Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Istood in the middle of my tiny hotel room, suitcase open on the bed, and felt something I hadn’t felt in a while.
Dread. Not the sharp, anxious dread of losing a case or disappointing a client.
This was slower, heavier. It settled low in my chest as I folded clothes with hands that weren’t as steady as I wanted them to be.
Three weeks’ worth of laundry. Three weeks’ worth of memories. Three weeks that were never meant to happen in the first place.
A scarf Brianna had teased me about slipping into my bag. A pine-needle I’d brushed off my coat after walking her home in the snow. The photo she insisted we take on the merry-go-round, her smile bright, mine soft, both of us pretending we didn’t already know what was coming.
I closed the suitcase. The click of the latch echoed too loudly in the small room.
Mrs. Fraser had left a tin of shortbread on the dresser with a note in looping handwriting: For the road, lad. And look after our Brianna.
Our Brianna. The words hit harder than they should have.
I sat on the edge of the bed, elbows braced on my knees and dragged a hand through my hair.
The window rattled slightly as wind swept snow across the panes.
Pine Hollow below was glowing its usual colours.
Strings of lights glittering against the night, chimneys puffing out lazy clouds, the square quiet except for the occasional crunch of boots in fresh snow.
I had never experienced a place like this.
Never slowed down enough to feel the difference between living and rushing.
But the truth was simple. Leaving felt wrong.
Necessary, but wrong. I zipped the suitcase, grabbed my coat, and took one last glance around the room.
The old wallpaper. The crooked lamp. The bed that groaned louder than the floorboards.
I’d expected to forget this room the second I walked out. Instead, it already felt like a chapter I didn’t want to close. The rental car keys were icy cold in my palm as I made my way down the narrow staircase. Mrs. Fraser pressed a mittened hand to my arm on the way out.
“Break her heart, and we’ll all come after ye,” she said softly.
My throat tightened. “I’m trying to protect her. That’s why I have to go.”
“Aye,” she murmured. “But dinnae stay away too long.”
The wind bit into my cheeks as I stepped outside, suitcase thunking against packed snow. The rental car sat waiting, a thin sheet of frost catching the lamplight. I loaded the bag into the boot, exhaled, and leaned against the door for a moment.
Brianna’s face flickered through my mind, the sadness behind her smile, the fear she tried to hide, the way her hands had trembled when she hugged me in the bakery earlier.
I couldn’t end tonight like that. I wouldn’t. I climbed into the car, turned the ignition, and drove straight to her flat.
Snow fell in steady flakes as I stood with Brianna in the square the next morning.
Her breath clouded in front of her; her cheeks were pink from the cold and maybe from crying.
My own eyes burned, despite every attempt to school my expression into calmness.
My coat was already dusted with snow, and my flight would leave in a few hours.
But I couldn’t seem to let go of her hands.
“Oliver…” Her voice wavered. “Text me when you land, okay?”
“Of course I will, even before that.” My voice was barely more than a rasp.
A few locals were milling about the square. Mrs. Douglas with her tartan scarf, Mr. McAvoy loading firewood into the back of his truck, Ivy pretending not to stare from across the street. Even the knitting club were pretending to look elsewhere.
They all saw us. And I didn’t care.
I cupped Brianna’s face between my hands, leaning down until our foreheads touched. Her eyelashes were wet. Her breath shook. Snowflakes melted against her cheeks.
“I wish I didn’t have to go,” I whispered.
She swallowed. Hard. “I wish you didn’t.”
God, how I wanted to stay. How easy it would be to abandon everything else and just remain here, in this quiet, snow-frosted world where she smiled at me like I mattered.
But I couldn’t fix anything from here. Couldn’t protect her bakery.
Couldn’t stand up to my uncle. Couldn’t honour my grandfather’s legacy. Not unless I went back.
My thumb brushed away a tear that slid down her cheek.
“I’ll be back,” I said, voice breaking. “As soon as I can. And when I do, things will be different. I swear it.”
She nodded, but tears kept slipping free.
“I’m going to miss you,” she whispered.
The words punched the air out of my lungs. I kissed her. Not softly. Not politely. But desperately, like I had hours instead of seconds, like the memory of her lips needed to last me through every mile between here and London. When I pulled back, she caught my coat in both hands.
“One more,” she breathed.
I kissed her again. Gentler. Slower this time. A promise held between two mouths too afraid to say the word love yet. I pressed one last kiss to the corner of Brianna’s mouth, memorising her breath, her heartbeat against mine, the way she whispered my name like it hurt.
Then, with a kind of pain I’d never known before, I stepped back. She stood there in the falling snow, arms wrapped around herself, looking smaller than I’d ever seen her.
I forced myself into the car, fingers trembling as I shut the door. Then I looked back at her one last time.
Her. The bakery. The square. The town that somehow felt more like home than London ever had. My heart thundered in my chest as I pulled away.
Three days. This trip was meant to last three days. Instead, Pine Hollow had given me nearly three weeks. Three weeks that had undone me. Three weeks that had shown me a woman I wanted more than my old life. Three weeks that had shown me what I’d been missing.
And as Brianna disappeared in the rear-view mirror, I knew one thing with absolute certainty. I was coming back. No matter what it took.