Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Downstairs, we ate the Mexican food Zach had ordered, then decorated the tree. Zach poked affectionate fun at the clumsily handmade ornaments I had from when I was little, and I needled him about not having a tree at all for the last few years.
“Who are you, Ebenezer Scrooge?” I teased.
“I think I lost Christmas in the divorce, along with the pots and pans.” He caught me in his arms from behind and buried his face in my hair. “But I didn’t even care.”
“Maybe you can get a tree this year,” I suggested. “There’s still time.”
“I don’t know. It wouldn’t be as fun without you there to help me decorate it. And what if I chose a grouchy tree? I might ruin Christmas altogether.”
I laughed, but the sound faded when I thought about this afternoon. “I heard you’re coming here. For Christmas, I mean.”
Behind me, he went stiff. “What?”
“I saw Mason and Lori today. They were downtown, and they came into the shop.”
“Oh.”
I turned within his embrace to face him. “Mason asked if he could bring you to the Cloverleigh Farms Christmas Eve party.”
His eyes closed. “Fuck.”
“I didn’t realize you’d decided to come.”
“It’s hard for me to say no to Mason. He really doesn’t ask much of me, all things considered.”
“I know.” I toyed with the buttons on his shirt. “You can go. I’ll stay home. I’ll say I don’t feel well.”
“Millie, no. That’s your family’s Christmas party. I’ll make up an excuse why I can’t attend.”
I shook my head, feeling us coming apart at the seams. “Lies and excuses. Making things up. Near misses at the hardware store—or anywhere else we go! Zach, we can’t keep doing this.”
“I know.” He swallowed, tightening his arms around my back. “I know.”
“This is getting too hard.” My voice caught, and I choked back a sob. “I think we have to stop. Because the longer this goes on, the more I feel for you. And the more I feel, the more hope starts to build that some way, somehow, we can be together. And we can’t.”
He tipped my chin up. “You’re so much younger than I am, Millie. Even if Mason didn’t have a problem with us, and we got over what everyone in town would think, you want things I can’t give you.”
“That’s what I mean. And yet I keep pretending—I’m like a kid who just wants to believe in Santa Claus even though I know darn well there’s no fat man in a red suit who slides down every chimney in the world on Christmas Eve.”
“I wish there was. I really fucking wish there was.”
“This is the reality we were always going to have to face. It’s not your fault or my fault. It’s just the way things are, Zach, and they won’t change.”
He wrapped me in his arms again, pulling me tighter to his broad, warm chest. “I think about you every minute of the day. I wish I could be the one, Millie Rose.”
“Maybe in another life, you could have been.” Tears leaked silently from my eyes.
He kissed the top of my head. When he spoke, his voice was gruff with emotion. “I’m not sure I’d have deserved you in any life, but I sure as hell would have tried.”
Of course, because neither of us was good at being apart, we went up to my bedroom and spent our last night together exactly the way we’d spent our first—only instead of fast, frantic fucking and fun games, we went slow, taking our time, savoring every single moment because we knew it was goodbye.
Afterward, we lay wrapped in each other’s arms, my head on his chest, loath to fall asleep and face the inevitable dawn of the day we’d have to part for good.
“I want to tell you something,” he said, breaking the silence.
“What?” I whispered.
“You once asked me why I got married. And I didn’t answer honestly.”
“Yes, you did. You said you didn’t want to be alone, so you thought you’d try it.”
“That wasn’t the whole truth.”
I picked up my head and looked at him, his features vague in the dark. “What’s the whole truth?”
He tucked my hair behind my ear. “I liked the idea that someone might . . . belong to me. That there was someone I had to protect and provide for. But I didn’t want to love anyone so much I couldn’t live without them. With her, that was never a danger. But with you . . .”
My heart stopped. “With me?”
“With you, it is. With you, it’s been a danger all along.”
Once again, the tears threatened to undo me. I put my head down again, listening to his heart beat while he held me close.
I love you too, I mouthed. But like him, I didn’t say the words aloud.
Maybe that would make it easier.
CHAPTER 23