Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“I’ve taken plenty.” He gives me a sidelong glance. “I just don’t need fifty attempts to get one decent shot.”
“No?” I laugh. “You probably get it perfect on the first try.”
“Second, sometimes,” he admits, and his mock seriousness makes me laugh harder.
“Is that how you got to be so . . .” I wave my hand vaguely at all of him.
“Devastatingly handsome? Naturally brilliant? Excellent at picking out boots?”
I bump his shoulder with mine. “I was going to say intense, but now I’m changing my answer to insufferable.”
We make our way to Rockefeller Center. The Christmas tree stands seventy feet tall, strung with thousands of white lights that make the whole plaza glow. Red and gold ornaments catch the light, and the star at the top is so bright it’s visible even against the night sky. Despite the crowds of people taking photos and children pointing up at the decorations, there’s something peaceful about it. Ice skaters glide below, their movements synchronized to holiday music floating through the air.
“So this is your compromise?” I ask, gesturing to the massive tree. “Instead of getting our own tree, you bring me to see someone else’s?”
Cole’s lips quirk up at one corner. “I thought this was a reasonable middle ground.”
“A reasonable middle ground would be a six-foot Fraser fir in the living room corner,” I counter.
“Hardly reasonable.”
I cross my arms but can’t help smiling. “This isn’t over, you know. I’m getting that tree.”
“Not a chance,” he says, but I catch the softening in his eyes.
I’ve walked past this rink hundreds of times, usually hurrying to meetings or rushing between suppliers. But tonight I notice things I’ve always missed. The way the ice seems to glow from beneath, the sound of blades cutting clean paths through frost, the laughter that rises above the music. Or maybe it’s just that everything feels sharper, more vivid with Cole standing next to me. I’m hyperaware of his shoulder brushing mine, the warmth of him in the cold December air.
Cole’s hand brushes my lower back. “Stay right here where I can see you,” he says, his tone making it more command than request. “I’ll be back in two minutes.”
He disappears into the crowd, returning exactly when he said he would with two cups of hot chocolate—my favorite kind with extra whipped cream and a dash of cinnamon. I’ve stopped questioning how he knows these things.
We find a quiet spot overlooking the ice rink, and I catch him watching me instead of the skaters. I gesture to a small boy wobbling on the ice, his father holding both his hands. “Did you ever learn to skate?”
“Sort of. My grandfather taught me,” he says, a warmth entering his voice. “Every winter on the pond behind his house in Vermont. He said a man should know how to stay on his feet in any situation, but the ice wasn’t really my friend back then.” His expression softens. “The weeks I spent there were . . .” He pauses, like he’s weighing how much to share. “They meant everything. He’d take me skating, teach me about business, about integrity. About the importance of protecting what matters.”
“Sounds like a wise man.”
“He was.” The tenderness in his voice makes my chest tight. “He would have liked you.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t back down. Because you create beautiful things and work like hell to make them perfect.” His eyes trace over my face, and I can’t look away. The usual sharp edges of his expression have softened, and there’s something almost vulnerable in the way he’s watching me. My breath catches when his hand comes up, hovering near my cheek like he wants to touch me but is holding himself back.
Don’t lean in. Don’t close the distance. Don’t let him break the last boundary you’ve been clinging to.
I clear my throat and turn back toward the rink.
“What about you?” he asks. “Do you skate?”
“Figure skated for ten years.” I smile at his raised eyebrow, though the memories aren’t all sweet. “Ahhhhh . . . something you don’t actually know about me. Competed and everything. My mom had Olympic dreams—for me, not for her. She never quite got over missing her own shot at qualifying.”
I pause, surprised by my honesty.
“Five a.m. practices, coaches who thought kindness was weakness, a diet of criticism and protein bars. I lived for the moments between the drills, when I could just . . . move. Create something beautiful on the ice. But that wasn’t enough. It was never enough.”
His eyes stay on mine, patient, waiting.
“I was good. Not great. Not Olympic-bound. Breaking my mom’s heart was the hardest thing I’d ever done, but staying would have broken me.” I gesture to the rink below, where a young girl lands a wobbly jump, her face pure joy. “Now I just do it for fun. Though these days, I spend more time in my workshop than on the ice. Trading one kind of perfection for another, I guess.”