Page 56 of Snowbound with the Santas

A fling while in this bubble in the mountains is one thing. A relationship is quite another.

“I was running away,” Rayne says suddenly, her voice equally quiet and yet so loud in the silence of the morning. “I mean, when I left the lodge, I did think I was heading toward the airport, but I guess I made a wrong turn. I wasn’t focused. I wasn’t thinking. I was just… driving and trying to call my best friend because I needed to hear her. I needed her help.”

The urge to say something rises, but I worry that my voice will interrupt her thought process, so I stay silent and wait.

“The one thing about being as rich as my family is that everyone wants a piece, and there’s more people than you can count. There’s aunts and cousins who are regarded as family, but you don’t really know if they’re blood relations or just cut from the same bill, y’know?”

I don’t know. Being that rich isn’t something I can fathom, but I can empathize with her so I nod.

“So when I turned up and my mother told me everyone was here, I knew it was going to be a holiday of seeing a sea of faces who knew me by name—my last name—and nothing else.There’d be a few who’d know me as my mother’s infamously troublesome daughter who turns her nose up at riches, but apart from that… I was just there to make an appearance.”

Her tears are gone, but there’s now a clear, open sadness in her eyes, and while I can’t see her hands, her sleeves shuffle back and forth.

“And like all weird twists, I bumped into my ex-fiancé. He’s getting married to one of my cousins. At least I think she’s a cousin. It’s so hard to tell. Either way, she’s family and somehow, he met her and they’re getting married.” Rayne lets out a hollow laugh. “I thought I was rid of him. I was so sure that I would never see him again because I was actively making sure that wouldn’t happen.”

My brow tightens as I listen. Rayne is too much into the flow of talking for me to interrupt, but concern bleeds through my heart as her voice begins to quaver.

“Because he’s a terrible man. I dated him when I was a teenager and I was doing so manystupidteenage things. And I thought he was amazing. And then one day, he just wasn’t.”

Rayne turns to me, and it’s somehow more heartbreaking that she’s talking about this without tears. As if her pain about this man has drained her to the point of no tears.

“Running into him wasn’t a shock because I was jealous or sad that he had moved on with his life and I was stuck in this same bubble.” She shakes her head and returns to the sunrise. “I’ve been running from him for years. Changed my number countless times. Changed my address, and even changed my name for a bit. Everything I could because he—” Words catch in her throat and she swallows hard.

I don’t need her to say it. I’m able to work it out. There are very few reasons you’d go to such lengths to hide from someone.

“He abused me for years,” Rayne says, and her voice is as cold as the air around us. As if she’s disconnected herself from that fact in order to protect herself.

I don’t blame her.

“But that’s not the worst thing.” Rayne slowly looks at me again, and when our eyes meet, they now sparkle with tears.

“What could be worse?” I ask quietly.

“I did something. Something terrible. Something so terrible that sometimes, I can’t breathe with how heavy the guilt sits in my chest. It crushes me, and I don’t complain because I deserve it. And he knows about it.” Her next breath is a trembling gasp. “He’s the only one who knows about it, and he held it over me. I didn’t leave him. He just got bored of me, and he told me he would never forget. And when I saw him?”

Rayne shakes her head, and a tear escapes down her rosy cheek.

“He reminded me of what I did and threatened to tell everyone. So I panicked and I ran because… well, I didn’t know what else to do.”

My heart clenches painfully. A flurry of thoughts overwhelms me as I run through all the terrible things someone could do, but none of them are unforgivable. Someone as sweet as Rayne couldn’t have done something too terrible, surely?

“Rayne, there’s nothing so terrible that it can’t be fixed. And nothing that we wouldn’t be willing to help you with. Whatever he has on you… if you were willing to share, then I know we would help you.”

“No,” Rayne whispers. “You don’t understand. I?—”

“The hell are you two doing?” Nick’s irritated voice suddenly bursts across the roof, making both of us jump. I watch as Rayne immediately clams back up and whatever secret that sat on her tongue is swallowed back down.

“We were watching the sunrise,” I snap.

“Well, quit it,” Nick mutters. “It’s freezing, and if you’re so wide awake, you two can get started on the shoveling because we have a shit-ton of snow to move.”

With that, he disappears back down the ladder. Rayne’s entire demeanor changes and she smiles at me. “Looks like we have our orders.”

“Rayne—”

“Don’t. Forget about it. It was nothing.” She stands quickly and straightens her arms out for balance while heading back to the hatch.

I was so close to the entire truth and now she’s a locked box.

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