Page 78 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas

In the windows around us, I see reflections of people at adjacent tables. Watching us. Pretending they’re not.

“Right.” Jake scoots his chair back with a loud scrape. “We’re done here.” His nostrils flare in a big inhale, muscles in his jaw bulge and strain so hard I’m worried he might crack a molar. He sets his napkin down with meticulous restraint, then he extends a hand to me. “Evie.”

“Jake—” Juno says.

Jake turns and cuts her off, lightly touching her elbow at the same time he threads his fingers between mine with the opposite hand. “Would you like to come with us?”

Juno swallows, cuts her eyes briefly to me, then she dampens her lips. “I’m fine. You know I am.” A blink later, her serene mask is back in place.

Jake and Juno hold each other’s gaze for a long moment. Then Jake nods, takes my hand, and I have to jog to keep up as we head to the exit.

“I expect you in the office by the new year. That’s not a request,” the elder Frost calls behind us.

Jake freezes. He turns and says, simply, “No.”

Every eye in the room is on us now.

“I made you everything you are, Jameson,” his father says when we turn again to leave.

“Maybe,” Jake adjusts his grip on my hand, “that’s why I’m trying so hard to become someone else.”

* * *

I’ve spent the month wondering if this could possibly be real, and now I have my answer. This thing I started with Jake Frost is—was—as real as it gets. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t hurt this bad knowing I’m about to lose it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Two days after Christmas

The elevator feels even faster on the way down. I’m grateful, but it also makes me feel like my heart and lungs were left suspended in the air at the thirty-first level. I can’t breathe when we spill out onto the street in front of the Shard.

My composure is snow in the rain, cold and fragile and melting rapidly away. I’m desperate to put distance between Jake and me, but hustling in high heels on a busy London street in the dark is a guaranteed rolled ankle. I make a break to the left because it seems less crowded than my other options. Behind me, Jake says, “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” I shout over my shoulder. “Away.”

“Evie, you have to let me explain,” Jake calls after me. “This is exactly what I brought you here to talk about tonight.”

I skid to a stop. Other pedestrians flow past me like I’m a stone in a stream. “You planned this?”

“Christ, no. I meant … to tell you everything. Tonight was the first time I’ve seen my father in person for more than a year.”

“Why here, Jake?”

“It wasn’t—” Jake’s gaze slides away and he exhales, hard. “It wasn’t the only thing I planned to tell you tonight.”

I have things I want to tell you tonight. They, ah, have to be in a certain order.

God, I want to scream at the sky.

“I wanted to make sure it was clear how important this was to me,” he says. “How important you are.”

“Your dad called you Jameson. Is Jake even your real name?”

“I’m named after him. Jameson Kiernan. Everyone called me JK when I was little. Then that turned into Jakey. Eventually became Jake.”

“What’s the name of your firm, Jake?” I already know the answer, but I want to hear him say it.

“Frost, Acton, and Isaacs.”