“Just until you find a foster family,” I hear myself saying. “I can’t commit to anything past December twenty-sixth.”
I’ll need to call Desiree and tell her about the change in plans. My best friend will understand—she always does—but I hate disappointing her.
She’d been looking forward to this last-minute Christmas girls’ trip, especially after the stress of having to bring Bella to Enrick’s herself.
“Cassidy—”
“Don’t,” I warn. “Don’t say whatever you’re about to say.”
The air between us crackles with the same electricity that used to drive us wild, the same dangerous attraction that led to our spectacular destruction.
Being this close to him again, breathing in his scent and fighting the urge to touch him, feels like standing on the edge of a cliff.
Trapped
Ethan
The kid—Axel—sits in the backseat of my rental truck. Every few seconds, I catch him stealing glances at me in the rearview mirror. Those gray eyes, so much like mine, make me grip the steering wheel harder.
I should have gone straight back to the airport after Cassidy agreed to take him. Should have let her figure out how to get to Britney’s place on her own when her taxi driver took one look at the piling snow and refused to drive across town to where her sister lived.
The kid needed clothes and his belongings. He’d been wearing the same outfit since social services picked him up after Britney’s death, and Cassidy didn’t want him to go another night with just the clothes on his back.
Something about the way she stood there on the social service steps, snowflakes catching in her dark hair, her luggage at her feet and that lost expression on her face, made me open my mouth and offer her a ride.
Biggest mistake I’ve made since coming back to this godforsaken place. Now I’m stuck in this car with the living proof of the worst night of my life.
And with Cassidy sitting close, every breath I take is filled with her fresh scent that used to drive me crazy. Still does, apparently, judging by my swelling dick.
I force myself to focus on the road ahead, but my peripheral vision catches every movement she makes. Outside, snow is falling steadily, the flakes growing thicker.
The wind rocks my truck as we drive through the familiar streets of Winter Bay, past the high school where Cassidy and I first met, past the diner where we shared milkshakes and talked about getting out of this place.
I’d been fifteen then, shipped off to live with my Aunt Sarah and Uncle Mike after the untimely deaths of my parents, brother, and sister in a car crash. Cassidy was the only person here who saw past the angry kid from L.A. and made this suffocating small-town feel like home.
After graduating high school in Winter Bay, I moved back to California with Cassidy for college. When my aunt and uncle’s twin sons graduated a couple years later, they decided to move to California too. My uncle was originally from there before he’d married my aunt and started their family in Winter Bay, so it was a natural return for them.
The wipers work steadily against the accumulating snow, their rhythm almost hypnotic as memories fade back into the present. I shake off the nostalgia to check the forecast on my phone.
The weather forecast called for light snow, maybe an inch or two. They were completely wrong, and the weather was getting worse by the minute.
Perfect timing, as usual.
Fuck.
My phone buzzes with another client email. I’ll deal with it once I get back to my hotel room. Should be a quick fix if it’s what I think it is.
I refocus on navigating toward the outskirts of town, where Britney’s place is. The one that’s so far from civilization it might as well be on another planet.
“Think we’ll make it out there and back before the storm hits?” Cassidy asks, staring at the increasingly ominous sky through the passenger window.
“We must.” I check the clock on the dashboard. “Which means being in and out quickly.”
In the back seat, Axel shifts, and when I check the mirror again, he’s hugging a worn backpack to his chest. The gesture is so small, so unconsciously protective, it stabs my conscience.
I don’t want to feel anything for this kid. He’s Britney’s son, born from a night that still haunts my dreams eight years later.
Every time I look at him, I’m reminded of waking up in bed on Christmas morning eight years ago to Cassidy’s fists and the sick realization that Britney was naked next to me. Of the pregnancy announcement that came two weeks later, delivered with Britney’s smug smile and the implicit threat that we were now joined for life.
