The storm hadn’t arrived yet when Sophie loaded the last crate into the back of the rented SUV.
The air in Denver was cold, crisp, the sky a hard, bright blue. The parking lot of the Aurora Events building glittered with old snow pushed into ugly gray piles at the corners. Her breath made small clouds as she exhaled.
“You packed like you’re moving in,” Jonah said, shoving a final box in beside a stack of garment bags.
“I plan for contingencies,” she said. “It’s cute that you think this is a lot.”
He stared at the tower of labeled crates—A/V CABLES, EMERGENCY LIGHTING, LINENS, OFFICE SUPPLIES—then at her duffel bag perched on the passenger seat.
“You have one bag,” he said. “For yourself. And an entire moving truck’s worth of stuff for the event.”
“I have a toothbrush in my purse,” she said. “I’m not a savage.”
Mia trotted across the lot, hugging her parka to her. “Okay, food’s confirmed, coffee’s roasted, linens are in transit, and I bribed the floral wholesaler with my soul.”
“Good,” Sophie said. “Hold the line while I’m gone.”
Mia saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”
They all hugged. It felt disproportionately emotional for a three-day trip, but the weight of what this summit meant pressed down on all of them.
“You’ll be fine,” Jonah said. “Go schmooze the hermit.”
“I thought I was the demon,” she said.
“Be a schmoozing demon,” Mia said. “And take pictures of the house if they don’t make you sign an NDA that involves your firstborn.”
Sophie rolled her eyes, but she did slip her phone into her pocket, already plugging in directions to Elk Ridge.
The GPS route snaked up into the mountains, squiggling lines of highway and switchbacks. Estimated drive time: two hours, fifteen minutes.
Her stomach fluttered.
“Stop looking at me like I’m going off to war,” she told them.
“You kind of are,” Jonah said.
She flipped him off affectionately, got into the SUV, and started the engine.
As she pulled out of the lot, her phone buzzed with a text.
MIRANDA: Send me a pic of the estate when you arrive. I want to know what my first vacation home will look like someday.
SOPHIE: Aim higher. This guy probably has a panic room made of gold.
MIRANDA: No panic rooms. Bad optics.
SOPHIE: You’re terrifying.
MIRANDA: That’s why you love me. Drive safe.
She hit the highway with a thermos of coffee in the cup holder and a playlist Lia had made for her pulsing through the speakers. It was heavy on early 2000s pop and filthy rap. Classic Lia.
The city fell away quickly, replaced by suburbs and then open stretches where the land rolled up into foothills. The mountains loomed ahead, white-capped and severe.
She’d always loved the sight of them. When she’d moved to Colorado at twenty-four with a car full of suitcases and a twenty-dollar bill her grandmother had slipped into her pocket “for emergencies,” the mountains had felt like a promise.
Now, with snow highlighting every ridge, they felt more like a dare.
“At least let me get in and out,” she muttered at the horizon. “I don’t have time for your drama.”
Traffic thinned as she climbed. The highway narrowed, the lanes tightening as the road curved around outcroppings. The blue of the sky deepened, but a faint haze had started to gather around some of the peaks.
She checked the weather app at a red light in a small town halfway up.
WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 P.M. TONIGHT UNTIL SUNDAY 6 A.M.
Plenty of time. It was barely nine a.m.
Her phone buzzed again.
LIA: Send selfie.
Sophie rolled her eyes but obediently snapped one: sunglasses on, hands at ten and two, mountains in the background.
She sent it.
LIA: Look at you, all business slut chic.
SOPHIE: I’m wearing a flannel shirt.
LIA: Men fear the flannel. It means you’re prepared to get shit done and also chop wood.
SOPHIE: I am not chopping anything at this house.
LIA: You don’t know that.
SOPHIE: I’m hanging up.
LIA: This is texting.
SOPHIE: Blocking u.
LIA: Love you too. Don’t fuck your client.
SOPHIE: GoodBYE.
