Filthy Scrooge

“About what?” I fisted my hands at my sides.

He crunched on the bacon, then licked his lips. “Surely your lack of experience was only a technicality.”

A red haze that had nothing do with Christmas lights or a Santa suit blinded me for a full thirty seconds. I couldn’t remember picking up the bowl from the kitchen island but suddenly it was flying across the room at his head. “How dare you!”

He ducked and pushed the food down the counter. “Get a hold of yourself.”

“A hold of—” I picked up a tea kettle and launched it at his head. He moved again and it hit him squarely in the middle of his back. Water splashed up from the open spout when it landed on the tile.

He crossed the room in two strides and grabbed my arm when I went for the fruit bowl. “Miss Kane, control yourself.”

“No. You don’t get to call me Miss Kane now. You don’t get to say these ugly words on this day just because you’re a miserable son of a bitch! How dare you be so cruel.” I didn’t know the tears were coming until I was blinded by them. “You’re a hateful person. How could I have been so stupid?”

I’d thought we were building something together. On the water, he’d opened up to me. He’d actually let me in. Was he embarrassed now? Remorseful that he’d showed vulnerability?

“I don’t know. I asked myself the same question. This was just a way to get through the holidays. I’m sorry you thought we were going to share our feelings and turn into a Hallmark movie. Never going to happen, Miss Kane.”

I wrenched my arm free. “What about today?”

“I took you into town to soften you up and hope for a hot Christmas Eve night.”

I hauled off and slapped him. My arm sang and my hand throbbed from the power of it. He turned his cheek, but he didn’t flinch. Through the flood of tears, I saw him give a small nod, but I was too upset to care about his reactions.

Not now.

I thought I’d seen through his Scrooge act.

I was so wrong.

I backed out of the kitchen and sprinted up the stairs. I stripped his sweater off and went right for the shower. It smelled of him. Nauseated, I bent at the waist and sucked in a few lungfuls of air. I pinned up my hair and scrubbed away his touch.

There would be no more tears. Only a vicious learning curve. I couldn’t save him. I hadn’t even really wanted to try, but then the dock…

I held my head up to the spray. The conversation at the dock had been more of a confessional about why he hated the holiday. It wasn’t an invitation for change. It was my fault for believing there was something brewing between us.

My fault for hoping at all.

This was exactly what I’d signed up for. Sex. Amazing sex that I was fairly certain I’d never find again, but it was just sex. At least for him. And anything approaching love was obviously one-sided.

My own.

I reached for a heated towel from his rack and tucked it around my chest as I gathered my few belongings from the bathroom. I trashed my ruined tights in the bathroom wastebasket and pulled on the leggings he’d bought for me. Part of me wanted to be petty and walk out with only what I came in with, but I wasn’t stupid.

I would need to find my own way back to the city. There was no way I’d stay under his roof now. Something had to be available in town. There were far too many ski lodges in the area to believe I had no options.

I spotted the bag from the little shop off the water and my stomach dropped. I took out the box and the little figurines I’d wanted to give him as a joke. The Grinch who changed with love in his heart. I’d romanticized Linc like the pathetic fool I was.

Dashing away tears, I set the onyx box on his dresser and set the little wooden figures beside it. He wasn’t worth the tears.

I layered everything I had at my disposal, including a pair of black dress socks I’d stolen from his drawers. Just as I was zipping my boot, I felt him in the room.

Well, just outside.

He stood just beyond the threshold with his arms crossed and his head down. “Joe’s waiting for you outside.”

I stood and pushed my hair back. “What? Why?”

“I called him to take you home. The plane is fueled and ready.”