Chapter 6 Ransom
Ransom
“Because I can’t stop looking at you.”
It was entirely the wrong thing to say. Her eyes light up for a moment, a nanosecond, before despair fills them.
I’m a fucking idiot!
After lunch, we head to Marché de Noel.
Chamonix is wrapped in soft blue twilight, the last streaks of daylight fading behind Mont Blanc. Strings of golden lights crisscross above the cobbled streets like constellations, and the air smells like cinnamon, pine, mulled wine, and roasted chestnuts.
Snow drifts down in slow, steady flakes, clinging to the tips of scarves and eyelashes, the kind that makes you tilt your face up and just breathe it in.
Children run past with red noses and chocolate-covered fingers.
Slowly, but steadily, the holiday spirit begins to ease Ember. I’ve been watching her as discreetly as I can, because I can sense Calypso’s hostility toward her. After all, she knows my eye is wandering.
I feel like a pervert. I’m forty-five years old. A grown man. I have a woman with me, but I’m leering at Ember.
Freja and Jonathan are wrapped in each other as they part from our small group in search of a cashmere shawl she wants to buy for a friend back home.
Aksel and Ember walk a little ahead of Calypso and me.
She’s holding on to me for dear life. I know we’ll have to have a conversation.
I know I made a mistake asking her to join me.
Now, in the stark light of snow and moonlight, I know I brought Calypso along as a defense in case Ember was in Chamonix.
The realization wraps itself around me like a vice.
Each time I saw Ember since we ended, I’ve been like this, waiting to catch glimpses of her.
The fact that I ended us, lulled me into thinking I was over her, but I’m not.
The evidence is right there for anyone who’s looking. Calypso, apparently, is.
“I’m so glad you asked me to come along,” Calypso says, her cheek resting against my arm while I watch Ember, who is examining a hand-painted ornament.
She buys a tiny wooden owl for Anika, who, according to Aksel, is obsessed with them.
I look away when Ember laughs at a vendor with a long white beard in the next stall. I look back to see her accept a cube of nougat that he offers for her to taste.
“Merci beaucoup.” Her French accent is fluid, Parisian-clean.
The vendor beams. “Vous êtes trop gentille, mademoiselle.”
“What do you think of Chamonix?” I ask Calypso, wanting very much not to be that man, the one who is interested in the woman who isn’t hanging on his arm.
“It’s lovely. And the chalet is…well, gorgeous.” We wait by a soap stall while Aksel and Ember rummage around.
“Do you want to buy something?” I ask, releasing my arm from her death grip, feeling slightly suffocated.
“Maybe you should buy me something,” she challenges.
Yep! We need to talk. I’d been clear with her that this trip was for fun and meant nothing. And yet…here we are.
“The lavender one,” I hear Ember say. “Latika loves lavender.”
“Are you getting anything for yourself or only for others?” Aksel asks his sister.
I let out a long breath, shaking my head slowly, and drop my gaze to Calypso. “You’re an independent woman. You don’t need a man to buy you fuck all.”
She sends a glare my way that could light a fuse. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We’re friends, Cali.” I keep my voice down, both to prevent Aksel or Ember from hearing us and as a warning to Calypso to do the same.
“And? Friends can’t buy friends presents?”
“We’re not that kind of friends.”
“You mean like you are with Ember?” There’s something harsh in her eyes. I don’t like it.
I can’t see what reason she has to be jealous.
We’re not even exclusive—not officially. I haven’t been with anyone else, but that’s less about commitment and more about logistics. I barely have time to manage one woman, let alone two.
“The Rousseaus are like family. I’ve told you that.”
“And you brought me here, so what am I supposed to think?” she hisses.
“Hey, Ransom, isn’t your mother a big fan of opals? They have a whole antique jewelry collection here,” Aksel calls out.
I wave to him and look at Calypso pointedly. I don’t want to hurt her feelings or create a scene. She’s going to be here through the fucking New Year, and I need this to go smoothly. “Calypso—”
She bites her bottom lip, eyes clouded. “Just tell me, Ransom, are you using me?”
I’m taken aback. “What?”
“Are you?”
When I don’t respond because I have no idea what to say, she looks away, jaw tight like she’s holding it together.
I focus on curbing my irritation. I succeed and when I speak, my tone is level. “I’m not using you.”
“It feels like you are,” she responds tremulously.
I rub my temple in frustration. “Cali, come on. Please, can we do this another time?”
She sniffles and nods, then leans toward me, seeking comfort. I have no choice but to wrap my arm around her, hold her. She is usually damn good company. Easy going. I have no idea what’s going on with her.
The opal collection is very cool.
I buy a brooch for my mother—delicate, iridescent, impossibly lovely—even if I don’t believe the vendor’s story about it once belonging to Joséphine Bonaparte.
Calypso points at a bracelet she thinks is beautiful. She’s so obvious, and I know I hurt her feelings, so I buy it for her. She wants to wear it right away, so I help her put it on.
