Chapter 17 Ivy #2
“I can’t undo what I said,” he goes on. “I can’t pretend I didn’t hurt you when I thought I was protecting you. But I can do this.” He gestures to the sleigh. “I can show up. In your city. In your world. Even when it scares the hell out of me.”
He swallows, the muscles in his throat working.
“I don’t want just the mountain anymore, Ivy,” he says, voice roughening.
“I want the mountain and the madness of loving you. I want the quiet and the late-night edit sessions and the way you put cinnamon in your cocoa when you think no one’s watching.
” A small, crooked smile. “I want to figure it out. The drives. The days. The weird hours. All of it.”
My eyes burn.
He takes a breath. “You were right. I was a coward. I’m trying not to be one anymore. So this is me asking—publicly, which is your fault, by the way—if you’ll give me another chance. If you’ll let me try to be the man who doesn’t walk away when it’s hard.”
The bells jingle faintly as he steps away from the mic, leaving it squealing in a tech’s hands. He walks toward me, each step measured, like he’s giving me time to bolt.
I don’t bolt.
When he’s a few feet away, he stops. Close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in his eyes. The way his hand shakes just a little where it hangs at his side.
“I love you,” he says.
The world tilts.
He says it like it’s the simplest truth he knows. No drama. No flourish. Just three words that crack something open in my chest and let light flood in.
“I realized it up on the mountain after you left,” he goes on, softer now, just for me. “Sitting in that cabin with the quiet I thought I wanted and feeling like I couldn’t breathe without you in it. I love you, Ivy Garland. And I’m sorry I didn’t grab onto that the first time around.”
Tears spill over.
I let them.
“You’re ridiculous,” I say, laughing through the crying. “You realize that, right?”
“Frequently,” he says. “Usually by you.”
The crowd is a low murmur around us—whispers and soft ooohs, someone’s kid saying, “Are they gonna kiss, Mom?”
I take a breath that feels like my first real one in weeks.
“Do you know what hurt the most?” I ask.
He flinches, nods. “Tell me.”
“That you didn’t even let me try,” I say. “You decided for both of us that it wouldn’t work. That you couldn’t give more. That I’d resent you. You didn’t give me the chance to prove I meant it when I said I wanted both.”
He nods again, throat working. “I know. I was wrong.”
“And now?” I ask.
“Now I’m here,” he says simply. “Scared. Loud. Bells and all. Asking.”
The hurt doesn’t vanish.
But it shifts.
It makes space for something else: the image of him making this call, hauling a sleigh into the city, wiring my footage to a sound system he probably hates, standing in front of a crowd when he’d rather be alone in a barn.
For me.
The hollow ache in my chest that I’ve been trying to fill with work and coffee and busywork cracks all the way open.
I step closer.
“So,” I say, my voice shaking for entirely different reasons now. “This whole thing… was it at least approved in the content calendar?”
One corner of his mouth lifts. “Margo said it tested well with your target audience.”
“I bet she did.” I sniff, smiling even as another tear escapes. “This is really not subtle.”
“Subtle didn’t work,” he says. “Thought I’d try your way.”
“Grand gestures and emotional vulnerability?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Seems to be your brand.”
I stare up at him.
At this man who lives for quiet and still showed up in my noisy city with bells on.
Literally.
“Okay,” I say.
He blinks. “Okay?”
“I’ll give you another chance,” I say. “On one condition.”
“Name it,” he says, way too fast.
“You don’t get to run next time it scares you,” I say. “You tell me. We figure it out. Together. You don’t get to decide for both of us what I can handle. Deal?”
His eyes soften in that way that makes my knees feel like undercooked spaghetti.
“Deal,” he says. “You get a condition. I get one too.”
“Bold,” I say. “What’s yours?”
“Get in the sleigh with me,” he says. “No cameras. No campaign. Just us. I brought it all this way. Feels like we should at least go around the block.”
I laugh, a wet, choked sound that feels weirdly like joy. “That’s your condition?”
“I’m a simple man,” he says.
“I don’t think that’s true at all,” I say, but I hold out my hand anyway. “Help me up, then, mountain man.”
His fingers close around mine, warm and sure. He helps me into the sleigh like we’re the only two people in the plaza. The crowd claps. Someone wolf-whistles. I vaguely register Margo filming from the steps with a gleam in her eye that says content gold.
Rhett climbs in beside me, takes the reins the handler passes him. There’s one horse—no Donner or Comet, but a patient brown gelding with a wreath around his neck and bells that jingle when he tosses his head.
“You ready?” Rhett asks.
“With you?” I say. “Yeah.”
He clicks his tongue, and we start forward, the runners gliding surprisingly smooth over the fake snow. The crowd parts, cheering, and then we’re out onto the side street that loops around the plaza, the lights arching overhead like our own private galaxy.
He keeps one hand on the reins, the other tentatively sliding over mine under the blanket.
I let my fingers twine with his.
“Saint Pierce looks good on you,” I say, watching his profile in the glow of the streetlamps.
“Feels weird,” he admits. “But not bad. Security firm seems solid. Boss is ex-military. Ruin’s down there half the month. They’re willing to work around my Jubilee season. I can do most of the work out of this office and consult on some of the risk stuff.”
“You… really thought this through,” I say, heart swelling.
“Took me long enough,” he says. “I figured if I was going to show up on your turf, I needed more than promises and a sled. I needed to prove I wasn’t just visiting your world. I’m willing to live some of my life in it.”
My chest feels too full.
“And the mountain?” I ask.
He smiles, small and soft. “Still mine. Still home. But maybe it doesn’t have to be just mine anymore.”
The wind tugs at my hair. The bells chime. The city hums around us, lights reflecting in his eyes.
“I love you too, you know,” I say.
His hand tightens on mine. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say, feeling it all the way down. “Stupidly. Inconveniently. In a way that makes no sense and all the sense.”
He exhales like he’s been holding that breath for days. Weeks.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks.
I grin. “You’d better.”
He reins the horse to a slow stop under a canopy of lights strung between buildings—white and gold and shimmering, like someone poured the stars down just for us.
Then he leans in and kisses me.
It’s different from the cabin—less desperate, more certain. No storm outside, no question of whether we get another chance. Just the press of his lips, the warmth of his hand on my cheek, the steady thump of his heart under my palm where I’ve flattened it over his chest.
The city fades.
The crowd. The lights. The worry.
It’s just us.
When we finally pull back, we’re both breathing harder, smiling like idiots.
“Happy almost New Year,” I whisper.
“Best one I’ve had in a long time,” he says.