The first real argument they had after the LOI wasn’t about money.
It was about Christmas.
“It’s a made-up deadline,” Nora said, pacing the kitchen, bare feet slapping the wood floor. “We don’t have to close by December 15.”
Rhys, seated at the table with his laptop and three open legal pads, rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “The loan matures December 31,” he said. “The bank wants off their books by year-end. Aurora wants the asset in their Q4 report. It’s not arbitrary.”
“It is if the inspections aren’t done,” she said. “They haven’t finished the environmental. They still haven’t sent someone to look at the septic. My lawyer hasn’t had time to read every page of this monster.” She slapped the purchase agreement for emphasis. It thudded.
“Marco’s helping,” he said. “He’s good. M&H is good. We’ll get through it.”
“I’m not signing anything rushed,” she said. “I don’t care if your LPs have to wait until January to see their returns.”
“My LPs,” he said through his teeth, “will be fine. The bank won’t. And if the bank decides we’re dragging our feet…”
“They do what?” she snapped. “Call the note? Take the land? Sell it at auction?”
“Yes,” he said. “All of the above.”
“We have a deal,” she said. “In principle. They have an LOI. A purchase agreement. A closing date. Why would the bank blow that up?”
“Because banks are not patient, sentimental entities,” he said. “They’re risk-averse corporations with quarterly earnings calls. If someone in credit decides our timeline is slipping into Q1…they’ll push.”
She hated that he wasn’t wrong. She also hated that his answer to anything that wasn’t simple was always because corporations.
“So I’m supposed to just…sign whatever they put in front of me by mid-December because some guy in a tie doesn’t want to talk about it on an analyst call?” she said.
“No,” he said. “You’re supposed to sign something you’re reasonably comfortable with in a timeframe that prevents the whole thing from blowing up.”
She stared at him. “I thought you were on my side,” she said quietly.
He flinched. “I am,” he said. “But I’m also…in reality.”
“My reality is that I’ve had exactly three months to emotionally process losing my home,” she said. “Your reality has spreadsheets. Mine has my mother asking where she’s going to put the Christmas tree when someone else owns the living room.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. You’re right. This is…fast. Too fast, in some ways. But deals are like fermentations. They have an optimal window. Too early, you get thin wine. Too late, you get vinegar.”
“Stop making wine metaphors,” she snapped. “It’s creepy when you do it.”
He huffed. “You started it,” he said.
She paced. The kettle on the stove whistled; her mother turned it off, watching them with a worried frown from the sink.
“Can we push closing?” Nora asked. “Into January. Or February. Or…never.”
He shook his head. “We can maybe buy a week,” he said. “Two, tops. Beyond that, the bank gets twitchy. Aurora’s board gets cold feet. Weather changes. People go on vacation. The longer this drags, the more surface area for something to go wrong.”
“You’re always so ready to see things go wrong,” she said.
“I’m paid to,” he said. “It’s how I keep us from stepping on landmines.”
“I’m not ‘us’ in that sentence,” she said. “I’m… collateral damage.”
He flinched again. “You’re not collateral,” he said. “You’re central.”
“Feels the same from here,” she said.
Rosa stepped in. “Enough,” she said sharply. “You’re circling.”
They both turned.
“You’re both right,” she said. “Which is why you’re fighting. He sees the calendar. You see the tree. Both are real.”
“I can’t cut the tree down yet,” Nora said, voice breaking. “I’m not ready.”
Rhys looked at her, something like guilt and frustration warring in his eyes.
“I can talk to the bank,” he said slowly. “See if we can nudge a week. Ten days. Frame it as…holiday logistics. Lawyers’ schedules. Make it their idea.”
“You can do that?” she asked skeptically.
He smiled humorlessly. “I can try,” he said. “Worst they can say is no.”
“You always say that,” she muttered.
“It’s always true,” he said.
She sank into a chair. The purchase agreement loomed on the table like a brick.
“I just…” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I want one more Christmas here. With…lights on the porch. Tamales in the oven. Not boxes.”
He softened. “You might still have that,” he said gently. “Even if we close on the 15th. Aurora’s not kicking you out that day. There’ll be transition. They’ll want you on-site. Your mom, too, if she wants. We can bake that into the occupancy terms.”
