Page 98 of Santa's Girl
There she was.
Back to me, shivering in the chill, bare shoulders glistening with starlight. Her hair tumbled down in soft waves, and her emerald dress clung like something out of a fever dream.
I pulled off my jacket. “You’ll catch cold.”
She turned. Her face stopped me dead.
Not tears. Worse.
Calm. Distant. Frozen.
“Don’t.”
She stepped back from the coat like it burned.
And then she let me have it. Calm voice, straight spine, fury behind her eyes.
“Was this all a game?” she said, each word cutting clean. “Mountain broke-back man, down on his luck, playing the hero?Was I just fun for a few weeks? Something pretty to keep your cabin warm? A good story for your next boardroom meeting?”
I stepped forward. "Becca, no. It wasn’t like that."
“You let me believe you were someone else.” Her voice cracked. “You let me feel sorry for you. Like I was helpingyou. Like we were building something real when the whole time you had a secret life so big it’s literally in thenews. I Googled you, Calden. I saw everything.”
“That name,” I growled, “means nothing to me.”
She blinked.
I swallowed hard. “Calden Boone is just ink on legal papers. A name my mother left me with and my father buried in land deeds. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t build that empire. I buried people I loved and rode until I found something real—my club. That cabin. That town. The mountain.You.That’s my life.”
She shook her head. “You should’ve told me.”
“I was going to.”
“When? After Christmas?” she snapped. “When you flew off in a private jet and left me wondering if any of it was real?”
I stepped closer, desperate now. “It was real. Every second with you was real. Becca, I swear it on everything I’ve got. I didn’t know how to tell you because the second I did, I knew I’d lose you. I knew you’d look at me like… like this.”
She folded her arms across her chest.
“You know what’s funny?” she said, her voice a whisper now. “You thought I’d run to you because of the money. But it’s theliesthat broke us and now I’m running away. From all of it.”
Her eyes were wet, but her chin was high. Her dress shimmered under the starlight, dark green silk clinging to curves I knew too well. And she was breaking right in front of me.
I took a step forward. "I only ever wanted something real, Becca. You were the first thing in a long time that felt like home."
She flinched like the word hurt.
"At the MC, the women want Bear. The prez. The power. If they knew I was loaded? I’d have a dozen fake paternity suits and vultures circling with prenups. And if I walk in as Calden Boone? It's a suit I don’t fit in. A name I don’t wear well. More women. More vultures. More lies."
I reached for her. "You—the cabin—coffee in a chipped mug. That was real. Please, baby. Please..."
Her lip quivered. My heart shattered.
"All I want for Christmas is you," I whispered.
But it was too little. Too late.
She walked past me, heels crunching on the frost-covered stone, leaving me standing there in the cold.
