Chapter 8
Jess
When I finally climbed down from the loft, Sam was at the stove, cooking eggs. He glanced up when I appeared, his expression cold.
"Coffee's ready," he said. "Breakfast in five."
"Thanks." My voice came out small.
He nodded and went back to cooking, not meeting my eyes.
This was worse than anger. Worse than fighting. This polite distance, this careful neutrality, felt like a door closing. Like he'd already let me go in his mind, and now he was just going through the motions.
"Sam—"
"Eat while it's hot," he interrupted, sliding a plate across the counter. "We should leave in thirty minutes. Weather's holding, but I want to get you back before anything changes."
Get me back. Like I was just cargo to be delivered. Just another client whose emergency had been resolved.
I ate because I didn't know what else to do. The eggs were perfect—of course they were, because Sam was competent at everything—but they tasted like mush in my mouth.
He ate standing up, leaning against the counter, looking out the window at his mountains. Not at me.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"For what?" His voice was carefully even. "You didn't do anything wrong. You have a life in the city. Career, obligations. Makes sense you'd go back to it."
"But what about—"
"What happened between us was intense. Survival situations do that. Make everything feel more important than it is." He finally looked at me, and his ice-blue eyes were shuttered. "Doesn't mean it was real."
The words hit me like a physical blow. "You don't believe that."
"Doesn't matter what I believe." He set down his plate with deliberate care. "You're going back. I'm staying here. That's reality."
"Sam, please—"
"Finish your breakfast, Jess. We need to go."
He walked away, heading to the mudroom to prep his gear, and I sat there feeling like I was drowning all over again.
Except this time, there was no one to pull me out.
THE ATV RIDE BACK TO base camp was torture.
I held onto Sam because I had to, my arms wrapped around his waist, my body pressed against his back. But he was rigid under my touch, his muscles tense, and the warmth that had been there yesterday was gone.
The landscape blurred past—snow and trees and mountain beauty that I could barely see through my tears. I pressed my face against his back, trying to memorize his scent before I lost it forever.
Before I lost him forever. He said I was his. He said he had claimed me. Why was he giving up on us at this first hurdle?
Too soon, we emerged from the trees and I could see the base camp lodge ahead. ATVs and vehicles clustered in the parking area. People moving around, packing up, preparing to return to civilization.
My coworkers. My boss. My real life.
Sam pulled up to the lodge and killed the engine. For a moment, neither of us moved. Then he was climbing off, holding out a hand to help me down with impersonal courtesy.
"Thanks for the ride," I said stupidly.
He nodded once. "Take care of yourself, counselor."
Then he was walking away, heading toward where his brothers were clustered by their vehicles, and I stood there watching him go.
"Ms. Madison."
I turned to find Belinda standing in the lodge doorway, her expression cold and assessing.
"Ms. Sorento," I said, straightening my shoulders. Putting on my professional mask even though it felt like my face would crack.
"Inside. Now. We need to talk."
THE "TALK" WAS EVERYTHING I'd expected and worse.
Belinda sat across from me in a corner of the lodge, her perfectly manicured hands folded on the table, her eyes calculating.
"I'm going to be direct," she said. "There's been talk about your behavior during the storm. Specifically, your relationship with our wilderness guide."
"I don't know what you've heard, but—"
"I heard that you spent two nights alone with him." Her lips thinned.
Anger sparked through my mortification. "I got separated in the storm. Sam found me and kept me alive. We sheltered together because that was the safest option.”
"What you do on your personal time is your business," Belinda interrupted. "But it’s not a good look to have a fling on a corporate retreat.”
I stared at her, understanding crystallizing. "You're using this to tank my partnership chances."
"I'm questioning whether you have the judgment necessary for partnership." She leaned back, her expression smug. "Partners need to maintain professional boundaries. They need to be above reproach. They need to prioritize the firm above personal entanglements."
This was it. The test. Choose the firm or lose everything I'd worked for. Why was everyone being a super douche today?
"However," Belinda continued, "I'm willing to overlook this incident if you can prove your commitment.
The Morenga merger is heating up. We need someone who can dedicate themselves to the case.
I'm talking hundred-plus-hour weeks for the next three months.
