Chapter 1 #2
“I don’t do flattery,” he says coolly. “I do honesty. And honestly, Olivia, you leaving for this long is terrible timing.”
I take a steadying breath, trying to remember that I’m a professional. That he’s my boss. That this tension I’m feeling is just stress. Work stress. Nothing more.
“It’s Christmas,” I point out. “Most people take time off.”
“Most people don’t run a fifty-billion-dollar company,” he counters smoothly.
“Most people also don’t make their executive assistant feel guilty for taking time off.” I cross my arms. “It’s a done deal, Alexander. The flights are booked, my family is expecting me, and I haven’t taken a single day off all year. You can’t change it now.”
He leans back against his desk, crossing his arms in a mirror of my posture, and the movement draws my attention to the way the vest pulls across his chest. I drag my gaze back to his face.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“North Carolina.”
“Where in North Carolina?”
“Silverbell Hollow.”
“Never heard of it,” he says dismissively.
“Most people haven’t.”
“Who are you seeing?” His wall of questions is starting to feel like an interrogation.
“My family.”
“Who else?” There’s something sharper in his tone now.
“Friends. Neighbors. The mayor, probably.”
“Will there be men there?”
I stare at him. “It’s a town of eighty-five hundred people. Yes, statistically, some of them are men.”
An emotion flickers across his face, too quick for me to read. “Will you be there with your boyfriend?”
The air goes out of the room.
I should have seen this coming. Of course he’d ask. He knows I’ve been with Chase for years.
“No,” I say quietly.
He’s very still now, watching me with an intensity I can’t quite decipher. “No?”
“We broke up.”
There’s a pause. A long one. His expression doesn’t change—still that same controlled, unreadable mask—but his posture shifts. He’s listening now. Really listening.
“When?”
“A year ago.”
He’s quiet, studying me with those sharp gray eyes, and for a moment he looks thoughtful. Like he’s processing this information and filing it away somewhere important.
“Why?” he asks finally, his voice carefully neutral.
“That’s personal,” I say, strain evident.
“Olivia—”
“It’s personal, Alexander,” I repeat, firmer this time. “And with all due respect, it’s none of your business.”
He doesn’t respond immediately, still watching me with that same unreadable expression. Then he nods once, a slight dip of his chin. “Fine.” Just that. Nothing more. “Then I suppose there’s nothing else to discuss,” he says, straightening. “One month.”
“Yes. One month.”
“I’ll see you after New Year’s.”
“Yes,” I manage.
He moves then, reaching past me for the Donovan files on the desk. His arm brushes mine—just barely, just enough for me to feel the warmth of him through my blouse. The contact is brief, almost accidental, and yet it sends an unwelcome shiver up my spine.
Taking in the silence that usually means he’s done with the conversation, I turn around ready to leave when he says, “One week and a bonus.”
“No.”
“I thought you liked money.” I can hear the scowl in Alexander’s voice, and when I turn around, he’s glowering at me, displeased.
“I do. But my parents will kill me if I don’t stay the full month.”
He leans back. “I’ll fire you.”
“No, you won’t.” I give him a faint smile now. “But you can try.”
His sigh is filled with annoyance. “Fine. But not a day over four weeks.”
I nod.
“If you’re not back to work on time, I’ll come pick you up myself.”
“Sure. It’ll save me an Uber ride.”
He gives me a small smile, his eyes narrowing. It’s a smile I’ve seen when he’s plotting something. Not that I care. I have other things to worry about, like getting to the airport on time.
Twenty-eight days, I remind myself as I exit his office. Just twenty-eight days in Silverbell Hollow, and then I can come back to my perfectly controlled, completely professional life where the only thing I have to worry about is my boss’s schedule.
Through the glass, I can see Alexander standing exactly where I left him. He’s looking at me, and when our eyes meet, I hold his gaze for a few seconds.
Six years, and I know this man better than my own ex-boyfriend. I know everything about him—his tastes, his preference in clothes, in women. But I wonder whether he knows anything about me.
I turn away, my stomach in knots. I’m not going to go there. That’s one Pandora’s box that I shouldn’t touch. He’s my boss, and I should have as much interest in his looks as I should have in the shape of a stapler.
I turn my attention to my laptop, gearing up to send out the last emails of the day before I disappear into the Blue Ridge Mountains for the next month.