“Occupancy terms,” she repeated. “Like we’re…tenants.”
“Tenants with leverage,” he said. “It’s not the same as ownership. I know. But…we can make it livable.”
“Livable,” she said. “Such a low bar.”
“Sometimes it’s all we get,” he said.
She looked at him. Really looked. At the shadows under his eyes. At the way his shoulders never truly relaxed anymore, even at the end of a long day in the vines.
“Do you ever…envy me?” she asked abruptly.
He blinked. “You?” he said. “The woman whose house I’m foreclosing on?”
“Yes,” she said. “Me. Who gets to worry about mildew and pump seals instead of non-competes and closing dates.”
He laughed, a rough sound. “Envy’s not the word I’d use,” he said. “But…sometimes I look at you stomping around with your hoses and think, ‘At least her problems are… touchable.’”
“Mine mold,” she said.
“Mine sue,” he said.
They stared at each other, the absurdity of it tugging at the corners of their mouths even as anger simmered.
“You two,” Rosa said, shaking her head. “You need a hobby.”
“This is my hobby,” Nora said.
“This is my life,” Rhys said at the same time.
They smirked. The tension cracked, just slightly.
“Fine,” Nora said. “Talk to your bank. Push your dates. I’ll…keep reading.” She tapped the agreement. “And maybe we can find a way to put the tree in the barn this year.”
He nodded. “I’ll call them now,” he said.
He stepped out onto the porch with his phone. She watched through the window as he paced, one hand in his hair, the other gesturing as he spoke. His body language alone could’ve been a report: he was not giving up easily.
After twenty minutes, he came back in, rain flecking his shoulders. His expression was…complicated.
“Well?” she asked.
“Good news and bad,” he said, shrugging off his jacket.
“Start with bad,” she said.
“Bank won’t extend the loan maturity,” he said. “December 31 is…hard. They have internal policies about non-performing assets. If we’re not closed by then, they start foreclosure proceedings.”
“You mean…officially,” she said.
“Officially,” he said. “MainStreet doesn’t like things hanging over year-end.”
“And the good?” she asked.
“They’re…open to a January closing if Aurora signs a binding purchase agreement by December 15,” he said. “And puts down a meaningful deposit. They can then treat it as ‘held for sale’ instead of ‘non-performing.’ Looks better on their books.”
“So we still have to sign papers by the 15th,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “But you don’t have to hand over keys until…mid-January. Maybe even the 31st, if we write in a post-closing occupancy period.”
“Post-closing occupancy,” she repeated. “You make sleeping in my own bed sound like a line in a spreadsheet.”
“It is,” he said. “And it’s one we can control.”
She blew out a breath. “So I get…one more Christmas,” she said. “Sort of. In limbo.”
“In…transition,” he said.
“Limbo,” she insisted.
He didn’t argue.
“It’s something,” Rosa said quietly.
“It’s not enough,” Nora said.
“It never is,” Rosa said. “But we take it.”
That night, after Rhys had gone to his room and her mother had fallen asleep in her chair with a book in her lap, Nora stood in the darkened living room and stared at the corner where the tree always went.
A faint ring still marked the wood floor where years of overzealous watering had left their mark. She could almost see the ghost of a tree. Lights. Paper ornaments. Her father’s terrible, beloved star topper, crooked and glittery.
She sank to the floor, back against the wall, knees pulled up.
The house creaked around her. The vineyard hummed. Somewhere, in the other room, Rhys’s footsteps crossed, then paused.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there before she heard him in the doorway.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
“Define okay,” she said, not lifting her head.
He hesitated, then came in, lowering himself to sit beside her against the same wall. His socked foot brushed hers. She didn’t move it.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You keep saying that,” she said. “It doesn’t change the dates on your calendar.”
“I know,” he said. “It also doesn’t change how shitty this feels. For you. For me. For…all of us.”
“You get a closing dinner out of it,” she said. “Some expensive steak with your LPs. I get…label makers.”
He smiled faintly. “I hate closing dinners,” he said.
“Liar,” she said.
“They’re loud,” he said. “And boring. And someone always makes a joke about raiding the heartland. It’s…gross.”
“Tell them about me,” she said. “Next time someone makes that joke. Tell them about the woman who signed her name so they could drink wine by a pool.”
