Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
NADIA
Valentine's Day dawns bright and cold and full of promise.
I wake up in Callum's bed again, wrapped in his arms like I've been sleeping there for years instead of days. Sunlight streams through the windows, catching the silver in his hair and the peaceful lines of his face.
He looks younger when he sleeps. Less guarded. The permanent furrow between his brows smooths out, and I can almost imagine the boy he was before tragedy and responsibility turned him into the mountain he is now.
I could get used to this.
The thought arrives without the usual panic that follows it. No immediate urge to run or sabotage or find the flaw that will justify my inevitable retreat. Just a quiet certainty that this man, this grumpy, demanding, secretly romantic man, is someone I want to wake up next to again.
And again. And again.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. Yasmine's name flashes across the screen with a text that's more exclamation points than words.
Yasmine:
WEDDING DAY!!!! Hair and makeup at 10! Don't be late!!!
I slip out of bed carefully, trying not to wake Callum. He stirs anyway, reaching for me with his eyes still closed.
"Where are you going?"
"Bridal suite. Hair and makeup calls." I lean down to kiss his forehead. "Go back to sleep. I'll see you at the ceremony."
"Mmm." He catches my wrist and pulls me back down for a proper kiss, morning breath and all. "You're going to be beautiful."
"I'm the maid of honor. No one's supposed to look at me."
"I'm going to look at you." His eyes open, gray and warm and full of something that makes my chest tight. "I'm not going to be able to look at anyone else."
I kiss him again because I don't trust my voice. Then I force myself to pull away and get ready, because if I stay in this bed one more minute I'm going to blow off my sister's wedding entirely.
The bridal suite at the venue is chaos when I arrive. Yasmine is already in her robe, surrounded by stylists and assistants and our mother, who's directing traffic like a general commanding troops.
"Nadia!" Yasmine spots me and waves frantically. "Get over here. We're running behind because Aunt Patricia showed up an hour early and threw off the whole schedule."
I spend the next four hours in a whirlwind of curling irons, makeup brushes, and champagne that starts flowing well before noon.
My bridesmaid dress is a deep burgundy that Yasmine chose specifically because it looks good on multiple skin tones, and when I finally see myself in the mirror, I barely recognize the woman staring back.
She looks happy. Relaxed. Like someone who got thoroughly fucked and fell asleep in strong arms and woke up believing that maybe, just maybe, things might work out.
"You're glowing." Yasmine appears beside me, stunning in her white gown with delicate beading that catches the light. "Is that the Callum Ridge effect?"
"Maybe."
"Definitely." She grins. "Mom spent twenty minutes this morning telling me how impressed she was with him. Mom. Impressed. With a man you're dating. I didn't think that was physically possible."
"He's easy to be impressed by."
"He's gorgeous is what he is. And the way he looks at you?" She fans herself dramatically. "Like you're the only person in the room. Tyler used to look at me like that before we'd been together for three years and I started leaving hair in the shower drain."
"He still looks at you like that."
"Only when I'm dressed up. Which is why I intend to be dressed up for the rest of my life." She adjusts her veil in the mirror. "So. Is it serious? You and the mountain man?"
The question catches me off guard. "It's been four days, Yas."
"That's not an answer."
"I don't know what it is yet. We're figuring it out."
Yasmine turns to face me fully. "Do you want it to be serious?"
Yes. The word rises up so fast it almost escapes. I swallow it down.
"I want to see where it goes. He's... different. From anyone I've dated before."
"Different how?"
"He doesn't fold." I meet her eyes in the mirror. "When I push, he pushes back. When I test him, he holds his ground. It's like he sees all the parts of me that scare other people away and he just... isn't scared."
Yasmine's expression softens. "That sounds like exactly what you need."
"Maybe. Or maybe it's just the novelty of it. Four days isn't long enough to know anything real."
"Four days was long enough for me to know Tyler was the one." She squeezes my arm. "Sometimes you just know, Nadia. And fighting it doesn't make you smart. It just makes you lonely."
