Chapter Nine Cole
S o that’s it?” Sloane asks, her finger tracing the rim of her glass. “We leave for New York in the morning?”
We’re still in the bar, the contract signed and tucked away. She’s relaxed now, the wariness from earlier softened by good drinks and the satisfaction of negotiation well done. But there’s something wistful in her voice that catches my attention.
“Disappointed?”
“It seems silly,” she admits. “Coming all the way to Switzerland just to leave without seeing any of it. Though I suppose that’s not very professional of me to say.”
I study her in the low light. The white dress makes her look like winter itself, her fiery red hair a stark contrast against the pale fabric, but her eyes give away a spark of adventure beneath all that careful composure.
“Put on your coat,” I say, standing.
She blinks. “What?”
“Your coat. Though you’ll need something warmer for where we’re going.”
Her eyes narrow with suspicion. “Cole...”
I guide her to the hotel entrance where Knox waits with a sable fur coat. Of course I’d planned for this. I’d known the moment she accepted the invitation that I’d want to show her Switzerland properly.
“Oh,” she breathes as I help her into it. The dark fur sets off her skin perfectly, just as I’d known it would.
A sleigh waits outside. An actual horse-drawn sleigh, because if you’re going to do something, you do it right. Sloane stops dead at the sight of it.
“You’re insane,” she says, but she’s fighting a smile.
“So I’ve been told.” I offer my hand. “Coming?”
She hesitates longer this time, something cautious flickering across her face. “This feels... not like business anymore.”
“Just an hour or two,” I say, keeping my voice neutral. “Then back to contracts and deadlines tomorrow.”
She studies me for a moment, clearly weighing professional boundaries against the lure of adventure.
She hesitates only a moment before taking it. Her fingers are warm despite the cold, fitting perfectly into mine. I help her into the sleigh, where white, fur blankets already await us. The driver, carefully vetted and briefed hours ago, clicks to the horses.
“Let me guess,” she says as we start moving. “You have the entire route planned down to the minute.”
“Give me some credit, Sloane.” I pause for dramatic effect. “Down to the second.”
She laughs. “And if I wanted to go off-route?”
“Chaos. Devastation. The complete collapse of Western civilization.”
“You really don’t handle unpredictability well, do you?” she asks, a teasing note in her voice.
“I prefer the term structured ,” I correct her.
“In other words, you need to control everything.”
I glance at her, surprised by the astuteness of her observation. “Not everything.”
“Just most things,” she says, but she’s smiling. “Seems reasonable.” She tucks the blanket closer. “Good thing I like your route then.”
The sleigh follows a path through snow-laden pines. Fresh powder crunches beneath the runners, and the horses’ breath circles in white plumes against the dark. The mountains tower over us, tall and silent.
“This is...” She shakes her head, at a loss for words.
“Better than a conference room?”
She laughs again, the sound clear in the crisp air. “Slightly.”
The sleigh winds through the sleeping village. Right on schedule, we pull up to a small café. The owner emerges immediately, carrying a silver tray.
“Hot chocolate?” I offer as she approaches with two steaming cups.
“You don’t strike me as a hot chocolate kind of man.”
“I’m full of surprises. Though if you tell anyone, I’ll deny everything.”
She grins. “Then I might need photographic evidence. For leverage.”
The chocolate is rich and dark, served in elegant silver-trimmed cups, along with traditional Swiss pastries—buttery Spitzbuebe with jam centers and delicate Zimtsterne dusted with powdered sugar.
The café owner beams with pride as she explains these are her grandmother’s recipes, passed down for generations.
Because once again, some things are worth doing properly.
We stay nestled under the blankets, the warmth of the drinks mixing with the bite from the mountain air.
She takes a slow sip, closing her eyes briefly. When she opens them, she catches me watching her. “What?” she asks.
“Just curious if it meets your standards.”
“I don’t have hot chocolate standards,” she says, but there’s something guarded in her expression. A memory, perhaps, but not one she’s sharing.
“Everyone has standards,” I reply. “Even for the small things. Especially for the small things.”
Her eyes narrow slightly, studying me. “You know, you’re surprisingly difficult to read.”
“I could say the same about you.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Me? I’m an open book.”
“With half the pages torn out,” I counter, and she laughs, though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
We sit in comfortable silence for a moment, the horses’ breath creating clouds in the cold air.
“You don’t talk about yourself much,” she observes finally.
“There isn’t much to say.”
She looks away, taking another sip. “There’s always a story to tell.
” Her gloved hand wraps tighter around her silver cup, and she glances at the café’s warm interior, then back to where we sit in the sleigh.
“The owner probably thought you were crazy, insisting we stay out here in the cold to drink this. But that’s the point, isn’t it?
Hot chocolate doesn’t taste the same indoors. ”
Something flickers across her face, and I wonder what memory I’ve accidentally unearthed. She doesn’t share, and I don’t ask.
