Page 69 of The Heart of Winter

Winter cleared his throat and nodded. "Good. The holidays are coming up. Maybe you’ll manage to finish everything before then."

"I will. I’ll get it all done."

I brushed past Soren, who was watching me with his stormy gray eyes.

Well, what else could I say? Maybe it was a good thing we got interrupted, our conversation could have taken an entirely different turn. Possibly too rushed?

Still, as I walked back to my office, I felt a strange thrill running through my nervous system.

My hand, the one that had rested on Winter’s nape, still carried a faint trace of his scent, a fresh, delicate mix of lavender and lime.

And then there was his hair tie, now wrapped around my wrist. Just a simple, ash-gray band made of velvet-like fabric, but to me, it felt like something I had won, a precious little trophy.

Sitting at my desk, working on Werner’s revisions, I found myself glancing at it from time to time, a small smile playing on my lips.

I had a piece of Winter.

But I already knew. It would never be enough.

***

With the holidays approaching, I threw myself into work, fully focused on finalizing the revisions and preparing the project for a polished client presentation.

Unfortunately, all my consultations now had to go through Werner, who considered himself the ultimate authority. I had to admit, though, that being the boss’s son probably made him a little more friendly toward me than he would have been with any other aspiring designer.

From what I’d heard, he’d been the lead UX designer at DevApp for years, ruling with an iron grip. He had two meek designers working under him, one handling back-end infrastructure design, the other front-end UI/UX, but he still reviewed every line of code and every mockup they pushed.

And me? He kept me on a short leash too. Even though he was generous with praise for my layouts, he still asked for changes that would’ve meant a lot of extra work for the devs, and potentially unnecessary costs for DevApp. So I had to follow that part of his instructions to the letter and rein in my creative ideas a bit.

For the next few days, I buried myself in work. Still, the need to see Winter never really left me. It had become my constant, silent companion.

Sometimes, I’d catch myself staring at the open doorway, hoping to see him walk by.

Keeping my composure wasn’t easy. It was escalating quickly, like a rising fever, becoming harder and harder to bear.

So intense. So all-consuming.

One evening, after leaving work, I got into my car and saw Winter’s silhouette crossing the parking lot diagonally. My heart immediately sped up. He got into his car, seemingly unaware of my presence.

I wanted to get out, to go up to him. But I knew that here, in the company parking lot, there was no way we could have any kind of real interaction.

And yet… something pushed me forward, the reckless part of me.

The moment he pulled out of the lot, I started my engine and joined the flow of traffic behind him, having no idea what I was doing.

This was basically stalking. There was no way he’d be okay with this if he found out.

But I made up my mind. Even if all I got was a few more minutes in his presence, or rather, in the presence of the back of his car. Oh well, this was ridiculous.

Still, I kept driving.

Winter’s apartment was along the same route that led to my parents’ estate, so technically, I wasn’t going too far out of my way.

At one point, he turned into the parking lot of a supermarket I occasionally stopped by as well. A spark of excitement flickered inside me.

This didn’t have to look like stalking! I could easily say I just stopped by for groceries.

He parked, and I pulled into a spot about twenty yards behind him.

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