Page 44 of Her Holiday Arrangement
She could feel herself slipping into the old familiar armor, Ice Queen Hale, the one who could command boardrooms and dodge emotion with the same practiced chill.
It felt safe. It felt like control.
But it also felt like losing something she didn’t know she wanted until last night.
She could feel the walls locking into place around her again, brick by brick, the same ones she’d spent years building. Thesame ones Riley had started to climb over. Last night, those walls had cracked.
But cracks could be sealed.
Even if it hurt.
Even if the person on the other side was looking at her like they didn’t understand what they’d done wrong.
Even if Elizabeth didn’t quite know how to stop hurting her.
So she stayed quiet. Polished. Perfect.
The breakfast continued. The carols played. And Elizabeth sat there with her back straight and her mask in place, pretending she couldn’t feel the silence between them growing louder by the minute.
Elizabeth sat alone in the library, curled into the high-backed velvet chair no one else ever used. A fire crackled in the hearth, more for atmosphere than warmth, casting golden light against the walnut-paneled walls. Outside, snow still poured from the sky in lazy, suffocating sheets, blurring the horizon and burying the world in silence. Inside, she could hear the muffled laughter of her family somewhere down the hall, distant and removed, like a life she wasn’t fully participating in anymore.
She had brought a book, some ancient collection of essays she wasn’t actually reading. It lay open in her lap, forgotten.
Her fingers had turned the same page three times now.
Because all she could think about was last night.
It looped in her brain with no mercy—the soft hush of breath between them, flashes of Riley in the dark, the curves of her body, her taste, the way she looked as she came apart.
Elizabeth could still feel it—God,whyhad she let it go that far?
She hadn’t meant to. She nevermeantto. The plan was simple: bring Riley home, fake the relationship, survive the week. In, out, done. Her mother’s suspicion soothed, her reputation intact, and Riley compensated fairly for the performance.
No emotion. No entanglements. No risk.
And now?
Elizabeth exhaled sharply, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes.
She told herself it was a mistake.
She’d had too much bourbon. Riley had been tipsy. The snowstorm, the firelight, the damnholiday music, it had all conspired to soften her edges, to lull her into this false sense of safety. To lose control.
That’s all it was.
Just a mistake.
But even as she repeated it like a mantra, a betrayal bloomed low in her chest: she didn’tregretit.
And that was the worst part.
Because Riley had been sorealin that moment. Open and messy and human in a way Elizabeth had spent her whole life avoiding. She’d never dated people who made her feel uncertain. Never slept beside anyone who looked at her like she was worth knowing beyond the veneer. Riley was chaos, mismatched socks and oversharing and nervous jokes about performance pressure in reindeer, and somehow, she’d made Elizabeth feel…seen.
And Elizabeth didn’t know what to do with that.
The fire popped, startling her. She blinked down at the book in her lap and turned another page she wouldn’t read. Her pulse still throbbed in her neck like she was in some kind of quiet, slow-moving free fall.
She could feel herself unraveling.
