Page 95 of So This Is Christmas

“What?” She was still confused about what he’d said before,but now he was talking about the company? “Of course there are going to be layoffs.”

“But you said...”

“I said what?” She had never told him there would be no layoffs.

“When we discovered this business with Noar, I thought...”

“You thought that meant everything was magically going to be fine?” She tried to keep herself, and therefore her tone, calm, but her head was spinning. Matteo was usually so precise in his speech, and so attuned to the emotional undercurrents of any situation, but here, now, he had her completely bewildered. “Your incompetent CEO aside, you’re still looking at a company that makes one product. One product for which demand is down. Of course there are going to be layoffs. If you’re lucky, there will be fewer than there otherwise would have been had we not discovered Noar’s misdoings.” He looked utterly stunned, as if she’d slapped him. “Look, I know this is upsetting, but—”

“What’s upsetting is having a declaration of love ignored in favor of a discussion about corporate downsizing!”

A declaration of what now?

Now she felt likehe’dslappedher.

She suddenly understood what he was saying—or trying to. And this could not happen. This was not in the plan.

Cara thought back to the first day she’d met Matteo. One of the things they’d sparred over had been the difference between castles and palaces. Castles were defensive structures, he’d told her snarkily.

It was time to become a castle. She didn’t do this. She didn’t do feelings and commitments and encumbrances. She didn’t make herself vulnerable to these kinds of attacks.

So how had she been caught with her drawbridge down?

That was a question to be examined later. For now, that drawbridge had to come up. And so it did. Crocodiles tossed into the moat and archers lined up at the embrasures.

“Let me get this straight. You ‘greatly esteem’ me”—she could not make herself utter the L-word—“but you are inconvenienced by that fact.” She could hear the ice crystals forming in her tone, as cold and hard as any of the snow they’d been skiing on. Good. Her castle could be fortified with ice. Princess Elsa had nothing on her.

“That’s not what—”

“This happened inPride and Prejudice.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Mr. Darcy makes this big speech about how he likes Elizabeth in spite of his good judgment. He finds his feelings inconvenient-bordering-on-insulting.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“That’s what youjust said.”

“Only because you have apparently been sitting on the news that you’re going to lay off hundreds of people!” He threw up his hands.

“You know what Lizzy does when Mr. Darcy makes his speech about how vexing it is to have ‘great esteem’ for her?” Cara said, letting her ice walls grow thicker, methodically draining herself of all emotion.

“I’m not sure that’s an apt—”

“She throws his declaration back in his face.”

He was silent for a long moment, and when he spoke, his tone was as cold as hers had been. “For someone who hasn’t read the book, you certainly have a good memory of the plot.”

That iciness from him was a bit shocking. Their early bickering had been different, had been almost exhilarating. This felt . . . terrible. She forced herself to de-escalate. She was lashing out at him, but this wasn’t only his fault.She’dlet the drawbridge down.She’dlet the embrasures go unmanned. “I have read the book,” she said carefully. “I read it a few weeks ago.” She’d read it to get to know him better. To try to solve the puzzle that was Matteo.

“Miss Bennet does throw Mr. Darcy’s declaration back in his face,” Matteo said, quietly, as if he, too, were trying to disarm this... thing between them. “But it all works out in the end.”

“Right. Because she has to marry. I, on the other hand, don’t have to, and don’twantto. I’m married to my job—as you are to yours, I would have thought.” When he didn’t say anything, she added, “And my job is in New York, and yours is here.” As if he didn’t know that. And as if that were the only barrier. She didn’t do relationships. Yeah, maybe it was time to slowly start thinking about dating now that she’d made partner. She had always said that was the plan. But that wasn’t the same as signing up for a transatlantic relationship with the guy she happened to be sleeping with when partnership landed in her lap. “It doesn’t just ‘all work out in the end’ in real life,” she added gently, because she didn’t know what else to say, how to end this excruciating conversation.

The universe must have been looking out for her, because the chairlift lurched into action. She looked away, and they made the rest of the ascent in silence. When Matteo pushed himself off the chairlift at the top of the hill, she did not. She left him standing there, which she realized was a shitty thing to do, but she could not bear to ski with him anymore. She could not bear tobewith him anymore. She rode the lift down to the bottom, returned her ski gear, and called a taxi to take her back to the village.

When Matteo got to the bottom of the hill, he fished his phone out of his pocket to find a series of texts from Cara.

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