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I hadn’t realized that we were still holding hands until he brought my hand to his chest. “So, you want me here?”
“Mark. This isn’t funny. I have guests that I need to attend to and standing here...flirting with you is unprofessional.”
“But what if I was a guest?” he asked.
“You’re not, so it doesn’t matter, does it?” I reminded him.
My mother came into the lobby and said, “Mark, I see you found my daughter.”
I quickly pulled my hand from his, grateful that my back was to her, so she hadn’t seen us holding hands.
“Yes, I have. And Billy was kind enough to show me around as well,” Mark said.
I turned around and wanted to ask why she was allowing him to stay but instead, Nicholas joined us in the lobby and walked over to Mark.
“About time you got here. We were told no skiing until you arrived,” Nicholas said to Mark.
I turned to Mark and asked, “You know him?”
Mark nodded. “Yes, he’s my cousin.”
“You’re...you’re a Henderson?” I asked. He nodded and I added, “I thought your last name was Lane.”
“It is. My mother is a Henderson,” he explained.
I blushed.And here I was about to kick you out.“Well, I hope you enjoy your stay with us. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some things I need to do and I guess you have some slopes waiting for you as well.”
“So, I can stay?” he teased.
“The lodge is yours to enjoy for the week,” I said, saving myself so my mother didn’t question that comment later. Turning to Billy, I said, “They are all yours.”
Quickly I left the lobby and went into the kitchen. I closed the door and leaned against it. I could feel my heart racing. Mark Lane, the only guy I’d ever had feelings for, was here. All the deep conversations we had shared came flooding back. I told him all about my life growing up at the lodge and he said that he could relate. He made his life sound so...normal. I even insisted that I paid my own way when we went out to eat because I felt bad that he was a struggling college student just like me.
I felt sick. He was nothing like me. Heck, he was a Henderson. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth and probably thought I was ridiculous for insisting on paying my own way. I can’t believe that even for a second, I had thought he was here because of me.
His family chose to have their reunion here. I needed to remind myself of that. I had too many important things to do instead of wasting my time indulging in some childish fantasy that he was here for me.
As though my week wasn’t going to be hard enough, now I have to hide my feelings from everyone too.
This was going to be a week from hell and there was nothing I could do about it. But Winterberry Lodge’s future was riding on me not screwing this up. The Hendersons were a well-known influential family and if they decided we were subpar, then our reputation would be ruined.
Oh, God. Please let this just be about a family reunion.
I had told him why I needed to leave school. He knew my parents' lodge was in financial trouble. Did he tell the rest of his family? Is that why they are here? Were they scoping out the place to see if they wanted to buy it cheap because my parents were going through difficult times?
It was the only thing that made sense. Why else would such a wealthy family come here to ski and not go to the Alps? Granted, our lodge was nice, but we couldn’t compete with a luxury resort.
I needed to make sure my parents didn’t find out the real reason behind their visit. With everything they’d put into this week, it would just break their heart. I couldn’t let that happen.
CHAPTER3
Mark
As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t blow off skiing with my cousins. I knew they would have only insisted or worse, guessed why I was really here. To see Adilyn.
I know it didn’t make any sense, but I had always been able to talk to her. She seemed to always understand and listen. With all the changes I was thinking about making, I missed having her as my sounding board.
Christopher could never be that for me. He might want to, but he’d end up cracking jokes which were not going to help any. If anything, he knew just the buttons to push to piss me off.
