Chapter 001

Dolly’s POV

What’s the worst Christmas gift a girl can get?

A cheating boyfriend?

Or the realization that he never even liked girls at all?

Honestly, it’s a tie.

It happened some days before Christmas—ironically, the one week I’d actually allowed myself to feel hopeful. I’d worked a double shift, bought him a stupid little gift, and told myself this is it, Dolly, he’s finally ready to move forward.

I should’ve known something was off the moment I used my spare key and the door didn’t squeak like it usually did. The whole apartment was… weirdly quiet. No TV. No music. Just a sound I couldn’t place at first…

A breathy gasp.

A low moan.

A definitely-masculine groan.

My brain whispered don’t, but my feet were already moving.

Curiosity and stupidity are twin demons, apparently.

I walked into the bedroom and—boom—Christmas was cancelled.

There he was. Gabby my boyfriend of five years. The man who’d sworn he “respected my boundaries.”

Yeah. No.

He respected d*ck.

Specifically, the one currently inside him.

The scene was something out of a dirty novella I never wanted to star in—both of them tangled in sheets, bodies moving, breathless, lost in their own little universe.

He didn’t even notice me at first.

Henry, his best friend, did.

Our eyes met.

His lips parted.

He smirked.

Like being caught mid-thrust was a fun holiday surprise.

I backed out before either of them could say anything, but it didn’t matter. The damage was done. My heart? Torn. My pride? Vaporized. My self-esteem? Melted on the floor like cheap snow.

And because life hates me, it started snowing the second I stepped outside.

I called Lena—my best friend, professional menace, certified chaos goblin. She was the only good thing in my life. 

She didn’t even let me finish my sentence.

“Pack your shit. You’re coming to Steadman Ridge. We’re fixing this with sugar, sarcasm, and maybe arson.”

I didn’t argue. Headed straight home and packed a few things, even though I knew Lena would not allow me to put them on. She would always say I look like a grandma hunting for cougars.

By the time the car dropped me halfway up the mountain, I was shivering, crying, dragging my suitcase through knee-deep snow like a wet, depressed reindeer.

The lodge glowed in the distance—warm lights, giant wreaths, snow drifting softly around its wooden beams. It looked like a Hallmark movie someone dipped in money.

I pushed open the front door…

…and froze.

Because standing there, sleeves rolled up, tie loose around his throat, hair slightly mussed like he’d been running a hand through it all evening, was the one man I absolutely did not have the emotional stability to face.

Jace Steadman.

God help me.

I’d had a crush on this man since I was fourteen and dumb enough to think grown men in sweaters were inherently kind. He’d always looked like the kind of father rich girls had in movies—broad shoulders, perfectly-veined forearms, that low voice that made even “Pass me the salt” sound like a command you’d kneel to obey. And those eyes—storm-grey, sharp enough to cut, soft enough to make a girl wonder if he’d ever look at her like she mattered.

He looked even better now. Tall and solid in the doorway, Christmas lights behind him making a faint halo around his shoulders. A crease between his brows like he’d been thinking too hard. Jaw shadowed with just enough stubble to be illegal. His shirt fitted in ways physics shouldn’t allow—every line of muscle clear beneath the fabric.

And he was looking at me.

Really looking.

His gaze swept over me slowly—wet hair plastered to my cheeks, red nose, trembling fingers clutching the suitcase handle like it owed me money. I looked like a stray cat who’d been electrocuted.

He didn’t ask what happened.

He didn’t offer small talk, didn’t even pretend not to notice the way I was falling apart.

He just stepped aside and said in that low, impossible voice:

“Come in, Dolly.”

God.

If humiliation didn’t kill me, that voice would.

Warmth hit me immediately—fireplace glow, cinnamon, pine, the soft murmur of staff preparing for the evening. The lodge was beautiful as always. But this time, something was off. A tension under the garlands. A storm behind the smiles.

Maybe it was me.

Maybe it was him.

Lena shot across the room like a chaotic missile, skidding into me with a hug that knocked the breath from my lungs.

“Jesus Christ, you look like a Disney princess who failed the survival side quest,” she said, tugging my hood down. “Did he cheat with a girl? A guy? A whole choir? Spill.”

I choked on a laugh—weak, cracked. “Guy.”

She froze.

Then whispered, “Oh sweetie… that is spectacularly awful. Well done. You win Christmas.”

I didn’t win anything.

Across the room, Jace was still watching me.

Not like a man looking at a houseguest.

Not like a father checking on his daughter’s friend.

More like…More like he saw the crack in me and wanted to put his hands there.

No.

Stop.

Absolutely not.

I straightened my spine, pretending I wasn’t dying inside, and told myself I was imagining it.

I wasn’t.

Because later, after Lena dragged my suitcase upstairs and left me with a mug of hot chocolate that tasted like a warm hug, I headed downstairs to return the mug—

—and found Jace in the kitchen, alone, sleeves rolled again, forearms on sinful display, the dim light catching in his hair.

He turned when he heard me.

And the look he gave me wasn’t polite.

Wasn’t fatherly, neither was it distant.

It was warm, intense enough that heat crawled up my neck before I could swallow it down.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

My heart stupidly whispered: Me neither. Because of you.

But I just nodded.

His gaze dipped—just for a second—to my mouth before returning to my eyes.

It was a mistake, maybe a glitch, or even a forbidden spark.

Except… I felt it.

And he did too.

A spark cracked between us in an unsettling way, humming like a wire pulled taut by everything we weren’t supposed to feel.

I looked away first.

Because if I didn’t, I might’ve done something stupid like lean in.

Or worse…

let him.

And as I walked out of the kitchen, cheeks burning, chest tight, I had one horrifying, shameful thought:

Why the hell am I noticing Lena’s dad like this?

Why am I clocking every breath, every look, every inch of him…

…when the ink is barely dry on the heartbreak that shattered me tonight?

Something’s wrong with me.