The silence stretched, the faint hiss of falling snow filling the space between them. He stared at the bears, their chins high and unyielding, wishing he could be as stoic. The snow softened their features, blanketing them in stillness, but it couldn’t cover their ridiculousness. Or his.
She caught his hand and turned it palm up. Her gloved fingers barely wrapped around his calloused ones, the contrast of her gentleness and his roughness leaving him unmoored.
“Merry Christmas, Boyd.” She placed a small package on his palm, her voice soft as the snow.
The box was light, almost weightless, but its significance pressed down on him like a stone. He unraveled the ribbon, tucking it into his pocket—it would join the growing collection of things—her things—he couldn’t let go of. The paper crackled as he unfolded it, revealing a yellowed sheet of music, the lines faint and uneven.
“What is this?” His voice was low, rough with an emotion he couldn’t name.
Her gloved fingers brushed the edge of the page. “It’s the sheet of music that helped you sleep.”
His chest constricted. He snapped his gaze to hers, startled by the openness in her face, the quiet sincerity that stripped him bare. “You remembered.”
“I remember everything about you.”
The air thickened, her words carving through his defenses like the keenest blade. She didn’t see the wine baron, the gruff Scot with scars of humiliation hidden beneath his success. She saw him.
He swallowed hard, the muscles in his throat tightening painfully. “I don’t know what to say.”
Her lips tilted into the faintest smile, and she shrugged, an elegant tilt of her shoulders. “A gentleman says thank you when given a gift.”
He didn’t feel like a gentleman. Not when her lips, so inviting and earnest, drew his gaze with a magnetic pull. The only woman to see him—the real him—had been the one he had schemed to ruin. A wave of nausea rolled through him. He couldn’t deserve her. Not after everything.
“Don’t lose your heart to me, Beth.”
Her smile wobbled. “Why? Is a winemaker’s wife not supposed to cherish her husband?”
“I’m not fucking worth it.”
Her head tilted slightly, her expression softening. “What if I think otherwise?”
He gritted his teeth, the truth clawing its way to the surface. “Do you know why I invited you here?”
Her gaze didn’t waver, though he noticed her fingers twitch against her skirts. “Was it not to show me your bears? They look quite impressive.”
A bitter laugh escaped him, curling into the frosty air. “They look damn ridiculous, and you well know it. The architects sold them as some sort of Highland symbol.”
Her lips curved faintly. “Then tell me. Not about the bears. About your past.”
Her posture remained poised, but her chest rose and fell unevenly, her breath visible in the chill. She didn’t know what she was asking for.
“When I first came to Portugal, I was fourteen. Alone. Hungry. I went to the British Factory, to the head of the community.” His voice grew taut, the words cutting through the night like shards of ice. “I asked him for a job. Do you know what your father said?”
Her gaze flicked to the bears, her back impossibly straight. “Did he invite you for tea? A true gentleman extends the hand of kindness and courtesy to all newcomers.”
Boyd’s laugh was sharp, bitter. “Kindness? He told me I was a filthy Scot, not fit to polish his shoes.”
Her breath hitched, a faint tremor passing through her frame. When her hand rose to his face, her fingers were feather-light, her palm warm against the cold. “I’m sorry,” she said simply. No pity, just understanding.
Her genuine apology cracked something inside him. His throat burned, his jaw tightening against the swell rising in his chest.
“Don’t be sorry for me.” His voice turned sharp, almost desperate. “Not for the man who devised this farce to lure you here. I didn’t bring you for courtship or marriage. I wanted to humiliate you. I planned to tell every winemaker that Croft’s daughter wasn’t fit to be my bride.”
His hands balled into fists, every muscle coiled with self-loathing. He waited for her fury, for the slap he deserved.
But she didn’t run. She didn’t shout. She stood there, her chest rising and falling like she was holding back something far more fragile than rage.
“Why did you cancel the dinner?”
