Chapter 6 #2
In the guest bedroom, the fire crackled low, the scent of pinewood and cinnamon thick in the air. Riley sat cross-legged on the rug, one hand loosely clutching a mug of mulled wine, the other fanning at her face because, god, the fire was hot, and maybe she was tipsy. Just a little.
Elizabeth sat across from her, bourbon in hand, legs stretched out toward the hearth, her silk pajama shirt slightly rumpled.
The flames cast golden light along her collarbones, her cheekbones, the line of her jaw.
Her expression was relaxed in a way Riley had never seen before, unguarded. Almost soft.
It was disarming as hell.
“Okay,” Riley said, waving her mug like a baton, “your family’s scary, but the hot chocolate is genuinely the best I’ve ever had. Five stars. Michelin-level cocoa.”
Elizabeth arched a brow. “I’ll pass that along to Maribel.”
Riley snorted. “She’s a culinary artist. And I’d kill for that cider recipe.”
“Good to know,” Elizabeth murmured. “I’ll have her put it in your severance package.”
Riley narrowed her eyes, then laughed too loudly. “Oh my god. That was a joke. You’re joking. Did you just flirt with me or threaten to fire me? Or both?”
Elizabeth took a slow sip of her bourbon. “If you can’t tell, I’m doing something right.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, but it did thicken, something heavy threading through the warmth of the fire and the hum of alcohol in Riley’s bloodstream.
She should’ve stood up. Said goodnight. Climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling until morning like she always did. Instead, she took another long gulp of her wine and stayed exactly where she was.
Elizabeth didn’t move either.
Their knees bumped. Neither of them adjusted.
The conversation drifted, as conversations do, from weather to movies to books Riley hadn’t finished and Elizabeth had read in Latin. Somehow, without warning, it got personal.
“I wasn’t supposed to be here,” Riley said suddenly, staring into her mug like it had answers.
“I mean, not just this week. This whole thing. This life. I was supposed to still be waitressing at the diner in Rhode Island, or maybe selling handmade soaps on Etsy. Not pretending to be someone’s girlfriend at a Christmas palace. ”
Elizabeth blinked at her, then slowly set down her bourbon. “And yet here you are.”
“Yeah. Here I am,” Riley said with a humorless laugh. “Living in a guest room that’s bigger than my first apartment. Wearing pajamas I couldn’t afford even if I sold my kidneys.”
“You’re not wearing pajamas. You’re wearing my robe.”
“Exactly.”
Elizabeth looked at her for a moment, long enough that Riley started to fidget.
“I don’t think it’s luck,” Elizabeth said at last, “That you’re here.”
Riley laughed again, more bitter this time. “It’s a little luck. And desperation. And good hair.”
“You’re sharp, and loyal, and smarter than half the people at my firm.”
“Okay, now I know you’re drunk.”
Elizabeth didn’t smile. “I’m not drunk. And I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
That shut Riley up. Her heart skittered in her chest like it was trying to escape. She stared at the fire, but the warmth didn’t reach the ache in her ribs.
“Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll blink and this will all disappear,” she said after a while. “Like I’ll get replaced by someone newer, shinier. Someone who wears the right shoes and doesn’t say dumb shit in front of billionaires.”
She hadn’t meant to say that. Definitely hadn’t meant to say that to Elizabeth. But it was too late now, the wine had loosened something in her chest, and the words tumbled out too fast to catch.
Elizabeth didn’t answer right away. The fire popped. Outside, the wind howled faintly against the glass.
Then, softly, she said, “You’re not replaceable, Riley.”
The words hit like a brick—quiet, solid, irrevocable.
Riley looked up. Elizabeth was watching her, face unreadable but eyes sharp with something that made Riley’s throat tighten.
“Not to me,” Elizabeth added, and that broke something open.
Riley felt suddenly, terribly naked. Not in the literal sense, though her borrowed robe had slipped off one shoulder, and she was definitely not wearing much under it except cotton sleep shorts and a cami, but emotionally, she felt peeled back. Seen. Too seen.
“Okay,” Riley said, voice cracking like glass. “That’s… not fair.”
“What’s not?”
“You can’t say things like that. Not when this is pretend. Not when we’re not—”
Elizabeth tilted her head. “Not what?”
Riley’s mouth opened. Closed. The truth sat heavy behind her teeth. She swallowed it down with another gulp of wine.
“Never mind,” she muttered.
But the moment had shifted. The air felt charged, like the seconds before a lightning strike. Elizabeth leaned forward, just slightly, and her knee brushed against Riley’s again. Neither moved.
“I know this started as a performance,” Elizabeth said quietly. “But I’m not pretending right now.”
That was too much.
