Page 51 of Cold and Bitter Snow

Soon—too soon—he arrived at Siena’s hotel. He briefly considered turning back, until he remembered Luc’s expression as he’d left.

You’re being pathetic.

Luc was right. Logan would have said the same to him. Life was short, and it was time Conor started living his. He had to speak to Siena.

He stomped his feet gently on the ground before pushing the door open.

Chapter 16

Siena

Siena stretched her back and looked at the clock by her bedside. She’d been working non-stop for sixteen hours, stopping only to walk from the office back to her room and sit back at her desk.

She counted the junk food wrappers in the rubbish bin next to her desk.

You need to get some real food.

Tomorrow.

She knew herself well enough to know she wasn’t doing well. She was a workaholic. This was her way of coping. And she was getting close to finishing her report. She walked back to the bed where she’d spread out several maps of the resort to check on a couple details for the new sensors she was planning.

She tried not to look at the northeast corner where Le Miroir met La Rochelle. The memory was still too raw.

Conor could have died.

Her heart sped up. She reminded herself that he was okay. He was with his family now, which was as it should be. She wished he’d at least call and tell her how he was doing.

She’d received plenty of calls in the last day—half of them from Markus Montgomery, who was the biggest champion of her work now that she and Conor had pretty much saved his career. It escaped nobody’s notice that Montgomery would have lost his job had the princess disappeared on his watch.

One of the lift operators had also called to thank her. Both men had been found out in the snow, hogtied and hypothermic. They’d both made a full recovery but knew that, had they been forced to spend much longer out there, the outcome could have been completely different.

The only other person to call her had been Alma. The princess had gotten home safely and was planning on staying there for a bit. She told Siena she’d be sending her a small thank you gift. After seeing the flower display in Conor’s hospital room, Siena doubted whether she and Alma had the same definition of small.

There was a knock on her door—soft but insistent, not the kind of noise that could be ignored.

She pulled the door open and saw Conor on the other side. He looked pale but strong—nothing like the man she’d left lying on the hospital bed.

She let out a relieved sigh.

“You’re okay,” she breathed out.

“Thanks largely to you, I think,” Conor said.

She looked down at her hands, remembered how her hands and scarf had turned red with his blood. She shivered.

“Hey,” he said, moving forward into the room. She noticed he moved with a tentative gait. He must still be in pain.

“I thought you’d still be at the hospital.”

“I checked myself out yesterday,” he said. “You didn’t come back to visit.”

She nodded at the computer. “You were with your family and I had to get back to work.”

His voice lowered even further. “Thank you for staying with me at first. I felt … safe knowing you were there.”

Safe.

His use of the word made tears come to her eyes.