Chapter 8
ELLE
Warmth envelops me as I step inside. The main room stands empty except for the crackling fire in the stone hearth, flames casting dancing shadows across antique furniture and hand-stitched quilts.
Martha has left a carafe of hot chocolate on a side table with a note promising fresh pastries in the morning.
Phoenix crosses to the fireplace, extending his hands toward the flames. “Come warm up before you head upstairs.”
My practical side screams to retreat to the safety of my room. Distance equals control.
Instead, my traitorous body moves toward the fire, drawn by the twin lures of warmth and his presence. The dance in the snow opened something between us—a crack in the professional veneer I’ve worked so hard to maintain.
“Your cheeks are bright red,” Phoenix says, studying my face in the firelight.
“Foreseeable hazard of dancing in a blizzard.”
His laugh comes soft and intimate. “Worth it, though.”
“Maybe.” The reluctant admission slips out before I can catch it.
Phoenix strips off his gloves and tosses them onto the mantle.
Then he tugs the ridiculous sweater over his head, revealing the thermal shirt beneath—thin fabric clinging to his torso, tracing the lean muscle that’s replaced the lanky boy I once knew.
Fame has sculpted him into a sharper, more defined version of the man who left me—beautiful in a way that hurts.
I wrestle with the buttons of my coat, my fingers stiff with cold even through the gloves. Phoenix moves toward me, pausing as if testing the space between us.
“May I?”
The sensible answer presses against my lips—a firm no. But my numb fingers fail me, and exhaustion weakens my resolve.
“Fine,” I concede, dropping my hands to my sides.
His fingers work each button with deliberate care, keeping just enough distance to make the moment feel more intimate than touch. When my coat finally parts, revealing the simple sweater beneath, his gaze lingers as if it’s something far more than ordinary.
I slip the coat from my shoulders, draping it over an armchair before moving closer to the fire. The warmth seeps into my bones, but does nothing to thaw the frozen knot of anxiety lodged beneath my ribs. Every moment in Phoenix’s presence frays the edges of my secret.
“Your hands are still freezing,” Phoenix observes as I extend them toward the flames.
Before I can respond, he captures them between his own, the contact sending sparks dancing up my arms. His skin radiates heat, creating friction as he rubs my fingers between his palms.
“Phoenix—”
“Sorry for taking liberties,” he murmurs with a half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Old habits.”
The familiarity in his tone punches through my defenses. His hands enveloping mine—a gesture repeated countless times through our history. Him warming my perpetually cold fingers after late-night venue exits, during winter walks across campus, beneath sheets in predawn darkness.
My body remembers his touch before my mind can erect barriers. I’m not just Elle, the woman he once loved. I’m Elle Winters, music journalist with a deadline and a daughter waiting at home.
Yet I don’t pull away.
His thumbs trace circles against my palms, the seemingly innocent gesture igniting memories of other, less innocent touches.
The firelight turns his eyes to amber, all warmth and golden light, while his hands work heat back into my frozen fingers.
The contrast between the cold still radiating from my bones and the solid warmth of his touch makes me shiver.
His hands know mine—have known them in darkness, in passion, in quiet moments before dawn.
The contradiction tears at me—wanting his touch while knowing every second in his presence risks Melody’s peace.
“Better?” Phoenix asks, his voice roughened at the edges.
“Yes,” I lie, because nothing about this situation qualifies as better.
When I finally reclaim my hands, the absence of his warmth leaves me colder than before. We stand facing each other in the firelight, two people connected by history and divided by secrets.
Phoenix breaks the silence first. “Elle, about Nashville—”
“Don’t.” The word emerges sharper than intended.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“I don’t need to.” My arms wrap around my middle, a defensive posture against whatever comes next. “Nashville was a long time ago.”
His gaze holds mine, steady and searching. “Five years isn’t forever.”
“Feels like it.”
“Does it? Because every time I look at you, it feels like yesterday.”
The raw honesty in his voice threatens the walls I’ve constructed. “Phoenix—”
“I need to say this,” he interrupts, running a hand through his snow-dampened hair. “I owe you an explanation for why I left the way I did.”
My heart hammers against my ribs. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“I do.” He steps closer, close enough that I catch the familiar scent of him beneath the cold winter air clinging to his clothes. “I never should have left without talking to you first.”
“L.A. called. You answered. That’s how these stories go.”
“That’s the official version,” Phoenix agrees, his voice softening. “The reality was messier.”
Part of me wants to stop this conversation before it pulls me further into dangerous territory. Another part—the part that’s carried unanswered questions for five years—craves the closure his explanation might provide.
“What does it matter now?” I ask, fighting to keep my voice steady.
“It matters because I hurt you. Because I’ve regretted it every day since.” His expression turns solemn in the firelight. “Because I never told you that I got your message.”
The revelation strikes like a physical blow. “What message?”
“The voicemail. Asking me to call you back, saying we needed to talk.” Pain flashes across his features. “I got it, Elle. I just... couldn’t bring myself to return the call.”