“You planned this,” she adds after a moment, her voice gentle but not pitying. Her eyes are bright with something more than just pleasure now.
“I plan everything.”
“Everything?” She takes a sip of chocolate, leaving a tiny smudge on her upper lip. Without thinking, I reach out to brush it away. Her breath catches at the touch, and she pulls back slightly, a flush spreading across her cheeks that can’t be blamed on the winter air.
“Sorry,” I say, not feeling sorry at all.
“We should probably maintain some boundaries,” she says quietly, though her eyes linger on my lips a second too long. “I’m going to be working for you, after all.”
“With me,” I correct. “Not for me.”
“Still.” She takes a deliberate breath and straightens her shoulders. “I want this opportunity to be about my work, not... this.”
I nod, forcing myself to lean back.
We fall into an easy conversation as the sleigh carries us through the night.
She tells me about growing up in Montauk, about summer jobs at the marina where she learned to curse like a sailor.
I share stories about my early days in Manhattan, sleeping on friends’ couches while trying to land my first investors.
“Did it work?” she asks.
“Eventually. Though I had to wear the same suit to every meeting. It was three sizes too big. The shoulders were stuffed with newspaper.”
“No.”
“Yes. The trick was not raising my arms. Ever.”
She laughs. “And now look at you. King of Manhattan in designer suits.”
“I do own more than one now.”
“I never would have guessed.”
The sleigh carries us past ice-glazed waterfalls and through forests where snow weighs down the branches. She tells me about her first apartment in New York—a sixth-floor walk-up with a radiator that spoke in Morse code.
“It was trying to tell me something important, I’m sure of it,” she insists.
“Probably ‘Pay more rent.’”
“More likely ‘Your neighbor is definitely running a cult.’” She shakes her head. “There were a lot of people in robes.”
“And here I thought my first place in Brooklyn was bad. At least my neighbors stuck to normal illegal activities.”
“Like what?”
“Pretty sure they were running an underground poker ring. Badly, I might add. I learned everything not to do by listening through the walls.”
She laughs. “Is that where you developed your poker face?”
“That implies I gamble.”
“Please. Everything about you screams ‘calculated risk.’”
“What about you?” I ask. “You don’t strike me as someone who particularly likes structure.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”
“Your designs. They’re controlled chaos. Beautiful, but unpredictable. Unfinished. You move on to the next design without completing the one before that.”
“Is that going to be a problem?” There’s a hint of challenge in her voice now.
“Not a problem per se,” I say carefully. “Just... different from how I work. Although I do value deadlines.”
“Maybe that’s why you need me,” she says with surprising confidence. “To shake things up a bit. And I’ve never missed a deadline, regardless of if I’m a hot mess getting there. The orderly way is not always the best way.”
The idea of this woman and how she works both intrigues and unsettles me. I’m not used to being read so easily. Nor am I used to the suggestion that my way might not be the only way.
We stop at a viewpoint high above the valley. Below us, the village sits quietly between the mountains, untouched beneath the fresh snow. Sloane leans forward to take in the view, and I find myself watching her instead of the scenery.
This isn’t part of the plan.
She turns to look at me, her cheeks flushed from the cold.
A snowflake lands on her lip, and for a moment I can’t look away.
She doesn’t brush it off. Just watches me watching her, her breath coming faster now.
The space between us seems to shrink, charged with something that has nothing to do with contracts or business arrangements.
I lean forward, drawn by the warmth of her, the way her eyes darken as I move closer. She tilts her head slightly, and I can feel her breath against my skin. One more inch and—
She places a hand against my chest, stopping me. “We shouldn’t,” she whispers, though her eyes say something different. “I need this to be... professional.”
I can feel her pulse racing beneath my fingers where they rest against her wrist. For once in my life, I’m not sure what to say.
“I have to focus on the opportunity,” she continues. “I can’t risk complicating things.”
The rejection stings more than it should. I’m not used to being denied anything I want, and I want her more than I’ve wanted anything in a long time.
I catch myself, gripping the edge of the sleigh. This isn’t how this is supposed to go. Not yet. Not here.
I can’t risk scaring her away.
“You’re right. We should head back,” I say, my voice rough. I have to clear my throat before adding, “Early flight tomorrow.”
She nods but holds my gaze for a moment longer. “This doesn’t mean I’m not... I just need to be smart about this. About this entire situation. Whatever this is.”
“Of course,” I say, keeping my voice neutral though my mind is already spinning, recalculating. I’ve never been good at accepting ‘no’ for an answer.
The wind carries the scent of pine and snow, and somewhere in the distance, a church bell tolls midnight.
Tomorrow we’ll return to Manhattan, to cameras and contracts and complications.
But tonight I’ve glimpsed something in Sloane Whitmore I didn’t expect—a woman who values her work above all else, who sets boundaries even when it costs her.
Someone who won’t be easily figured out or controlled.
The realization doesn’t disappoint me. Instead, I find myself more intrigued than ever.