“You’ve only heard her side of it,” I say firmly. My whole body is tense, practically vibrating with the need to explain myself.
Margot pulls back from me. “So you’re saying she was lying?”
“No. Not about everything, but she made some pretty big assumptions and omitted quite a fucking lot,” I say, unable to fullymuscle down my bitterness. I run a hand through my hair and take a breath. Apparently, I’m not above begging on my knees for this woman. “Please, Margot.”
I wait, completely at her mercy until she gives me the smallest nod to go on. I exhale.
“I did have a very short-lived relationship with Charlotte Bard,” I confirm. “Like you read in her review, I made the inexcusable mistake of agreeing to sleep with her. But unlike what she wrote, I’d never crossed that line with a guest before, and haven’t since, until—” I stop, meeting her gaze, and I know we’re both remembering the sauna. My eyelashes do the equivalent of a stutter, and I take a breath. “It was completely unprofessional, she ended up hurt, and I take full responsibility for the consequences.”
“I’m not following,” Margot says, her arms tightening across her light pink sweater. “How is this younotusing her and leaving her? Why would she say you did the same thing with other guests, too, Forrest? Who am I supposed to believe?”
It’s an indicator of how fucking bad I’ve got it for Margot that even in the depths of the doghouse, I can’t help admiring her fierce protectiveness for a woman she’s never met. Charlotte, no less—a woman who, for a time, made my life feel like a porta-potty she’d used, knocked over sideways, and then kicked down a hill. Suddenly, I feel like I need to be sitting for this conversation.
“Do you mind if I—?” I ask, glancing at the seat next to Margot. After a moment, she nods again. “I know right now it seems like her word against mine. I don’t blame you for taking her side, and I’m not denying the role I played.” I carefully fold myself onto the love seat without touching her. “But I swear she’s the only guest I’ve ever been with up until now, and I regretted getting involved with her almost immediately.”
Margot rolls her eyes. “Is that the gentlemanly way to say she was a bad lay?”
“It wasn’t about that,” I say neutrally, refusing to skip intothatparticular minefield. “After that first night, she became… demanding. Petty. Unforgivably rude to my dad and Jo.” I pause, interlacing my sweaty hands between my knees and corralling bitter memories. “Whatever initial attraction I’d felt disappeared, but when I tried pulling away, Charlotte made it clear that keeping her happy was the only way the lodge was going to get a good review.”
“That’s not what she said.” Margot shakes her head and looks at me. “She said thatyouusedher.”
I pull in a breath and look down at my hands as my stomach crunches into a denser knot. “And I have no doubt she felt that way. After the night we—” I glance at Margot apologetically, and her lips compress. “She felt attached. I think she hoped I’d feel the same way, and when I didn’t, she was hurt. Angry. Told me I owed her a chance, at the very least, and if I didn’t give it to her, she’d have something to say about the lack of decency she was treated to.”
Margot looks stiff enough to snap, but her eyes are reassessing me. “So you gave her a chance?”
I shrug uncomfortably. “I felt guilty and trapped. I thought maybe she was right, and I didn’t want the lodge to get hurt, so I kept trying to rekindle our initial connection, hoping I’d misjudged her.” I shake my head. “Obviously, it was a shit plan. I couldn’t make myself feel something that wasn’t there. So she wrote that blog post about me, falsely criticized North Star while she was at it, and copied it onto every major review site. It took a solid year of damage control for the lodge to regain its footing.”
I’m silent after this, unsure what else I could say to help her understand what I went through—what I made Dad and Jo go through—when Margot finally says, “Forrest… that’s unbelievable.”
Her voice is shocked, and I’m so ashamed that I can’t bring myself to look at her. I want to say,I know.I’m the one it happened to, and four years later, I can still barely believe it.
“I have emails saved if you want proof,” I tell her. “After she posted that review everywhere, she sent me some pretty uncivil messages. I asked her why she lied about the lodge and all those other guests I supposedly slept with, and she admitted she’d just been angry. But she wasn’t apologetic, and nothing I said persuaded her to take the review down. Apparently, it was her ‘top-performing post.’?”
I sigh, pulling a hand over my exhausted face. “I decided to tell my superiors at work what happened, and it was a whole goddamn mess. They interviewed all my coworkers, half of whom are women, to make sure they felt safe working with me. My character has never been more scrutinized, but none of them spoke against me. They were all incredibly supportive.”
Margot is quiet at this, and the cozy fire and thickly falling snow outside seem to exist only to contradict the wire-tight tension stretching between us.
“I don’t know what’s more ludicrous,” she says at last, “what Charlotte did, or the fact that you actually have an explanation for all of this.”
At her words, hope is a guttering flame in my chest. “You believe me?”
Her honey-colored eyes sweep reluctantly to mine. “I don’t want to,” she answers softly. “Ever since getting to Alaska, I’ve been looking high and low for a reason not to trust you, and this…” She shakes her head with a ghost of a laugh. “I thought this was it. In a way, it was almost a relief to have the rose-colored lenses ripped off. Now, though…”
Her eyes are glassy in the firelight, and my heart feels like it’s in a car compactor.
“Now what?” I ask.
She rubs her forehead. “Now I have to believe you. How could I not? You feeling morally obligated to make things work with an entitled manipulator, just because she slept with you, is the mostForrestthing I’ve ever heard. It’s the same reason you didn’t try sweeping it under the rug at work, and why everyone still trusted you. The same reason you gave up your whole life to take care of your dad.” She shakes her head faintly. “You probably drove Charlotte back to the airport, didn’t you? I bet you carried all her luggage too.” When I don’t contradict her, she takes an unsteady breath and looks down. “I can’t believe you found a way to make me trust you even more.”
After a moment, her hand slides tentatively onto my knee, and I force myself to focus on her words as all my awareness narrows to our point of contact.
“I don’tdotrust, Forrest,” she admits. “It’s never been a good fit for me. You understand that, right?”
I’m beginning to. From the little I’ve gleaned about her absent father and all the fearful, angry mistrust woven throughout her Happily Never After file, I’m beginning to understand why she might be hypervigilant around men. It only makes me feel worse that she had to worry about me too.
Slowly, I lift my hand to her face, and it’s like a paint can of relief spills through me when, instead of pulling away, she leans her cheek into my palm. Suddenly, the made-for-Margot room inside my heart has throw blankets and fucking fairy lights.
“I’m never going to be someone you can’t trust,” I say, making sure she sees me when I say it.
