me feel things...”
Something flickers through me, not just warmth but pride. When I look up at him, I realize that being beside a man like Yury doesn’t make me smaller. It makes me feel bigger. More seen. More certain of myself.
He takes the saw from the returning farmhand and kneels, cutting through the trunk himself. Snow falls from the branches onto his shoulders, dusting his dark hair, and the sight of him like that, powerful, capable, doing something so ordinary, makes something twist deep inside me.
When he stands again, the tree balanced on his shoulder, I can’t help it. I laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Ridiculously efficient,” he corrects.
“Ridiculously…” I trail off, watching the muscles shift under his coat as he carries the tree. “Never mind.”
He catches the look, and his grin, faint but real, cuts through the cold. “Finish that thought, angelu.”
“Maybe later,” I say, and the flirty defiance in my voice surprises even me.
As we head back toward the car, the sun slips through the clouds in a pale gold wash. The light hits his profile, sharp in the shadows, and I can’t stop staring.
Last night, I was afraid that being with him would destroy me. But standing beside him now, surrounded by snow and pines and the sound of distant bells, I realize something else:
With him, I don’t feel broken or scared or worthless.
I feel powerful.
When we arrive back at his place, the house feels softer. He props the tree in a corner near the window, and stands back to inspect his work.
“It needs decorations,” I say, brushing snow from my gloves.
He nods toward a cabinet against the far wall. “Check in there. You’ll find things from previous years. Boxes. Ornaments.”
The cabinet creaks open, inside are mismatched pieces. Glass baubles, hand-painted angels, tinsel tangled like silver webs. I run my fingers through it all, half-laughing. “You keep everything.”
“I keep what’s worth keeping.”
When I glance back, he’s watching me, not the tree. There’s a warmth in his eyes that wasn’t there before, a kind of quiet amusement that softens the edges of his intensity. I pick up a delicate glass snowflake and hold it to the light. “This one’s perfect.”
He crosses the room, takes it from my hand, and hangs it high on a branch. “Then that’s where it belongs.”
His knuckles brush mine when he steps back, and a spark shoots through me, hot and immediate. I catch my breath before he notices. Or maybe he does, the corner of his mouth curves like he’s hiding something.
We work in silence for a while. Each time I reach up, his hand finds the small of my back to steady me. The touches are brief, practical, at least they should be, but every one leaves a trail of heat.
A knock sounds, and a moment later, Greta appears. She carries a tray with two mugs. “Hot chocolate,” she says. “And a bit of music, if you don’t mind.”
She sets the tray down and presses a button on the old stereo by the hearth. The first notes of a piano drift through the room, slow, tender, something from another decade.
“I’ll be leaving, now, Syn,” Greta says with a smile.
Yury nods, “Thank you, I’ll see you next week.”
I take a mug and blow on the surface. The steam curls up, rich and sweet. “Do you always get treated like royalty?”
He takes his cup, glancing at me over the rim. “Only Greta does. Our families have known each other forever, it seems.”
We sip in companionable quiet. Outside, snowflakes whirl against the window, catching the firelight. Inside, the tree begins to glow with gold lights wound between branches, red ribbons trailing like silk.
“It’s beautiful,” I say softly.
He sets his cup down and wraps his arms around me from behind. “You make everything beautiful,” he says against my ear.
I look up at him, and something in his face shifts, the control slipping for just a heartbeat.
His gaze drops to my mouth, to the scar there that seems to have captured his attention.
I lift onto my tip toes and kiss him softly.
It’s still new to me, intimacy of any kind, but I hope the kiss conveys my gratitude.
When I break the kiss and sink back onto my heels, he watches for a moment before turning his attention back to the tree, pretending to fix a ribbon.
I reach up to help, stretching beside him. Our shoulders brush. “You missed a spot,” I murmur, tying a bow near his hand.
“I was distracted.”
“By what?”
His eyes meet mine again, dark and steady. “You.”
The word settles between us like the quiet before snowfall, weightless, inevitable. I swallow, the air thick with everything we’re not saying.
The song changes to something softer, strings and piano weaving through the air. Yury steps back, studying the tree, then glances at me. “It’s done.”
“Not yet.” I find the final ornament, a small star, worn at the edges, and hold it out to him. “For the top.”
He takes it, his fingers brushing mine, then reaches up to place it carefully.
“Now it’s perfect,” he says.
I can’t tell if he means the tree or this moment. Maybe it’s both. At least that’s how it feels for me.
The room glows gold and red, our reflections flickering in the window.
I feel like a woman standing on the edge of something dangerous and beautiful. And I’m not sure I want to step back.