Outside the window, the snow keeps falling.
* * *
The flight is long, especially when you don’t want to be on it.
I shift in my seat, trying to find a comfortable position in economy—because even though I work for a billionaire, I’m not actually one myself.
The woman next to me is snoring softly, her head tilted at an angle that’s going to give her a crick in her neck, and the kid behind me has been kicking my seat for the past hour like he’s training for the Rockettes.
I pull out my phone, more for something to do with my hands than anything else, and my thumb brushes against the keychain attached to it.
It’s worn now, the leather cracked at the edges, the metal clasp tarnished.
Chase made it for me in high school. Sophomore year, I think.
Back when we were still figuring out what we were to each other.
We grew up next door to each other. Literally.
Our backyards shared a fence, and there was a gap in the slats where we used to pass notes back and forth when we were kids.
By middle school, everyone in Silverbell Hollow just assumed we’d end up together.
The Hartley girl and the Ashford boy. It was practically written in the town charter.
And we did get together. Middle school, high school, all the way through. We were inseparable. Best friends. He was my first everything—first kiss, first boyfriend, first love. First heartbreak, too, though I didn’t know it at the time.
The only real fight we ever had—the big one, the kind that makes you wonder if you’re going to survive it—was when I took this job. Alexander’s job. Chase hadn’t wanted me to go. Said New York would change me, that I’d forget where I came from, that I’d forget him.
I told him I wouldn’t. Promised him, actually, standing in his parents’ driveway with tears streaming down my face. We’d make it work. Long distance wasn’t ideal, but it was doable. People did it all the time.
For five years, we did made it work. Weekend visits when I could afford the flights. Phone calls every night. Texts throughout the day. I thought we were fine.
I was wrong.
I shove the keychain and phone back into my pocket and close my eyes, willing myself to sleep for the rest of the flight.
By the time I land in Charlotte, my neck hurts, my back hurts, and I’m pretty sure I’ve developed a permanent indent in my left shoulder from where the upright armrest dug into me for two and a half hours.
The airport is decorated for Christmas—garland wrapped around every column, oversized ornaments dangling from the ceiling, and a massive tree near baggage claim that’s at least twenty feet tall.
There’s a Santa’s Workshop display near the food court where kids are lined up to take pictures, and every gate seems to be playing a different version of “Jingle Bells.” It’s only December 7th, but the airport is fully committed to the holiday spirit.
I’m not.
I have a three-hour layover before my connecting flight to Asheville, which means I have three hours to kill in an airport that smells like Cinnabon and desperation.
I head toward the nearest coffee shop, needing something stronger than the watered-down garbage they served on the plane.
A woman brushes past me wearing reindeer antlers, and I have to sidestep a group of carolers who’ve set up shop near the News2You.
The line at the coffee shop is long—because of course it is—and I’m standing there, mentally rehearsing my order like I’m preparing for a board meeting, when my phone pings.
I pull it out, expecting an email from Christina or maybe a passive-aggressive text from Alexander about something he suddenly needs right this second. Instead, it’s Sophie.
Sophie: ‘btw amber and chase are getting engaged over christmas’
I go still.
The woman in front of me moves forward in line, and I don’t. Someone behind me clears their throat, annoyed, but I can’t move. Can’t think. Can’t breathe.
Sophie: ‘mom just told me. thought you should know before you get home’
Sophie: ‘sorry livie’
I stare at the screen, reading the words over and over like they’ll somehow rearrange themselves into something that makes sense.
Amber and Chase.
Engaged.
My fingers are numb. My chest feels tight. I finally force myself to step forward in line, to keep moving, because if I stop I’m going to lose it right here in the middle of an airport, and that’s not happening.
They haven’t even been together for a year.
Not even a year. And he’s already proposing.
Chase and I were together for—what? Ten years, if you count high school.
A decade of my life spent with someone who told me over and over that marriage was just a piece of paper.
That our love was bigger than that. That we didn’t need a ring or a ceremony to prove what we meant to each other.
I waited. God, I waited. I hoped. I dropped hints. I sent him pictures of rings I liked, casually, like it didn’t mean anything. And he always smiled and said, ‘Someday, Liv. When the timing’s right.’
Apparently the timing’s right now. Just not with me.
