Page 86 of Snowed In with Benefits

He’s sitting on the cot, looking around in disgust. He stands up as soon as I enter and takes half a step toward me, his eyes calculating as his gaze runs over my face.

“Josie,” he says, and my name sounds like censure in his mouth.

I suppress a wince. I keep my face pleasantly neutral. “Preston.”

He gestures around. “Is this what you’ve been living in? What the hell has gotten into you?”

I don’t have an answer that isn’t crude and cruel, so I stay quiet. His face softens, a calculated softening, a performance just like every other performance.

“Why are you here?” I ask him.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

I don’t say anything. I press my arms tight against me, feeling the warmth of Beau’s coat, anchoring myself to the moment. This was always going to be awkward, I just don’t know how to navigate the awkwardness. Preston stares at me, waiting for me to answer his rebuttal, waiting for me to cave. The whiskey is hot in my belly and my body is wrapped in clothes borrowed from men who have my back. I’m not caving.

He sighs. “Look, I know you’re embarrassed and ashamed,” he says with the confidence of a man who’s never been wrong about another person’s feelings and been called on it. “I came here to tell you that I forgive you. It’s a scandal, but we can get past it. Just come home and I can make it all go away.”

“All what?” I ask, my voice sounding small in the big barn.

“You know,” he says, cringing uncomfortably and dropping his voice. “The rumors.”

I already knew that the rumor mill was going to run in the aftermath of my actions, so I’m not shocked by that. I keep my back close to the door, maintaining as much distance between us as possible.

“You come back and we’ll silence those rumors,” he says. “We’ll plan another wedding. We’ll do it your way this time, I promise. Well, more or less. We’ll have to cater to my mother a little, just to soothe her hurt feelings. She was really disappointed about missing the mother-son dance at the reception. She already has a ton of ideas.”

I’m sure she does. I’m sure none of them have taken my wants and needs into account. I hate how he’s framing this like a gift, like he’s doing me a favor by forgiving me, like if I just accept his generosity we can start over like nothing ever happened.

But so much has happened. So much has changed, and he wouldn’t understand any of it.

“Josie,” he says, his voice low and cajoling. He takes a step toward me and I freeze. He stops. “I don’t understand this. What are you doing, living out here like a pioneer woman? Didn’t I give you enough? Was it really so easy to just throw it all away like that? Come on. I know you didn’t mean it. You know I love you. Just come home.”

My neck is stiff and I slowly force it to move, shaking my head. “I can’t do that,” I whisper.

“I know, it’s hard. You made a big splash with that stunt of yours, but I promise we can smooth things over. I’ll make it right. I’ve already paid the people that needed to be paid, it’s just a matter of giving everybody the resolution that they’re looking for. The happy ending. Don’t you want that, Josie?”

He’s not pleading. He’s arguing, presenting his point of view as the only logical point of view. He hasn’t even asked me why I left. None of his questions have really been questions, just directions wrapped as questions to soften the blow.

“You’re one hell of a woman, Josie,” he says, and his words sound hollow. “I want to give you a second chance. You deserve that. Let me give that to you.” He holds his hand out to me. He’s expecting me to take it. He’s expecting me to run into his arms and kiss him and go home in his expensive car and shack up in his expensive condo and start the work of repairing his social life.

“I need to think,” I tell him, my brain buzzing with conflict. “I need some time.”

“I’m not leaving without you.”

My heart is thundering in my chest. Just tell him, damn it. Tell him it’s over, to fuck all the way off, that I never want to see his stupid face again. Get big. Get ugly. Get mean. I can feel the words right there, pressing against my teeth like a wall of bricks. I take a breath. I open my mouth. The breath comes out empty. My jaw locks and my throat closes and the words just sit there, heavy and useless, refusing to become sound. I know who I am. I know what I want. But there’s a gap between knowing it and saying it out loud to the face of a man who spent four years teaching me that my feelings were inconvenient, and I can’t make my legs carry me across that gap. Not yet. Not with him looking at me like I’m a problem he’s already solved.

His ego would take a massive blow. He’d see me as a monster, and I’d be the monster forever after in all of his circles. Painted as the crazy ex. Do I care? I shouldn’t care. Damn it, I shouldn’t care about those people, people who never really knew or cared about me, but I still can’t make myself say the words.

“I—I’m not leaving with you,” I say breathlessly.

His face hardens. I don’t want to get into a big fight, I don’t know if I could withstand it. I don’t want the guys to physically drag him to his car, and I know that they would. I press my hands tightly together, making myself feel like I’m holding on to something, trying to bring my heart rate down to something normal.

“Then we’re at an impasse,” he says. “Because I mean it. I’m not leaving without you.”

I swallow hard. I nod at the cot. “Stay the night, then, if you want to. But I need some time.” I turn toward the door and he takes another step toward me.

“I’m not done talking to you,” he says stubbornly.

“Well, I am,” I tell him, then automatically soften it without even thinking. “For now.”