"Okay." Her voice is small.
We stay under the water until her shivering subsides and I'm certain the cold has released its grip on her. Only then do I turn off the shower and wrap her in a towel.
She sways on her feet, so I lift her onto the counter again and dry her carefully. Every inch of exposed skin. Every strand of wet hair. She watches me with heavy-lidded eyes, too exhausted to protest.
When she's dry, I carry her to the bedroom and dress her in warm clothes. Thick socks. Soft leggings. One of my sweaters that swallows her whole. She doesn't resist. Just lets me move her limbs like a doll while I work.
"Can you walk?" I ask when I'm finished.
She nods, but when her feet hit the floor, her knees buckle. I catch her before she falls and sweep her back into my arms.
"Easy,solnyshko," I murmur.
I settle her on the couch closest to the fireplace. The flames are already roaring, courtesy of one of my men, and I tuck a blanket around her.
I change quickly into dry clothes and step away to find Dmitri.
He's in the kitchen with two of the security team, and they all straighten when I enter.
“What do you need, Nikolai?”
“Hot cocoa for Holly,” I tell him.
He dismisses the security men and then turns back to me. “I’ll make it.”
“No, I’ve got it.”
Dmitri doesn't question it as I move to the stove and start fixing Holly’s hot cocoa. The distraction is welcomed. Because the adrenaline is still coursing through me and I need to keep my hands busy.
When I knew Holly had gone, I hadn’t waited for Dmitri or my security men. I went looking for her myself.
Then, two miles up the road, I saw them. The wide arcs carved into the snow where a vehicle had swerved and gone over the edge and down the embankment.
I ran to the edge and looked down into the steep drop, and for the first time in years, I felt genuine fear.
Not the calculated awareness of danger that keeps a man like me alive.
Real fear.
The kind that claws at your chest and squeezes your heart until you can't breathe.
Because I knew she was down there. Somewhere in that wreckage and snow and broken trees.
And I knew she would be terrified.
The realization hit me as I was scrambling down that embankment. That this was the same kind of accident that killed her parents. A car going off a snowy road. The same helpless terror. The same cold closing in.
History repeating itself in the cruelest way possible.
No.
The word had torn through my mind with violent force.
Not her. Not like this.
I wouldn't let it end that way.
I slid and stumbled down that embankment with my heart in my throat.
