Payment Reference:JT
The world tilts.
JT
Not a charity. Not a relative. Not the clinic. Him.
A rush of heat hits me—equal parts relief, humiliation, anger, gratitude. My eyes burn and my throat tightens, and none of those feelings make sense beside one another.
I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want toneedanything from anyone again.
I walk straight down the hall, phone clenched like a weapon.
The workshop door is cracked open. The rhythmic sanding inside stops the moment my shadow crosses the threshold.
I push the door all the way open.
He looks up. Sawdust in his hair. Gloves on. Eyes startled—but quickly shuttering.
“You paid it.” Not a question. A verdict.
His jaw tenses. “You’re welcome.”
“You had no right.”
Finally, something flashes across his face—frustration, equal parts sharp and wounded. “You needed help.”
“I didn’t ask for help!”
“You shouldn’t have to ask!” His voice rises, cracks. “You’re drowning, Ava.”
I step forward without meaning to. “And you think throwing money at my problems gives you the right to judge how I survive?”
“It gives your daughter her medicine!” he snaps, louder now. “That’s all that matters.”
“Don’t you dare,” I breathe, cold as the mountain air outside, “pretend you did this for Violet without admitting you did it forme.”
He flinches like the words cut. Maybe they do.
“I don’t want your pity,” I say.
“It wasn’t pity.” His hands fist at his sides. “It was the only thing I could do that didn’t risk—” He stops himself. Looks away. “It was the only thing.”
I step closer, heart hammering. “Why? Why do you care this much about us?”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. His breathing is unsteady. He doesn’t speak.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “You can risk your life in an avalanche but not your feelings?”
His eyes snap back to mine—dark, stormy.
“Ava.” My name scrapes out of him, rough and dangerous.
Something inside me answers.
The air between us heats—faster than either of us can deny. Our angry breathing fills the room. The fight swells into something else—something hotter, hungrier, inevitable.
“You can’t push me away and pull me closer at the same time,” I say, chest heaving.
