Page 55 of Ice Cold Christmas
She ran inside the bedroom and stopped dead.
A fluffy, white robe on the edge of the bed. Monster slippers near the nightstand. Like, actual monster slippers. Silly and big and blue and her lips trembled when she looked at them. Monster slippers did not fit at all with the image she’d gotten of Melody Mage from the online posts.
But those slippers…
This room…
It does fit. It feels right.
More books. A wall of framed pictures. Not of people, though. The pictures were of different places. So many places. Pulled to those framed photos, she lurched closer to them. Behind her, she heard the sound of Victor entering the bedroom.
The Eiffel Tower. The Grand Canyon. The Statue of Liberty. Giant, cascading waterfalls. A dark cloud-covered top of a dormant volcano. Amazing places. Beautiful. Magical. And?—
A black and white picture of her and Victor rested in the middle of the wall. She blinked. Stepped closer to that picture. Even lifted her hand as if she’d touch it. In the image, they seemed to be on a lake. Canoeing? Kayaking? They weren’t kissing. Not hugging. Not even touching. It looked like a selfie shot that she’d taken because she was in the front and part of her arm was extended. Victor perched behind her, and she could see him gripping a paddle. She was grinning, from ear to ear.
He was smiling, too, and his gaze was completely on her.
She realized that she’d stopped breathing. Her breath left her in a fast whoosh as she whirled toward him.
His gaze was on her. Not the wall. He wasn’t smiling. But now she knew exactly what he looked like when his face was lit with warmth. When Victor was really happy.
“You tipped the canoe over five seconds after you snapped that pic. We came out of that lake soaking wet.” A shake of his head. “You were laughing your gorgeous ass off. See, that’s who you really are. Don’t believe the BS that’s splashed online. The stories that circulate about you being spoiled. A trust fund brat. That’s not you. I realized that truth about ten minutes after we first met. You were nothing like what I expected you to be. And you changed everything for me.” He looked over her head at the photos. “You went on backpacking trips to most of those places in the photos. You liked to camp outside when you hiked. You’d be covered in mud and sleeping on the ground, and you’d act like it was better than the Ritz. You were never some cold-blooded ice queen. You were warm and beautiful, and you lit up the world around you. When you were gone, without that light, everything was too dark.” His hands fisted at his sides. “I was too dark.”
She wanted to lunge at him. Grab him and hold on tight. That had been real joy on her face in that photo. On his face. You couldn’t fake that emotion.
For the last year, Victor had been looking for her. Victor had never given up. Someone had been searching for her. Someone had been missing her.
Someone had been loving her.
“One year.” He took a step back. Then he began to prowl the confines of her room. Skimming his fingers over the spines of books. Touching a faded quilt that sat near what she strongly suspected had been her favorite reading chair. How could it not be? Oversized, tucked in the corner, with a lamp perched nearby and a footstool just waiting beside it. “I held onto hope for a solid year,” he told her. “Even as fear grew in my heart, and I understood that…you were probably gone. Dead.”
I’m not. I’m right here.
“When you reached the estate, when you walked in, I’d finally given voice to the fear that haunted me. I said you were dead.” His gaze lingered on her bed. Four-poster. With a canopy. An antique that had gleaming wood, as if it were carefully polished. Probably was. Victor probably made sure it stayed polished. Without looking back at her, he said, “I knew I was obsessed, you see. Keeping this place exactly as you left it. Keeping it ready in case you walked in the door…”
I did just walk in the door.
“I bought the house, Melody.”
Her lips parted. She didn’t know what to say.
“You were gone. No one was paying the mortgage. You’d saved up, and you’d worked so hard to get this home on your own. Sebastian never gave you a dime for it, and, honestly, when you vanished, I don’t think he even remembered the place half the time. His condition—hell, baby, it took so much away from him.”
A lump rose in her throat.
“I bought the property because when you came back, I needed your home to be ready.” He looked down, as if seeming to just realize his hands had fisted. “At the Mage estate, Dario was saying it was time to sell your house. He wanted you out of the will. He wanted everyone to move on.”
“I-I heard…” Like those words hadn’t felt like knives sinking into her.
His head whipped up. His shoulders squared. “You need to know…I was going to do it.”
She blinked quickly, hating that stupid tears wanted to fill her eyes.
“I wasn’t going to stop looking for you, don’t mistake me on that point. I would never have stopped looking. Never. But I knew I couldn’t keep this place like a shrine for you much longer.” A vague wave of his hand. “Hell, I get that I’m obsessed. Even the cops thought I was. Though they had no clue just how deep that obsession truly runs when it comes to you.” A muscle jerked along his jaw. “Sometimes, I’d come here just to fucking be closer to you. At first, the home still smelled like you.” He wrenched around. Lurched to the dresser. Picked up a bottle of perfume. “Champagne and vanilla. With just a hint of honeysuckle. Your signature scent. You didn’t blow cash on a lot, but you always had to wear this perfume.” He set the perfume back down. A little too hard. It clinked when the glass hit the wood of the dresser’s top.
She should say something. Do something.
A slow exhale blew from him. Victor rolled back his shoulders. “I’m not rational when it comes to you. You need to understand that. I want to grab you and hold you and take you away from every threat in the world.” His gaze pinned her. So, so dark and possessive. “I do want to handcuff you to me. I wasn’t joking or just threatening with that shit before. I have to know that you’re safe. I have to make sure you’re tied to me. I want to fly you to Vegas. Marry you. Spend the rest of my life with you.” Now he began to stalk back to her. “I want to tie you to me in every possible way because I cannot lose you again.”