Before I can respond, the wedding coordinator appears to announce that it's time for final preparations. Yasmine gets swept away in a flurry of last-minute adjustments, and I'm left staring at my reflection and wondering when my little sister got so wise.
The ceremony is beautiful.
Yasmine floats down the aisle like something out of a fairy tale, and Tyler cries when he sees her, which makes everyone else cry, which means I'm dabbing at my eyes with the emergency tissues I stashed in my bouquet.
I find Callum in the crowd, seated near the back in a charcoal suit that makes him look like a CEO or a mob boss or something equally devastating. He's watching me instead of the bride, just like he promised, and the intensity of his gaze makes me forget to pay attention to my sister's vows.
The reception is at the same venue, a seamless transition from ceremony to cocktail hour to dinner. Callum appears at my side the moment the bridal party duties are done, his hand finding the small of my back like it belongs there.
"You look incredible."
"You clean up pretty well yourself." I straighten his already-straight tie just for an excuse to touch him. "How was the ceremony from your end?"
"Boring. I couldn't see you most of the time."
"You were supposed to be watching the bride."
"I was supposed to be a lot of things." His thumb traces circles on my lower back. "I've never been good with instructions."
"Liar. You're excellent at giving instructions. Following them is a different skill set."
"One I'm happy to let you practice later."
Heat pools low in my belly. "Promises, promises."
Dinner is a blur of toasts and courses and conversations with relatives I barely remember.
Callum handles it all with the same steady competence he handles everything, charming my aunts and deflecting my father's awkward attempts at interrogation and making my mother laugh with a dry observation about the wine selection.
I keep waiting for something to go wrong. For the other shoe to drop. For the universe to remind me that good things don't last and happiness is just the setup for inevitable disappointment.
But the shoe doesn't drop. The evening unfolds perfectly, full of love and celebration and Callum's warm presence beside me.
Until I go to the bathroom and everything falls apart.
I'm touching up my lipstick when two women enter, mid-conversation. I recognize one of them as Helena Chen, the woman Callum mentioned that first night. The one the matchmakers wanted to set him up with.
They don't notice me in the corner, too absorbed in their gossip.
"I still can't believe he brought someone." Helena sounds more curious than upset. "Callum Ridge hasn't dated anyone in years."
"My mom says she's from out of town. Chicago or something." The other woman, a blonde I don't recognize, pulls out her own lipstick. "Apparently they met two days ago. It's obviously not serious."
"Two days? That's barely a hookup."
"Right? My mom talked to his brother Declan at the ceremony. He said Callum's never even mentioned her before this week. It's probably just a fling. You know how those mountain man types are. They get lonely in the winter."
Helena laughs. "So you think he'll be back on the market by spring?"
"Definitely. No way some city girl sticks around Crimson Hollow long term. She'll get bored and go back to her real life, and everything will go back to normal."
They finish their primping and leave without ever noticing me frozen in the corner.
I stare at my reflection. The happy, glowing woman from earlier is gone. In her place is someone I recognize all too well. Someone waiting for the proof that she's not enough. That she never was.
He's never even mentioned her before this week.
Of course he hasn't. Why would he? I'm a stranger he met in a bar. A convenient solution to a temporary problem. The fake girlfriend who got upgraded to real sex because we were snowed in and bored and the chemistry was too good to ignore.
No way some city girl sticks around Crimson Hollow long term.
They're right. I live in Chicago. Or I did, before I got laid off. My whole life is there. My apartment, my friends, my career prospects. What am I going to do, move to a mountain town with one traffic light because I had a nice weekend with a man I barely know?
She'll get bored and go back to her real life.
The words echo in my head as I walk back to the reception. Callum spots me immediately, his expression shifting from pleased to concerned.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing." The lie tastes sour. "Just tired. Long day."
He doesn't believe me. I can see it in the way his eyes narrow, the way his hand tightens on my waist.
"Nadia. Talk to me."
"Not here." I force a smile. "Later. Let's just get through the rest of the reception."
The next two hours are torture.
I smile and dance and make small talk while my mind spirals through every reason this thing with Callum can't work.
The distance. The lifestyle differences.
