Chapter 9
The first thing Riley noticed when she stirred awake was the cold.
Not the weather, though the draft curling in through the edges of the old windowpanes hinted at the snowstorm still raging outside, but the space beside her. Cold. Empty.
Elizabeth was gone.
Riley blinked against the early morning light filtering through the frost-laced glass, her throat dry and tight.
She reached out instinctively to the other side of the bed, palm brushing against the cooled indentation where Elizabeth had been.
The sheets were still faintly rumpled, still carried the ghost of warmth, but she was gone.
No note. No goodbye. Just the quiet absence of her.
The second thing she noticed was the tea.
A half-drunk mug sat on the nightstand, pale traces of Earl Grey clinging to the white porcelain.
Steam long vanished. Next to it, one of Elizabeth’s earrings, a delicate diamond stud, glimmered faintly in the soft light.
A pair of black stilettos lay near the bedroom door, carelessly abandoned in a way that was entirely unlike her.
Riley stared at them.
It wasn’t carelessness. It was avoidance. Elizabeth had left in a hurry, not wanting to face the aftermath of last night.
Not wanting to face her.
She lay back down, staring up at the heavy wooden beams above, the red-and-green patchwork quilt tucked around her like a weight. The same quilt they’d shared every night this week. The same bed that had begun to feel dangerously, foolishly like theirs.
Snow had started falling again. Big, thick flakes blurred the world outside the window, blanketing the gardens and glass roof of the conservatory. Riley watched them fall in silence.
And remembered.
The night before. The ballroom glowing with gold and candlelight, Elizabeth radiant in deep black velvet, her hair pinned up like something out of a classic film.
The way she had smiled for the cameras, fingers tight on Riley’s waist. The way she’d looked at her across the champagne flutes and charity auction tables.
But it had all begun to crack as the evening wore on. The warmth in Elizabeth’s eyes dimming. Her answers growing shorter. Her laughter more forced. Riley had tried to brush it off, told herself it was just stress, just the role they were playing.
Then came the confrontation under the Christmas lights. The bitter cold. Elizabeth’s voice like glass, each word sharp-edged and distant.
“It was a lapse in judgment.”
Her cheeks flushed with the memory of how furious she’d felt, how stupid. Standing there in borrowed heels and a borrowed coat, heart wide open while Elizabeth locked hers behind iron doors.
But then, what of the passion? They had clung to one another back in the room, almost desperate in their lovemaking.
Was any of it real?
Or had she just been convenient, someone to fill the space, play the part, warm the bed?
Riley sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the mattress. Her feet hit the cold wooden floor, and she winced at the bite of it. The chill seemed to echo the way her chest felt, hollowed out, exposed.
She pulled one of Elizabeth’s discarded sweaters off the back of a chair, tugging it over her head. It was soft and oversized, smelling faintly of cedar and Elizabeth’s perfume.
That didn’t help.
Her fingers trembled as she wrapped her arms around herself.
She hated this. The uncertainty. The silence. The powerlessness of waking up alone and trying to piece together what the hell last night had meant.
Because something had happened. Not just physically, but emotionally. Riley wasn’t na?ve. She knew the difference between lust and connection. And there had been moments—god, so many moments, where Elizabeth had looked at her like she mattered.
But now?
Where was she? It was like a switch had flipped. Like Elizabeth had built a wall overnight and Riley was left out in the cold, pounding on it, begging for answers that would never come.
She got up and moved to the window, pulling the heavy curtains aside just a bit. The snow was thick now, swirling against the glass in slow, mesmerizing spirals. Somewhere below, the gardens were vanishing under a fresh layer of white.
She wondered where Elizabeth had gone. If she was already halfway through her morning meetings. If she was avoiding the bedroom, or just Riley herself.
Probably both.
Riley exhaled, fogging up the glass.
She wanted to storm downstairs and demand a conversation. She wanted to force Elizabeth to admit that last night had meant something. But what would that accomplish? Elizabeth had already made herself clear. “It was a lapse.” End of story.
No explanation. No apology. No hope.
Riley leaned her forehead against the cold pane, eyes fluttering shut.
Outside, the snow kept falling.
Inside, the silence pressed in.
The scent of cinnamon sugar hit Riley the moment she stepped off the staircase.
It was nearly overwhelming, sweet and nostalgic and warm, mixed with the tang of pine from the towering Christmas tree in the living room.
