Page 25 of Saving it with My Best Friend's Brother

“Ms. Horton! Someone’s broken into the maintenance shed—all the ski equipment...”

Amelia was already moving. “Call the police.”

“Wait.” I grabbed her arm. “This is them. They’re sending a message.”

“Then let’s send one back.” Her eyes blazed with determination. “I’m done being afraid.”

She headed for the door, but I pulled her back. “Amelia, wait. There’s something else you need to know—”

My phone rang—the same unknown number. This time, Amelia answered it before I could stop her.

“Who is this?” she demanded, her voice steady despite everything.

I watched her face change as she listened, color draining from her cheeks. When she lowered the phone, her hands were shaking.

“They say they have proof,” she whispered. “Proof that you—” She stopped, looking at me with something like horror. “That you’re working with them. This whole thing, helping Pine Haven, getting close to me... was all part of their plan.”

“Amelia, no—”

But she was already backing away, the trust in her eyes shattering like glass.

Our phones buzzed simultaneously, another text with a photo. The image showed us in the lounge last night, moments before our almost-kiss.

The message read:Well played, Miller. She never saw it coming.

“Amelia, please,” I stepped toward her, but she held up a hand to stop me.

“Don’t.” Her voice cracked on the word. She gathered her things with trembling hands, refusing to meet my eyes. “I need... I can’t...”

“Let me explain—”

“Explain what?” She finally looked at me, and the betrayal in her eyes felt like a knife to my chest. “How you played me? How everything—every moment, every almost kiss, every time you made me feel like I could trust you—was just part of a plan?”

“None of that was fake,” I insisted, desperate to make her understand. Every touch, every shared moment, every time my heart had skipped when she smiled—it had all been real. “Amelia—”

But she was already moving toward the door, each step taking her further away. She paused in the doorway, her back to me, shoulders rigid with hurt.

“I trusted you,” she whispered. “That’s what hurts the most.”

Then she was gone, leaving me alone with the damning evidence on my phone and the knowledge that Crystal Ridge had just succeeded in their cruelest move yet.

They hadn’t just threatened Pine Haven.

They’d broken Amelia’s heart.

And in doing so, they might have just broken mine, too.

Chapter Seven

Amelia

Ispent the night staring at that photo—Hunter and me in the lounge, caught in that intimate almost-kiss. The soft glow from my desk lamp made the image seem almost dreamlike, but the timestamp proved its reality. Was it all staged? Part of some elaborate plan to gain my trust? The way his hands had framed my face, how his eyes had softened in the firelight—had any of it been real?

The sun barely touched the mountains when I heard his footsteps in the hallway. He’d been here all night too, pacing in his office. I’d heard him on the phone, his voice alternating between angry and pleading, each tone making my heart twist despite my determination to stay cold.

My office door opened without a knock. Hunter stood there, looking worse than I’d ever seen him—tie loose, hair disheveled, dark circles under his eyes suggesting he’d slept as little as I had. Something deep within me stirred at the sight, even as I steeled myself against it.

“Explain,” I said coldly. “Now.”

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