Chapter Sixteen
Nate
A mistake?
Her words cracked the quiet of the kitchen and hung there, suspended between us like frost in the air. I’d heard boardroom insults delivered with more mercy.
For half a breath, I just stood there—spatula in hand, bacon hissing behind me, the smell of coffee suddenly too warm, too intimate. My body remembered what to do before my brain did: lock down, contain, retreat.
I’d learned long ago how to pull out of any situation before it got messy. You nod, you say, Understood, and you walk away like it never happened.
But the words wouldn’t come. She looked too fragile, too human, standing there in her sweater with her hair still damp from the shower and her eyes shuttered tight.
“Jo,” I said softly, saying her name in place of a question I didn’t know how to ask.
She didn’t answer. Her gaze was somewhere past me, fixed on nothing.
I took a step toward her before I could stop myself, hand halfway outstretched. She flinched—not a big movement, but enough to make my stomach twist.
“I didn’t . . .” The words snagged on my tongue. I didn’t force you wanted to follow, but the moment I thought them, I felt sick. That wasn’t the point. That wasn’t what she needed to hear.
I scrubbed a hand over the back of my neck and found my voice again. “You said you weren’t in a good place. I should’ve listened.”
Still nothing. Just her silence, heavy and deliberate.
The urge to defend myself—to fix this, to make it neat and explainable—burned like a reflex. But under it was something I didn’t recognize. Something that felt a lot like shame.
“Being here with you . . . and together on the sleigh,” I said finally. “I got lost in how good that felt.” The admission was painful.
She didn’t look at me, but the smallest tremor crossed her throat, like she was swallowing words she didn’t trust herself to say. Finally, she said, “I need you to go. I don’t want this.”
Every word was a sucker punch to my soul. I waited for her to tell me why, give me some hint of how I could fix this, but she just wrapped her arms around herself protectively.
“I’ll go,” I said quietly. “If that’s what you want.”
When she nodded, I stepped back, turned off the stove, slid the pan aside, and paused. “You don’t have to leave. I’m not planning to keep this place, but I can hold on to it long enough for you to . . .”
“Thank you,” she said in a brittle voice.
Where was the woman who’d laughed with me? Reached for me?
I couldn’t leave without offering. “Is there anything you need?”
Without meeting my gaze, she said, “Just for you to leave.”
“Fine,” I muttered as I turned on my heel and forced myself to put distance between us. Did I need a woman with a potentially shady background and the emotional availability of a porcupine? No.
Jacket. Wallet. Keys. Luggage. I gathered my things like a man cleaning up a crime scene. If she wanted me gone with zero expectations and the understanding that what we’d shared meant nothing, I could do that. Been there, done that.
When I reached the doorway, I waited for her to appear and say something. Anything. But she didn’t.
“Jo,” I whispered to no one. “I’m sorry.”
The door clicked shut behind me, and the sound lodged somewhere deep in my chest.
Outside, the air was a different kind of cold—the kind that cleared your head. Frost had crept across the windshield of my Zagato overnight in a beautiful, cruel pattern.
I sat behind the wheel but didn’t start the engine. The quiet pressed in from every side, thick and accusing.
Last night she’d looked at me like we were becoming something to each other.
This morning she couldn’t look at me at all.
I rested my hands on the steering wheel and stared down at them. The same hands that had held her, touched her, coaxed pleasure from her like a promise. Nothing we’d done had felt wrong.
But right now none of it felt right. Had I mistaken vulnerability for invitation, comfort for consent? I couldn’t stop replaying every moment—every time she’d hesitated. What had I missed?
I started the engine and the heat kicked on.
I should have left right then, putting miles between us and calling her dismissal a gift. What man doesn’t want a no-strings fuck?
But I sat there like a complete ass, wanting to go back inside so badly I ached. Wanting to tell her we could work whatever was wrong out. That I could do better—be better. If she wanted magic, I could fill her world with it.
How fucking pathetic is that?
I pulled away.
The gravel spat from under the tires like an accusation. Before leaving the house behind, I took one last look at the expanse of trees. The sun had climbed just enough to make the world look exposed.
The snow-covered paths that had glowed blue last night were slightly dirty with slush at the edges. The trees no longer sparkled. They were simple pines, draped with visible strings of lights and long electrical cords running to power sources.
Silas had created a fantasy that didn’t hold up to the light of day.
I told myself I preferred this: brutal honesty.
Jo had done me a favor. I’d let the location and all these props confuse me. Pulling away, I let out a jaded laugh. You almost had me believing in you and this place, Silas.
Almost.