3

BRONWYN

I moved towards him, my skin bristling with sexual energy. His heated eyes were on mine as I moved across the room, putting a little sway in my hips.

I saw the arrogant sneer in his face but I brushed it off. When I reached him, he instantly put a log in my hands. "You're going to help me build the fire at the fire place." He nodded behind me. "Just hold the logs."

"I...I," I stuttered but he had already brushed past me towards the fireplace. For a second, I stood there for intemsely hurt. What was I thinking? Why was he sending me mixed signals?

I watched him build the fire. The way his shoulders moved under his shirt when he stacked the logs. I moved closer and watched as the firelight made shadows dance across his face that has no bad angles. He was so irresistible, and somewhere along the line he'd noticed the way I acted around him. That's why he was teasing me.

"That should do it." Trenton stood and brushed off his hands. The fire crackled to life behind him. "I'll make us something to eat."

"I can help."

"You helped enough today." He headed toward the kitchen. "Just stay warm."

I settled onto the couch and pulled a blanket around my shoulders. The temperature was already dropping without the heat. Outside, wind screamed against the windows. Snow piled up on the sills.

Trenton returned with sandwiches and two wine glasses. There was a bottle of wine tucked under his arm.

"Nothing fancy," he said. "But it'll keep us going."

We ate by firelight. Everything felt surreal. I was having dinner with the Trenton Rhiggs, my childhood crush from fifteen, sitted around a warm fireplace, romantic tension sparking between two of us. Me from two days ago would not have believed.

"So tell me about the Sherry contract?" he asked, his focus on me now.

"My research have proved to be productive. Presentations start next week." I took a sip of wine. "If I land it, the promotion is mine."

"When you land it." He refilled my glass. "You always sell yourself short, even when we were younger."

"You didn't notice me when we were younger."

The words came out before I could stop them. Trenton's hand paused over his wine glass.

"That's not entirely true," he said slowly.

"You barely knew I existed. I was just Eudora's friend who came over sometimes."

"I knew you existed." He met my eyes. "But you were a kid, around Eudora's age, definitely not someone I should have been looking at."

My stomach flipped. "And now?"

"Now you're not a kid anymore." He took a long drink. "Now it's different."

The fire popped in the silence. I wanted to ask what different meant but I was afraid of the answer.

"Tell me about Boston," he said. "What's it really like? Not the work stuff. The life stuff."

I shrugged. "It's fine. I have friends and go out sometimes. The usual."

"But?"

"But what?"

"There's a but in your voice." He studied me over the rim of his glass. "What are you not saying?"

I pulled the blanket tighter. "It's lonely sometimes. Everyone's so focused on their careers, on climbing higher on the corporate ladder. No one really connects, you know? It's all surface level."

"That's why you come back here every Christmas." He smiled, and I looked away. His smiles jittered the butterflies in my stomach.

"Yeah." I looked at the fire. "Pinehaven might be small but at least people are real here. They know each other and care about each other."

He pulled his legs under him. "So why  don't stay, build a life here, apply to the branch at Pinehaven?"

I pursed my lips. "I don't fit here anymore either."

"So you're stuck between two places, belonging to neither."

I looked at him in surprise, a small chuckle escaping my lips. "I didn't know you were a shrink too. How are you so accurate?"

He sighed, staring at the spitting fire. "Because I've felt the same way since Isolde died." He refilled both our glasses. The wine was making him more open and honest. "Like I'm going through the motions but not really living anywhere real."

"Tell me about her," I said softly. "About Isolde."

He was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn't answer. Then he started talking.

"She was the kind of person who made everything brighter. She laughed at terrible jokes, always so absentminded, burned dinner half the time because she got distracted talking." His voice was rough. "When she got sick, she stayed positive until the very end. She kept telling me and Eudora that we'd be okay without her."

"But you weren't."