She tossed the phone back onto the passenger seat, but a betraying little part of her brain whispered, *You weren’t thinking about that until she said it.*
Which was a lie.
She’d thought about it in the abstract the night before, lying awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling. Not *actually* sleeping with him—she wasn’t insane. But she’d wondered what he’d be like. How he sounded. If he moved like he wrote: precise, intense, cutting.
She’d read one of his books years ago on a red-eye flight because everyone else on the plane seemed to have it. She’d ended up gripping the armrest so hard the guy next to her had asked if she needed a Xanax.
His writing was ruthless. Unflinching. It had a way of drilling into the soft, vulnerable parts of human fear.
She tried to picture the man behind it and kept coming up blank.
Her first brush with him—the email requests, the contract, the assistant’s dry British politeness—had painted a sketch: disciplined, exacting, limited patience for nonsense.
Well, she could be disciplined, too. She could be accommodating without being a doormat.
She could.
As the miles ticked by, her initial tension smoothed into a kind of focused calm.
She knew how to do this. She’d wrangled screaming brides, entitled CEOs, mothers of grooms who’d tried to slip extra guests into already-packed halls. She’d mastered the art of smiling while saying no, of deflecting tantrums with solutions.
A reclusive author with a grudge against small talk? Please.
Let him glower. She would do her job.
The turnoff to Elk Ridge came without much warning: a small, discreet sign on the side of the highway, more a suggestion than an announcement. She took it, the SUV bumping slightly as the pavement changed texture. The road narrowed further, the trees crowding in.
Snow from the last storm lay piled at the edges, but the asphalt itself was clear. The overcast haze above had thickened, though, turning the light flat.
Her phone beeped with another notification.
NO SERVICE.
She exhaled. “Of course.”
The road wound up the mountain in sharp switchbacks that made her grateful for the SUV’s four-wheel drive. Her hands tightened on the wheel on particularly tight curves.
Then, around one last bend, there it was.
The Cross Estate sat like something out of a design magazine spread, all sharp lines and glass and dark stone, perched on a plateau cut into the mountain. From this angle, it looked almost like it was floating above the valley, the glass walls reflecting the muted sky.
“Jesus,” she whispered.
The driveway curved past a small gatehouse—a sleek, modern box of glass and metal—before splitting into a roundabout in front of the main entrance. The gate itself was open, but a black SUV idled near it, a man in a heavy coat standing outside, watching her approach.
She rolled down her window as she pulled up.
“Ms. Turner?” he called. His accent was British, light.
“Yes. Hi.” She offered what she hoped was a professional, not star-struck smile. “Sophie.”
He came closer, extending a gloved hand. “Howard King. Welcome to Elk Ridge.”
His handshake was firm, his grip warm through her glove.
“Sorry I’m a bit early,” she said. “Traffic was lighter than expected.”
“Punctuality is an underrated virtue,” he said. “And I much prefer early to late, given the forecast.”
She glanced up at the sky. The haze had thickened, the blue almost entirely swallowed.
“It’s supposed to start tonight?” she asked.
“Late afternoon, most likely. We’ll have everyone indoors long before it becomes an issue.” His tone was calm, but she caught the tiniest flicker in his eyes.
“So long as my equipment trucks beat it,” she said. “The linens and larger pieces are on a second run.”
“They’ve just checked in at the highway turnoff. We’ll bring them through as soon as they arrive.” He stepped back and gestured toward the house. “Shall we?”
Up close, the estate was even more intimidating. The entrance was a wide set of dark stone steps leading to a towering pivot door of glass framed in matte black metal. Through it, Sophie glimpsed a vast foyer, white walls, a floating staircase, art that looked both expensive and deliberately unapproachable.
“Shoes off?” she asked, half-joking, as they climbed the steps.
“Only if you plan to walk on the furniture,” Howard replied. “But I suspect you’re more civilized than most of our guests.”
The door opened with a soft hiss, and a rush of warm, lightly scented air washed over her. Inside, the echo of her boots on the polished floor sounded too loud.
