Page 74 of My Rival for Christmas

I can’t take it, scrambling off his lap like I’m caught on fire. Shooting to my feet, my hands run forcefully through my hair.

“How were you supposed to know if I didn’t tell you?” With no malice in his tone, Nate climbs to his feet as well. Watching me with concern as I pace in front of him.

“Because—” Because it’slove.

Love, the thing people write sonnets about and go to war for.

The thing people spend their whole lives looking and hoping and praying for.

The thing that inspires and creates and fills.

An emotion that feels so heavy and serious andunmistakable.

So how did I not see it?

Cole’s words fly back at me.

You’re so fucking selfish, Paige. Do you even see anything outside skating? How do you expect anyone to give a damn about you when you’re too wrapped up in your head?

“Paige?” Nate’s voice feels distant, like he’s on the other side of the mountain instead of right in front of me.

I struggle to draw a breath, my chest past the point of working.

“Paige!”

I feel his thick, strong hands around my arms, keeping me upright before I see his face. Those wide, blue concerned eyes trained on me.

“Breathe,” he instructs softly.

Such an easy thing that feels so hard to do. But I try, one short inhale that gets longer each time. Pushing away the words of a man who has no business being in this conversation.Even if he might be right.

There is only one way to find out. Once my breathing has returned to a semi-normal pace, as normal as it can be in a situation like this, I focus back on Nate.

He’s still holding my arms, a pillar to draw strength from.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” It’s an answer I’m not sure I want to face, to have it challenge another thing inside myself. But for once, I don’t back away and hide. I don’t run. I’m choosing to face my problems head-on. To work through them, and not around. “After we won gold, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have been receptive if I did?” Nate asks cautiously. “That if I told you I loved you then, it would’ve done anything other than rip us apart?”

At first, I get offended, welcoming the reprieve from other heightened emotions coursing through me.Of courseI would’ve been receptive?—

Except I wouldn’t have been.

Out of all the human emotions, love has always scared me the most.

I’m an adult who bears the bruises of an abandoned childhood. Of knowing how sometimes love causes the greatest pains. Leaves the deepest scars.

Not to mention the fact that after winning gold, I was spiraling.

I had just achieved what I had set out to do my entire life and the elation from that accomplishment only lasted as long as it took our plane to touch back down in New York. Plighting me with an existential crisis I wasn’t prepared for.

A simple question that echoed in my head, consuming my every thought.What now?

It wasn’t a question I was ready to answer, wasn’t ready to faceanychanges to a life I had spent practically two decades crafting.

If Nate would’ve told me then, I would’ve crumbled. Would’ve tossed his declaration,his loveaside because I wouldn’t have been ready to hear it. Wouldn’t have been ready for another change.

I force myself to draw a shaky breath. My pacing draws to a halt as I look at him, as his gaze tracks mine. Reflecting my turmoil back at me. “So you left.”

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