Christmas Ever After (Puffin Island 3)

“I know you’re not delicate.” His gaze dropped from the bruise on her head to her mouth and lingered there. “The past twenty-four hours have been tough on you.”

Her heart bumped a little harder. “Tough on you, too, being stuck with me.”

He didn’t comment on that. “Do you think you’ll get back together?”

“With Richard? No.”

“He asked you to marry him.”

“But when I needed him, he stepped over me.” It was still the thing that shocked her the most and she agreed with Suzanne; you ran from a man like that. “Who does that? I wouldn’t step over a stranger if they were injured and in need of help, but to do it to someone you supposedly cared about enough to propose to—”

“And your parents wanted you to marry this guy?”

“They introduced us. They were hoping—” She shrugged. “Let’s just say they have ambitions for me.”

“You can have ambitions about relationships?”

“I’ve failed at the career ambitions,” she said, “so relationship ambitions are about all that’s left.”

“I’m sure they just want you to be happy.”

“No. That’s your parents, not mine. Let’s not pretend you didn’t hear that phone message. If we’re going to be utterly humiliated by our respective families, the least we can do is laugh about it.” She walked to the windows and stared across the fields. The snow was luminous, bathing the countryside in a ghostly glow. “Both our families interfere, the difference is that mine do it because they have ambitions for me that I refuse to fulfill. They don’t care whether I’m happy or not as long as I make them proud. That’s the only thing that interests them. It’s all about achievement. Christmas is my least favorite time of year because it’s when they put the most pressure on.” It depressed her to think about it.

“So don’t go home.”

“I have to. They’re my family. It’s tradition.” She swallowed. “I guess I’m not alone in dreading it. Plenty of people find Christmas stressful. For once I’m almost glad I’ll be sharing it with dozens of strangers. My parents will want to talk about Richard. I don’t know what I’m going to say.”

“You could start with ‘he scares me.’ That should be the only explanation they need.”

Skylar stilled. For some reason she didn’t understand her eyes filled. “Yeah, that should do it.” Oh, God, she was going to cry. “Excuse me.” She turned to walk to the bathroom but Alec stepped toward her and closed his hands over her arms.

“Wait.” His tone was raw. “You’re upset.”

His chest was right there, broad and powerful and she had a crazy urge to lean her head against all that hard muscle. Holy crap, she was turning into the type of woman she usually wanted to strangle. Maybe the blow to her head had been worse than she thought. She stood still, fighting the impulse. His mother was right. He wasn’t the sort of man who could walk past someone in trouble, even if he wanted to. And she didn’t want that to be their relationship dynamic. She didn’t want him to have to keep throwing her a life preserver. “On reflection, I think I’ll stay up here with Nelson tonight.”

“I’m not leaving you up here on your own.”

“Alec—”

“That’s not going to happen so you can forget it.”

“Don’t be nice to me.” She could feel the strength of his hands, holding her steady. She sensed something had changed between them and wasn’t sure it was a good thing. “It was easier when I hated you.”

“If it would help, I’ll try harder to be a—what do you call me? Asshole.”

She gave a choked laugh. “Asshat. Dumbass.” Worried she might howl, she eased away from him. “Fine, I’ll come down if that’s really what you want but you’d better do something stupid fast, or I’ll start to think you’re a good guy. Then where would we be?”

He gave her

a long, disturbing look. “We’d be in trouble.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“AREN’T YOU A little old to be poking presents?” Alec watched as his sister crawled under the tree, covering herself with pine needles as she shook and prodded the prettily wrapped parcels under the tree.

His mother had left the curtains open and snow glided past the window like silvery tears, dissolving against the glass. A fire crackled in the hearth and a basket of logs stood ready to keep the flames topped up.

Skylar was still upstairs in the shower. He hoped she wasn’t upset. The thought made him shift uncomfortably in his chair. She was obviously determined not to lean on him and he should have been relieved about that.