Chapter 7
NOLAN
Ipaused outside of the entrance to my cabin, key in the lock. Something is different.
After pushing the door open, I flipped the light switch and did a quick sweep of the house. Nothing amiss. Going back to the entryway, I froze.
A white envelope sat on the doormat, my wet footprint stamped across it. Picking up the nondescript parcel, I saw my name typed on the front, just like the first letter. Hands trembling, I opened it.
Careful. Eyes are everywhere.
My mysterious pen pal is following me or keeping very good tabs on me.
I balled up the letter. Jason would want to analyze it, but I already knew what he’d find.
Nothing. I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes before I needed to meet Cressida for dinner.
Stuffing the letter in the entryway table, I opted to deal with it later.
When I took my seat across from Cressida at the lodge’s restaurant ten minutes later, I’d donned my public face and was ready to play the part of doting fiancé.
The space had a woodsy manor feel, like we’d just returned from a fox hunt or playing polo like some rich assholes.
It wasn’t my taste, but Cressida looked pleased as she sipped her Merlot.
“I already ordered you a Macallan,” she said.
I could have kissed her. After my day of facing my demons, I needed a stiff drink.
Of course my first activity with Val had to be hiking on my mom’s favorite trail.
I’d done it with her dozens of times—across the meadow, through the forest, around the frozen lake.
With every snowy step, my mother’s ghost peeked out at me from behind the trees, the memories tainted with the stain of knowing that this place was the reason she was dead.
Even though I seethed at spending the winter here, it was a good opportunity to see if the letters held any merit or if it was just someone messing with me.
Soon, the server arrived with my drink and took our orders.
While we waited for our food, I perused the dining room and pointedly did not dwell on the letter—or the woman who occupied the remainder of my headspace. I’d had enough for today.
The restaurant was not as full as my CEO brain wanted it to be, but countless conversations hummed a dull drone in the background, the sound absorbed by the wood paneling.
A woman in a violet sweater sat at the bar, her back to me.
But even from that brief glimpse, her beauty was evident.
My eyes traced her figure, her dark hair—
A guy in his late twenties with curly hair and tanned skin took the seat beside her. Ah, well. Not like I could have her anyway. I moved on in my people watching, but then the woman turned and I saw her face.
A bright smile with a hint of nerves. When she tucked a curl behind her ear and laughed at something Snowboarder Dude said, my fist tightened around the handle of my steak knife.
Cressida tilted her head, watching me with a curious expression. Her gaze followed mine and—she turned back to her drink, hiding her smile in her wineglass.
“That’s Val, isn’t it?” she asked.
I answered without taking my eyes off of the pair. “Yes.”
“She seems to be on a date.”
I could tell Cressida was suppressing laughter. Turning my attention to her, I narrowed my eyes. “Yes, it does appear that way.” I finished my drink and motioned for another.
“That doesn’t...bother you, does it?” Mirth danced in her gaze.
“No,” I snapped. The server arrived with our food, and I stabbed into my steak with the force I wanted to inflict upon Val’s date. Which, again, made no sense. What has this woman done to me? I barely know her.
“Of course it doesn’t. My mistake.” Cressida drummed her fingers on the table as she watched me eviscerate my dinner. “How was your date with her today?”
I stopped sawing my steak long enough to flick a glare at her. “It wasn’t a date. You’re my fiancée.”
Waving a hand, she said, “I’m getting bored, is what I am. My FaceTime gossip sessions with Daphne can only get me so far. So what did you two do?”
I shoved a bite of steak in my mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. “We went snowshoeing. Out by the lake.”
Understanding lit her face. “Ah. So that’s why you came home and went to town on the wood pile out back. I thought it was all the pent-up sexual frustration. But at least now we’ll have enough firewood to last all winter.” Her lips curved but then she grew serious. “Are you all right, Nolan?”
I nodded but saw Snowboarder Dude touch Val’s arm, and again, that absurd feeling like I should be the one doing that pounced on me out of nowhere.
“I’ll say one thing, and then I’ll shut up,” Cressida said, planting her elbows on the table and leaning forward as if about to divulge a secret.
“It appears you do have a heart that can be reached beneath all those layers of ice. I always knew it. Don’t worry.
I won’t tell anyone that you’re actually human.
” She mimed zipping her lips. “If Val means something to you, maybe you should tell her the truth about our situation. Bring her into the fold.”
It was nice to know I had Cressida’s support in whatever I decided to do about Val, but I said, “We’re supposed to be convincing the world you and I are in love, not making matters worse by giving the paparazzi a real scandal to sink their teeth into.
Val doesn’t mean anything to me. We’ve only just met.
” If Cressida thought I was fibbing, she didn’t call me out on it.
After a few minutes of silence while we ate, I noticed her scanning the room, so I asked, “See anyone you like?”
Tucking a silky strand of hair behind an ear, she shrugged. “I’m having too much fun frolicking in the snow to worry about boys.”
