17. Duncan
17
DUNCAN
With no heat except for the fire and no distractions to pull us apart, we spend most of Christmas day wrapped in blankets. The only times we venture out of our makeshift bed is when nature calls and hunger forces us to. Since an elaborate meal isn’t feasible, hot dogs will have to do. Not my first choice for lunch — or dinner, depending on the time — but necessity trumps preference.
I spear the hot dogs and roast them over the fire. She watches me from the bed, her arms tucked around her knees. She did offer to help, but I prefer her ogling me. Which she does, unabashedly.
“Never would’ve pegged you as the hot-dog-over-the-fire type,” she says.
I chuckle, turning the hot dogs to crisp them evenly. “Don’t knock it until you try it.”
“Oh, I’m not knocking. Just surprised, is all. You really do seem the type to hire a private chef, not make do with a stick and a fire.”
I glance at her. “I’m resourceful when I need to be.”
Her lips twitch with the faintest smile. “I can see that.”
“And there’s no chef who can make a hot dog over a fireplace taste this good.”
She rolls her eyes, but her smile grows. “I’ll take your word for it.”
When the hot dogs are cooked, we eat in companionable silence, sitting on the edge of the mattress, the crackle of the fire filling the room. The simplicity of the meal feels oddly comforting, grounding us in the moment. It’s quiet but not uncomfortable. There’s a sense of ease here, despite the blizzard raging outside.
Eventually, though, the quiet between us shifts. She fiddles with the edge of her blanket as she drifts into thought, her gaze distant.
Under different circumstances, I’d let it go. Not today.
Reaching over, I take one of her hands in mine and give it a gentle squeeze. “What’s on your mind?”
She exhales, looking down at her hands. “Aspen.”
Scooting closer, I pull her hand onto my lap, giving her my full attention. “What about it?”
“It’s strange, being here with you like this. Sharing all of this with you again, after… everything. It’s been exactly ten years, to the date. What are the odds?”
“One in a million,” I offer.
“I woke up, and you were gone. No note. No explanation. Just… gone. Yet earlier, you said…” Her voice falters, and she shakes her head. “It didn’t seem that way at the time. I felt abandoned, like I was some passing whim to you. A distraction. I hated how much it hurt.”
The rawness in her voice hits me hard. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t mean to leave you like that.”
“Then why did you?” Her tone isn’t accusing, just searching, like she needs the answer to make sense of it.
I rake a hand through my hair, struggling to find the right words, words that don’t make it sound like an excuse. “Chloe called the night before. There was… situation that she needed help in getting out of.”
And by situation, I mean the sleazy ex-boyfriend and ex-bestfriend that the twins couldn’t shake off for the longest time. Even the mere mention of his name irritates me to this day.
“Hurricane Todd.” Her expression softens, the tension in her shoulders easing slightly. “I get it, I would’ve done the same thing.” Then, almost as an afterthought, she adds, “I have done the same thing.”
Though simple, her words mean more than she probably realizes. Then again, they are best friends. Of course she knows about Todd fucking Hale, the bane of Chloe’s and Caleb’s existence.
“As it turned out, when she couldn’t get a hold of me, she called Alex, my best friend. He had everything handled by the time I got there.”
“ Alex , as in the Alexander Carrington?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Of Cornerstone Financial Group?”
“That’s the one. You know him?”
She pauses, and for a moment I think she’s not going to answer. And that bothers me.
But why?
Why do I sound like a jealous boyfriend? Why should I care? She has a life outside of this bubble, a life I know she’s itching to get back to.
“I know of him through work,” she clarifies. “This might come as a shock to you, but I have a day job outside of Nebula. I work as a Senior Data Analyst with one of the gazillion companies Cornerstone contracts out to. There’s like, twenty degrees of separation between us.”
I nod slowly. “For what it’s worth, I had every intention of spending Christmas with you.”
Her gaze flickers to mine, searching. I don’t look away. The raw, unfettered vulnerability I see in her eyes makes my chest tighten.
She stays silent, so I press on, needing her to know. “I looked for you. Afterward. I tried to find you, but you weren’t registered under your name. The trail led me to someone else.”
Her lips twitch into a faint, bitter smile. “Sydney Kerrigan, from college. She helped me disappear.”
“Why?” The question slips out before I rein it in.
“I suppose it’s accurate to say she helped Celeste Ehrenberg disappear,” she clarifies. “She helped me change my name. When I left home, I needed a clean slate, and she had the resources to make it happen. In return, I was responsible for… ditching her unwanted suitors, so to speak.”
“So, at Aspen…” I trail off, as jealousy rears its ugly head again.
Which doesn’t make sense. I was her first. She bled on my cock.
Odette studies me, watching as the gears turn in my head. Her lips twitch, but the smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “The name Kerrigan alone should be self-explanatory. I wasn’t sleeping with her suitors, it was more of a numbers game. Her family would put together these elaborate dossiers on those guys, and it was my job to make sure those guys dropped the notion of marrying the illegitimate princess. I played the part of the princess’s long-time very jealous girlfriend. It pissed off both of our families, since they ran in the same circles.”
I nod slowly, piecing it together. “When I found her, it was at her funeral.”
“Sydney isn’t dead.”
She sounds so certain. “What?”
“Her actual girlfriend, who was a total sweetheart and not the bitch I was portraying, went into WITSEC. Once we wrapped up my stuff, she followed her into the program. Considering who she was, she requested that they fake her death. Turns out it’s the quickest way to get people off your back. Permanence through death.”
I stare at her, stunned. “Did you ever consider doing the same?”
She hesitates, then nods once. “Sometimes. But there are people I couldn’t leave behind.”
My chest tightens. “The twins?”
She doesn’t answer immediately, but when she does, her voice is soft. “Yes.”
I want to ask more, but I know her well enough not to push. “Okay.”
We sit in silence for a while, the fire crackling softly between us. I cave first.
“Is that why you think this can’t work?” I ask, searching her face.
She stiffens slightly, her gaze dropping. “It’s one of the reasons,” she admits. “Chloe and Caleb are my best friends. My family. I can’t… I won’t jeopardize that.”
I hate the finality in her tone, the way she shuts the door on us before we’ve even had a chance. “You’re wrong. This can work, if we both want it to.”
Her gaze snaps to mine, surprise flickering in her eyes.
“Odette, I’m serious about you,” I tell her. “About us. What we have, this connection we share, it isn’t meant to be a one-time thing.”
She doesn’t respond, but her silence speaks volumes. Instead, she wraps the blanket tighter around herself, retreating into the silence. Though I want to push, to fight for her, I hold back, knowing I can’t force her to see what I already know. That we belong together. That we aren’t over. Not without a fight.