Page 60

I walked to my mark and let the professionals do their thing. Wardrobe adjusted my collar. Makeup touched up my face. The photographer called out instructions and I followed them, hitting poses that had become second nature over years of practice.

But my mind was elsewhere.

I kept thinking about the way she’d looked at me in the cabin. The way she’d pulled me closer instead of pushing me away. None of that had felt like a mistake. None of that had felt like something she’d want to run away from.

So why was she running now?

Maybe I’d misread everything. Maybe she’d been caught up in the moment. The fear of being stranded and the adrenaline had stripped away her good sense. Now that she’d had time to think, she realized she’d made a terrible error in judgment. Shit. What if she was back at the lodge right now, drafting her resignation letter?

The thought made my stomach drop.

I couldn’t lose her. Not like this. Not because I couldn’t keep my hands to myself.

“Jeremy, give me more intensity,” the photographer called. “You’re a man who knows what he wants.”

I gave him intensity. I channeled every complicated feeling churning in my gut and turned it into something the camera could capture. Desire. Determination. The look of a man who would move mountains to get what he needed.

What I needed was to talk to Lucy.

The shoot dragged on forever. Every setup felt like an eternity. Every break was just more time to overthink and worry. I smiled when I was supposed to smile, smoldered when they wanted smoldering, but none of it felt real.

By the time Sebastian wrapped for the day, I was frozen and irritated. I changed out of the designer clothes and back into my own gear as fast as humanly possible.

The ride back to the lodge felt endless. What would I say to her? How could I fix this without making it worse?

The moment we pulled up to the lodge, I was off the snowmobile and heading toward her cabin. I didn’t even stop to drop my stuff off first. I needed to see her. I needed to know she was okay.

I knocked on her door and waited.

She opened it and looked surprised and resigned at the same time, like she’d known I would be coming. Her laptop was visible on the couch behind her, surrounded by papers. She looked fine. Normal. Not like someone who’d spent the day crying or packing her bags.

“Hey,” she said. “Done for the day?”

I searched her face for any clue about what she was thinking. “I heard you stayed back today. Everything okay? Are you sick or something?”

“No, I’m fine.” She leaned against the doorframe, not inviting me in. “Just wasn’t feeling up to another day in the cold. Figured I’d catch up on some work instead.”

“You could have told me.”

“I told Bernadette.”

“Yeah, but…” I ran a hand through my hair, frustrated. “You could have told me. You should be able to talk to me, Lucy.”

“Of course I can talk to you.” She said it easily, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. But something in her eyes didn’t match her words. “I just had a lot of emails to get through. It made more sense to stay here. My work requires internet and you know there’s no service out there.”

I nodded slowly, waiting for her to say something else. Something about yesterday. Would she bring up what happened between us and what it meant and where we went from here?

She didn’t.

And I decided to follow her lead.

I could feel the distance, a chasm that hadn’t existed before. We’d always been able to talk about anything. Now there was this massive thing sitting between us, and neither of us seemed willing to acknowledge it.

“Well,” I finally said, “I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried.”

“No need to worry. I’m fine.”

“Good. That’s good.” I took a step back. “I should probably go shower. Long day.”