Chapter Twenty
Jorja
T HE TEARS NEARLY FROZE on my face as I hurried out into the street. It was so cold, but I hardly noticed, given how emotional I was.
I didn’t know what had just happened. But I knew there was no coming back from it. The way I had just spoken to Seth, there wasn’t a chance in hell he was ever going to want to deal with me again. And I couldn’t blame him. After the way I had just acted, I knew I had well and truly blown up any chance of anything happening between the two of us.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets, but the snow was already biting at my cheeks and lips. My skin was aching beneath the freezing cold, and the thought of walking a few blocks home to get to my place seemed impossible right now.
“Jorja!”
I heard his voice behind me, but I kept my head down and ignored it. I didn’t want to talk to him right now, not after what had just happened. All of this was such a mess. I just wished he would take the money back, so we could be well and truly done with this and I could just move on with my life. But holding on to the cash he had rightfully earned just felt... wrong, in so many ways. I wished there was some way I could go back in time and tell him not to do all of this for me in the first place, but he would never have listened.
No, he was too kind for that. Too kind and too sweet, and I had just blown things up between us by telling him that I didn’t believe in the romance in those books he was on the covers of. What must he have thought of me? I tried to keep pushing forward, but the snow was too heavy. I had seen some nasty blizzards in my time, but this one might have topped them all.
All at once, I felt a pair of arms around me. It was him, holding me close, pulling me against his chest.
“Jorja, you can’t walk home in this, you’ll freeze,” he protested. As much as I wanted to shrug him off and prove him wrong, I knew he was right. I paused for a moment, not saying anything, but then turned to face him.
“Come on, let’s go back to the store,” he told me softly, his arm around my shoulders. In truth, it was the last place I wanted to be right now. But what choice did I have?
He steered me back toward the store, and as soon as we stepped inside, I could feel the prickling of pernio all over my face and hands. I rubbed them together, and headed to the breakroom to make something warm to drink. Well, that, and to give myself some space from that man who sent my head spinning a hundred different directions at once.
As I turned on the coffee machine, I heard a mumbling from the next room, and then, he turned it up, so I could hear the weather report as it played out.
“...experts are advising people to stay indoors as much as possible, and to avoid roads at all costs,” the announcer told the audience. “This is one of the biggest snowstorms to hit the area in several decades, so take all the precautions you can. And have a Merry Christmas!”
I emerged from the breakroom, shoulders hunched up to my ears. As though this couldn’t get any worse. I was locked in here with a guy who probably wanted nothing to do with me, during the storm of the century.
“You’re not going anywhere tonight,” he told me firmly. “Do you have food here?”
“Enough,” I replied, gesturing toward the breakroom. “Maybe I could try heading home in an hour or so, once it’s calmed down a little.”
“Didn’t you hear what they said?” he reminded me, raising his eyebrows. “It’s dangerous to go out right now. If you think I’m going to let you trek in that snow, you’ve got another thing coming.”
His protectiveness warmed me more than the coffee I was currently brewing ever could have. I sank back against the counter, staring at the floor.
“Sorry you’re stuck here with me on Christmas Eve,” I muttered.
“Stuck here?” he repeated after me, incredulous. “Is that what you think, Jorja?”
I gestured outside. “Well, you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the blizzard,” I pointed out.
He took a step toward me, and slipped his hand into mine. “Jorja, no matter if there was a storm or not, there’s nowhere I’d rather be right now than with you.”
I lifted my gaze to meet his. “What?”
“You heard me,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else if it meant I couldn’t be close to you. I want to be with you, Jorja. And I don’t know what it’s going to take to get you to see that.”
My head spun. He sounded sincere, his voice burning with earnestness, as though he needed me to understand this more than anything in the world.
“What do you mean?” I whispered. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I wanted to, of course I did, I wanted to believe that he was actually interested in staying here with me, but why would he want to? He had the whole world out there waiting for him, dozens of women who would have fallen over themselves for a chance with him. I just didn’t get why he would waste that time on me, instead.
