by Lili Valente
I’ve been having sex dreams about Nate for over seven years. Seven flipping years! Nearly a fourth of my entire life, and who knows when or if my subconscious will give it up.
The realization makes me even madder. I storm down the wide staircase leading to the lobby, boots thudding on the carpet. I glare at the Valentine’s Day Tree, where hearts and flowers and explosions of pink and red sparkly string hang from the bare limbs of an artificial ash. Whoever bastardized this Christmas holiday tradition should be dragged out into the wilderness and made to live on acorns and melted snow. Or at the very least forced to wear a sweater made of sparkly string and walk around the lodge looking like a puddle of unicorn vomit until the poor tree is put out of its misery.
I circle the monstrosity, contempt curling my upper lip—love is a lie, and love with sparkles on it is just a lie bedazzled—and head across the lobby toward the restaurant. It’s nearly lunchtime. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll catch Eduardo getting ready to eat and be able to pull him aside for a private chat.
I’m mentally composing what I’m going to say to poor Ed, knowing I can’t afford to downplay the intensity of the kiss I shared with Nate—or leave out the part where Nate announced his intention to take me inside and get me out of my clothes—when the devil himself pushes through the doors on the east side of the lobby.
Nate is still wearing his ski clothes, and his tousled hair is covered with fat snowflakes. Apparently he’s just found his way back to the lodge through the storm that’s swirling thicker and faster around the hotel than it was when Chase dropped me off nearly an hour ago. He looks cold, gorgeous, and determined, and there’s no doubt that he’s spotted me, too. The second he steps through the doors, his eyes lock on mine, sending prickles of awareness stabbing at me like tiny darts, threatening to let all the air out of my anger balloon.
I freeze, hands curling into fists at my side as he starts my way with long, sure strides. I hold my ground, eyes narrowing as I prepare for confrontation.
I refuse to be talked out of telling Eduardo everything. He deserves to know the truth. Ignorance is not bliss. I learned that the hard way, when I spent months waiting for Nate to find me, only to wake up every day alone, with no way back to the happy, carefree girl I was before Hurricane Nathaniel swept through my life.
But I’m not going to let that happen to someone else, not if I can prevent it.
“We’re not done,” Nate says in a deep, sexy voice that makes my lips tingle and my sweater dress suddenly feel too hot.
“We are completely done.” I ignore my traitorous body, which clearly has no idea what’s best for it. “But Eduardo and I have a few things to talk about.”
He frowns, seemingly genuinely confused, the bastard.
Has he no shame at all? Absolutely none?
“He seems like a really nice man,” I push on, blood beginning to boil. “Who deserves better than a boyfriend who will cheat on him and clearly feel no guilt about it whatsoever. You really are a piece of work, Casey, and I can’t believe I forgot that for even a fraction of a fraction of a second!”
The tension melts from Nate’s handsome face and the jerk actually has the nerve to smile. “Shit. I can’t believe I forgot about that part. I was just—”
“You forgot about that part?” I squeak, volume rising sharply as my outrage approaches critical mass. “About what part? The part where you kissed me or the part where you have a boyfriend whose heart you’re going to break?”
“Lower your voice,” his says, casting a wary look over my shoulder. “We can’t do this here. Let’s go somewhere private to talk, okay?”
“Go somewhere private so you won’t be embarrassed by an ugly public confrontation about what a dirty rotten cheater you are? No, Nate. Sorry, but I don’t care if I’m making a scene. I don’t care if everyone in this lodge hears that—”
My words end in a yip of surprise as Nate wraps an arm around my waist, spins us both in a half circle, and starts back toward the doors leading outside.
“Stop it! Let me go!” I dig my heels into the carpet, but Nate only tightens his grip, lifting me off the ground and carrying me the last few steps to the doors.
Before I can recover from the indignity of being hauled out of the lobby like a sack of potatoes, we’re outside and a blast of artic air takes my breath away.
“I don’t have my coat on,” I gasp, shivering as the wind cuts through the fabric of my dress, immediately making my skin go numb. “Wh-what are you trying to do? Freeze me to death before I can get to Eduardo?”
“I’m making sure you don’t ruin something I know you won’t want to ruin once you understand what’s going on.” He hauls me around a stone pillar and along the sidewalk leading to the far side of the lodge. “And we’ll be back inside soon. If I put you down, will you walk with me? Give me a chance to explain?”
“Yes. Let me walk.” The second my feet touch the ground, I dash back toward the lodge, but I barely make it three steps before Nate’s arms are around me again.
“All right. Then we’ll do this the hard way,” he says, flipping me over his shoulder.
As my bottom goes up and my head falls forward, nearly sending my glasses flying, I cry out in outrage, but there’s no one around to hear me. We’re out of sight of the uniformed staff manning the main lobby doors, and everyone else has retreated to the lodge in the face of the increasingly ugly storm. There’s no one around to object to this clear violation of my free will, or to appreciate the sharp smack of the flat of my hand on Nate’s ass.
“Put me down!” I slap him again, trying not to think about how firm and delicious his ass is or how much I once enjoyed digging my fingers into it as he made love to me.
