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Eventually, even though it’s so late I know it’s past her bedtime, she suggests we put on A Christmas Story at the same time.

The movie makes me laugh.

So does the sound of my mom snoring on the other end of the line.

And it’s almost—almost—enough to keep me from thinking about Patrick and all the heartbreak looming inside me.

CHAPTER 27

PATRICK

When the driver comes to a stop in front of my door, I linger in the back seat, fingers on the handle, entertaining the erroneous thought that maybe I should invite the driver inside. From here, I can see all the lights Cami put on timers, the twinkling Christmas tree and the little village that sits surrounded by fake snow on the mantel.

I don’t want to go in there alone. I don’t want to have to face the little world we built for ourselves before going on the trip. If I’d thought ahead, I could have paid someone to come and take all this down before I had to come back here. But I wasn’t thinking ahead. For the past two weeks, I’ve only been thinking about Cami, so caught up in her that I lost sight of the business.

Of the strategy.

A smart man would never have let her connect her phone to the Bluetooth speaker, would have recognized the risk there. A smarter man would have made sure she didn’t have any phone calls discussing the reality of our situation. That she never told her friend in the first place.

The only way our plan was going to work out was if the Morenos didn’t find out we were lying. If my brain had been in the right place, I would have put more precautions in the way of making sure the truth didn’t come out. I didn’t even make Cami sign an NDA, which feasibly means she could go out now and tell everyone about what we were doing.

Not that I think she’s going to do that. The look on her face when she realized the Morenos had overheard her conversation tells me that she’s not going to want anyone else knowing about this.

“Sir?”

I startle in the back seat, realizing I’m still just sitting here, holding the handle, running my mind over everything that happened rather than facing the prospect of going inside this house. My mind flashes with a stupid idea—maybe I could call David—before reminding me that he and I are not friends, and there’s no chance we will be, after he discovered I’m a liar.

Sucking in a deep breath and gathering my courage, I get out of the car and wait for the driver to circle around, grabbing my bags and bringing them up to the door for me.

“I’ve got them from here, thanks.”

“Of course, sir. Happy holidays.”

I bite my tongue and nod back at him, swallowing down the bitter taste that rises from my throat at the sound of that. Turning around, I punch in the key code for the house and push my bags inside.

It’s just as bad as I thought it would be.

The first thing I notice is the scent of cinnamon. I forgot that Cami bought these ridiculous glittery pinecones, spreading them all around the house. We could even smell them in the store, but here in my house, with nothing else competing for airspace, it’s all cinnamon.

And it just reminds me of her.

For a flicker of a second, I think about the alternative to all this. I could call her, could go find her at her apartment or wherever she is. Could apologize for dragging her into this mess and tell her that everything I felt was real.

That I still want her, even outside of Finland. Even outside of the context of our “fake” relationship. That standing in the foyer of my house, I can’t stop imagining her walking in from the kitchen, happy to see me. Can’t stop wishing that she was here with a movie I have to watch and a themed snack to go along with it.

Cami and I fit together well. She makes me a better man. A different man. She softens me up in ways I haven’t ever experienced before. But that’s exactly the problem.

Being around Cami made me lose sight of the business. Of my career. She may want to focus on family and having children and building the perfect domestic life, but I don’t. That’s never been something I’ve wanted.

Because the moment you start to care about someone, the moment that you love somebody, you’ve just opened yourself up to losing them.

So I can’t be thinking about Cami right now.

The best thing for me to do is let her go. Let go of the idea that I could have kept her, that she and I could have been something more than a fake arrangement. I managed to lose my way in Finland, amongst the romantic atmosphere and with her right next to me.

It’s good now that I have some space to think.

Or, at least, I will once I have all these Christmas decorations out of my house.