“Oh God! I have to go check this out. Vélaire is so difficult to find in the States.”
“Is that the brand that has glacier-infused…something?” Aksel asks.
“Hyaluronic acid,” she says excitedly.
“I’ll come with you. Latika’s mother has been talking about it. It’ll give me points with her. She still hasn’t accepted me. Calls me thefirangi.”
Aksel waves a hand toward the cosmetic area.
Calypso looks quizzically at him. “What doesfirangimean?”
“’Foreigner’ in Hindi.”
Once they get lost in the crowd, I turn to Ember.
“What was that?”
“What was what?” I pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about, but she knows, and I know, andfucking hell, Calypso knows. I should never have told her that I have not been able to look away from her. It was a dumb thing to reveal. Too much wine. Too much fucking Christmas.
“Ransom—”
“Let’s drink some mulled wine, Em. That’s all.” I don’t want to discuss Calypso. I just want to spend time with Ember, feel the peace that always enveloped me when she was around.
Why the hell did I let her go?
Because she’s young, fresh, and…let’s face it, weird and unsophisticated.
But if ‘sophisticated’ means Calypso, there is no choice.
I wish I’d had that epiphany five years ago, and not now, when I was pretty sure that Ember was more irritated than intrigued by my drama with Calypso.
She tilts her head, gives me a measured look, then shrugs. "Okay."
We walk in companionable silence to the vendor, where a woman with rosy cheeks ladles steaming wine into paper cups.
The cup warms my hands.
Ember takes a sip and closes her eyes.
“Cinnamon," she murmurs. “And orange peel.” She smiles at me. A peace offering? “And not too much clove.”
“You remember. ” It was a few days before Christmas, before she was going to Chamonix and I to NewYork to be with my parents and brother, the year we were together, when I made mulled wine—fucked it up, too.
“I do,” she says huskily.
My throat tightens. “I didn’t think you would.”
She looks at me. The noise of the market, the lights, the snow—it all fades. “The things that make you feel stay with you,” she says simply.
“And how did my mulled wine make you feel?” I ask.
“Like”—she pauses, mischief twinkling in her eyes—“I kissed Santa Claus, and he’d been marinating in clove schnapps.”
Laughter slips out of me. But beneath it, there’s regret. She’s always had this gift, lightening the heavy with humor. She does it with her family. She does it with me.
I want to ask her if she still loves me. The need is sharp, almost urgent.
But I don’t. Because I’m not ready for the answer, whatever it might be. At my age, there’s not much that scares me anymore. Except for committing to someone who could undo me again, like Olivia did.
