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Some of the tension leaves her shoulders. “Good answer.”
"But first…" I take her gloved hand and press my mouth against her knuckles. “I need one hour. I've been planning something for you since before Ottawa decided to detonate my life, and I refuse to let them to ruin this surprise.”
She studies me beneath those long lashes, looking very much like a woman who's trust of me has already been tested too much this festive season.
“One hour,” she agrees. “Then you, me and that terrifying folder are having a conversation.”
“Deal.”
I lead her around the side of the lodge, past market stalls and resort employees lighting the final lanterns along the path.
Audrey stops walking.
Exactly as I arranged, a sleigh waits beneath an arch of fresh pine branches and red velvet bows. It is an actual polished wooden sleigh with brass lanterns swinging from carved posts, a wreath fixed across the front and two enormous dapple-gray horses stamping silver shoes into the snow. Tiny bells line their red leather harnesses, chiming whenever clouds of breath roll from their nostrils into the freezing air.
Audrey looks across at me as the driver tips his hat and welcomes us onboard. "You didn't."
"I sure did."
"Miles Stratton, this is a horse-drawn sleigh."
I hand her up into the seat, climb in beside her, and pull the blankets over our laps. The driver clicks his tongue and the sleigh glides forward, runners hissing over fresh snow as we slip away from the resort lights and into the dense forest trees, torches flickering along the trail like someone laid a path of small fires just for us.
Slowly, the resort disappears behind us and all around, the mountains of Chilmore go quiet except for bells and hoofbeats and the soft rush of the runners.
I produce the flask from inside my coat.
Audrey unscrews it, sniffs, and her whole face changes like it does when I pinch her nipples. "Oh my God. You bought cinnamon coffee."
"Made exactly the way it was in the truck. Mom's recipe, but because you've got her run ragged with all the tour prep back home, I bribed Chef Priya to make me a batch."
Audrey takes a sip and groans. “Oh, wow. This buys you temporary parole.”
“Only temporary?”
She taps the folder beneath my coat. “Coffee does not erase contract-related crimes, Stratton. It merely improves the conditions of your future interrogation.”
She curls against my side under the blankets, her head finding the spot beneath my collarbone, and I hold her while the torches slide past and the snow keeps falling all around us.
The contract presses against my chest through my coat, right between us, but I ignore it for one more hour, just so I get to have this moment.
The torch-lit trail winds upward through towering pines, each branch bowed beneath fresh snow. The horses breathe clouds into the freezing air, their bells chiming gently above the runners.
Audrey drinks cinnamon coffee beneath the fur blankets with chocolate-orange sugar still shining on her lower lip. Every few minutes, she looks ahead as though she might force the forest to reveal where I’m taking her.
Eventually, as the trail climbs through the pines, the trees open into a clearing, and Audrey sits bolt upright at the sight before her eyes.
"Miles. What is this place?"
The stunning alpine cabin glows above the valley, with soft yellow light pouring through enormous windows of the wooden cabin. Smoke curls from a stone chimney, and a private deck wraps around the front overlooking the entire illuminated valley.
From the deck, the resort blazes beneath us in all its ridiculous glory.
The market huts form glowing rows around the rink, fire pits burn like orange stars in the snow and the enormous lobby tree rises behind the glass. Farther down the mountain, Chilmore glitters across the valley like Christmas lights somebody forgot to switch off.
"We're staying here tonight," I say. "I pulled a favor and we have the place to ourselves. No teammates, no sponsors, no Nate listening through walls."
"How did you—"