"No." He stared into the fire. "I shut down after she died and threw myself into work. I avoided feeling anything because it was only hurt." When he looked up at me, I saw the pain swirling in his eyes.

"And Eudora?" He made to pour me another fill, but I raised my hand in refusal.

He kept the bottle beside him. "She threw herself into med school. We both dealt with it by not dealing with it." He looked at me. "For three years, I've been numb. I was just going through days without actually being present for her."

I smiled because even though that was true, recently the bond between him and Eudora became tighter than ever. "So what changed?"

He didn't answer. The speckles in his grey eyes sparkled in the firelight.

The wine made me brave. "Last Christmas at the gala. I caught you looking at me across the room."

"I remember."

"I thought I imagined it."

"You didn't imagine it." His voice dropped lower. "That was the first time I really saw you, not as Eudora's friend but as Bronwyn. Suddenly you were a woman who could take my breath away when she smiled."

My heart hammered against my ribs. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because you were twenty four and Eudora's best friend. I had no right to look at you that way." He stood suddenly, carrying the wine bottle and wine glasses. "I still don't."

I should have finished my wine and gone to bed. Instead I asked the question that had been burning in me for years.

"Why did you never settle down after Isolde? Women must have tried."

"They did." I watched as his back turned rigid and tense. "I wasn't interested."

"Why not?"

"None of them made me feel anything." He turned his head slightly. "Until you walked through my door two days ago."

"I need to know something," He spoke up and blood rushed to my head with the speed of a freight train. My voice shook but I kept going. "Why did you never get married? You're twenty five. You're beautiful and career-oriented. Men must have been lining up."

I stood and walked closer to him. "I dated. Plenty of guys asked me out."

"But?"

"But I kept comparing them to someone impossible." My pulse roared in my ears. "Someone I could never have."

Trenton's shoulders tensed. "Who?"

This was it. The moment to be brave or stay safe. I could make up a lie and say it was some professor or coworker and keep myself protected.

Instead I chose the truth.

"You. I kept comparing everyone to you."

Trenton went completely still. His jaw clenched. Then he walked away with his hands curled into the fists at his sides.

"You should go to bed, Bronwyn." His voice was strained. "Go now."

Humiliation washed over me in waves. I'd laid myself bare and he was sending me away. I blinked back my tears and walked away, trying not to think.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, something inside me snapped. I'd spent years being careful and being 'appropriate'. My number one personal ethic was following rules but where had it gotten me?

Nowhere and alone. I stopped and turned back.

"Do you feel it too?" My voice came out stronger than I felt. "This thing between us, whatever it is."

He didn't turn around as he went to the went to the wine island. "It doesn't matter what I feel."

"It matters to me." I walked back across the room and stopped directly behind him.

"Don't." He growled, huskily. "Don't push this."

"Look at me." I demanded, my voice wet.

He turned. His eyes were blazing with dark lust and my heart sank to the bottom of my stomach.

"You don't know what you're asking," he said through clenched teeth.

"Yes, I do." I didn't back down or looked away. "I'm asking if you feel what I feel. If you want what I want."

"You're Eudora's best friend."

"I know."

"You're twenty five years old."

"I know that too."

"I'm her father."

I rolled my eyes. "Of course, yes." I took one more step. Now we were inches apart. "Tell me you don't feel it and I'll walk away. I'll go upstairs right now and we'll never talk about this again."

His chest rose and fell. His eyes searched my face looking for a reason to do the right thing.

I hated that he was so calm and collected while I was nervous, fidgeting on my feet. "I have felt it since you walked through my door. Since before that if I'm being honest."

"Then stop fighting it."

"You don't understand what you're asking for." But even as he said it, his hand came up and cupped my face. His thumb put a stray hand "This will change everything. We can't undo this."

"I don't want to undo it." I leaned into his touch. "I want you. I've wanted you for years."

I saw the moment he stopped fighting and his control cracked.

"God help me," he whispered. Then his mouth crashed on mine.