I grunted my assent. She wasn’t worried about “boys”—there’d only ever been one boy for her.
Our impending nuptials drove an even bigger wedge in my relationship with my older brother, Raife, but he lost his right to have an opinion on anything when he walked away from the Keller name—and Cressida—eleven years ago, shortly after he turned twenty-five.
And now, Cressida and I were merely pawns in our families’ games.
Marrying her meant a merger of one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and my family’s well-established resort dynasty.
Cyrus wanted the publicity and a dedicated media network to blast his bullshit everywhere, and Cressida’s father wanted access to our sizable coffers.
It had been my father’s idea—decree, more like.
The threat of disownment wasn’t enough to get me to comply, but when he and Cressida’s father had set their sights on publicly disgracing her by revealing her past…
traumas, I’d seen red. They had us, and they knew it.
So I agreed to the arrangement, but we could choose the terms of our relationship.
I didn’t care if Cressida took other lovers, as long as she was discreet and they signed the paperwork, but she rarely risked it, and neither did I.
I jabbed another bite of steak and chewed it with agitation.
Val had me all shaken up, and I had to get a handle on myself before I did or said anything else incriminating.
Why should it matter that she was on a date?
I took another drink as I truly considered the answer.
Maybe it was because even though my reputation as an asshole businessman and flagrant womanizer preceded me, Val still treated me like a person and made an effort to have normal conversation with me—although she did seem nervous.
I’d say she actually cared if I had a good time at Hale’s Peak this winter, without any ulterior motive.
She didn’t know about the sale, so she couldn’t be sucking up to me in an attempt to change my mind.
No, her detailed itinerary had to come from a place of genuine interest and joy.
That was a foreign concept to me. In my world, there was always an ulterior motive.
Nobody ever did anything purely out of the goodness of their heart.
But Val was different. She wasn’t a simpering sycophant, throwing herself at me for the chance at fame or treating me like a walking ATM.
In fact, she wasn’t throwing herself at me at all—and I liked it.
Having a secret dalliance with Val was an option, if she was interested, but with the risk of the paparazzi descending, plus the NDAs, it would suck the romance out of the entire endeavor.
Wait—when did I start seeing Val as an option, and when the hell did I start giving a fuck about romance?
I’d bid that ship farewell long ago, and lusting after a woman I could not have was a waste of energy.
Instead, I’d endure the winter and head back to San Francisco in April to secure my career.
That was my entire reason for being here, and I had to remember that.
If I allowed anything to distract me, it should be my mysterious pen pal and not Valeria López.
If there was even the minuscule possibility that my mother was murdered—I could barely think the word without wanting to throw something—then I had to look into it.
I thought I’d gotten closure after years of therapy, but one letter, one sentence had been enough to blow a hole in my unstable ship.
After dinner, I excused myself from Cressida and headed to Barney Huxby’s office.
Val was still parked at the bar with her date, and I tried not to notice the way her jeans hugged her ass.
It crossed my mind that I could drag her with me under the guise of needing help with some asinine work task, but I quashed the thought.
Pushing on the solid oak door to Barney’s office, I walked inside like I owned the place. Well, I did, actually.
Barney sat behind his desk, reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose as he tapped on his phone propped on his belly.
When he saw me, he launched forward, glasses flying off his face.
“Mr. Keller! I wasn’t expecting you! Please, sit down.
How can I help? Is your office set up to your liking?
” His hands fluttered over the mess of papers on his desk like a worried butterfly.
I didn’t sit. “It’s great, thanks. I need to see some security footage.”
“Yes, of course. What dates?”
I worked my jaw. “January 12, 2004. I’ll need to see the entire previous week as well.”
Barney shuffled his papers, unbothered. So he didn’t recognize the dates.
That’s one suspect eliminated. “I don’t think we keep the records for that long.
I’ll have Phil, our head of security, check in with you on Wednesday to see what we can dig up.
Does that sound all right?” Tapping his fingers in a nervous rhythm, he looked at me and back at his desk in rapid succession.
It had waited twenty-one years, it could wait two more days.
What did he think I was going to do, rage and throw things like an asshole if I didn’t get my way?
I was an asshole when it suited me, but I didn’t need to make poor Mr. Huxby shit himself in his own office for something out of his control. “That’s fine.”
I left and headed through the lobby back to my house.
Unfortunately, Val and her date chose that time to leave the restaurant, that nervous twitch still in her smile.
Ducking into the hall, I watched them walk toward the exit like a complete and utter creep.
When she tossed a look over her shoulder, she happened to catch my eye, and her smile disintegrated at whatever expression she saw on my face.
Snowboarder Dude’s hand brushed her lower back to usher her outside, and something deep and dark simmered low in my chest. Val jerked forward and stumbled out after him.
Good. It was for the best—for both of us.
But keeping my distance from this magnetic woman would be an impossible task, as my grandfather had ensured we were programmed to spend every weekday together.
It’s going to be a long winter.