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“It really is the best town,” Pippa adds.
“Did I fall in love with the town or the girl?” Camden counters, wrapping his arms around Pippa’s middle. He whispers something in her ear, something that makes her cheeks turn pink. She elbows him in the stomach before pushing him off and speaking to the group.
“Don’t let him fool you guys. He fell in love with both.” She looks at Beck. “And he didn’t buy half the town; he bought a block. And he let everyone buy themselves out.”
Beck throws his hands up defensively. “It’s okay to admit he’s whipped. I’m right there with you, Hunter.”
“I didn’t buy an entire company just to get someone to talk to me,” Camden teases, raising his eyebrows at his friend.
“No, but you spent ten million on a block of business lots in a small town as a fuck-you to Jason because you didn’t like how he treated the woman you loved,” Beck argues.
Camden smiles and gives a shrug.
“Are you talking about Jason Vincent?” I ask, recognizing the name. “I’ve always hated that guy.”
“Yes,” both Camden and Beck answer in unison.
Camden’s the one who continues. “He deserved it.” He laughs, shaking his head. “He pissed me off enough that I had the pleasure of exposing just how in debt he was.”
I join in on the laughter between Beck and Camden because if there’s one thing the three of us can agree on, it’s that Jason Vincent is fucking terrible. I like Camden even more now, knowing he was the reason that Jason moved away to the Cayman Islands and disappeared.
“Can we go back to Sutten for ski season?” Emma pipes up. She reaches across the couch cushion and grabs Winnie’s hand. “Winnie will teach me to ski. Won’t you, Win?”
Winnie laughs. “I can definitely try. I swore you’ve said before that skiing is more about drinking in the lodge afterward, though. Or am I mistaken?” she teases.
Emma rolls her eyes. “It’s mostly about getting a cute outfit. I want hot pink everything. The coat, the pants, the hat. Everything has to be pink.”
“That doesn’t shock me in the slightest,” Margo says from her spot next to Beck. “Emma, I feel like you and I will need a day or two of private lessons before even attempting to do it on our own.”
“That’s why we have Winnie.”
“We do have some amazing instructors in Sutten,” Pippa adds. “I went to school with some of them. You guys will do amazing!I can help, too.”
Winnie turns around to look at me. “Would you want to do that sometime? Do you even ski?”
I try not to roll my eyes at her question. Of course, I know how to ski. “I actually go between skiing and snowboarding. I tend to prefer to board. And I’ve heard a lot about Sutten Mountain recently, thanks to Hunter bringing more attention to the town, so I’d love to.”
The smile she gives me is so radiant it makes me want to pick her up and carry her back to our room so we can be alone. It does something to me—to my heart, and I hate that I can’t act on the feelings coursing through me because we have an audience. “So it’s settled. We’ll all go back to Sutten this winter,” Winnie says, watching me closely. It’s as if she’s waiting for me to change my mind, but I won’t. If she wants to do that, then I’ll be there, too. Plus, I feel like there are far worse groups of people I could spend time with.
This marriage with Winnie is teaching me a lot of things, but maybe the biggest one is that it’s okay to take a break every now and then.
“It’s kind of late at this point to plan it, but next year, you guys should come over for Christmas. Sutten is beautiful during that time of year. There are lights everywhere. All of the main street has lights and ribbons, and there’s always snow on Christmas. It’s so magical.”
“That sounds amazing!” Winnie says eagerly, looking back to me for confirmation.
I nod. It’s hard to admit, but I can easily picture the holidays with her over the years. Our fake marriage wasn’t exactly meant to stand the test of time, but I kind of hope it will. I’m already excited about this Christmas with her. We’ve talked about all the things we’ll do—just the two of us. And it doesn’t sound too bad to spend next year with this group of people around us.
Emma lets out a loud yawn next to us, breaking me from my daydreams about Christmas mornings with Winnie and trips with her friends and what things might look like for us later inthe future and not just right now. “Friends, this has been a blast. But those three glasses of wine made me sleepy.” She drags out the last word dramatically. “I think I’m going to bed.”
“I’m exhausted, too,” Margo adds, standing up.
I try to look disappointed that everyone else in the group agrees that it’s time for us all to head back to our rooms. I’m actually fucking ecstatic at the thought of getting Winnie alone. I’ve been thinking about our little shower encounter all night, and I want to take her back to our room and strip her of her fancy outfit and see her beautiful naked body again.
There’s just one little problem—I don’t want to concede. For some reason, I need to know she trusts me. I want to know she trusts me because she told me it’s the one thing I’ll never get from her. It’s bothered me from the moment she said it. It bothers me even more now because I know without a shadow of a doubt that I trust her, when I know I shouldn’t.
I don’t want to be the only one in this. I don’t know where her head is, and it feels like if she at least told me she trusts me, we’d be on a more level playing field.
But I don’t know if that’ll happen.