“Wow,” she murmured.
“Mr. Cross had an architect here from New York design it,” Howard said. “Lots of glass, lots of angles, very impressive sites for future online think pieces.”
“What’s the theme?” she asked. “Modern Bond villain?”
His mouth twitched. “We prefer ‘contemporary mountain minimalism.’”
She might have laughed if her chest weren’t so tight.
The foyer opened into a living area that was all clean lines: low, pale gray sofas; dark wood coffee tables; a fireplace set into a floor-to-ceiling stone wall. Beyond that, the far wall was entirely glass, looking out over the valley—if the clouds would clear enough to see it.
“This is beautiful,” she said.
“Hideous, if you ask Mr. Cross,” Howard said dryly. “He thinks it looks like a cage. Which is why he spends most of his time in the study at the far end. It has the best view.”
“The glass room?”
He glanced at her. “You’ve Googled.”
“I like to know what I’m walking into,” she said.
“I appreciate that in a person.”
He led her through the living space and down a wide hallway. The floors were a warm, pale wood, the walls hung with art that veered between abstract color explosions and moody black-and-white photographs.
“We’ve arranged guest rooms on both levels,” Howard said. “I’ll show you the ones designated for the executives and the broadcaster, as they have more... specific expectations. The rest are interchangeable. They all have en-suite baths, fireplaces, and views.”
“You weren’t kidding about ‘luxury,’” she said.
“We aim to provide an acceptable environment for people with more money than sense.”
The phrase was delivered so smoothly she nearly missed the bite under it.
“Is this where I pretend I’m shocked?” she asked.
“If you’d like to keep up appearances.” He opened a door. “This will be the main conference room.”
It took her breath away for a second.
The room was rectangular, with a long, dark table down the center and floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides. The mountains loomed on one, the valley dropped away on the other.
“We can draw the shades for presentations,” Howard said, nodding to the discreet control panel. “The A/V team said they’ll arrive by two. There are built-in speakers, but they’ll bring additional equipment.”
“We’ll need a staging area for food and beverages,” she murmured, eyes scanning corners, outlets, cable access.
“Through there.” He pointed to a concealed door. It opened into a smaller but still well-appointed room—a sort of butler’s pantry with counters, sink, and a second door leading presumably back toward the kitchen.
“Perfect,” she said. She moved back into the conference room. “We’ll need a coffee station here,” she pointed, “and perhaps a smaller one near the study, if Mr. Cross wants—”
“He has an espresso machine of terrifying complexity in his study,” Howard said. “He’ll survive.”
She paused. “So he’ll... be here? During the summit?”
“In theory,” Howard said. “In practice, he will skulk at the edges and appear at carefully timed intervals. Think of him as a particularly reclusive mountain lion who occasionally consents to be seen.”
She snorted.
“Do you want to meet him now?” Howard added, almost as an afterthought.
Her chest hopped into her throat.
She’d known, obviously, that she’d have to meet him. He was the client. But she hadn’t expected it this soon, hadn’t mentally prepared the face she’d wear, the tone she’d take.
“Is that... necessary?” she asked. “We have a lot to set up. I don’t want to waste his time.”
“Believe me, if you were wasting his time, I wouldn’t ask.” Howard studied her for a beat. “He can be... intense. But he also appreciates efficiency. It might be best to align expectations now rather than later, when guests are underfoot.”
Align expectations. Translation: let him growl at you before the circus arrives.
She took a breath. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s align.”
Howard’s nod was almost approving. “This way, then.”
They walked down another hallway, narrower now, the ceilings lower. The public grandeur of the house shifted subtly into something more private. The art here was different, too: framed pages of old manuscripts, photographs of cityscapes at night, a black-and-white shot of a young boy reading under a blanket with a flashlight.
He stopped before a door at the very end.
It was glass, frosted at the bottom, clear at the top. Through it, she could see a slice of the view: snow, sky, and the faint outline of a man’s shoulder.
Howard knocked once, then opened the door without waiting for an answer.
