How were my Holden and Alex’s Prescott the same person? I mean, he wasn’tmyHolden, but yeah, okay, that’s how I had thought about him over the past several days. I’d begun to wonder if I had made up the whole thing, but with Holden now standing in front of me, he was very much a real person. A very large, muscly, handsome person. A person who had, without a doubt, given me the best kiss of my life.
Oh, my gosh, I had kissed Alex’s cousin. He wasn’t just some random guy I had ended up with under the mistletoe, fulfilling some Christmas tradition. No, this was Alex’s family.
I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.
I had talked myself out of feeling guilty for kissing another guy while I had a boyfriend by chalking it up tomistletoe. But now that I knew the guy was related to Alex? Yeah, now I was feeling all the guilt. I was a horrible person. A horrible girlfriend. No wonder Alex and I weren’t doing well. We hardly spent time together anymore. I didn’t like how much he prioritized work over everything else, and he didn’t like how I wasn’t more career-driven. Then add on top of all of that, I had kissed another guy—his cousin!
TechnicallyHolden had kissed me, but that detail probably didn’t matter in the scheme of things.
The silence became awkward as Holden and I stared at one another.
I hurried to clear my throat. “Uh, hi.” I stiffly held out my hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Holden’s gaze flickered to my outstretched hand in confusion, but he eventually grasped it in his large one. “Nice to meet you too,” he said hesitantly. “Isabelle.”
His voice was as low and smooth and velvety as I remembered, those gray eyes of his as captivating as they had been the last time I’d seen them. The stubble across his jawline was a little fuller now.
His throat cleared this time as he glanced down at our still clasped hands.
Oh, my gosh, I was still holding his hand.
I dropped it like his hand had burned me, which now caused my cheeks to burn.
Maggie turned to me. “It’s okay, sweetie. A lot of people get starstruck when they meet a celebrity.” I appreciated her attempt to deflate the enormous awkward bubble I had created.
A celebrity. Holden was a professional hockey player.
Alex rolled his eyes at his mother’s words, but before he could make a comment, his phone rang. Looking down at his screen, he said, “I have to take this.” He held up the phone to his ear and began walking away.
“Let’s go get checked into our room,” Paul said to Maggie. “That way I can handle a few emails before we head to dinner.”
And with that, the two of them headed toward the check-in desk, leaving Holden and me standing together in the lobby. Alone.
Chapter 5
Holden
December 17th
I still couldn’t believemy eyes. Belle—or Isabelle—was standing a few feet away from me. The woman I’d thought I would never see again. The woman I had tried not to think about…but had failed. And here she was.
Except she looked different than when I’d seen her last. Her hair was pulled back in a low slick ponytail, not a hair out of place. Her outfit was meticulous and well put together. Not that she had looked like a slob when I’d seen her before, but she had seemed like the type of woman who could throw an outfit together and pull her hair into a quick messy bun and still look amazing. But now, her entire look screamed prim and proper. Just like my cousin. Or rather, just like herboyfriend.
Gah! She had a boyfriend! How had she failed to mention thatlittledetail during our afternoon together inNew York? And yeah,Ihad kissedher, but she had definitely kissed me back. And it wasn’t a polite kind of kiss. Or at least, it hadn’t felt that way to me.
Did Alex know I had kissed his girlfriend? He hadn’t seemed to, but he never paid much attention to me. Which was more than fine with me. I wasn’t his biggest fan either, although somewhere along the way we had decided to tolerate one another.
“I thought your name was Belle.” My voice came out gruff in both annoyance and embarrassment. Had she known all along who I was but thought our time together would be a fun little game?
“It is,” she said. “Well, it’s my nickname. Short for Isabelle. Everyone calls me Belle, except for Alex and his parents.”
I think I might have heard my aunt refer to Alex’s girlfriend as Isabelle in passing, but I never paid too much attention when she talked about her. Plus, I wouldn’t have automatically connected Isabelle and Belle to be versions of the same name. Alex—and his girlfriend’s name—had been the furthest thing from my mind during that day I’d spent with Belle.
“And you expect me to believe you didn’t know who I was?” I asked, my voice still curt.
Her eyes widened in what I assumed was disbelief. “What? I had no idea who you were. Alex hardly mentions you, and if he does, he doesn’t call you Holden—he calls you Prescott. I thought that was your first name.”
I studied her face for any sign that she might be lyingbut found none. She really did seem to be a genuine person. That quality of hers had stuck out to me like a beacon during our time together.
