She accepts it with a mixture of anticipation and wariness. "Christian, you've already done so much—dinner, the ornaments from my shop?—"
"This is different," I interrupt gently. "Open it."
She holds my gaze for a moment longer, then carefully unties the ribbon and opens the box. Inside, nestled on white satin, lies a diamond snowflake ornament. The design echoes the crystal one she made for me—'Thaw'—but rendered in platinum and diamonds that catch and scatter the tree lights in dazzling patterns.
"Oh," she breathes, lifting it carefully from the box. "Christian, it's exquisite."
"Hold it to the light," I suggest, watching her face closely for her reaction to what comes next.
She turns the ornament, allowing the tree lights to illuminate it from different angles. As she rotates it, the engraving becomes visible—her name in elegant script on one side, a single word on the other: Mine.
I see the exact moment she registers the possessive declaration. Her eyes widen, her breath catches, her fingers still on the delicate platinum framework. For a heartbeat, I can't read her reaction—surprise, certainly, but whether positive or negative remains unclear.
"Christian," she says finally, her voice carefully neutral, "this is..."
"A statement of intent," I finish for her. "Not a claim of ownership."
She looks up at me, searching my face for deeper meaning. "There's a difference?"
"A significant one," I tell her, taking a calculated risk by gently removing the ornament from her hands. "Mine doesn't mean possession in the way I think you fear."
I turn the snowflake so the engraving catches the light. "It means connection. Commitment. Recognition that what's developing between us matters enough to acknowledge, to name."
Her expression softens slightly, though caution remains. "It's still a very…assertive statement."
"I'm an assertive man," I remind her with a small smile. "That hasn't changed. What has changed is my understanding of why."
I hang the ornament on a prominent branch where the diamonds catch and scatter light across Sophie's face. "You helped me see that my need to control, to claim, comes from fear of loss. From having everything taken from me once and building my life to ensure it never happens again."
She nods, remembering our conversation at Archer's. "And this?" She gestures to the ornament, her name and 'Mine' now glittering among the tree lights.
"This acknowledges both the fear and the desire," I explain, choosing my words carefully. "I still want you to be mine, Sophie. That hasn't changed. But I'm learning that true possession isn't about control or ownership. It's about choice. Connection. Mutual claiming."
I take her hand again, encouraged when she doesn't pull away. "I want to be yours as much as I want you to be mine. Equal. Balanced. Chosen rather than taken."
The words feel foreign on my tongue—concepts I've never articulated before, perhaps never fully understood until Sophie forced me to examine the deeper currents beneath my controlling nature. Yet they ring true as I speak them, authentic in a way business platitudes and strategic declarations never are.
Sophie's expression transforms as she processes my explanation—wariness giving way to understanding, then to something warmer, more accepting. "That's…not what I expected you to say."
"I'm learning," I tell her honestly. "You're teaching me, whether you realize it or not."
She reaches out to touch the ornament, setting it spinning gently on its branch. Her name and 'Mine' alternate in the light, no longer a one-sided declaration but the beginning of a conversation.
"It really is beautiful," she says softly.
"Like its namesake," I reply, watching her rather than the ornament.
Her cheeks flush with that delicious pink I've come to crave eliciting. "You're quite the charmer when you want to be, Christian Hawthorne."
"Not charm," I correct her. "Honesty. A rare commodity in my world, but one I find increasingly valuable with you."
The atmosphere between us shifts, the air charging with something beyond physical attraction or intellectual connection. Something deeper, more significant. A recognition of possibilities neither of us fully anticipated when this night began.
Sophie steps closer to me, close enough that I can see the individual flecks of darker blue in her irises, can feel the warmth radiating from her skin. "Thank you for the ornament. For what it represents."
"You're not offended by the inscription?" I ask, needing certainty.
"I would have been, before," she admits. "Before understanding what drives you. Before seeing beyond the controlling exterior to the man beneath."