“Mr. Cross,” he said. “Ms. Turner has arrived.”
Sophie’s heart did something painful and irritating in her chest.
She stepped over the threshold.
***
The study was both exactly what she’d expected and nothing like it.
It jutted out from the side of the house in a glass box, three of its walls floor-to-ceiling windows. The view was dizzying: the drop of the mountain, the sweep of the valley, the endless, heavy sky.
The furnishings were minimal. A large desk of dark wood facing the window. Two chairs. Built-in shelves on the interior wall, lined with books and a few scattered objects—an old typewriter, a framed ticket stub, a small ceramic bowl.
And him.
Nathan Cross stood at the far window, back half-turned toward her, one hand braced against the glass. He was taller than she’d expected. Maybe that stupid blog *had* been right. Six-two, broad shoulders, but not gym-bro broad. More like someone who forgot to eat sometimes but still moved with the coiled grace of someone whose body did what he asked.
His T-shirt was black, his jeans dark. His feet were bare on the polished concrete, toes curling slightly as if gripping the ground.
He didn’t turn at once. For a heartbeat, Sophie had the strange impression of walking in on something intimate, like he was in the middle of a private thought.
Then he straightened and faced them.
The photos hadn’t done him justice because there were no real photos. Just glimpses. This was the first full look she’d had, and it left her a little short of breath in spite of herself.
He was... not what she would have called conventionally pretty. His nose had a slight bump, like it had been broken once. His mouth was full enough to be almost soft, except the way it was set now, firm and unsmiling. His hair was dark, in need of a trim, curling a bit at his nape. A few strands fell over his forehead in a way that should have looked boyish but somehow didn’t.
But it was his eyes that stuck.
They were a gray so pale they were almost silver, rimmed darker at the edges, set under brows that turned naturally downward in a way that made him look perpetually annoyed with the world.
Those eyes flicked over her, fast, assessing, like a scanner.
“This is Ms. Turner,” Howard said.
Sophie found her voice.
“Mr. Cross,” she said. “Thank you for having me.”
His gaze lingered on her face for the barest beat longer, then dropped to the clipboard in her hand. “You’re early,” he said.
“Traffic was light,” she said evenly. “And the storm isn’t.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. “Prudent.”
Howard stepped back, as if to remove himself from an invisible blast radius. “I’ll let you two talk through your priorities,” he said. “I’ll be in the kitchen coordinating the truck arrivals.”
Coward, she thought.
The door whispered shut behind him.
The quiet that fell was thick.
Nathan watched her.
He had an intensity to him that was... a lot. It wasn’t just that he was looking at her; it was that he was *paying attention*. As if he’d clicked on a spotlight in his brain and pointed it directly at her.
It made her want to shift her weight, smooth her hair, say something flippant just to break the tension.
She did none of those things.
Instead, she stepped forward, the heels of her boots clicking on the floor.
“I wanted to walk through the schedule with you,” she said. “Make sure we’re aligned on flow and any non-negotiables you have.”
“Howard likes the word ‘aligned,’” he said. “It’s very corporate.”
“I like not having surprises,” she said. “It keeps people from screaming at me.”
“Do people scream at you often?” he asked.
“When I’m doing my job right, no.” She gave a small shrug. “When I’m cleaning up other people’s messes, yes.”
“Howard says you’re good at that.”
She tried not to feel a flicker of satisfaction. “I try to be.”
His gaze flicked to the glass wall behind her, then back. “Weather,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “I saw the warning. I’ve confirmed the transportation schedule. The guests’ flights are due to land before the storm starts. The shuttles will run immediately from the airport to here. Worst-case scenario, they’ll hit some flurries on the way up, but they should all arrive by late afternoon.”
“And leaving?” he asked.
She hesitated. “The storm’s supposed to taper off Sunday morning. If it follows the current models, the plows should be able to clear the main roads by early afternoon. We may need to push the departure back a few hours, but I’ll coordinate with the drivers and the guests’ airlines if that becomes necessary.”