A fire crackled somewhere off to the side, holiday music played faintly from a speaker tucked behind a garland-draped mantle, and the entire house pulsed with the chaotic rhythm of family togetherness.
Children darted between adults with sticky fingers and sugar-fueled giggles.
Someone shouted from the hallway about missing gloves.
A dog barked. Silver bells clinked. Someone had spilled orange juice on the heirloom rug, and Elizabeth’s uncle was trying to mop it up with a dish towel while muttering something about “inevitable Christmas carnage.”
It should have been comforting. It almost was.
But Riley felt like she was walking underwater, smiling too wide, blinking too slowly, her body moving on autopilot while her chest clenched with every step.
“Riley!”
Elizabeth’s Aunt Caroline descended upon her like a glittering whirlwind, still in silk pajamas and a Santa hat pinned slightly askew.
She thrust a full plate into Riley’s hands, piled high with cinnamon buns, eggs, roasted potatoes, and two sad strawberries, and followed it up with a mimosa sloshing dangerously close to the rim.
“You have to try the sticky buns. Lizzie’s favorite.” She winked, then added in a conspiratorial whisper, “Though I suspect she’s been happier about other things lately, hmm?”
Riley blinked.
“Oh?” she said, voice higher than intended, balancing the mimosa while her other hand gripped the heavy plate like a lifeline.
Caroline leaned closer. “I haven’t seen her this… light in years. It’s the smile, you know? That soft one she doesn’t even realize she’s doing.” She beamed. “That’s you, honey. Don’t let her scare you off.”
Riley’s throat closed for a second.
She managed a laugh, thin, brittle. “Scary? Elizabeth?”
Caroline raised a perfectly plucked brow. “Please. I love my niece, but she could scare the bark off a tree when she wants to.”
That part, at least, felt honest.
Riley smiled tightly and nodded, murmured something polite and noncommittal, and edged her way into the dining room, where the long wooden table had already been partially cleared by enthusiastic toddlers wielding napkins and sticky hands.
She looked across the room and found her.
Elizabeth stood near the window, back straight, posture impeccable even in casual clothes.
A slim, winter-white sweater hugged her shoulders.
Her hair was pinned up, one stray curl falling along her cheek.
She was laughing, politely, distantly, at something her cousin was saying, and she held her coffee mug with both hands, the picture of poised, icy calm.
She was breathtaking.
She was unreadable.
And she was not looking at Riley.
Not once. Not even when the room quieted for a moment and Riley felt eyes skimming toward her, watching this supposed girlfriend play the part at the family breakfast.
Riley stared for a beat too long.
Her hand tightened on the mimosa glass. She took a sip she didn’t want, the fizz burning on the way down, and turned away before the ache in her chest could claw any higher.
She didn’t belong here.
Not in this house. Not in this charade. Not in this story where Elizabeth Hale got to brush past intimacy like it was a momentary mistake, something to be filed away in the cold archives of poor decisions.
It wasn’t just that Elizabeth was avoiding her. It was the precision of it. Every glance that didn’t land, every conversation she skirted, every carefully composed smile sent to anyone but Riley.
It was like Riley had been erased.
The memory of Elizabeth’s hand on her thigh beneath the blanket, the whisper of her mouth near Riley’s neck, the way her breath had caught, none of it had existed. At least not anymore. At least not here.
Riley suddenly couldn’t breathe.
“I’m just going to grab some more coffee,” she mumbled to no one in particular, abandoning the plate on a side table and slipping into the kitchen before anyone could ask her to join in a carol or recount how they’d met.
The kitchen was blissfully empty.
She stepped in and shut the door softly behind her, leaning against it, heart pounding.
The quiet hit her like a wave.
No chatter. No clinking glasses. No sound except the distant laughter muffled by walls and the low hum of the refrigerator. The Christmas lights strung along the windows twinkled faintly, casting golden reflections on the marble countertop.
Riley closed her eyes and inhaled.
And for the first time that morning, let herself feel it.
The ache. The embarrassment. The stupid, hopeless hope that had been steadily building for days, burning bright in that bed, in those stolen glances, in the breathless moments that had felt like something real.
All of it, crushed by Elizabeth’s silence.
She opened her eyes again and crossed to the sink, staring out the frosted window. Snow was falling steadily now, blanketing the garden in clean white silence.
Riley pressed her fingertips to the cold glass.
She’d known this might happen.