Page 73 of Julian

Her eyes lift to me. “That earring I lost was not a diamond.”

“I’m aware.”

She stares at me for a beat, trying to reconcile the logic.

“So,” I add, the faintest hint of a smile pulling at my mouth, “the replacement is.”

“They’re beautiful. Absolutely breathtaking, actually.”

“They are,” I say, though my attention hasn’t left her. “Put them on.”

I watch as she takes out her small gold hoops and replaces them. I can’t help but stare at her. She looks like a goddess, with her sun-kissed skin and sparkling diamonds.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “I have a gift for you too.”

“You do?”

She nods, already pushing back from the table. “Stay here.”

I watch her disappear into the villa.

When she returns, she’s holding a medium-size white box. She sets it in front of me and gestures lightly. “It’s not… I mean, my gift isn’t the same.”

“Don’t worry, I keep competition confined to the ice rink and business. I’m so grateful you’re here in the first place.” I slowly undo the bow and open the box.

Inside is a scarf. Green, black and white. Vipers’ colors.

I lift it carefully, letting the garment fall open in my hands, and it takes only a second to understand what I’m looking at—not purchased, not sourced or bought at a designer store, but hand-made. The texture gives it away immediately, the subtle imperfections that make it perfect.

I look up at her. “You made this?”

She shrugs, but there’s a quiet pride beneath it. “I had a few late nights this past week.”

The simplicity of the statement doesn’t lessen it. If anything, it gives it more meaning.

It must’ve taken her hours and hours to knit this. She only had a few days.

I run my fingers along the edge of it, taking in the detail, the beauty, the fact that she remembered a comment made in passing and then acted on it.

“You mentioned Big Al’s scarf,” she adds, a little more softly now. “How much you liked it.”

“I love it,” I say, because there’s no other response even remotely sufficient.

And I do. Not because of what it is, but because of what it represents.

I set it beside me with more care than I would anything else, my attention lingering there before lifting back to her.

And it hits me then. I haven’t spent Christmas with a woman since before my life was upended years ago.

This place, and this time of year, has always been separate. A refuge I didn’t share, not because I couldn’t, but because I never saw a reason to.

Until now. Until Harper.

And as I sit across from this woman—this woman who spent God knows how many hours making a gift for me with her own hands, who listens in a way most people don’t, who notices the details that matter—I understand a truth with a certainty that leaves no room for doubt.

I didn’t bring her here on impulse. I chose her.

And for the first time in a very long time, that choice feels exactly right.