Chapter Thirteen
With Christmas only two days away, the village of Zermatt was bursting with Christmas energy. Every street seemed filled with holiday shoppers, and visitors eager to soak in the festive charm of the Swiss mountain town.
Amelie wandered slowly, her boots crunching on the fresh snow. She had about half an hour to kill before she had to meet Grant and the boys at a café near the station.
Her morning had been one she wouldn’t forget.
Grant had been reluctant to let her out of bed, to put it mildly.
Boy, was that man making up for lost time, she thought, smiling at her reflection in a bakery window.
Not that she was complaining. The memory of his mouth on her skin, his hands memorizing her body with thirteen years of hunger behind them, sent a pleasant shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with the winter air.
She had finally escaped with a lingering kiss and a promise to return.
The rest of the morning had passed quickly. After breakfast with Grant and the boys, she returned to her suite and spent about an hour handling a few business calls to clients who had commissioned custom pieces she was working on.
Those were the kinds of conversations Amelie loved. The reason she had fallen in love with jewelry design in the first place wasn’t the money or the prestige. It was the stories, the memories, and the milestones people wanted to capture and preserve through something beautiful.
Those calls had reminded her why she loved what she did. They had also reminded her that not every business conversation needed to leave her with a headache.
A smile tugged at her lips as she stepped out of a small boutique near the center of the village, carefully adjusting the shopping bag hanging from her arm. Inside was the gift she had finally settled on for Grant.
It wasn’t extravagant. Grant certainly didn’t need anything expensive.
In fact, she had intentionally avoided looking at anything that cost a ridiculous amount of money because that wasn’t what she wanted to give him.
Instead, she had found a beautifully crafted wooden picture frame made by a local artisan. The dark wood had been hand-carved with subtle alpine details along the edges, and she had paid extra to have a small inscription engraved across the bottom.
The beginning of forever.
It was simple, meaningful, and absolutely perfect. Especially once she added the photograph she had chosen.
The image had been taken the previous day while Grant and the boys were distracted, arguing over whether Trevor’s wooden dragon qualified as a Christmas decoration.
None of them had realized she was taking the picture.
Grant stood between Tyler and Trevor with an arm around each of them while all three wore nearly identical smiles.
The moment she saw the photo, she knew it was the one. It perfectly captured everything that had happened over the last few days—a father finding his sons, two boys finding their dad, and a family beginning. Her chest warmed just thinking about it. Grant was going to love it.
The thought had barely crossed her mind when her phone began ringing.
Amelie pulled it from her coat pocket and glanced at the screen. Her smile faded when she saw Marty’s name.
She debated answering because lately every conversation with Marty seemed to revolve around the investor, and she wasn’t in the mood to discuss business, especially while standing in the middle of the village.
Still, ignoring her attorney wasn’t exactly professional, and she answered the call.
“Hi, Marty.”
“Amelie. Boy, are you a hard woman to get a hold of,” he said.
She rolled her eyes at his comment and started walking again, weaving through the crowd gathered near one of the Christmas market stalls.
“I’m on vacation, Marty. What can I do for you?”
“Where are you right now?”
Amelie frowned slightly. The question seemed odd.
“I’m in Zermatt.”
“I know you’re in Zermatt.”
“Then why are you asking?”
There was a pause. Just long enough for something uncomfortable to begin forming in the pit of her stomach.
When Marty spoke again, there was an odd note in his voice.
“Where are you exactly?”
Amelie stopped walking completely. The crowd continued moving around her.
“I’m near the Christmas market,” she said.
“Oh. I see you now.”
Every muscle in her body went still.
“What?”
“Look to your right.”
For a second, Amelie didn’t move. A strange sense of unease crept up her spine. Then slowly, she turned her head. And froze when she saw Marty standing less than fifty feet away.
He smiled and gave her a small wave.
All she could do was stare because there was absolutely no reason Marty should be standing in the middle of Zermatt’s Christmas market.
“Marty...” The word barely escaped.
His smile widened. “Surprise!” he called out, walking toward her.
Amelie’s grip tightened around both her phone and the shopping bag in her hand. A hundred questions collided inside her head all at once.
What the ever-loving-fuck was he doing there?
Amelie was still trying to figure out how to politely explain to Marty that showing up unannounced during her family’s Christmas vacation was not remotely normal when a familiar voice drifted toward her from behind.