“I will,” he said.
They were quiet.
“This corner,” she said after a while, “has seen every Christmas of my life. My dad’s last one. My first one without him. The year the lights blew three times because the wiring’s a nightmare. The year Marco set the tree on fire with a sparkler.”
“Occupational hazard,” he murmured.
She elbowed him weakly.
“I don’t know how to have Christmas anywhere else,” she said.
“Maybe you won’t have to,” he said.
She snorted. “You think Aurora’s going to let us put a plastic Santa on their curated porch?” she asked.
“Mei Lin would probably help,” he said.
She could almost see it: the silver-haired investor in a sweater, stringing lights. The image made her snort.
“Don’t,” she said. “You’re making me like them.”
“I’m not saying they’re saints,” he said. “They like spreadsheets too. But they’re not…monsters.”
“Neither were the banks that sold my dad on his loans,” she said. “Just…people. With incentives.”
He rested his head back against the wall. “You’re very good at seeing the angle,” he said.
“You’re very good at pretending it doesn’t hurt you,” she said.
He shot her a sidelong look. “I never said that,” he said.
“You didn’t have to,” she said. “Your face did.”
He smiled sadly. “Traitor,” he said.
They sat in the dark, shoulders almost touching, sharing silence that wasn’t exactly comfortable but wasn’t hostile either.
“We can’t keep doing this,” she said eventually.
“Doing what?” he asked.
“This,” she said, gesturing between them. “Sitting in dark rooms telling each other how we could’ve been different people in different rooms.”
He huffed a laugh. “We’re very good at it,” he said.
“Occupational hazard,” she said.
He snorted.
“We have…what,” she went on. “Six weeks. Eight. Of this. Then you go back to your towers. I go…somewhere. I can’t…” She groped. “I can’t spend all of them wishing you were someone else.”
He swallowed. “Who do you wish I was?” he asked.
“A guy who walked into my tasting room one day and said, ‘Hi, I like your wine,’” she said. “Not, ‘Hi, I own your debt.’”
“Too late for that,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “That’s the problem.”
He was silent for a long moment.
“What if,” he said slowly, “we…stop talking about the what-ifs.”
She snorted. “You?” she said. “The king of scenario planning?”
“I’m serious,” he said. “We’ve spent weeks…circling. Imagining alternate universes. It’s like…emotional masturbation.” He grimaced. “Bad metaphor.”
Her lips twitched. “Terrible,” she said.
He sighed. “You know what I mean,” he said. “It doesn’t change anything. It just…makes this hurt more.”
“So what,” she said. “We pretend we’re just…colleagues? That there isn’t a thing between us that feels like a live wire?”
He looked at her, the dark hiding some of his expression and revealing others.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I just know that every time we get close to that line, it…blows up parts of my brain I need for deal memos.”
She laughed, unexpectedly. “You’re very romantic,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “It’s my brand.”
She sobered. “I don’t want to…hate you,” she admitted. “In six months. Or a year. Or five. I don’t want to drive by some random resort and feel sick because I slept with the guy who sold my house.”
He swallowed. “We haven’t—” he started.
“I know,” she cut in. “We haven’t. That’s…what I’m saying. Maybe we keep it that way.”
“Maybe,” he said. The word scraped his throat.
“And maybe,” she added, surprising even herself, “we…let ourselves have…this. Whatever this is. Until it’s over. Without…trying to make it into something it can’t be.”
He frowned. “Define…this,” he said.
She rolled her head to look at him. “This,” she said. “Fighting about closing dates. Walking vineyards in the rain. Eating dumplings. Arguing about bathrobes. Making sure the people with the money don’t fuck up the people without it too badly.”
He stared at her. “That’s…a weird definition of a relationship,” he said.
“I’m a weird person,” she said.
He laughed softly. “You are,” he said.
“So we…stay on this side of the line,” she said. “No sex. No…dramatic declarations. No…promises. Just…this. And then…we deal with the fallout later. Separately.”
He exhaled. “You think that’ll hurt less?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I think it might…hurt in a way we can survive.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
They sat there, agreeing not to cross a line while sitting so close their shoulders brushed when one of them breathed deeply.
They were liars. Both of them. And they knew it.
But sometimes, lies were the only way to get through the night.
* * *