Chapter Thirteen
Drew
Vermont
The house was too quiet. It was the kind of heavy silence that usually signaled the calm before a storm, but as I sat in the den watching the pre-dawn light hit the Vermont peaks, I hoped for a fresh start.
Bella was still asleep, so I checked in with the office, cleared the morning’s fires, and sent a text to my father.
Drew: I won’t be in the office today. Not sure if I’m back tomorrow.
Father: Everything okay?
Drew: Better than okay. Taking a much-needed mini vacation.
There was a pause before the next message appeared.
Father: A vacation? Alone? Or is she important enough to tell me her name?
I stared at the screen. I was usually blunt with him, but I couldn’t bring myself to lie. I could have implied Bella was just another woman—someone not worth a name—and he would have dropped it. But I couldn’t put Bella in that category.
Not even to keep things smooth.
Drew: Not yet.
I set the phone down and stared out at the slopes, letting the weight of that answer settle in my chest.
Not yet.
That implied I was expecting this to go somewhere worth mentioning. Was I? The idea that it might would have seemed ludicrous a week ago, but now? Now I didn’t know. The more time I spent with Bella, the more time I wanted to spend with her.
And last night? She’d gone from stunningly beautiful to excruciatingly adorable. Not that I thought she’d appreciate that depiction of her. She saw herself as a ferocious force of nature. But last night I’d glimpsed a softer side of her.
And I liked it.
The staff moved through the house like ghosts, replacing the silence with the scent of fresh coffee and the sizzle of a kitchen coming to life. I was on my second cup, standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows, when I heard the rustle behind me.
I turned.
Bella was there.
She looked like perfection. Makeup in place, eyes a little tired, but every hair a soldier in formation. She wore casual elegance: slacks, a simple blouse, classic flats.
And all I could think, irrationally, was that I preferred the version of her I’d seen in the warehouse. Sweaty. Wild. Flushed. And last night. I preferred the messy side of herself she didn’t show the rest of the world.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Good morning,” she replied.
Her voice was steady. Composed. If she was embarrassed about last night, it was buried under ten layers of Holliston armor. It made me a little sad. It told me how much she felt she had to hide.
“Hungry?” I asked. “Toast? Something light?”
She offered a small, tired smile and nodded toward my cup. “If that’s coffee—hot and black—I would kill for some.”
“No need to hurt anyone,” I said, motioning toward the dining room. “There’s plenty for both of us.”
For a second, the feud felt miles away. We were just two people in a quiet house, moving through a morning that didn’t belong to anyone else.
I let her walk in front of me, giving myself the indulgence of watching her. The way she moved. The confidence in her posture. The quiet power in it.
She glanced over her shoulder and caught me looking.
Her expression sharpened—a quick flash of question and warning.
I didn’t look away.
She turned back quickly, pretending to be irritated, but the flush that climbed her neck told me she was secretly pleased.
I sat beside her at the long table and reached for the thermal carafe, pouring her a cup. She took a sip and closed her eyes as if I’d handed her a piece of heaven.
The sight hit me harder than it should have.
“Do you ski?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Of course,” she said, Holliston pride flaring for a brief moment.
I grinned. “Right. How dare I imagine a world in which you weren’t fully skilled at all things.”
She didn’t laugh.
It was a tell. A quiet hint that her life wasn’t only polished; it was pressured. I didn’t want to start the day unraveling thirty years of feud and baggage, so I pivoted. “Nora and Brady will be out on the slopes today,” I said. “That’s where we should be. Are you up to it?”
“Of course I am.” Her response was immediate. Her walls slid back into place like they’d never moved.
For now, that’s okay. It’s what she needs.
On a different morning, I hoped to meet another version of her. Hair unruly, eyes half-lidded, telling me she wasn’t going anywhere. The image hit hard enough that I shoved a bite of bagel into my mouth and nearly choked.
Bella gave me a weird look.
I cleared my throat and took a sip of coffee like it could wash down all the indecent images of the two of us naked and tangled that were rushing through my head.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For last night. Thank you for not . . .” She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.
“You don’t have to thank me for being a decent human, Bella,” I said, holding her gaze. “And before you apologize for getting a little tipsy, it was actually refreshing to see you like that.”
“First of all,” she started, “I was not tipsy.”
That lie didn’t land.
A small smile curled at her mouth, softening her entire expression. “Okay,” she admitted, humor flickering at the edges. “Maybe a little. But who suggested a drink would relax me?”
“When I suggested one, I didn’t think you’d be double fisting martinis,” I teased.
She laughed, light and genuine. “I normally don’t let myself have more than one. But last night . . .”
She stopped.
And everything in me sharpened.
I didn’t push. I didn’t crowd her. I didn’t do anything that would make her snap those walls back into place. I just waited, giving her space to decide whether the truth was safe here too.
“But last night felt . . .” I prompted quietly. She looked away, closed her eyes for a heartbeat, and I watched her decide. When she opened them again, she met my gaze.
“Safe,” she whispered.
The word gutted me in the best possible way.