Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
DECLAN
Professional Distance and Other Impossible Tasks
If I’d thought maintaining professional distance from Holly Winters was challenging before we’d spent the night together, it was nothing compared to trying to coordinate festival logistics while pretending I couldn’t still taste her on my lips, or feel my cock inside her.
The morning after our committee meeting, I was standing in the town square at seven AM, ostensibly checking the electrical setup for vendor booths, but actually replaying the way she’d looked at me across the coffee table—like she was remembering exactly the same things I was remembering and working just as hard to forget them.
My chest squeezed and I gulped back a breath, praying that the panic attack that was seconds away would fuck off.
At this point, I’d rather be spending my time sitting on the toilet with the shits.
My phone rang, jolting me out of thoughts that had no business occupying my brain.
“Hayes,” I answered, expecting it to be Holly with a vendor question or my mother with another request to move something heavy.
“Declan, it’s Richard,” came the voice of my managing partner, sounding exactly as impatient as he had during our last three conversations. “We need to talk.”
I cursed myself for not checking the screen before I answered. My heart started thumping, and my head went dizzy.
“Richard,” I said, stepping away from the electrical box and trying to shift into Manhattan lawyer mode. “Good morning.”
“Is it?” Richard asked dryly. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like our lead corporate attorney is playing small-town festival coordinator in Vermont.”
I grimaced. “The sabbatical was approved through the holidays,” I reminded him, though we both knew that approving it and being happy about it were two very different things.
“That was before Brennan Industries decided to accelerate their timeline,” Richard said. “Look, Declan, I get it. You needed a break. Burnout happens to the best of us. But we need you back here, and we need you focused. This sabbatical thing has run its course.”
Sabbatical thing. As if the past few weeks had been some kind of quaint pastime instead of the first time in years I’d felt like myself.
“I understand the pressure,” I said carefully, “but I am on leave.” My hand shook, and I gripped the phone tighter.
“We need an answer on when you’re coming back, Declan. Are you coming back, or do we need to start looking for your replacement?”
Replacement. The word hit harder than it should have, carrying implications about my value to the firm and my commitment to the career I’d spent years building.
I was about to respond when I spotted Holly emerging from her car across the square, carrying what looked like a too-heavy-for-her-box and wearing jeans that made focusing on corporate law impossible.
“Can I call you back?” I asked Richard. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“Something,” Richard repeated, like I’d announced I was taking up professional juggling. “Christ, Declan. Just... call me back soon. We need a decision.”
He hung up, and I stood in the town square holding my phone and trying to reconcile the high-powered Manhattan attorney Richard needed with the man who’d spent yesterday morning digging cars out of snow and laughing about prehistoric coffee with the woman who was currently struggling to balance a heavy box while unlocking the festival supply storage shed.
She wanted distance, I reminded myself, walking over to help her.
Just because we’d had incredible sex didn’t mean I needed to complicate things by developing feelings or acting like we were anything more than temporary festival coordination partners.
It was becoming increasingly clear that Holly Winters had decided to return to Chicago after the holidays, and that was something I had to accept.
I wasn’t going to pressure her like Richard was pressuring me.
“Need a hand?” I asked, reaching for the box before she could protest, and ignoring the way my lungs decided to squash all the air out.
“Thanks,” Holly said, our fingers brushing as she transferred the box to me. The contact sent electricity up my arm, and based on the way she quickly pulled her hands away, she felt it too.
“What’s in here?” I asked, trying to maintain normal conversation while hyperaware of how good she smelled.
“Table linens for the vendor booths,” she said, unlocking the shed with the kind of focused efficiency that suggested she was working as hard as I was to maintain appropriate boundaries. “Margaret’s been ironing them all week.”
“Table linens?” I croaked as the weight of this box felt like I was lugging rocks around. Following her into the shed, I immediately regretted the decision when the small space made maintaining distance impossible.
The storage shed was apparently where the town kept everything from outdoor Christmas decorations to folding chairs, and it was organized with the kind of military precision that suggested Margaret Fletcher had been involved in the setup.
Holly moved through the cramped space with efficiency, checking items off her list and carefully not looking at me directly.
“Extra string lights are there. And the backup hot chocolate supplies are—“ She reached for a high shelf at the same moment I stepped closer to help, and we collided in a way that sent her stumbling backward against the wall of the shed with me pressed against her, my hands braced on either side of her face to keep from crushing her completely.
For a moment, we just stared at each other, close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in her green eyes and feel her breath against my lips.
Close enough that it would have been the most natural thing in the world to kiss her again, to pick up where we’d left off at the cabin instead of pretending nothing had happened.
“Sorry,” Holly whispered, though she made no move to duck under my arms or put distance between us.
“Don’t be,” I said quietly, and I was about to lower my head and kiss her when the shed door creaked ominously behind us.
“Oh!” came Margaret Fletcher’s voice, bright with obvious delight. “I’m so sorry to interrupt!”
