Chapter 8 #2
Rebecca materializes. Sheets twisted around her naked body, lipstick smudged across her mouth, eyes widening in shock when she sees me in the doorway.
Her lover’s cologne hanging in the air. The rehearsed “Sebastian, I can explain,” falling from her lips.
My stomach churns. I snap my eyes open, preferring the dark cave to the theater of betrayal playing behind my eyelids.
“So...” Bailey’s voice breaks through my darkening thoughts. “What does a fancy CEO actually do all day?”
“Run meetings. Make decisions.” I keep my answers clipped. Professional. Safe.
“That’s it? Just meetings and decisions? No secret underground lair? No villain monologues?”
“No.”
“You suck at this conversation thing, don’t you?”
I shift, careful to avoid her injured leg. “I prefer efficient communication.”
“Efficient is boring. Want to hear about my snow globes instead?”
Before I can decline, she launches into her story, still clutching the Vegas globe.
“I started in Seattle. First solo flight. Airport gift shop had this tacky thing with a tiny Space Needle. The glitter looked like dandruff, not snow, but I bought it anyway. Then Chicago. Oh man, the Chicago one is perfect. When you shake it, it makes this weird clicking sound, like someone dropped a penny inside...”
Her voice fills our small shelter, rising and falling with each description. Miami has sand instead of glitter. Portland broke in her suitcase, but she kept the base. Tokyo plays a tinny version of some pop song she can’t pronounce.
“And then in Denver—”
“Do you ever stop?”
“Talking? Not really. I know it makes people uncomfortable. Which, funny enough, makes me talk more. It’s a nervous thing. Like now. I’m nervous. So I’m talking. A lot. Obviously.”
Her nervous admission catches me off guard. The constant stream of words makes sense now—it’s her shield, just as my carefully chosen words are mine.
“Right now,” she continues, “I’m thinking about how this is super awkward for you because you’re all...” She waves her hand vaguely, rustling our silver cocoon. “You know. Proper. And I’m just word-vomiting about snow globes while we’re spooning in a cave.”
A laugh escapes before I can contain it. When was the last time someone spoke to me with such raw honesty? No agenda, no social calculations, just unfiltered thoughts tumbling into darkness.
In my world, every conversation is combat. Board meetings are verbal warfare, each word a strategic weapon. Even casual drinks with colleagues feel like high-stakes negotiations, everyone hunting for weaknesses to exploit. Everyone wants something. A piece of me.
Yet here she is, filling our frozen shelter with stories about airport gift shops and broken snow globes, unconcerned with social hierarchy or protocol. The contrast fascinates me.
“Now you’re doing that thing again,” she interrupts my thoughts.
“What thing?”
“That analyzing thing. I can hear your brain categorizing me into some weird rich-person spreadsheet.”
“I’m not,” I mutter, pressing fingers against my temple. Her voice fills our cramped shelter, painting pictures of Salt Lake City’s terminal shops with the enthusiasm most people reserve for billion-dollar acquisitions.
“Then—this is the best part—they had this special edition where the snow actually looks like salt! Get it? Salt Lake City? Salt?” She shakes Vegas for emphasis, sending ripples through our shared cocoon. “When you shake it, the glitter goes whoosh—no, more like fwoosh. Or maybe it’s shhhhhh?”
I grunt and close my eyes, but a smile tugs at my lips.
“They had this entire display with different colored bases, but I chose classic bronze because, hello, authenticity? Though technically the real salt flats probably don’t go fwoosh—” She makes the sound again, and I wonder what my Board would make of someone who punctuates business decisions with sound effects.
The strangest part is her genuine enthusiasm. No agenda, no calculated image. Just pure, unfiltered excitement about something as ridiculous as souvenir snow globes. It’s...refreshing. Maddening, but refreshing.
Her voice trails off mid-critique of LAX’s “tragically inferior” snow globe selection, replaced by soft, even breaths. Without the constant barrage of words, the silence presses against my ears.
She shifts in sleep, turning over, burrowing deeper against me, her head finding the hollow beneath my chin like it belongs there.
My heart kicks against my ribs. I should move. Create distance. But her warmth seeps into my frozen bones, and I tighten my arm around her instead.
Who am I anymore? Twenty-four hours ago, I was Sebastian Lockhart. CEO, heir, man with the perfect life, and perfect fiancée-to-be. Now I’m a stranger wearing my skin, huddled in a cave with a woman who challenges everything I thought I knew about myself.
We might die here. The thought slices through me with terrifying clarity. No rescue coming. Just wind and darkness and temperatures dropping by the minute. No one would find our bodies until the spring thaw.
Bailey’s hand uncurls in sleep, her fingers splaying across my chest. Right over my heart, as if even unconscious, she’s trying to read me. Her face softens in sleep, vulnerability replacing the sharp edges she wields like weapons when awake.
Moonlight catches on her long lashes, casting feathered shadows across her cheeks. A constellation of freckles dusts the bridge of her nose. Without her rapid-fire commentary and challenging stares, I can see the delicate curve of her jaw, the fullness of her lips, slightly parted in sleep.
She’s beautiful. Not in Rebecca’s calculated, manufactured way. Bailey is beautiful like wilderness itself—raw, untamed, dangerous to those who don’t respect her power.
The realization twists something in my chest.
“Your suit’s getting wrinkled,” she mumbles, her breath warm against my throat. Her sleepy concern for my clothing of all things—while we’re facing death in an Alaskan wilderness—breaks something inside me. A laugh that feels dangerously close to a sob catches in my throat.
“If anyone hears about the cuddling,” she murmurs, “I’ll deny everything and hide your fancy shoes.”
Even now, she’s impossible. Infuriating. Unlike anyone I’ve ever known.
The storm howls its fury outside, reminding me that nature doesn’t care about Lockhart Industries or perfect proposals or my ordered life. Out here, I’m nothing. No one. Just a man trying not to die with a woman who’s somehow anchoring me when everything else has been ripped away.
She shifts again, murmuring something against my chest. One hand clutches her snow globe while the other fists in my shirt, holding on like I might disappear.
Her leg—the injured one—twitches in sleep.
Without thinking, I run my hand down her spine, surprised when she instantly settles under my touch.
I should create distance. Protect what’s left of my shattered pride.
Instead, I adjust the silver blanket to cover her shoulder, ensuring not a single draft touches her. I tuck her closer, my chin resting atop her head, her heartbeat a steady counterpoint to the wild pounding of my own.
What the hell is wrong with me?
If she makes those ridiculous sound effects again, I’m taking my chances with hypothermia.
The Board would understand.
Probably.