Aksel shoots me a look that clearly says, “Did you seriously just drop a thousand euros on this woman?” It’s obvious that while Calypso has won over Tanya, and Margot seems politely amused by her, the younger Rousseaus aren’t buying what she’s selling.
She’s personable, charming even—but whenever Ember’s in the room, Calypso somehow manages to dig herself a little deeper into a social hole.
I know the fault lies with me. I’ve made Calypso feel insecure, and regardless of the temporary nature of our relationship, I’ve no business making her feel that way.
“It looks lovely,” I tell her.
She raises her face. I kiss her lips, softly, feeling like I’m cheating on Ember, feeling like I’m cheating on Calypso, feeling like I’m cheating on myself.
I need to snap out of it, I tell myself. Ember is going to meet some young man her age, and they’ll get married and raise a family, and—
Fucking hell!
I can’t stand the idea of her with another man. God, I’ve been lying to myself for years—pretending I was glad we ended. But the minute I’m near her again, I’m panting like some starved dog, desperate and half-mad with want.
“Thank you, Ransom.” She puts her hands on my shoulders. “I’ll make sure”—she drops her voice to a whisper, a loud one—“to thank you properly later tonight.”
I smile but say nothing; a frog is lodged in my throat.
Arm in arm, we walk up to the next stall where Ember and Aksel are.
Ember giggles out loud at something Aksel says, and he pulls her hat down over her eyes.
“Stop that,” she snorts and takes off her hat.
Her hair is in a braid, but loose tendrils frame her face. She looks adorable.
She tilts her head back and wrinkles her nose when a snowflake falls on it.
“You look like a kid in a snow globe,” Aksel teases. “Never seen anyone as giddy about a Christmas market as you…. Well, you and Anika.”
She hugs herself and raises her shoulders, a smile splaying on her beautiful face. “I love this Christmas market. It’s pure joy.”
“The Christmas markets in Vienna are so much better," Calypso interjects superiorly.
Christ on a Goddamn crutch! I needed to have a conversation with Calypso to get her to stop sniping at Ember.
“The glühwein is much better there,” Ember agrees cheerfully. “I remember going there a couple of years ago. It was magical.”
Ember’s politeness jars Calypso. But her attention wanders when she sees a sign for a skincare brand.
“Oh God! I have to go check this out. Vélaire is so difficult to find in the States.”
“Is that the brand that has glacier-infused…something?” Aksel asks.
“Hyaluronic acid,” she says excitedly.
“I’ll come with you. Latika’s mother has been talking about it. It’ll give me points with her. She still hasn’t accepted me. Calls me the firangi.”
Aksel waves a hand toward the cosmetic area.
Calypso looks quizzically at him. “What does firangi mean?”
“’Foreigner’ in Hindi.”
Once they get lost in the crowd, I turn to Ember.
“What was that?”
“What was what?” I pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about, but she knows, and I know, and fucking hell, Calypso knows. I should never have told her that I have not been able to look away from her. It was a dumb thing to reveal. Too much wine. Too much fucking Christmas.
“Ransom—”
“Let’s drink some mulled wine, Em. That’s all.” I don’t want to discuss Calypso. I just want to spend time with Ember, feel the peace that always enveloped me when she was around.
Why the hell did I let her go?
Because she’s young, fresh, and…let’s face it, weird and unsophisticated.
But if ‘sophisticated’ means Calypso, there is no choice.
I wish I’d had that epiphany five years ago, and not now, when I was pretty sure that Ember was more irritated than intrigued by my drama with Calypso.
She tilts her head, gives me a measured look, then shrugs. "Okay."
We walk in companionable silence to the vendor, where a woman with rosy cheeks ladles steaming wine into paper cups.
The cup warms my hands.
Ember takes a sip and closes her eyes.
“Cinnamon," she murmurs. “And orange peel.” She smiles at me. A peace offering? “And not too much clove.”
“You remember. ” It was a few days before Christmas, before she was going to Chamonix and I to New York to be with my parents and brother, the year we were together, when I made mulled wine—fucked it up, too.
“I do,” she says huskily.
My throat tightens. “I didn’t think you would.”
She looks at me. The noise of the market, the lights, the snow—it all fades. “The things that make you feel stay with you,” she says simply.
“And how did my mulled wine make you feel?” I ask.
“Like”—she pauses, mischief twinkling in her eyes—“I kissed Santa Claus, and he’d been marinating in clove schnapps.”
Laughter slips out of me. But beneath it, there’s regret. She’s always had this gift, lightening the heavy with humor. She does it with her family. She does it with me.
I want to ask her if she still loves me. The need is sharp, almost urgent.
But I don’t. Because I’m not ready for the answer, whatever it might be. At my age, there’s not much that scares me anymore. Except for committing to someone who could undo me again, like Olivia did.
So, we stand there, two figures in the middle of winter’s joy, holding memories in warm paper cups.