“No one stays longer than they have to,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“We’ll do everything in our power to make sure of that,” she said.
His jaw flexed. She didn’t know what that was about, but she filed it away.
He nodded at the clipboard. “Show me.”
She crossed to the desk and laid the schedule out between them.
“We’ll start with a welcome reception tomorrow at noon,” she said. “Casual. Light lunch, drinks. People can arrive, mingle, settle into their rooms. At two, we’ll do the first roundtable in the main conference room. That runs until four, then a coffee break. At five, a more informal Q&A session with you and the other authors.”
His eyebrows rose the tiniest bit. “Informal?”
“Chairs in a circle,” she said. “Drinks. Fewer microphones, more conversation.”
“I don’t do ‘more conversation,’” he said.
“You agreed to a summit,” she pointed out. “That implies some talking.”
He leaned back slightly, the light catching on faint lines at the corners of his eyes. “You’re not what I expected,” he said.
She blinked. “What did you expect?”
He opened his mouth, then shut it again, as if thinking better of it. “Someone who used more buzzwords,” he said at last. “‘Synergy.’ ‘Engagement.’”
“I have a strict policy against ‘synergy,’” she said. “I overuse ‘logistics’ instead. It’s my fatal flaw.”
That almost-smile flickered again, then disappeared.
He glanced back at the schedule. “Fine,” he said. “Informal Q&A. No icebreakers, no games, no trust falls.”
“I don’t do trust falls with executives,” she said. “They never catch anyone.”
He huffed something that, against all odds, might have been a laugh.
It did strange things to his face—softened it, warmed it, made his eyes go less blade-sharp and more something else.
She looked away, quickly.
“Dinner at seven,” she barreled on. “We’ve got a chef coming up from town. Farm-to-table, seasonal menu, no foam or deconstructed anything, per Howard’s note.”
His head snapped up. “He told you that?”
“It came up,” she said.
“Of course it did,” he muttered.
She hid a smile.
“Saturday and Sunday follow similar structures,” she said, flipping the page. “Morning sessions, afternoon workshops, plenty of breaks. I’ve slotted your one-on-one meetings with the streamer executives for Saturday at three. The broadcaster would like an hour with you Sunday morning for a recorded segment.”
His expression shuttered. “Recorded.”
“Yes. On audio, not video. Howard said—”
“I know what Howard said.” His fingers tapped once on the desk. “Fine. Audio.”
He looked like he’d rather be flayed.
She changed the subject. “I’ll need to know if there are any rooms in the house that are off-limits for staff. Or that you’d prefer guests not wander into.”
“Most of the downstairs is fine,” he said. “Except the small library off the west hall. And this room.” His gaze swept the study. “No one comes in here unless I invite them.”
“Understood,” she said. “Staff areas? Where can we stage equipment, extra linens?”
“There’s a service corridor behind the kitchen. Howard will show you. And the mudroom near the garage can take overflow.”
She nodded, jotting notes. “Any absolute no’s besides foam and deconstruction?”
He watched her pen move.
“Photos,” he said. “None of me.”
“Of you,” she repeated. “Right.”
“I know that’s going to be a thing, with media types,” he said, a thread of something—resentment? Weariness?—in his voice. “They can take all the pictures they like of the house, the view, each other. But not of me. I’m not a zoo exhibit.”
“I’ll make that clear from the outset,” she said. “And I’ll handle any... over-enthusiasm.”
“Over-enthusiasm,” he echoed. “Is that your euphemism for ‘insufferable behavior’?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “Sometimes it’s my euphemism for ‘lawsuit waiting to happen.’”
“How many lawsuits have you prevented?” he asked.
“More than I can count,” she said. “And one I couldn’t. But that’s not going to happen here.”
“Confident,” he said.
“I have to be, or nobody else will be.”
Their eyes met and held for a second.
There was a current here. She couldn’t pretend there wasn’t. It wasn’t attraction, exactly. Or if it was, it was braided with wariness, with curiosity, with something like challenge.
