Page 65 of Please Send Snow
“Jake, I—I…” but she can’t seem to find the words to explain herself.
“What is this?” I hear myself ask. My voice sounds almost far away to me, like it’s coming from someoneelse, but it’s perfectly level and calm. I think that’s what scares her the most.
“I’m not rich,” she says at last, her eyes filled with sadness. “I have nothing. My dad left it all to my stepmother, and she threw me out of the house. The lodge let me have this… room, so that I wouldn’t literally be out in the cold.”
“Your amenities,” I say automatically as my mind reels. “All those fancy meals.”
It wasn’t just her.
The whole place must have been in on it. They must have seen me coming a mile away. I can picture them all having a great laugh together at my expense. In that moment, I don’t just want to hire a crew to tear the lodge down, I want to light a match myself and watch it burn to the ground. Let them laugh at that.
But Maddie isn’t laughing now. I can see the shame on her face as she looks at the floor, like she’s too mortified to speak.
She doesn’t have to. I know what this was.
Spoiled little Madeline Foster can no longer depend on her daddy’s fortune, so she came here in search of someone else’s.
And I just happened to show up and fit the bill. That’s the only reason she looks at me like I matter, and listens to me like she cares what I have to say.
It’s why she was pretending to be a wealthy heiress on vacation here, instead of a beggar in a broom closet.
She’s a gold digger, just like my first wife.
I left the city and everything I knew behind, looking for a simpler place to lick my wounds—a place wheremaybe my money and my business dealings didn’t mean everything.
And the first girl I met when I got here played me for a fool all over again.
And the worst part is that Iama fool.
Because as furious as I feel, I still can’t stand seeing Maddie look so broken. I want to pull her close, smooth back her hair and tilt her pretty face up to mine so that I can see her cute little freckles. I want to gaze right into her eyes while I promise her that everything’s going to be all right.
But I won’t be that man anymore. Not for her. Not for anyone. Not again.
“I thought you were special,” I hear myself say in an ice-cold voice. “But you’re just one more woman on the hunt for a man with more money than brains.”
I’m steaming with so much shame and fury that I can hardly see as I turn and stalk out of Maddie’sroom, breaking into a run when I remember that I left my son with one of her co-conspirators.
“I’m sorry,” I hear her calling after me.
But she’ll never be as sorry as I am.
18
MADDIE
After losing both my parents, you wouldn’t think pain could take me by surprise anymore.
But it’s been an hour since Jake walked away, and my whole body is still heavy with agony, from my aching chest to my empty arms and all the way down to my toes. How will I survive the weight of all this grief?
Why did I ever let myself hope?
But I can’t answer that question. And I can’t honestly say that I would have done anything differently, even if I’d known the outcome.
I close my eyes and all I can see is Dylan’s face, soft with wonder as the tiniest snow flurries glitter in the air. Jake’s big form is beside him, and I know his eyes are on me, even though I’m not looking at him, because I canfeelhis gaze.
I beg myself to stop, but it doesn’t work. It’s not the force of my will but my phone buzzing that finally rips me out of the moment I’ll probably be replaying in my head for the rest of my life.
It’s my best friend’s number so I pick up right away.
