Page 93 of Snowed In with Benefits

That isn’t the deal-sweetening he thinks it is. He loves his parents. I do not. But it’s not just the parents. I’m listening to him list the pieces of my life and I’m realizing that none of them were mine. The condo was his. I told him I loved it because he was so proud of it and I wanted him to be happy. The designer clothes were his taste. I wore what he picked out and told myself I was lucky. The “work-free life” he’s so proud of giving me meant I stopped taking pictures because he said I didn’t need to work anymore, and I believed him, and I put my camera away for two years.

He’s standing on the porch describing a life that fit him perfectly and never fit me at all, and he doesn’t even know it. He thinks he’s offering me everything. He’s offering me a box I already climbed out of.

“Come on, Josie, just think about it. The social gatherings. The wine! What do these guys even know about wine?”

Emmett lets out a short laugh. “She doesn’t even like wine. She likes whiskey.”

Preston blinks. “What?”

I nod. “It’s true. I don’t like wine. I just drank it because that’s what everyone around you drank and I didn’t want to stand out.”

Preston’s mouth tightens in annoyance.

“You should have gotten to know her better while she was still your fiancée,” Beau says. “She’s pretty damn amazing. It’s too bad you somehow missed it.”

Emmett grunts in agreement. Preston looks rattled. He smooths down his uncooperative hair, staring at the ground, recalculating again. He doesn’t like having to recalculate. I feel warmth spread through me at these men defending me, knowing me, seeing the parts of me that Preston never bothered to look at.

Four years. Preston had four years to learn that I don’t like wine. To notice that I stopped taking photos. To ask me what I actually wanted for dinner instead of making the reservation and telling me where we were going. He never asked.

These men have known me for weeks and they know my coffee order, my drink, the way I laugh when I’m really laughing and not just being polite. They know what I sound like when my orgasm is honest. Preston never heard that sound because I never felt safe enough to make it around him. I didn’t even realize that until right now, standing in this doorway, listening to three men say out loud the things he should have known.

Preston straightens up. “Then I want the ring back.”

I touch my locket, where the only ring that matters exists. He’s not talking about that, though. He’s talking about the expensive ring he bought me, the one that’s been sitting upstairs, forgotten, for weeks. Emmett glances at me. I don’t know what he reads on my face, but he turns and goes upstairs.

“I mean it, Josie. That ring meant a lot to me, and I want it back. Now.”

I don’t say a word. Emmett comes back down a moment later, his fist clutched around something small. He comes to the front door and holds up the ring for a brief moment. Preston reaches for it. Emmett tosses it over his head and into the snow.

“Go find it if you want it that bad.”

Preston stares at Emmett, looking incensed. Then he turns to me, his mouth curled into a nasty sneer. “You came from nothing, Josie. You were nothing before I took you off the catering line and made something of you, gave you a life. You had no life! Now you’re going to end up right back there, broke and friendless, without me.”

There it is. The truth under all the charm and the condo and the Saturday night reservations. This is what he always thought of me. Not a partner. Not an equal. A project. A girl from a catering line that he picked up and polished and put on display, and he’s been waiting to remind me of it ever since I stopped being grateful. I think about every dinner party where he introduced me as “my fiancée, Josie” and then immediately told the story of how we met, him at the table, me carrying the tray, like it was charming, like it was romantic, like it wasn’t him telling a room full of people that he found me in the service industry and promoted me. I smiled every time. I thought it was sweet. I thought he was proud of me. He wasn’t proud of me. He was proud of himself.

And the thing is, he’s right about one thing. I did come from nothing, by his standards. I came from a rented apartment and a secondhand camera and a job carrying trays of champagne for people who never looked at me. I came from nothing and I was happy. I was taking pictures. I was feeding myself. I was mine. Then he found me and told me I could be more, and I believed him, and I stopped being mine for four years. So yes, Preston. I came from nothing. And your nothing gave me more than your everything ever did.

Beau steps forward. “Say another word about Josie and I’ll turn you inside out where you stand.”

Hunter and Emmett step forward too, backing him up. Preston looks at the three of them, three big men standing between him and me, looking like they’d love to rip his head off. He hesitates for just a moment, his jaw working. Then he turns and walks away, tail between his legs.

Beau shuts the door. “Good fucking riddance,” he says.

I almost laugh. I go to the window and the guys come with me. We all stand here and watch Preston trudge through the snow to where Emmett threw the ring, his expensive shoes slipping as he digs around. He comes up empty and tries again. His coat is getting wet. His socks are soaked through. I can tell by the way he keeps lifting his feet and shaking them, like the cold is a personal insult. He’s on his hands and knees now, pawing through the snow in his slacks, and I watch him the way you watch a stranger do something embarrassing in public. With distance. With a faint, detached pity that doesn’t quite reach sympathy.

This is the man who picked me up off a catering line and told me I could be more. This is the man who tracked my phone across the miles that separated us because he couldn’t imagine a world where I left on purpose. He’s on his knees in the snow looking for a ring I forgot existed, and he still thinks he’s the one who lost something valuable. He did. He just doesn’t know what it was.

Eventually he stands up and glances back at the cabin. All three men are watching him through the window, their big arms crossed over their broad chests.

He cringes, looking a bit scared. He gives up on the ring, slips and slides over to his car, gets in, and slams the door.

I watch his car pull down the driveway. The tires spin on the ice and he has to reverse and try again, and I feel nothing. Not satisfaction. Not anger. Not sadness. I just feel done. He was out there in the snow in his expensive coat with wet socks, looking for a ring I forgot I owned, and I’m in here in borrowed clothes with coffee getting cold on the table and three men who didn’t even hesitate before they stood between me and the man trying to take me apart. I know which side of the window I want to be on. I’ve known for a while now. I just didn’t have the words for it until today.

His car finally gets traction and pulls away. The sound of the engine fades. The driveway is empty. The snow is already filling in his footprints.

Something lightens in my chest. I grin.

Beau puts his arm around me. “Your pancakes are cold, duchess.”