Page 62 of Eight Days of Christmas
Isabella exhaled, watching her hot breath puff into the cold winter air. “Are you trying to tell me you’re ready to commit?”
“I’m trying to tell you…that I’m willing to try.”
“And what about all the other issues we have? They don’t just go away because people decide they want to be together. One of us will have to compromise. Maybe even both of us.”
“We can figure out all those details later. After you’re home.”
The wordhomein reference to the stylish Manhattan apartment she shared with Harrison felt eccentric now. For nearly four years it had been her place of dwelling, but it no longer felt like home. Not since she’d been back to Colorado.
“So what exactly are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I want you to move back in here. Back into our apartment. To make this place feel like home again. Bella, I miss you.”
“I need more time,” she said. “I thinkweneed more time. Apart.”
Footsteps crunched on the snow-covered deck behind her, followed by the sound of a throat being cleared. She spun around, hugging her body with one arm and clutching her phone in the other. Her breath caught. Leo stood there, dressed in a heavy winter coat, a beanie and jeans, his large hands stuffed into the pockets.
“I don’t need more time,” Harrison said, his voice cutting, “I want you to come home. I don’t want to spend Christmas without you.”
Isabella spun away from Leo, unable to look him in the eyes while having this conversation. “Well, I can’t come home yet,” she replied, lowering her voice. “Norah’s wedding is on Christmas Day.”
“I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“What? I’m not doing that. How can you even ask me to?” she snapped.
“I’m sorry, I just miss you so much.” She could hear the strain in his voice, feel the tension in his sigh. Even with all the miles separating them.
She glanced over her shoulder and watched as Leo turned toward the back door of the house.
She reached out and grabbed his sleeve, heart racing when his eyes met hers.
“I gotta go,” she said into the phone.
“Will you at least call me later?”
“Sure,” she muttered.
But she wasn’t sure at all.
“Love you, Bella.”
She couldn’t say it. Her lips wouldn’t form the words, like her body knew they weren’t true, not in the way they should’ve been.
She ended the call without a reply and slipped the phone into the front pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. Her chest tightened, her stomach like a crashing wave.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Leo said, stomping the snow from his boots.
She didn’t know how to do this with him. What if he didn’t believe her? What if he couldn’t get over this? Everything inside her felt twisted up.
“You must be freezing.” He shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
Isabella wanted to resist, but the biting cold felt as if it had seeped into her bones. And if this was an olive branch—she’d take it.
She swallowed, trying not to bury her face in his coat. It smelled like him.
“Thanks,” she said. “Can we sit for a minute?”