Riley set her mug down with shaking hands. “We should go to bed.”
Elizabeth didn’t argue. She didn’t say anything, just nodded once and stood. Riley followed her to the bed like a ghost, trying not to look at the curve of Elizabeth’s back, the way the robe swayed around her legs.
They climbed in, too close, too aware.
The fire burned low. The snowstorm raged on.
And Riley lay awake in the dark, heart racing, replaying the words she couldn’t forget.
You’re not replaceable. Not to me.
They lay there for a moment, back-to-back, like always.
Only tonight, it felt unbearable.
Riley exhaled slowly. The ceiling offered no comfort.
“This is the part where I ruin everything, right?” she whispered.
The question came out before she could think better of it, half-drunk, half-true, like it had been waiting for its chance. Her voice trembled more than she meant it to.
Elizabeth didn’t respond.
Riley let out a soft, bitter laugh into the dark. “Cool. Yeah. Silence. That’s encouraging.”
She didn’t know what she wanted, reassurance, maybe, or some kind of confirmation that she hadn’t completely imagined the moment by the fire. But when she turned her head toward Elizabeth, she could just make out the silhouette of her face. Eyes open. Watching her.
The silence stretched, taut and fragile.
Riley shifted slightly, meaning to pull the blanket higher over her shoulders. Her hand reached across the space between them, but instead of fabric, her fingers brushed Elizabeth’s hip.
Warm. Solid.
She froze.
Elizabeth didn’t move. Didn’t flinch or pull away. Her breath caught, then steadied.
Riley swallowed.
“Sorry,” she said, voice barely a whisper. “I wasn’t, I just—”
Still, Elizabeth said nothing.
But she didn’t move away either.
That was worse. Or maybe better. Maybe both.
Riley’s fingers hovered there, light against silk and skin. She could feel the curve of Elizabeth’s waist, the tension in her stillness. It would be easy to move. To break the moment, laugh it off, turn back over and pretend it hadn’t happened.
But she didn’t want to pretend anymore.
She closed her eyes. Her fingers pressed in, just slightly. The contact was barely anything, tame, tentative, but her whole body was suddenly electric.
Elizabeth let out a slow breath. Then, quietly, “You haven’t ruined anything.”
Riley’s eyes snapped open. “What?”
Elizabeth shifted, turning onto her side to face her. The air between them was barely an inch. Her voice was even softer now.
“You said this is the part where you ruin everything. You haven’t.”
Riley’s throat felt too tight to speak.
Elizabeth reached up, hesitated, then brushed a strand of hair from Riley’s cheek. Her touch was light, reverent. The kind of touch that shouldn’t mean anything but somehow did.
“You think too much,” she said.
“I have to,” Riley whispered. “You don’t.”
Elizabeth smiled faintly, a wry curve of her mouth in the dark. “No. I just pretend better.”
Riley laughed, breathless. “God, that’s bleak.”
“I know.”
They stared at each other. Neither moved.
Riley’s hand was still at Elizabeth’s hip. Elizabeth’s fingers ghosted at her jaw.
This should not be happening.
They weren’t supposed to feel like this. It had been a game, a deal, a well-outfitted lie dressed up in silk and Christmas lights. And yet here they were, tangled in silence, breath catching on the edge of something neither of them could name.
Riley whispered, “Tell me to stop.”
Riley’s hand tightened at Elizabeth’s hip, and for one dizzying heartbeat she thought she might still back away. Then Elizabeth’s voice, low and steady, cut through the silence:
“Don’t.”
The word slid into Riley’s chest like a key turning. She blinked, searching Elizabeth’s eyes. “You mean that?”
Elizabeth didn’t flinch. “I do.”
Riley laughed softly, shaky, like the sound had been trapped in her ribs too long. “God, I’ve wanted to do this for days.”
Elizabeth’s lips curved faintly, sharp even in the dark. “Then stop overthinking.”
That was all the permission Riley needed.
She leaned in, closing the distance. Their mouths brushed, tentative at first, like testing the water, and then, hungrier.
Elizabeth kissed back with a kind of control that wasn’t control at all, her fingers sliding to the back of Riley’s neck, pulling her closer.
Riley groaned into her, the sound muffled, raw. “Fuck, you taste like bourbon.”
“And you taste… nervous,” Elizabeth teased, her breath hot against Riley’s lips.
“Shut up,” Riley whispered, kissing her harder, hand sliding under silk until she felt the heat of Elizabeth’s skin.
Elizabeth gasped, a quick intake of breath that made Riley smile against her mouth. She pressed closer, body aligned with Elizabeth’s, their legs tangling. The contact sent sparks racing up her spine, the kind she’d only let herself imagine in quick, guilty flashes before falling asleep beside her.