He’d been trying to avoid pain. He thought he’d learned how—by avoiding all feeling altogether.
No wonder he’d felt such emptiness. A loneliness he’d refused to admit, even to himself.
The night he’d met Ruby, he’d been drawn not just by her beauty, but by her warmth and passion for life. He’d been pulled to her like a freezing man to a fire.
Avoiding love hadn’t even kept the pain away. That was the worst part. He took a deep breath. He hadn’t let himself love Ruby, but after she’d left, no matter how he tried to deny it, he’d still been drowning in the misery of her loss.
Ares closed his eyes. From childhood, every time he’d loved someone, every single time, they’d hurt him. He’d decided as an adult that the lesson was well learned. He was done feeling pain ever again.
But there was no escaping pain. Trying to evade it, all he’d done was deny himself the possibility of joy. Since Ruby had gone, he’d lived in shadow, in a bleak half-life, without her sunlight. She was the sun to him.
Because he loved her.
Ares opened his eyes with a low, strangled curse.
He loved her.
He’d convinced himself he couldn’t love Ruby. That love had been burned out of his soul.
He was wrong.
All this time, he’d loved her. And he loved their baby. He always had.
“Darling, what is it?” Poppy said, rising to her feet. “You look so strange.”
Ares looked around his executive office, at the elegant spare furnishings, at the papers and sleek computer, and sucked in his breath.
What the hell was he still doing here?
Grabbing Poppy by the shoulders, he kissed her hard on the cheek. “Thank you.”
Turning away, he grabbed his wallet and a coat.
“What was that for?” Poppy cried, putting a hand to her cheek.
“You made me realize what I should have known long ago.” Ares looked back at her from the open doorway, his whole being suddenly suffused with joy. “I love her.”
“What?”
As he crossed the office with quick strides of his long legs, he yelled back, loud enough for the whole floor to hear, “I love her!”
* * *
Night had fallen by the time Ares’s private jet landed at the small airport outside Star Valley. The Idaho mountains were jagged and snowy beneath the winter moonlight. A vintage Land Rover was already waiting for him on the tarmac.
“Thank you, Dorothy,” he murmured aloud to no one. His breath swirled white in the frigid air. He’d called his assistant from the jet as he left New York and asked for her help. He needed people, Ares realized. The idea that any man could survive alone, without trusting anyone for all his life, was just stupid.
Would Ruby forgive him? Would she believe him when he said he loved her? He thought wretchedly of the handsome hockey player who so easily had offered everything that Ares could not. It had been nearly four months.
What if he was too late?
He already knew she wouldn’t be at the ski lodge. But as he pulled in front of Ruby’s trailer in her old neighborhood, his heart sank. It looked like no one had lived here for a long time.
“You looking for Ruby Prescott?” An old-timer peered from the next-door trailer into his SUV. “Slick truck you got there.”
“Yes, do you know where she is?” Ares asked anxiously.
“At her new shop, I reckon. She and the baby live above it now. You can’t miss it. Two-story brick building downtown. Next door to that infernal Atlas Club.”
The old man was right. Ares couldn’t miss it. As he drove through downtown Star Valley, he saw a crowd of people on the sidewalk next to the Atlas Club, hanging out in the snowy night. But they weren’t there to dance.
Ruby’s Vintage Delight, a neon sign read above the neighboring door. Parking his SUV two blocks away, he pushed through the crowds into the shop.
Inside the large space, well-dressed people were smiling and laughing as musicians played live music. Colorful balloons covered the ceiling. As soon as he walked in, someone offered him a home-brewed bottle of root beer, and he recognized the young skiers from Renegade Night. Shaking his head, Ares looked around him, dazzled.
Ruby had done this. Vintage clothing hung on racks and against the brick walls, along with eclectic home decor. The boutique shone with warmth and color. Just like Ruby.