chapter 2
[Angelica]
The truth about Jude Ashford is that I knew him in a previous life where scholarship kids got free rides to private high schools.
I was the scholarship kid. And Jude was that guy.
The one too slick for high school hallways; too smooth for classrooms. And the one driving a fancy sports car at sixteen.
He wasn’t just part of the upper crust; he was the decoration on the top layer of icing. Like the bride and groom on a wedding cake, only Jude stood alone, apart from the rest.
Oh, he had friends. Followers more like it.
He was mean and cruel and defined the slur dick.
But there was also something about his aloofness that always seemed lonely to me. Like he wasn’t set apart from the crowd as much as playing a role to disappear within the populars. Like he was an outlier and a leader when he might not have wanted to be either.
His family was picture perfect. Just check out his mom’s Instagram from back then.
She had been a major influencer promoting lifestyle perfection with so-called candid images of their family and their magazine-worthy home.
Personally, I always thought their smiles looked a little forced.
Especially Jude’s, where dullness lingered in his icy eyes.
Our history—his and mine—is the excuse I tell myself to check on the patient I’d brought to the ER yesterday morning. Not that Jude and I have any history, per se. We went to the same high school, and that’s the closest proximity we’ve ever shared.
I shouldn’t be here. I don’t have any business checking up on someone. Get in, do my job, and move on. There were always more casualties and tragedies. Jude Ashford should have been no different than any other emergency call.
Still, I wander through the telemetry unit seeking Jude’s private room. The hospital kept him overnight for observation.
The panic attack I’d misdiagnosed turned out to be stress cardiomyopathy.
Broken heart syndrome.
The condition happens when the heart muscles weaken as a result of rapid and sudden surges of adrenaline, often caused by the onset of a stressful event. However, up to thirty percent of people who experience this condition have no triggers prior to the instant symptoms.
Not surprisingly, this condition happens more often in women.
Why Jude flatlined is beyond me and my medical training level. Checking on him is above my pay grade, yet here I am opening the door to his private hospital room because something in his voice yesterday spoke to me when he told me he had no one.
Invisible string theory perhaps. Or maybe just a thread of holiday good intention.
“Knock, knock,” I cheerfully call out.
“What now?” he grumbles, tossing his head back on the pillow against the elevated back of the hospital bed. He’s glaring at the ceiling like it offends him. Even with severe bed-head and pale skin, Jude is stunning.
“Hi.” I swallow around the croak in my throat, although I don’t know why my throat is thick.
I’m no longer that average girl, hanging out with the STEM kids and winning Science Olympiad tournaments, while guys like Jude rule football fields and celebrate weekend conquests.
I’m a successful, confident woman, and I hold my head a little higher as I approach the side of his bed.
“I just wanted to see how you were feeling.”
His head swivels in my direction, mouth popping open like he’s ready to bite my head off. But his lips instantly clamp shut as he uses his fists to push himself more upright on the raised bed.
“Hey.” His voice is tight, straining to hold back that original gruffness I suspect lies against his tongue right now. He swipes a hand over his hair, eyes wide as he looks at me.
Then those icy orbs narrow, and his expression turns sour. “What do you want?”
I could be offended by the abrupt change in his tone, the sharp edge to his words, but being that this is the most wonderful time of the year, I paste on a cheerful smile and lift my hand.
“I brought you something.” Stepping even closer to the bed, I hold out the white bakery bag.
Jude cautiously takes the bag from me and peers inside before glancing up at me again. “You brought me candy?”
“Not candy,” I mock, leaning my hip against the railing raised to prevent patients from falling out of bed. “Angelica’s chocolate mints.”
“Who?” He arches a perfectly-shaped brow. Men shouldn’t have eyebrows that immaculate.
“Me.” I point to my chest. “Angelica.” Then I hold out my hand. “Angelica Winter.”
I look a bit different than I did in high school, so Jude not recognizing me isn’t a surprise.
He scoffs, ignores my hand, and glances back in the bag. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you, you can’t give sweets to a heart attack victim?”
“You didn’t have a heart attack,” I remind him. “And a single chocolate truffle isn’t going to hurt you.” The perfect combination of dark chocolate and mint flavor might even refresh his stinky attitude.
He harumphs again and crumples the top of the delicate bag to close it before lowering the sack beside him.
“Should I know you?” he questions, staring at me a long minute, taking in the wild, curly red hair my family likes to compare to a lion’s mane, although it’s currently in a thick braid.
He can’t miss the smattering of freckles over my nose and cheeks, giving away my Irish heritage.
But he fixates on my eyes, the ones that are blue like my grandmother’s.
I shrug. “Well, I did save your life yesterday.”
