Chapter 12
Twelve
SEBASTIAN
The Lockhart family ring burns in my pocket with each step. Five generations of perfect marriages.
Snow crunches under Italian leather as I push deeper into the wilderness. My lungs ache with cold, each breath clouding before me, then vanishing. Just like my perfect future disappeared the moment Bailey opened that velvet box.
My grandmother’s diamond. My mother’s before her wedding. The ring that’s sealed Lockhart mergers—I mean marriages—since 1897. The same ring I requested from the family vault three months ago, enduring Mother’s knowing smiles and Father’s approving nods.
My breath forms clouds that match my stride’s rhythm.
One, two, three, four... Like counting board votes or quarterly profits.
Simple. Measurable. Controllable. Unlike Bailey, who exists in perpetual motion, all chaos and questions and connections I can’t map with even my most sophisticated spreadsheets.
A branch snaps under my weight. The crack echoes through skeletal trees, startling a raven into flight. Its wings beat against the winter silence. No more endless chatter about snow globe glitter density. No more theories about which cookie flavors correspond to personality types. No more Bailey.
But I catch myself tracking the raven’s path, wondering what she’d say about it. She’d have some elaborate backstory ready.
How it’s delivering messages to other birds, complete with wing-flapping impressions and a detailed explanation of corvid intelligence that she’d somehow connect to airplane engineering.
And I’d roll my eyes. I’d sigh. But I’d listen to every word.
My jaw clenches so hard my teeth might crack.
What humiliates me more, that Rebecca betrayed me, or that Bailey witnessed the aftermath? The answer sits like ice in my stomach.
Damn it.
This is exactly what I’m trying to escape. The way she gets into my head and makes me notice things I’d rather ignore. Makes me question things that should be simple.
I shove my hands deeper into my pockets. The wind slices through my coat like it’s cotton, carrying ice crystals that sting my face. I should turn back. The temperature’s dropping. Nightfall approaches. Every survival instinct says return before I die out here.
But returning means facing those eyes that see too much. That mouth that asks too many questions. That mind that makes too many connections, all of them ones I’m not prepared to acknowledge.
The proposal speech sits in my memory, each word meticulously chosen. The restaurant secured eight weeks in advance. The imported champagne. The string quartet rehearsed and ready. Everything planned with Lockhart precision.
Now Bailey knows. Bailey, who approaches life with all the subtlety of a fireworks display. She witnessed the ring. The ring that has never—not once in five generations—been refused.
Until now. Until me. The first Lockhart failure.
The snow deepens, but I push forward. Physical discomfort is preferable to explaining how I missed every sign. How Sebastian Lockhart, who built a reputation on attention to detail, who prides himself on controlling every variable, failed to notice his girlfriend was sleeping with another man.
A laugh escapes me, brittle as ice. She’d say something absurd like, “Look at the bright side—at least you found out before the proposal. Imagine her face if you’d gotten down on one knee and she had to decide between you and What’s-His-Name right there in the restaurant. Talk about awkward appetizers.”
And she’d be right. As usual. That’s what makes her observations so infuriating—their unerring accuracy. The way she cuts through pretense.
I sink onto a fallen log.
I should care about the cold. Instead, I’m thinking about my mother’s voice, honeyed manipulation wrapped in Chanel No. 5. Mom has probably called every wedding planner in the city by now. The Lockhart Christmas engagement is the social event of the season.
“The Wards are family already, darling. And Rebecca is exactly what this family needs. Polished, poised, perfect!”
Perfect. The word echoes through the forest. Perfect grades. Perfect university. Perfect career trajectory. Perfect girlfriend from the perfect family with the perfect connections. The perfect proposal on the perfect night with the perfect ring. Just like Bailey called me.
I pull the ring from my pocket and open the box. The heirloom diamond catches what little sunlight penetrates the forest canopy, throwing fractured rainbows across the snow. Great-great-grandmother’s original setting. Grandmother’s diamonds added to the band.
Mother’s voice intrudes again, discussing venue availability with the wedding planner while Rebecca is wrapped around another man, whispering the same promises she made to me.
I should feel devastated. Heartbroken. Destroyed. Something appropriately catastrophic. But when I examine my feelings about Rebecca’s betrayal, all I find is...irritation. Inconvenience. Disruption. But hardly earth-shattering.
Yet Bailey finding that ring? That image replays in high definition. The way her rambling skidded to a stop mid-sentence. How her fingers trembled against the velvet. The soft “oh” that escaped her lips. Perhaps the only time I’ve heard her speechless.
The wind cuts between trees with knife-edge precision, but the cold seeping into my bones comes from within.
Why does Bailey’s opinion matter? She’s a cargo pilot with boundary issues and an extensive collection of tourist trinkets.
A temporary inconvenience. A blip in my otherwise ordered existence.
Yet it matters. It matters enough to crack foundations that I thought unbreakable.