“Ma’am?”
I blink. The barista is staring at me, her expression hovering somewhere between concern and impatience. Behind her, there’s a chalkboard menu decorated with hand-drawn snowflakes and candy canes. “What can I get you?”
I open my mouth. Close it. Coffee isn’t going to cut it.
“Actually,” I say, my voice sounding strange to my own ears, “never mind.”
I step out of line, ignoring the annoyed huff from the person behind me, and scan the concourse.
There, past the overpriced gift shop selling “Carolina Christmas” ornaments and the newsstand with magazines I’ll never read, I spot it.
One of those generic airport bars with high-top tables and a TV playing ESPN on mute.
Perfect.
I make my way over, weaving through families with crying babies and business travelers glued to their phones. The bar is half-empty, which makes sense for three in the afternoon. Most people are still pretending they’re functional adults at this hour.
I slide onto a barstool and drop my carry-on at my feet. The bartender—a guy in his fifties with a name tag that says ‘Rick’—wanders over, wiping down the counter with a towel that’s seen better days.
“What can I get you?”
I think about ordering wine. Something socially acceptable for three o’clock. Something that says I’m fine, just killing time before my flight.
But I’m not fine.
“Whiskey,” I say. “Neat.”
Rick raises an eyebrow. “Any preference?”
“Whatever you’ve got that’ll get the job done.”
He huffs something that might be a laugh and reaches for a bottle of Maker’s Mark. Not top-shelf, but not bottom either. He pours two fingers into a rocks glass and slides it across the bar.
I take a sip. It burns going down, sharp and unforgiving, and that’s exactly what I need right now. Something that reminds me I’m still here, still breathing, even if it feels like my chest is caving in.
My phone pings again.
Sophie: ‘you ok?’
No. I'm not okay. I'm the opposite of okay. I'm sitting at an airport bar at three in the afternoon, drinking whiskey neat because my ex-boyfriend, who told me for years that we didn’t need a ring to prove anything, is apparently ready to marry someone else.
But I can't tell Sophie that. She's fourteen. She doesn't need to know her big sister is currently spiraling.
Me: ‘I’m fine. Thanks for the heads up.’
Sophie: ‘do you want me to egg his house?’
Despite everything, I smile.
Me: ‘Tempting. But no.’
Sophie: ‘offer stands’
I set my phone down on the bar and take another sip. The whiskey settles warm in my stomach, and I focus on that instead of the ache in my chest.
Amber and Chase are getting engaged. I repeat it to myself over and over, like if I say it enough times, it’ll stop feeling like a punch to the gut. It doesn’t work.
Because the thing is, it’s not just that he’s moving on. It’s that he’s moving on faster than I did. It’s that he’s giving her what he never gave me. It’s that, apparently, I wasn’t worth the piece of paper, but she is.
And god, that hurts.
I finish the whiskey in three long swallows, and Rick gives me a look that’s equal parts impressed and concerned.
“Rough day?” he asks.
“Rough year,” I mutter.
He nods like he gets it. “Another?”
I should say no. I should drink water and eat something and pull myself together before I get on that plane. I should be the responsible, put-together executive assistant who has her life under control.
Instead, I push the glass forward. “Yeah. Another.”
He pours, and I watch the amber liquid catch the light.
Around me, the airport continues to hum with holiday cheer.
Somewhere in the distance, those carolers are murdering “Deck the Halls,” and a child is shrieking with delight over something Santa-related.
The garland and lights and forced merriment press in from all sides, making it harder to breathe.
I pull out my phone again, my fingers hovering over Alexander’s name in my contacts. For one wild, irrational second, I consider calling him. Telling him I changed my mind. That I’m coming back to New York, and he can have his executive assistant for Christmas after all.
Four days ago, I was standing in his office, arguing with him about this vacation. Four days ago, he told me one month was too long, that Christina wasn’t me, that he needed me there. Four days ago, I walked out of his office thinking I’d won.
Now I’m not so sure.
“Olivia.”
I freeze.
That voice. Deep and steady and impossibly familiar. I must be imagining it. I must have finally cracked under the pressure because there’s no way—
“Olivia,” the voice says again, closer this time.
I turn my head slowly, half-convinced I’m hallucinating, and find Alexander Castellano standing beside my barstool.