“You don’t like this,” she said quietly, before she could stop herself.
“This what?”
“Any of this.” She gestured to the house, the view, the invisible hum of activity in the halls as staff moved around. “The people, the intrusion, the schedule.”
He tilted his head, considering her.
“You’re observant,” he said.
“It’s part of the job.”
“It’s part of mine, too,” he said. “You’re nervous.”
She straightened. “No, I’m not.”
“You drove up early,” he said. “You overpacked supplies. Your left hand keeps tightening on your pen when we talk about the storm.”
Her fingers loosened reflexively.
“That’s not nerves,” she said. “That’s preparation.”
“You think you can control this,” he said. “The summit, the people, the weather, me.”
“I think I can control as much as I can,” she said. “The rest I manage.”
He studied her a moment longer, then nodded once. “Fair enough.”
She exhaled, slow.
The air between them felt less brittle now. Or maybe she’d just acclimated.
“Anything else?” she asked.
His gaze flicked out to the window. The first tiny flakes had started to drift down, lazy and harmless-looking.
“Don’t let anyone get stuck here,” he said softly.
His voice had changed. It was quieter, almost raw.
Sophie’s breath caught.
“We’ll do everything we can to avoid any delays,” she said.
He nodded, but his jaw was tight, a muscle ticking at the corner.
“I mean it,” he said, more sharply. “No one stays longer than they have to. No one gets stranded. I don’t want—” He cut himself off.
“Understood,” she said.
He closed his eyes for half a second. When he opened them, the intensity was back, but something else was there, too—something that looked a lot like fear.
The realization tugged at her.
“If we do get snowed in for a bit,” she said carefully, “we’ll manage. We’ll make sure there’s food, heat, entertainment. People adapt.”
“You have a lot of faith in people,” he said.
“You don’t?” she asked.
His mouth twisted. “No.”
She looked at him, really looked, and saw the exhaustion etched in the lines around his eyes, the faint shadows on his cheeks. He looked like a man who slept badly and braced for impact as a permanent state.
“Then trust me instead,” she said, surprising herself.
His eyebrows rose. “Trust you.”
“With the logistics,” she clarified. “With the chaos. That’s what you hired me for.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth, then back up.
Pulse skipped.
“I hired you,” he said slowly, “because you were the only one at that crypto conference who didn’t look like they wanted to murder everyone.”
She blinked. “You were there?”
“Incognito,” he said. “I had a meeting with one of the execs. It went badly.” His lips thinned. “But I watched you reroute a hundred angry bros to a bar trivia event in under an hour. And you made it look easy.”
She remembered that night. The sweat down her back, the frantic calls, the bribes to get the bar to open early. It had not felt easy.
“I figured,” he went on, “if you could handle that, you could handle this.”
She swallowed.
“So no pressure,” she said.
“Oh, there’s pressure,” he said. “Lots of it. But you seem like you don’t crumble.”
There was something almost like respect in his tone.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
He gave a tiny shrug, as if annoyed with himself for the compliment.
“Howard will show you the rest,” he said. “If you need me, email. Or bang on the glass.”
She smiled, just a little. “I’ll try not to smudge it.”
As she turned to go, he spoke again.
“Ms. Turner.”
She looked back.
“Yes?”
He hesitated. A flicker of something passed over his face, gone too fast to name.
“Don’t get stuck,” he said.
Her chest tightened.
“I’ll do my best,” she said.
Outside, the snow thickened against the glass, soft white flakes tapping like fingers.
***
The rest of the afternoon was a blur.
Howard reappeared and swept her through the service corridors, the kitchen, the staff quarters. The kitchen was a gleaming expanse of stainless steel and stone, the chef and his team already unpacking crates, the air fragrant with roasting stock and baking bread.
“We’ll set up the main buffet here,” she said, pointing to the long island. “Desserts on that side. Coffee stations near the door.”
“You sound like you’ve done this once or twice,” the chef, a compact man with a sleeve of tattoos visible under his rolled-up jacket sleeves, said.
