Chapter 28
Grant
The office was empty, morning light spilling through the twelfth-floor windows.
It was quiet up here, but down on the streets below, people were already in motion—rushing for last-minute gifts, inching through bumper-to-bumper traffic, hunting for that one ingredient they’d forgotten for the cookies a holiday couldn’t feel complete without.
Christmas Eve.
The start of a million of traditions in millions of homes. And the end of the one tradition I wanted to keep more than anything—waking up next to my wife.
I’d been here since dawn, finishing the year-end report before driving out to my grandparents’ gated estate. Every year, they made the security guard wear a Santa suit, and I’d started slipping him a six-pack and tickets to Elves on Ice for his grandkids. Someone should get to go home a hero.
The annual Delaney Christmas commenced like a festive twist on the postman’s creed—neither snow, nor heat, nor their grandson’s failures.
You’ll smile for the family photo, and you’ll like it. Then you’ll eat turkey and pretend you’re living inside a Norman Rockwell painting.
I hated it.
I hated that I thought she’d be there this year. That we’d be two partners in crime, reclaiming our holiday spirit: giving each other reindeer ears and ruining the photo, then sneaking out back with cocoa and a blanket, to argue over who from my family had the grumpiest Scrooge face.
Mostly, I just wanted her to loosen my tropical Christmas tie and let me kiss her until she pledged devotion to me instead of her jar of cherries.
The screen blurred in front of me, and the printer groaned awake as if resentful at being disturbed from its long winter’s nap.
Me too, man. Jam all you like.
I picked up my phone, checking for messages like a man who hadn’t walked out on his wife after she’d asked him to stay. The worst part was, I knew she was just being cautious. She didn’t want to give up her one chance at a reset unless she was sure.
If I were a stranger on the subway, doling out advice, I’d have told her to keep the key in her back pocket until the idiot had enough sense to make it official.
Brilliant move, Delaney. You’ve been married a year and didn’t even give her a ring.
The printer finally spat out the last few pages, the paper still warm as I stacked the sheets into a binder. Numbers, new plans, projections—statistical proof that I could at least get something right, even if it wasn’t the thing that mattered.
The trip to the executive floor felt shorter than usual.
Probably because there were no distractions.
No agents lifting their Snowbelt mugs in greeting.
No box of donuts in the breakroom pulling me off course.
Just an empty elevator that dinged way too fast, the doors sliding open to a lobby that looked like it had been professionally decorated for people who never stayed long enough to enjoy it.
My grandfather’s door was already cracked open, his secretary’s desk empty. I knocked once out of habit and stepped inside.
He stood by the window, staring out at the city, arms folded over a pressed suit. A hunter green tie cut a sharp line down his chest, and silver snowflake cufflinks winked at his wrists.
“Morning,” I said, setting the report on his desk.
“You’re early, for once.”
He didn’t look at me. I watched him instead, wondering—why did it always have to be this way? What would it take to earn his respect? I wore the same suit. Followed the same rules. And still, I never measured up.
Then I saw it.
The cream-colored envelope, half-tucked beneath his blotter, had the Sacred Spell Resort logo stamped across the corner.
I almost laughed. Magical spam—after everything, that’s what got me in the end.
“I don’t regret it,” I said, picking up the envelope and walking toward the window. I matched his stance, both of us staring at some distant building instead of each other.
He didn’t answer right away, the silence stretching until finally, he said, “I read the letter. Do you even care what this looks like? The embarrassment?”
“It’s not a scandal,” I said.
“Not yet,” he countered. “You’ve put this family, and this agency, in a very uncomfortable position.”
I turned toward him, my pulse pounding in my throat. “Valerie is part of this family. She’s my wife. I choose her.”
He didn’t flinch. “You always confuse emotion with judgment. You’re too sentimental.”
My voice cut through the air before I could stop it. “For an agency that grants miracles? Do you hear yourself? I’ve done everything you asked. I put this place first.”
“As you should. Matt—”
“Matt wasn’t happy!” The words tore out of me. “The Delaneys save everything for their clients, but nothing for each other. He was burned out and too afraid to say anything.”
My grandfather didn’t respond. He just studied me like a man who couldn’t see past the forest of rules he’d built. As if those rules, and the conviction that kept him standing, could shield him from feeling anything at all. Even the pain he’d inflicted.
Maybe that was the truth. I was the crack in the mirror he’d spend a lifetime polishing. He couldn’t fix me in his own image, so he just kept trying to seal the cracks.
Valerie had thought losing her magic had made her a fraud. But we were. Our magic—not the kind we were born with, but the kind that made us a family—had been lost for a long time.
I tightened my grip on the envelope until the paper bent, that shining logo warping under my thumb. “I’m not letting her go.”
“That’s not up to you,” my grandfather replied, pacing back toward his desk.
His tone was steady, but I caught the undercurrent. The flicker… of fear, maybe. That he might be wrong.
“I have to admit, I’m impressed that the two of you solved the Silverpine case. I got word last night. Which makes my job easier, since she can just use the key to clean up this mess. It’ll be like it never happened.”
My jaw ached from how tightly I was holding it. “You spoke to her?”
“Yes,” he said, straightening his tie. “She’s on her way.”
The words hit hard. She was coming here for the key—to end it.
I let out a slow breath. “Fine. Then I’ll just start over. We hated each other once, and look how that turned out. I’ll win her back the same way I lost her—one argument at a time.”
That got him. He didn’t move, but something in his expression shifted—the faintest crack in the armor. A glimmer that almost looked like respect.
I left before he could say anything else.
The envelope was still in my hand, creased from where I’d held it too tightly.
I should’ve dropped it on his desk, but I couldn’t bring myself to let it go.
It wasn’t his. And for a little while, it was proof that our marriage happened—that it was real, and messy, and so far from perfect that it should’ve been a cautionary tale.
But I wouldn’t change it. No—forget that. I hoped our next ceremony would be worse. I hoped it was so awful that fifty years from now we’d look back and know every single second after was the best moment of our lives. Because it would be.
The elevator dinged. I looked up just as Valerie stepped out.
Her coat was dusted with snow, hair piled in that messy knot I hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing enough of. A dash of lipstick, no other makeup, as if she were at war with the polished badge photo hanging around her neck.
“Grant,” she said, the air leaving her in a rush. “You’re here.”
I nodded once, stepping onto the elevator. “Merry Christmas, Spells. See you soon.”
Her brow furrowed, the faintest pull of confusion—or hope. Then the doors slid shut between us.