Total availability. No distractions. That would be someone I would whole heartedly get on board to be a partner in our firm. "
She was offering me partnership. The thing I'd wanted for years. The goal I'd sacrificed everything for.
All I had to do was go back to Manhattan and bury myself in work. Prove that what happened with Sam was just a brief lapse in judgment. Show that I was serious about my career.
All I had to do was choose the life that was slowly killing me over the man I just met.
"I understand," I said. But I didn’t, not really. I didn’t want to choose between the two things I loved. But did I really love this job?
I didn't see Sam again before I left.
He was gone by the time I finished packing—off on some emergency supply run, according to Kevin. But I saw the way Kevin looked at me, the disappointment in his eyes, and I knew Sam hadn't gone anywhere. He just couldn't stand to watch me leave.
I couldn't blame him.
The helicopter ride out felt surreal. One minute I was on the mountain, surrounded by snow and wilderness and the memory of Sam's hands on my body. The next I was in a hotel near the airport, showering in a bathroom that was too clean and too sterile and smelled nothing like cedar and pine.
The next morning, I boarded a plane back to Manhattan.
And with every mile between me and Vermont, I felt the walls rebuilding. The armor I'd worn for years sliding back into place. The corporate lawyer mask fitting over my face until I could barely remember what it felt like to be the woman who'd laughed in Sam's arms.
By the time I walked into my apartment—my expensive, soulless apartment with its designer furniture and Manhattan views—I'd almost convinced myself I'd made the right choice.
Almost.
THREE WEEKS LATER
The panic attack hit during a client meeting.
One minute I was presenting merger strategy to a room full of executives, my voice steady, my arguments flawless. The next, my chest was tight and the room was spinning and I couldn't remember why any of this mattered.
"Ms. Madison?" The client's CEO leaned forward, concerned. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," I gasped, even though I clearly wasn't. "Just need a moment."
But I didn't have a moment. My vision was tunneling. My hands were shaking. I gripped the edge of the conference table, trying to ground myself, but it wasn't working.
"Get her out of here," Belinda snapped. "Amanda, take her to the ladies' room. Gentlemen, I apologize for the interruption. Let's continue..."
Amanda's arm came around my shoulders. The walk down the hallway felt like miles. The bathroom was blessedly empty as I collapsed against the sink, gasping for air that wouldn't come.
"Breathe, Jess," Amanda said, her voice distant. "In through your nose, out through your mouth. You know the drill."
I did know the drill. I'd been having panic attacks for two years. But this one was different. This one felt like drowning. I was dying. Maybe not physically, but in every way that mattered, I was dying.
"I can't do this anymore," I whispered when I could finally speak.
"It's okay. The client will understand."
"No. I mean I can't do this anymore." I looked at Amanda in the mirror, seeing my own hollow eyes, my too-pale face, the woman I'd become. "This job. This life. I can't keep pretending."
Amanda's expression softened with something like pity. "Is this about Vermont? About that guide?"
"No. Yes. I don't know." I pressed my hands to my face. "I thought I wanted partnership. I thought if I just worked hard enough, achieved enough, I'd finally feel enough. But I don't. I just feel empty."
"So what are you going to do?"
That was the question, wasn't it?
Three weeks ago, I'd chosen this. Chosen the partnership track and the corporate life and the slowly suffocating death of everything that made me feel alive.
But standing in this bathroom, looking at my reflection, I finally understood what Sam had been trying to tell me.
I wasn't living. I was just surviving. And barely even that.
"I don't know," I admitted. "But I can't keep doing this."
I returned to the conference room twenty minutes later, composed and professional, and finished the presentation.
But something had broken inside me, and I couldn't put it back together.
That night, I sat in my apartment—my expensive, soulless apartment—and stared at the partnership offer on my coffee table.
Three years of eighty-hour weeks. A partnership track that required complete dedication.
A life that looked perfect from the outside and felt like dying on the inside.
Or...
I thought about Sam's cabin. About mountains and adventure and a man who'd seen straight through my armor to the woman underneath. About feeling alive for the first time in years, even when I was terrified. About the choice I'd made, and whether it was too late to unmake it.