The fact that we've known each other less than a week and I've already built an entire fantasy future around a man who might just see me as a convenient distraction.
He feels the distance. I know he does. Every time he touches me, I stiffen slightly. Every time he tries to catch my eye, I look away. The easy connection from earlier has curdled into something strained and uncomfortable.
When the reception finally winds down, he drives us back to his cabin in silence that's nothing like the comfortable quiet we've shared before. This silence has edges. Weight.
I don't go to the playroom. I don't even go to his bedroom. I head straight for the guest room where I slept that first night, before everything got complicated.
"Nadia." He catches my arm in the hallway. "What happened? You were fine at dinner and then you disappeared and came back like a different person."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're shutting down." His grip is firm but not painful. "I've seen you vulnerable and I've seen you scared and I've seen you come apart in my arms. I know what you look like when you're okay and this isn't it."
The gentleness in his voice cracks something in my chest. I want to collapse into him. Want to let him hold me and fix it and make the spiraling stop.
But that's the problem. I've let him too close. Let myself believe in something that was only ever supposed to be pretend.
"I heard some women talking at the reception." The words come out flat. "About how this is obviously just a fling. About how you've never mentioned me to your brothers. About how the city girl will get bored and leave and everything will go back to normal."
His expression hardens. "And you believed them?"
"I don't know what to believe." I pull my arm free. "We've known each other four days, Callum. Four days. And I've already planned out this whole future in my head like some kind of delusional teenager. Moving here. Building a life. Waking up in your bed every morning until we're old and gray."
"That sounds like something we could talk about."
"Talk about what? The logistics of uprooting my entire life for a man I just met? The reality that I have no job, no plan, and no reason to believe this is anything more than really good sex and forced proximity?"
"Is that what you think this is? Good sex and forced proximity?"
"I don't know what this is!" The words explode out of me.
"I don't know if it's real or if it's just the novelty of someone who doesn't run when I push.
I don't know if you actually want me or if you just wanted a buffer from the matchmakers.
I don't know anything except that I'm terrified of how much I feel and I don't trust it. "
Callum is quiet. His face has gone carefully blank, and I recognize it as the same controlled expression he wore the night we met. Walls going up. Defenses engaging.
"What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know."
"Then what do you want me to do?"
"I don't know that either."
He nods slowly. "Okay. Then here's what I know.
I know that four days ago I met a woman who challenged me in ways I haven't been challenged in years.
I know that I've told you things I haven't told anyone.
I know that when I think about you leaving, it feels like losing something I didn't know I needed. "
My eyes burn. "Callum..."
"But I can't make you believe that. I can't force you to trust what we have. If you've decided this is just a fling, if you've already made up your mind that it can't work, then nothing I say is going to change that."
"That's not fair."
"No. It's not." His voice is even, controlled. "But neither is walking away from what we've built because some strangers in a bathroom confirmed the fears you were already looking for."
The accusation lands like a slap. Because he's right. I was looking for reasons. Waiting for proof. Using those women's words as an excuse to retreat before I could get hurt.
"I need to think." I take a step back. "I just... I need space to think."
"Fine." He doesn't reach for me. Doesn't try to close the distance. "Guest room is yours. I'll stay out of your way."
He turns and walks toward the master bedroom. I watch him go, every step putting more distance between us.
This is what I wanted. Space. Time to think. Protection from the terrifying vulnerability of caring about someone who might not care back.
So why does it feel like I just made the worst mistake of my life?
I close myself in the guest room and finally let the tears fall. They come hard and ugly, soaking the pillow that smells like nothing but fabric softener and regret.
He didn't fight for me.
The thought is petty and unfair and I hate myself for thinking it. I told him I needed space. I pushed him away. What was he supposed to do, refuse to let me go?
But some small, wounded part of me wanted him to. Wanted him to prove that I'm worth fighting for. That this thing between us matters enough to hold onto even when I'm the one trying to let go.
Instead he gave me exactly what I asked for.
And now I'm alone in a guest room on Valentine's night, wondering if I just destroyed the best thing that's ever happened to me.