A perfect pinecone catches my eye. Symmetrical, intact, precise in its spiral pattern.
Without thinking, I pick it up. Bailey would name it.
Something ridiculous like “Sir Cone-a-lot” or “Pinecone Pattinson.” She’d give it a personality, a hometown, maybe a complex relationship with neighboring acorns.
I tuck it into my pocket.
Another thought intrudes. Fuck, it’s Christmas. While I’ve been tramping through snow feeling sorry for myself, she’s missing her family celebration. Stuck in a cabin with a stranger who just stormed out over his wounded pride. My wounded pride.
My gaze lands on a small pine tree—young, crooked, imperfectly perfect. Mother would banish it from our property for daring to deviate from symmetrical elegance. But it’s just the right size for...
“What are you doing?” I ask aloud, already gathering more pinecones. My voice sounds foreign in the forest's quiet. “Making Christmas decorations like some Hallmark movie protagonist?”
Bailey’s voice answers in my head: “Definitely a Hallmark movie. Rich CEO with stick up his ass learns the true meaning of Christmas from quirky pilot? I’d watch that.”
My arms fill with forest debris. Pinecones, twigs, berries that stain my gloves crimson. A branch catches my attention, its natural curve resembling a leaping reindeer.
Bailey would appreciate that. She would point it out, then make up an elaborate backstory about how it’s actually Rudolph’s cousin who didn’t make the sleigh team but started a successful reindeer therapy practice instead.
Mother would require smelling salts if she could see me now. Sebastian Lockhart, Harvard MBA, Wharton MBA, CEO of a billion-dollar hotel chain, tramping through snow, collecting twigs. For a woman who talks to inanimate objects and makes explosion sounds during turbulence.
The branch pokes through my pocket, ruining my pants. I should care about that. I’ve always cared about that.
Instead, I wonder if Bailey will catch how the smaller twig forms perfect antlers.
What the fuck am I doing?
The journey back takes longer than expected. My pathetic Christmas tree catches on every branch like it’s determined to make this as difficult as possible. Much like its intended recipient.
What will I say? Sorry I stormed out sounds inadequate. An apology for my behavior sounds robotic. Nothing fits this situation because nothing about this situation is normal.
Movement catches my eye as the cabin comes into view. Bailey stands at the window, palm pressed against frosted glass.
She’s muttering something, forehead creased with genuine concern. She’s worried.
About me. After I threw a tantrum worthy of a toddler denied a second dessert and stormed into a potential blizzard. Yet there she stands, watching for my return like it matters. Like I matter.
The makeshift tree shifts in my arms, sending snow cascading down my sleeve. A pinecone escapes my pocket, rolling across fresh powder like it’s making a break for freedom.
My gloved hand hovers over the door handle. Through the wood, her voice carries, frustration wrapping around concern.
“...swear to God, if he’s frozen to death out there, I’m going to murder his perfectly tailored corpse. Who dies of hypothermia right after giving a wilderness survival lecture? That’s just spiteful.”
I exhale, watching my breath crystallize and disappear. The tree sheds needles on my coat, each one a reminder of how far I’ve strayed from my carefully plotted course.
I’ve addressed shareholders during hostile takeovers. Negotiated eight-figure deals over breakfast. Fired C-suite executives without blinking. Yet somehow, opening this door requires more courage than any boardroom battle I’ve ever faced.
The hinges creak as I push it open, winter air rushing into the cabin’s warmth.
Bailey spins toward the sound, her expression transforming through shock to relief to something I can’t quite categorize.
“You’re alive!” The words burst from her with unfiltered emotion. Before I can respond, she launches herself at me, arms wrapping around my middle like she’s genuinely afraid I might disappear.
The tree drops from my arms, scattering needles across the rough floorboards as her warmth seeps through my frozen clothes.
I slowly raise my arms, completing the embrace. She feels small against my chest, but her grip is fierce, holding onto me like I’m something precious rather than something prestigious.
Then she spots the fallen tree. Her entire body stills, and she pulls back just enough to stare at it. “Did you... Did you make me Christmas?” Her voice catches, vulnerability threading through the question, making my chest tighten in response.
I should say something clever. Something sophisticated. Something worthy of Sebastian Lockhart.
Instead, I fumble with frozen pockets, extracting squashed berries and broken twigs with all the grace of a child presenting a mud pie.
“You missed your family Christmas, so...” The berries stain my gloves red. “I thought perhaps...”
She studies me, head tilted, like I’m a complex equation she can’t quite solve.
That makes two of us. Because as I watch her face, I confront an uncomfortable realization—I didn’t do this to apologize. I did it to see her smile.
My fingers brush the ring box. Five generations of Lockhart diamonds. Five generations of strategic marriages. A century of perfect proposals.
All meaningless compared to the way Bailey looks at me now—not as a Lockhart, not as a CEO, just as a man who brought her Christmas.