At that, his eyes open wider, darkening a bit from icicles to something warmer. His hand fists beside his hip.
“That was . . .” He licks his lips, pausing for a breath while he continues to stare at me. “Thank you.”
Not a drop of sincerity mingles in his spoken gratitude.
He’d mentioned yesterday I shouldn’t have done something, and a teeny-tiny niggle inside me worries he wishes I hadn’t saved him.
The holidays can be the most depressing time of the year for some.
Suicide rates run high, but they are actually higher in late spring and early summer compared to the cold, bleak winter months, which are facts I’d rather not think about during any season.
Keeping a smile plastered on my face, I offer Jude all the compassion I can muster.
“Just doing my job,” I remark, like I’m unworthy of his thanks while knowing I’m a daily superhero.
Jude snorts, proving he’s mastered a variety of dismissive sounds. “Thank you for doing your job.” Again, a derisive twist in his tone. “I’m happy to give you any item you’d wish from my department store to express my gratitude for your service.”
He still doesn’t sound very appreciative nor overly willing to depart with something from his store—Ashford’s, the dreamy, shopping experience.
Plus, there isn’t anything material I’d want from this man, anyway, especially with his attitude.
Still, I can’t seem to help myself and counter his unwitting offer with my own snark. “You don’t happen to sell dates, do ya?”
“We aren’t that kind of establishment.” He smirks, narrowing those icicle eyes once more, but the corner of his mouth ticks. Twitches more like. Like he might have found something humorous in my retort.
The other thing about that smirk—a tiny dimple pops on his barely-stubbled face, like a punctuation symbol. A single quotation mark near his lip, or an apostrophe on his attempt to smile.
I chuff, the sound light and bright, knowing, of course, he didn’t sell dates at his fancy store.
“Anyway . . .” I wave my hand in the air, but Jude catches my wrist, holding it with tender strength in his chilled hand.
That cool sensation that seeped through my glove-covered hand yesterday intensifies with our skin-to-skin contact.
His touch feels like the explosion of ice crystals against glass, beautiful while potentially dangerous.
The effect should be chilly, but it’s more like a white-hot heat, tickling my flesh, melting me.
Whoa.
Those eyes of his narrow once more as he scans over my face. “You were serious, weren’t you?”
I mean, I was kind of serious. Not that I want a date with him, but I could still use a date for my brother’s spontaneous wedding.
The engagement he sprung on the family during Thanksgiving dinner.
The way he announced the wedding would take place on December twenty-third. The day before the holiday.
“Christmas Eve Eve,” his sweet but silly girlfriend, er, fiancée, added with a childlike giggle because she’s all of twenty-three compared to my younger brother’s thirty-five years of age.
“It’s the night we met,” Beau simpered, staring at his pretty little bride-to-be with heart emojis in his eyes.
Then they proceeded to make out at the dinner table like porn stars warming up for the first act in a film.
Not that I have any experience with watching porn, but . . . Aunt Gertie took out her phone for a picture while Gran covered the eyes of my youngest nephew sitting beside her. My sister, Christmas, clapped her hands, like a movie clapboard, to break up the scene.
“It’s nothing.” I shake my head, not willing to discuss my non-existent love life with a man who wouldn’t understand lack or love.
He could have almost any girl he wanted twenty-years ago, and according to local tabloids, he still does.
Case in point, the woman in his office yesterday.
He is not a man who struggles to find company.
Tugging at my wrist, Jude only tightens his grip. His larger hand is cool against my suddenly too-hot skin.
“Wait—” He counters the force of my leaning away by pulling me forward, only the door to his room opens at the same time.
I turn my head like the guilty party in a tryst, and Jude drops my wrist as a beautiful raven-haired woman in a hip-hugging skirt and cute little blazer enters the room. The same woman who’d been standing beside Jude’s desk, looking not-so-innocent in relation to Jude’s condition yesterday.
“Oh, Jude,” she cries, rushing to the opposite side of his bed and leaning over him. Gripping his shoulders, she lowers over him in an awkward attempt to hug him.
Jude doesn’t raise his arms.
Instead, he watches me, those icy eyes suddenly wild, shifting side to side like he’s been caught in a compromising position. Almost like he isn’t comfortable being hugged.
Strange.
Still, I’m the odd woman out in this reunion. Taking a giant step back from the bed, I mutter, “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
Our eyes are locked on one another’s as the dark brunette slowly pulls away from Jude, glancing at me like she didn’t even notice I was standing here upon her entrance.
With another forced smile, I shake my head, ridding it of images of what she might have been doing with Jude yesterday when his heart broke.
Doesn’t matter.
In no time at all, this man will be up and at it with her again. His heart fully restored, whatever size a grinchy man’s heart is.
On that note, I see myself out.