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” he says. “You can hit me as much as you want, but I’m not letting you go until we talk it all out. No more distractions.”
I bring both hands down on his bottom, sending a sting across my bare palms as I begin to shiver. “This is ki-kidnapping. You can’t do this!”
“I’m not kidnapping you, Addie. I’m taking you to my room so we can talk. Alone. Without anyone around to interrupt or overhear or give you an excuse to run off and do the hokey-pokey. And when we’re finished, if you want to leave, I’ll let you go. I promise.”
I huff. “You already know what I think of your promises.”
“I do,” he says, “but I’m going to change your mind. I’m not the monster you think I am, Einstein. And I care about you too much to let you walk away from me without knowing that you deserve good things and someone who will do whatever it takes to make you happy.”
The anger chugging away inside of me loses steam. I remind myself that Nate is a liar, but he sounds so sincere. He sounds like he means every word, and I can’t help wondering what it would be like to believe in him again. To believe that he cares about me, and that he’s out there somewhere in the world wishing me well instead of busy forgetting the name of the girl he slept with the summer before college.
Would it make it easier to move on, or harder?
I don’t know, but I find I no longer feel like slapping him repeatedly.
I settle in for the ride to wherever Nate is taking me, trying not to admire the view too much. Yes, Nate is beautiful, and his backside is the loveliest backside I’ve ever seen, but he’s taken. Besides, friendship would never work between us, let alone anything more.
No matter how much I want him, we will never be together again. It’s as impossible as rolling back the tide or sending all the snowflakes pelting my face swirling back where they came from.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nate
Eduardo will be at the spa until two.
That means I have approximately two hours to prove to Adeline that I’m not a cheating, lying bastard. And that I’m also not gay, which I would prefer to do with something more convincing than words. But if Addie won’t kiss me again today, then I’ll wait.
I’ll wait as long as I have to, and do whate
ver it takes to prove to her that this thing between us is worth another shot.
Somewhere between the mountain and the lodge it hit me that Addie’s eyes aren’t the only ones that have lost their light. I’ve spent years travelling the world, hunting down adventure with a single-minded focus that would make my obsessive-compulsive father proud—if I still talked to the son of a bitch—but I can’t remember the last time I felt this alive. Kissing Addie in the snow, feeling her warm and responsive beneath my mouth, has planted a seed of hope inside of me, a magic seed that’s already surged into the sky like Jack’s beanstalk, making previously crazy ideas seem possible.
Why should Addie and I be defined by a past we were too young to shape? By the actions of a man who cared more about his son playing football than the happiness of two people who loved each other?
Fuck the past. Fuck making amends and moving on. I don’t want to move on, not without seeing what Addie and I could be together now that we’ve both grown up and taken control of our lives. It still feels meant to be. When I touch her all the cynical bullshit I’ve carried around for years melts away and I realize I wasn’t such a dumb kid, after all. At eighteen, I was smart enough to recognize a love worth rewriting the script for when I found it. Now, at twenty-five, I’m old enough to realize that what I feel with Addie might really be a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
I’m not going to give up on her again, not without a fight. Because I know she feels it, too—this connection, the way it’s so right to be together again.
I make it through the back entrance to the Raven Wing and into the elevator without being observed. But on the sixth floor, the doors open to reveal an older couple in matching red sweaters.
As I step out of the elevator with Addie still tossed over my shoulder, the woman’s eyes widen and her husband’s mouth puckers. I smile and offer a cheery “Happy Valentine’s Day” before moving away down the hall, knowing from experience that pretending weird shit is normal is enough to put most people at ease.
Thankfully, Adeline doesn’t cry out for help, making me hope she’s coming around to the idea of talking this through.
But when I set her on her feet inside my room, her expression is still guarded.
“Hey,” I say, breath rushing out. “Um, would you like something to drink? Water or coffee or—”
“You wanted to talk.” She crosses her arms at her chest. “So talk. But no lies. If you lie, I’m leaving. I want the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
“I can’t give you the whole truth,” I say, moving to block her path when she tries to dart around me to the door. “I seriously can’t, Addie. I signed a non-disclosure agreement.”
She pauses, studying me out of the corners of her eyes. “A non-disclosure agreement?”
“Yes. So I can’t legally tell you why I’m here with Eduardo, but I can tell you that it’s not what it seems. I’m not gay, and we’re not really together. We’re just pretending we are for a good cause.”
“Oh my God.” Her shoulders slump a moment before her face falls into her hands. “Shit. I’m an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot. There’s no way you could have known.”
“Yes, there is.” She looks up, her arms flopping at her sides. “I know about Magnificent Bastard Consulting, Nate. I know that you work for Bash.”
I blink. “What?”
“I’m friends with Shane, who is friends with Penny and Cat, Aidan’s wife,” she says, blowing my mind. What are the chances that she’s one of the six or seven people Bash said were in on his secret? Addie, out of all the millions of people in New York City?