My lungs constrict, memories flooding back—the desperation of those days after he left, the frantic attempts to reach him, the growing realization that the nausea wasn’t stress but morning sickness. The message he’s referring to was the last attempt before I accepted he wasn’t coming back.
“Why?” The question emerges thin and strained.
Phoenix moves to the fireplace, staring into the flames as if seeking answers there.
“Because I was a coward.” He turns back to face me, shadows playing across the sharp planes of his face.
“Calling you meant hearing your voice. Hearing your voice meant risking everything I’d convinced myself I needed. ”
“The record deal.”
“My escape.” Phoenix’s shoulders sink slightly. “The label offered an out from everything—my father’s disappointment, my fear of failure, the terrifying intensity of what we had.”
“Terrifying?” The word catches me off guard.
“What I felt for you scared the hell out of me, Elle.” His confession drops between us like a stone in still water, ripples of implication expanding outward.
“You were all-consuming. When I was with you, nothing else mattered—not music, not my ambitions, nothing. That kind of love...” He shakes his head slowly. “I didn’t trust myself with it.”
The raw truth in his voice lands like a tremor through everything I’ve carried.
All those years wondering why I wasn’t enough for him to stay.
But standing here, hearing this, I finally understand: he didn’t leave because I wasn’t worth choosing.
He left because choosing me meant permanence, and permanence demanded a courage he didn’t yet have.
I wasn’t a fleeting thing—never was. And that terrified him. .
“So instead of talking to me, you just disappeared.” My voice remains steady despite the earthquake of emotions beneath the surface. “Five years, Phoenix. Not a call, not a text.”
“I told myself a clean break would be easier for both of us.” His eyes seek mine, filled with regret. “I convinced myself you’d move on, find someone worthy of you.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make.” The anger I’ve suppressed for years threatens to surface, tempered only by the knowledge of what happened afterward—the daughter he still doesn’t know exists.
“You’re right.” Phoenix moves closer, slow and cautious, like he’s afraid of pushing too hard. “I made the wrong choice for the wrong reasons. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you, about us, about what might have been.”
The sincerity in his voice wraps around my heart, squeezing until breathing becomes difficult. What would he say if he knew about Melody? If he understood exactly what his choice had cost both of us?
“Phoenix...” Words fail me, caught between truth and protection, between past and present.
He moves closer still, his proximity making coherent thought impossible. “Tell me you never think about it. About us.”
“That wouldn’t be true,” I admit, the confession easing past my defenses.
“Then tell me I’m the only one feeling this.” His voice drops lower, his gaze falling to my lips. “This pull between us, like gravity. Tell me I’m imagining it.”
My body leans toward his of its own accord, muscle memory stronger than conscious thought.
“You’re not imagining it,” I whisper, the admission both liberation and betrayal—of myself, of Melody, of the life I’ve built without him.
Phoenix’s hand rises to cup my cheek, his touch gentle yet grounding. “Elle...”
My name on his lips sounds like a confession—raw, unguarded, reverent. His face lowers toward mine, eyes asking a question his voice doesn’t form.
My gaze flickers upward—instinct, escape, anything to break the intensity of his eyes on mine—and lands on the sprig of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling beam above us. Of course. Martha’s romantic touch is everywhere in this place.
Phoenix follows my line of sight, his expression shifting when he spots it. A ghost of a smile plays at the corner of his mouth—something almost playful breaking through the raw vulnerability of moments before. His eyes return to mine, the question in them sharpening into something more deliberate.
Neither of us mentions it. We don’t have to.
The collision course of our lips seems inevitable, written in the stars that hang above this snowy town—until the front door bursts open with a blast of cold air and raucous laughter.
“Holy shit, it’s freezing out there!” Casey’s voice shatters the moment as effectively as a bucket of ice water. “Theo lost his beanie to a remarkably possessive squirrel. Epic battle. You should have seen it.”
Phoenix and I part, the magnetic pull between us broken by the intrusion. The space between us fills with unfinished business and unspoken truths.
Theo follows Casey through the door, snowflakes clinging to his dark hair, his expression a curious mix of amusement and annoyance. “Not a squirrel. Marmot, maybe. Something with teeth.”
“Squirrels have teeth, and what the fuck is a marmot?” Casey stumbles to the couch.
Their entrance brings the real world crashing back—a world where I’m a mother first, where Phoenix represents both the past I can’t reclaim and a future I can’t imagine.
“Oops,” Casey stage-whispers, his gaze darting between Phoenix and me with undisguised interest. “Did we interrupt something?”
“No,” I say, too quickly to be convincing. “I was just heading up to my room.”
Phoenix’s eyes hold mine for one last charged moment—desperation evidence in his gaze. “Elle—”
“Goodnight,” I interrupt, unable to face whatever comes next. Not now, not with an audience, not with Melody’s future hanging in the balance.
I grab my coat and retreat toward the stairs, feeling Phoenix’s gaze on my back like a physical touch. My room awaits—a sanctuary from temptation and complications, from the pull of the past and the terrifying uncertainty of the future.
But as I close the door behind me, I know the real danger isn’t what almost happened downstairs.
The real danger is that for one breathless moment by the fire, I wanted it to.