“Mom?”
The sound instantly made her stomach drop.
Oh no. Not now. Please, God, not right now.
Tyler and Trevor had developed an almost supernatural ability to appear at the worst possible moments. Normally, she found it endearing. But at the moment, it felt more like a curse. The boys couldn’t stand Marty.
Drawing in a slow breath, she turned around.
Sure enough, Grant and the boys were making their way through the crowded Christmas market toward her.
Judging by the number of shopping bags hanging from various arms, their morning had been successful.
Tyler appeared to be carrying something suspiciously large and awkwardly shaped while Trevor was holding a cup of hot chocolate and somehow managing to walk, drink, and talk at the same time.
The sight of them immediately eased some of the tension she’d been carrying. Right up until all three of them noticed Marty, and stopped walking.
Grant’s smile faded first. The boys slowed a second later, and both of them narrowed their eyes in suspicion. Right there with you, boys, she thought to herself.
Then both boys exchanged a glance that looked remarkably similar to the ones Grant gave his former teammates when silently communicating.
Then Trevor broke the silence. “What is he doing here?”
“I was just asking myself the same thing,” she muttered.
Tyler looked from her to Marty, then to Grant.
The expression on his face suggested he was attempting to be polite, attempting being the keyword.
“Marty,” Tyler said. The greeting wasn’t rude, but it wasn’t particularly warm either.
To his credit, Marty smiled. “Tyler. Trevor.”
Amelie suddenly found herself fighting the urge to laugh. Not because the situation was funny. Because it absolutely wasn’t.
But because Grant had spent part of the morning asking questions about Marty while they lay in bed together, and now the universe had apparently decided to drop the man directly into his path less than three hours later.
Somewhere, fate was having a wonderful time at her expense.
Her gaze flicked toward Grant. The calm expression on his face would have fooled most people, but it didn’t fool her. She knew that look. Grant wasn’t upset. He wasn’t jealous. He was assessing, as he probably did in every situation during his years as a SEAL.
Meanwhile, Marty seemed completely unaware that he was currently being evaluated by three different Carter males, all of whom appeared to have reached similar conclusions.
“Well, since your mom wouldn’t answer her phone, I decided to come in person to talk to her about the deal she’s working on.”
Amelie wanted to roll her eyes and tell Marty that it didn’t really warrant a trip.
But leave it to Tyler to voice her thoughts.
“So you flew all the way to Switzerland for that?” his question was directed at Marty.
And then Trevor immediately piled on.
“That seems inefficient. Plus, if she wanted to talk business, she would have called you back.”
Grant lowered his head, unsuccessfully hiding a smile.
Traitors. Every single one of them.
Marty ignored the boys’ jabs and shifted his attention toward Grant.
“And you are?”
The question was perfectly reasonable.
Unfortunately, the answer was not. Before Grant could say a word, Tyler grinned.
“Oh, this is our dad.”
Amelie watched the statement land. She watched as Marty’s eyes moved from Grant to the boys and back again. And for the first time since she had met him years ago, Marty looked genuinely caught off guard.
Beside her, Grant extended a hand. His expression remained polite. Friendly, even.
But Amelie knew him far too well not to recognize the confidence quietly radiating beneath the surface.
“Grant Carter.”
Marty accepted the handshake. “Martin Ellis.”
The two men exchanged polite smiles. The kind men exchanged right before a battle neither of them intended to lose.
Standing between them, Amelie had one very clear thought. This day was about to become significantly more interesting.
◆◆◆
Grant hadn’t expected a simple Christmas shopping trip to become one of his favorite memories.
He and the twins spent most of the morning wandering through the village, drifting in and out of shops.
What surprised him most wasn’t the shopping. It was how natural everything felt.
A week ago, he hadn’t known Tyler and Trevor existed. Now he found himself walking through a Christmas village in Switzerland with his sons, listening to them argue about gift ideas for their mother as though they had been doing this their entire lives.
Through their conversations, they had even helped him figure out what to get Amelie for Christmas. He just hoped that he could pull it off.
But now he was literally staring down another problem—Marty Ellis.
Amelie had told him enough about the attorney earlier that morning for Grant to form an opinion of the man. And it wasn’t a good opinion.