“Once or twice hundred,” she replied.
He grinned. “Good. I hate amateurs.”
By the time the first truck with A/V equipment arrived, the snow had begun in earnest, thickening into a steady fall that made the world outside the windows blur. The drivers stomped in, cheeks red, shaking snow from their hats and shoulders.
“Roads okay?” she asked one.
“For now,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want to be up here after dark.”
“They won’t be,” she said firmly. “You’ll be back down before then.”
They hustled, unloading, setting up screens and microphones, testing cables. The house buzzed with movement.
Once, as she crossed the living room with an armful of extension cords, she glanced up and saw him.
Nathan stood at the railing of the second-floor landing, watching.
He wore the same black T-shirt, but a dark sweater now, open, hung from his shoulders. His expression was unreadable. His gaze tracked her as she moved, paused on a knot of staff hauling a crate, slid to the window where the snow swirled.
Their eyes met across the space.
Electric. Instant.
She looked away first, pretending to focus on an outlet.
She could feel his gaze on the top of her head as she knelt to plug in a power strip.
*Don’t get stuck,* he’d said.
Easier said than done.
By late afternoon, the bulk of the equipment was in place. The guest rooms were prepped, fires laid in the hearths, welcome baskets set on neatly turned-down beds. Each basket held a local chocolate bar, a small bottle of artisanal whiskey, a handwritten note on heavy stock.
“Handwritten?” she’d asked Howard, eyebrows raised.
“Mr. Cross’s idea,” he’d said.
That surprised her.
“What does he say? ‘Welcome to my mountain lair. No photos.’”
“The sentiments are slightly warmer,” Howard said. “But not much.”
She’d stopped in one room and peeked.
The note had read:
> Welcome. > > The house is yours to use, not your stage to perform on. > > Try to enjoy the quiet. > > —N.C.
He had surprisingly neat handwriting. Almost old-fashioned.
As dusk crept in, turning the glass walls into dark mirrors, the snow intensified. It fell now in thick, slanting sheets, borne on a wind that shook the pines.
She stood in the conference room, lights dimmed, staring out at the white.
The storm washer over the mountain like a curtain.
Her phone, now connected to the estate’s Wi-Fi, buzzed.
LIA: U alive?
SOPHIE: Barely. This house is insane.
She snapped a photo of the view and sent it.
LIA: Holy shit. Is he there?
SOPHIE: He’s here, yes.
LIA: And?????
Sophie hesitated.
Her fingers hovered.
Then:
SOPHIE: He’s… intense.
LIA: “Intense” like “my attending yelled at me for ten minutes” or “that guy from Hinge who wanted to roleplay as my stepbrother”?
SOPHIE: Why are those your only metrics.
LIA: Answer the question.
SOPHIE: Somewhere in between.
There was a long series of typing dots, then:
LIA: That’s hot.
SOPHIE: It’s not hot. He’s my client.
LIA: You can still think he’s hot in your *mind*.
SOPHIE: I don’t.
LIA: Liar.
Sophie huffed. Her cheeks felt warm.
SOPHIE: I have to go. Guests tomorrow. Storm tonight.
LIA: Don’t die in an avalanche.
LIA: If you do I’m stealing your ceramic mixing bowls.
SOPHIE: Monsters, all of you.
She slid the phone into her pocket and wrapped her arms around herself, watching the snow.
The storm had teeth, just like the warning had said.
But they were ready. The generators had been tested again. The kitchen was stocked. The fireplaces were stacked with wood. The staff had been given rooms for the night rather than sent back down.
“Just in case,” Howard had said.
Just in case.
She rubbed the back of her neck.
Somewhere above, footsteps creaked. A door shut. A muffled voice retreated.
She wondered what Nathan was doing.
Writing, probably. Or pacing. Or standing at that glass wall, glowering at the storm like he could will it away.
The thought made something in her chest twist.
She turned away from the window and went to double-check the welcome table.
If the storm wanted to come, it could come.
She’d be ready.
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