Holly and I sprang apart like teenagers caught making out in a closet, which was essentially what had happened, except we were both adults and this was a festival supply shed instead of a teenage party.
“Margaret,” Holly said, her voice slightly higher than normal. “We were just... checking the inventory.”
“Very thorough checking,” Margaret said with a smile that suggested she wasn’t buying our inventory story for a second. “I can see you’re both very... dedicated to proper organization.”
“Extremely dedicated,” I agreed, stepping back and trying to look like a responsible adult even if my cock was raging so hard, it was starting to hurt.
“Well, don’t let me interrupt,” Margaret continued, clearly enjoying herself. “I just came to pick up the additional tablecloths. But please, continue with your... inventory management.”
She gathered what she needed and left us alone in the shed, but the moment was thoroughly broken. Holly busied herself with checking boxes and avoiding eye contact, while I tried to figure out how to bring up the subject of her leaving again, not to mention what my plans were after the holidays.
“We should probably get these supplies distributed,” Holly said, her voice carefully neutral.
“Probably,” I agreed, though what I was thinking was that we should probably have the conversation we’d been avoiding about what was happening between us.
The rest of the morning was an exercise in professional torture.
Every task required coordination, which meant working in close proximity while pretending we weren’t hyperaware of each other.
When Holly needed help carrying tables, our hands brushed.
When I was setting up the sound system, she had to lean over me to check the connections.
When we were both trying to untangle Christmas lights, we ended up literally tangled together in ways that made maintaining appropriate boundaries feel like a cosmic joke.
By lunch time, half the town had witnessed at least one moment of obvious chemistry between us, and the knowing looks were getting impossible to ignore.
“You two are adorable,” Sandra announced when we all gathered at the coffee shop for lunch planning.
“We’re just working together,” Holly said firmly, focusing on her coffee with the kind of intensity usually reserved for disarming explosives.
I caught Holly’s eye across the table and saw my own frustration reflected there. We were apparently terrible at hiding whatever was happening between us, and the entire town was treating our attempts at discretion like dinner theater.
Holly pulled out her planning folder, desperate to change the subject back to the matter at hand. “All the booths are confirmed, the caroling schedule is finalized, and the hot chocolate station setup is ready to go.”
She was all business, but I noticed she was avoiding looking at me directly, and when she reached for her pen at the same time I reached for my coffee, she pulled her hand back like I’d burned her.
“Perfect,” Sandra said, watching our careful dance with amusement. “You two make such an efficient team.”
My phone buzzed with another text from Richard: Need answer by tomorrow. Brennan merger briefing is Monday.
Tomorrow. Which was also the day before the festival started, and apparently, my deadline for deciding whether to go back to being a Manhattan corporate lawyer or continue this experiment in small-town living as a respectable adult, whether Holly stayed here or not.
“Everything okay?” Holly asked, noticing my expression.
“Just work stuff,” I said, putting my phone away and trying to focus on the meeting instead of career decisions that suddenly felt incredibly complicated.
“New York work?” Sandra asked with interest.
“Yeah,” I said reluctantly. “Some things heating up that might require my attention.”
I saw Holly’s expression shift slightly, becoming more guarded, though she tried to hide it behind professional interest.
“Nothing that can’t wait until after the festival, I hope,” Margaret said. “We need our coordination team intact.”
“Of course,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure that was true anymore.
The rest of lunch was filled with festival logistics and cheerful speculation about weekend weather, but I caught Holly watching me several times with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Like she was calculating something, or trying to make a decision about something she wasn’t ready to share.
After we finished eating, I walked her back to her car, both of us carefully maintaining the two-foot buffer zone we’d apparently established to keep from spontaneously combusting in public.
I cleared my throat. “About what happened in the shed earlier—”
“Nothing happened in the shed,” Holly said with the conviction of someone denying they ate the last cookie while still holding the empty package. “We just got tangled up while checking inventory.”
“Right,” I said. “And the Titanic just had a minor ice-related incident.”
She glared at me, jabbing her key fob so aggressively I half expected her car to explode rather than unlock. “We have a festival to coordinate. That’s what we’re focusing on.”
She climbed into her car, slammed the door in my face and peeled out of the parking lot like she was auditioning for Fast & Furious: Small Town Edition, leaving me standing there with the distinct feeling I’d just been rejected by a woman who, thirty minutes earlier, had looked at me like I was a chocolate fountain at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
My phone rang. Richard. Again. Probably calling to ask if I’d made the career-defining decision that would determine the rest of my life. No pressure.
I declined the call and trudged back to the town square, where I could distract myself with tangled Christmas lights, electrical outlets that sparked ominously, and vendors arguing over booth placement like they were staking claims in the Gold Rush.
I was starting to think the courtroom was a simpler place than this town square. At least opposing counsel never handed me mistletoe while giving me a wink and saying, “You might need this later.”