“Exactly what I said,” he replied, simply.
I swallowed hard. “But what about... what about the modeling?” I asked him.
“What about it?” he replied, with a shrug. “It was just something I did on the side to make a little extra money, on top of the event planning. I never intended it to be a career. It was easy to keep up with when I was traveling, and it gave me excuses to travel to parts of the country I never would have found before.”
“But all those women... all that attention...”
“It’s just part of the job, Jorja,” he murmured, squeezing my hand a little tighter. “If I wanted all of that, I would have made it a full-time thing. And I would have announced it everywhere I went, but I didn’t. Because that stuff... that’s just part of the job. It’s not what I wanted from it. I just thought if I could use it to help you, then it might all be worth it.”
Those words hung in the air between us. I bit my lip and stared up at him, at those eyes that looked as though they were laced through with tinsel. When he talked like that, those perfect words spilling from his lips, I could feel something inside of me shifting—something that had long been stuck in place beginning to move.
“You have to understand,” he continued, his fingers winding around mine. “I could have ended up anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the country. But my finger landed on Mastin Falls on the map, and I walked into your store, and it feels... it feels like it was meant to be. I didn’t believe in any of that stuff until I met you, but I think the universe is trying to tell me something.”
I bit my lip. I could feel the emotion swelling up inside of me, threatening to get the better of me. I didn’t know how to react to this. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and tell him that I felt the same way, but I had never been that kind of girl. I’d always been focused on the practical, on the real, not on some act of fate bringing us together out of nowhere.
“I’ve never really... been with anyone before,” I admitted after a long pause. I felt so stupid, saying it out loud like that, but he needed to know before he started saying anything he couldn’t take back. I didn’t know if he would want to associate himself with someone like me, someone who really didn’t have much experience in the world of dating.
He blinked. “Really?” he replied. “I can’t believe that.”
“Why not?” I asked, confused.
“Look at you,” he replied, lifting my hand and twirling me around on the spot. “You’re gorgeous, Jorja. I’m surprised guys haven’t been beating down your door to take you out.”
I giggled. “Well, they haven’t been,” I assured him.
“Or maybe you just haven’t noticed when they have,” he remarked. “I think that’s why Wharton has been so focused on you. It’s his way of dealing with the fact he has a crush on you.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “You think?”
“I really do,” he replied. “I bet there are plenty of guys in this town who’d love to have a shot with you.”
I smiled up at him. “Well, I’m not interested in any of them,” I confessed shyly. I wasn’t used to this, this kind of intimacy with anyone. It was so new to me, but exciting, the warmth of it spreading in my chest like the first flush of spring flowers.
He lifted his hand to my cheek. “You think you might be interested in me?” he asked, testing the water.
I giggled, then nodded. “I... I think I might be,” I replied, gazing up into his eyes. Those eyes, lit like fairy lights, lit like the magic of Christmas lived right up there in his head—I wasn’t sure I would ever get tired of looking into them. Even as the storm raged outside, I knew that there was nowhere I would rather be that here, with him, his hand resting softly on my cheek, his thumb caressing over my skin.
“You think?” he murmured.
“I know,” I breathed, correcting myself at once. Because, when I looked into his eyes, there was no doubt in my mind. For the first time in a long time, I knew it for sure—I knew it without question. The way he had treated me from the moment he had arrived in this town, his easy, gentle charm, it had lit up something inside of me that I didn’t even know I needed. I had been so comfortable on my own, and being pulled out of that place and forced to confront my feelings for someone, it was new. Scary.
But maybe scary stuff was the stuff worth doing. Maybe that was how you brought your magic to life, if you jumped into the stuff that frightened you, and didn’t let your fear get the better of you.
“Good,” he murmured back, his thumb tracing a soft line along my lower lip. “Because I know, too.”