“I saw you in the park when you were training with Aidan,” she continues. “So I should have at least considered that Eduardo could be your client. I was just so surprised, and it seemed like you two were really in love. Or at least Eduardo seemed like he was in love with you.” She paces deeper into the room, twirling a lock of hair around her finger the way she does when she’s thinking. “You seemed uncomfortable, obviously. But I thought that was because of the way things ended, and seeing each other for the first time, and the fact that you were gay and I was finding out that you were gay. And the implications that had on the past and blah, blah, blah…”
She sits down hard on the couch in front of the sliding doors, shaking her head listlessly. “But it’s just an intervention.”
“It’s just an intervention,” I confirm, figuring it’s okay to bend the rules of my non-disclosure agreement since Adeline already knows that I work for MBC. She saw me with Aiden, which means… “So you’ve known I was in New York for a while?”
“A few months. But only Shane knows that you and I….” Her gaze drifts my way before returning to the coffee table. “That I used to know you. I asked her not to tell Bash or anyone else. I didn’t want it to get back to you that I was in the city.”
My chest goes tight. “Because you hated me?”
“Because I didn’t see any reason to make contact. I didn’t know there was anything more to the story,” she says, granting me a sliver of hope that another shot with her isn’t completely out of the question.
I lean against the bureau, studying her face. “So Shane doesn’t know that I told you I was transferring schools to be with you, and then bailed the next day?”
“No,” Addie says softly. “She just knows that it didn’t end well. I didn’t tell her the whole story. I haven’t told anyone. I don’t… I don’t talk about it.”
“I’m sorry.” I wish I could pull her into my arms and hold her until all the ugliness is gone. “If there’s one thing I could go back and change in my entire life it would be leaving the way I did. I swear that’s the truth.”
“Your father was threatening to send you to prison.” She studies her hands, tapping her index fingers and thumbs lightly together. “I understand why you were scared, and why you left. I even understand why it took you a while to come back.”
“A little over a month, but your mom said you’d been gone for weeks. I guess you left town not long after I did?”
Adeline looks up, sharp and focused. “You talked to my mom? What did she say?”
“She said that you regretted being with me, and that you’d left to get a fresh start. She also said that I was a monster, that you never wanted to see me again, and that she was going to call the police if I didn’t get off her property. I tried to explain, to apologize—but she slammed the door in my face.”
A bitter smile curves Addie’s lips. “I sent Mom a Christmas card a couple of years after I left home. I thought I should try to mend fences, no matter how much it hurt, and she’d always loved Christmas.” She shrugs. “She sent it back unopened. That was the last time I tried to contact her or anyone else in my family. I haven’t even seen the boys. But they were so young when I left home they probably don’t even remember me that much.”
I curse beneath my breath. “What the hell happened, Adeline?”
“I had sex before marriage and Mom found out about it,” she says, with a tired roll of her eyes. “So I had to leave before I could infect any of my little brothers with my propensity for sin.”
My brow furrows tight. “That’s insane. What the hell is wrong with her? Your parents always sounded so nice. At least compared to my dad.”
“I’m sure they’re still nice. As long as you don’t break any of the rules. My mom is really good at remembering the rules. She’s not so great at remembering those Bible stories about forgiveness and mercy and welcoming home the prodigal son. Or daughter, in my case.”
“And your dad?” I ask, getting progressively sick to my stomach.
“Same.” Her eyes close for a long beat before they open again. “No, not the same, but he does what Mom tells him to do. He values peace in his home more than a relationship with me. He has the boys, you know, and I always had my nose in a book, anyway. I never worked on cars or played hockey or did anything interesting like that, so…” She laughs, and that dimple I haven’t se
en in too long pops on her cheek. “Though, if he knew I was friends with a player on his favorite NHL team, he might change his tune. Shane’s husband plays for the Rangers. She’s promised me the best seats in the house as soon as I can sneak away to a game.”
“What do you have to sneak away from these days?” I ask, both intrigued and saddened by this glimpse into her life. I want to know everything I’ve missed, and then I want to write her parents a cutting letter, telling them what absolute pieces of shit they’ve been.
“Just life,” she says, vaguely. “Work and all the rest of it.”
“What do you do? Have you taken the architectural world by storm yet?”
“What do you do?” she asks, dodging my question again. “You said you dropped out of school. Did you ever go back?”
“I did. I got a creative writing degree from a program in the U.K.”
She smiles. “That’s amazing. What do you write?”
“Oh, a little bit of everything. For money, it’s mostly articles for magazines, but I have a few horror novels I can’t sell, and I just landed my first major non-fiction book deal. I write as Nathan West because I refuse to put my father’s last name on anything he might try to take credit for.”
“Good for you,” she says, looking genuinely happy for me. “That’s incredible. I’m so proud of you, Nate.”
“Thanks. But I would rather talk about you. You were always more interesting than I was, Einstein.”
Her smile falters. “Oh, I was not. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not ridiculous.” I crouch on the opposite side of the coffee table, bringing my face level with hers. “But I do get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me.”
She meets my gaze, but the shields are already slamming down, shutting me out again. “Yeah, well. Some things are better left untold.”
“Because they hurt?” I ask gently.
