Page 107 of Tempt
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When I got home, Zach had dinner waiting and a fire going in the fireplace. My tree stood in the corner, tall and fragrant, ready for lights and ornaments. Our plan was to decorate after we ate.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him about seeing Mason and Lori, but I couldn’t bring myself to mar the festive mood with anything unsettling. I’d already broken down in tears once this evening, right after Frannie left the store. And as soon as I got home, I’d run right upstairs under the guise of taking off my work clothes to make sure my face wasn’t blotchy and tearstained. The puffy and slightly red eyes I could blame on my cold, but I quickly applied some concealer and wiped away all traces of running mascara.
Downstairs, we ate the Mexican food Zach had ordered, then decorated the tree. Zach poked affectionate fun at the clumsily handmade ornaments I had from when I was little, and I needled him about not having a tree at all for the last few years.
“Who are you, Ebenezer Scrooge?” I teased.
“I think I lost Christmas in the divorce, along with the pots and pans.” He caught me in his arms from behind and buried his face in my hair. “But I didn’t even care.”
“Maybe you can get a tree this year,” I suggested. “There’s still time.”
“I don’t know. It wouldn’t be as fun without you there to help me decorate it. And what if I chose a grouchy tree? I might ruin Christmas altogether.”
I laughed, but the sound faded when I thought about this afternoon. “I heard you’re coming here. For Christmas, I mean.”
Behind me, he went stiff. “What?”
“I saw Mason and Lori today. They were downtown, and they came into the shop.”
“Oh.”
I turned within his embrace to face him. “Mason asked if he could bring you to the Cloverleigh Farms Christmas Eve party.”
His eyes closed. “Fuck.”
“I didn’t realize you’d decided to come.”
“It’s hard for me to say no to Mason. He really doesn’t ask much of me, all things considered.”
“I know.” I toyed with the buttons on his shirt. “You can go. I’ll stay home. I’ll say I don’t feel well.”
“Millie, no. That’s your family’s Christmas party. I’ll make up an excuse why I can’t attend.”
I shook my head, feeling us coming apart at the seams. “Lies and excuses. Making things up. Near misses at the hardware store—or anywhere else we go! Zach, we can’t keep doing this.”
“I know.” He swallowed, tightening his arms around my back. “I know.”
“This is getting too hard.” My voice caught, and I choked back a sob. “I think we have to stop. Because the longer this goes on, the more I feel for you. And the more I feel, the more hope starts to build that some way, somehow, we can be together. And we can’t.”
He tipped my chin up. “You’re so much younger than I am, Millie. Even if Mason didn’t have a problem with us, and we got over what everyone in town would think, you want things I can’t give you.”
“That’s what I mean. And yet I keep pretending—I’m like a kid who just wants to believe in Santa Claus even though I know darn well there’s no fat man in a red suit who slides down every chimney in the world on Christmas Eve.”
“I wish there was. I really fucking wish there was.”
“This is the reality we were always going to have to face. It’s not your fault or my fault. It’s just the way things are, Zach, and they won’t change.”
He wrapped me in his arms again, pulling me tighter to his broad, warm chest. “I think about you every minute of the day. I wish I could be the one, Millie Rose.”
“Maybe in another life, you could have been.” Tears leaked silently from my eyes.
He kissed the top of my head. When he spoke, his voice was gruff with emotion. “I’m not sure I’d have deserved you in any life, but I sure as hell would have tried.”
* * *
Of course, because neither of us was good at being apart, we went up to my bedroom and spent our last night together exactly the way we’d spent our first—only instead of fast, frantic fucking and fun games, we went slow, taking our time, savoring every single moment because we knew it was goodbye.
