Page 25 of Her Christmas Fix
Monika stands frozen in the doorway, her face pale in the harsh glare of the bright lights. She looks small and vulnerable, and rage floods through me so fast I’m moving before I consciously decide to.
Years of training kick in—assess the threat, neutralize it, protect the asset. Only this isn’t a mission, and Monika isn’t an asset. She’s mine, and that makes every protective instinct I have go into overdrive.
“Get the hell off my property!” I shoulder past, putting myself between her and the three men with cameras. My body shifts into a combat stance without conscious thought. “Now!”
One of them—a weaselly guy in a leather jacket—pushes forward, shoving his camera in my face. “Just a few questions?—”
I grab the camera and shove it hard enough that the guy stumbles. “I said leave!”
“Griffin, no!” Monika’s voice is so sharp and distant, I barely register the protest.
I slam the door so hard the windows rattle, flipping the deadbolt and the chain like those assholes are going to try to bust in here.
My heart pounds and adrenaline spikes through me as I turn to her, but she’s already moving to grab her phone from the counter. Her fingers tremble as she turns it on, and I watch the color drain further from her cheeks as notification after notification floods the screen.
“Monika—”
“Oh my God,” she whispers, scrolling frantically. “Oh my God, oh my God.”
I move closer, trying to see over her shoulder. “What is it?”
“Daniel was arrested. Federal charges. Embezzlement, fraud, wire fraud.” Her voice is hollow. “My assistant has been trying to reach me all day. The girl who asked for a selfie tagged me on social media at The Water Witch. That’s how they found me.”
The pieces click together. Monika told me about her outing into town yesterday. She’d been so happy, almost proud that she’d been just another holiday shopper, not worried about being recognized. And then this…
“It’s okay,” I say, reaching for her. “We’ll figure this out?—”
She jerks away from my touch like it might burn her. I see the war happening behind her eyes—the part of her that wants to lean into me battling the part that’s already shutting down. “It’s not at all okay. This—” She gestures wildly between the door and me. “This isn’t real.”
The words hit like a punch to the gut. “The hell it isn’t. The past two weeks have been more real than?—”
“No,” she whispers. My gut churns as I watch her expression change. Her walls go up again like I’d never broken through them at all. “The cameras, questions, and the constant scrutiny—those are my reality.”
“Monika, we can deal with?—”
“I might live in la la land professionally, but the past two weeks? That’s what’s been make-believe.” Her voice cracks on the last word. “I wanted this to be real, Griffin. So much it hurts. But wanting doesn’t make it true.” “I should have known better. I do know better. I just let myself forget for a while.”
The woman who laughed with Noah Kendrick and wore my shirts and fell asleep in my arms is disappearing, replaced by the carefully curated celebrity I met that first night.
And there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop it.
I spent twenty years completing missions that seemed hopeless. But I can’t neutralize paparazzi or secure a perimeter around her entire life.
“So what now?” I massage a hand over the back of my neck like I can get rid of my frustration that way. “We pretend this didn’t happen?”
She flinches, and I hate that I put that look on her face. “We face reality.”
“Your reality or the one other people forced on you?” I’m not sure she even hears me over the sound of her phone ringing again.
She looks at the screen, then at me, and I see the exact moment she makes her decision. The moment she chooses the easier pain of leaving over the harder work of staying.
“I need to take this,” she says, already moving toward the hall. “Can I use your bedroom?”
“Of course. But Monika?—”
She pauses and glances over her shoulder. For a heartbeat, I see everything I feel reflected back at me. Then it’s gone. “I’m sorry, Griffin. I really am. But we both know from the beginning this was temporary.”
Then she’s gone, and I’m left standing in my kitchen with half-made tacos and the sinking realization that I lost her before I even had a chance to fight for us.
