“You were seen practically sprinting into your building,” she said. “He walked you all the way back and you bolted like your life depended on it.”
“I did not bolt.”
She just raised an eyebrow.
My shoulders slumped. “Okay, Imayhave bolted a bit.”
“Bri,” she said gently, “there is no harm in having a little fun sometimes”
I stared down at the cloth in my hands, twisting it until the fibres creased.
I could still feel his hands at my waist. I could still see how he looked under the Christmas lights and the way he looked at me, like… like I was more than just the woman whose life he’d been sent to uproot.
“I’m just not interested in getting caught up with someone,” I said quietly. “I’m just being realistic. He’s here to potentially sell my building and kick me out of my home. We are nothing to each other.”
She watched me for a long moment, her expression softening.
“He’s buying more clothes,” she said. “He may not be running off the minute the snow clears. And if the knitting group says you looked ‘couple’ly’ last night…” Her lips twitched. “I’m just saying, maybe you’re not the only one who felt something on that ice.”
My chest tightened. “Ivy, he only packed for a few days when he first arrived, he has a home and a life to get back to. Maybe not tomorrow, heck maybe not even next week. But he will once the flights start again.”
“I bet he could have got a taxi to drive him to the first airport or even caught a coach home,” she said. “But he hasn’t and he’s here.”
I glanced instinctively toward the bakery window, out at the square dusted in white, the path he usually walked down from the hotel. I pulled in a slow breath and forced myself to turn back to the counter.
“I’ve got too much to lose. This bakery, this place is everything to me and I am just hopeful he sticks to his promises, and I don’t lose my home,” I paused feeling my heart begin to race.
Ivy didn’t argue. She just reached over and gently squeezed my hand.
“I understand that” she said softly, “But have you stopped to think, maybe this is all fate and meant to happen this way.”
I didn’t have an answer for that.
So, I did what I always did, rolled my eyes a little and went back to work, back to the ovens, back to the comfort of sugar and flour and recipes that never surprised me.
But all afternoon, every time the bell over the door rang, my heart leaped before my head could catch up. And every time it wasn’t him, the ache settled a little deeper, quiet and stubborn, in the space he’d somehow carved out without even trying.
Chapter Twelve
Iwoke to the soft glow of pale winter light slipping through the curtains, and the first thing I felt was… unsettled. Like something had been knocked loose inside me overnight. Like last night’s moment on the ice had followed me into my dreams and refused to let me sleep.
I kept seeing Brianna. Her breath catching, her fingers curled in my coat. The way her eyes had widened when I caught her, as if she’d felt the shift too. Every time I shut my eyes, I felt the ghost of her against me again. Warm. Soft. Real.
I then did the only thing my rattled brain could cling to: I avoided seeing her.
I told myself it was logical. That giving her space after whatever that moment was would be respectful. But the truth was simpler: I had absolutely no idea what to do with the way my chest tightened every time I thought of her.
I tried to busy myself. I showered, got dressed, stared at the same clause in a valuation contract for twenty minutes without reading a word, and reread emails twice and still couldn’t explain what any of them said. But, by late morning, frustrationclawed beneath my ribs, and I escaped downstairs just to breathe.
The hotel was quieter than usual, the kind of quiet that made every sound softer. The low chuff of the radiators. The distant clatter in the kitchen. Boots drying on racks near the entrance, snow melting into dark patches on the stone floor.
It was an old-world place, warm in a way no London hotel had ever been. Thick tartan carpets, old pine wood beams with Brass lamps that cast pools of amber light. Photographs covering every spare inch of wall space, not generic stock images, but real memories of Pine Hollow over the years. Families posing after winter storms. Teenagers clutching fishing nets. Couples dancing at long-forgotten balls.
I wandered slowly, letting my fingers brush the frames. Anything to keep my mind from drifting back to her. But then I reached a photograph I’d never noticed before or maybe I’d been too wrapped up in myself to see it until now. Black and white. Slightly faded. A woman and a man standing side by side, both laughing at something out of frame. Snow piled around them. The town hall rising behind them with wreaths hung across its stone entrance. The woman wore a tartan scarf and a smile so bright it lit her whole face.
The man… the women, looked strangely familiar.
My lungs stalled.
