Chapter 2

Sienna looked at Logan immediately.

Not like an employee.

Like a girl waiting to see if her man would choose her.

Logan was quiet for two seconds.

Then he said, "Fine. I'll handle it."

Her face went white.

"Logan..."

He glanced toward the windows, where the city was already buried in holiday traffic.

"It's late. I'll take her home."

I stared at him.

"You just said you'd fire her."

"I will." His voice dropped, the way it always did when he wanted me to stop embarrassing him. "But I'm not letting her walk home in sleet on Christmas Eve."

Of course not.

Sienna had to be protected from the weather.

I had apparently been built to survive anything.

They left together.

The door clicked shut.

The Christmas playlist kept playing.

The chicken went cold.

The gravy formed a skin.

The cake sat untouched under the warm kitchen light.

Two hours later, Logan came back.

By then, I had thrown the entire dinner into the trash.

He paused at the sight of the empty table.

Then his eyes moved to me.

"Ava—"

His collar was open.

One button near his throat had been fastened wrong.

His hair was slightly damp at the nape, as if snow had melted there—or as if someone had run her fingers through it.

On the edge of his white shirt was a faint smear of pink gloss.

Sienna had posted again ten minutes earlier.

His fiancée showed up and made him promise to fire me. Poor thing.

Next line:

He still walked me to his car. He still kissed me until the windows fogged. He went back upstairs with my gloss on his collar and his shirt buttoned wrong.

She added a winking emoji.

Merry Christmas to me.

Everything matched.

The two hours.

The collar.

The gloss.

The way Logan stood in the doorway like a man already preparing to lie.

He reached for me.

I stepped back.

"Don't touch me."

His hand stopped midair.

"Ava."

The scent hit me then.

Not his usual cedar cologne.

Vanilla.

Sienna's perfume.

It was on his coat, his shirt, the air around him.

My stomach turned.

I ran to the bathroom and gripped the sink. Nothing came out. My body only shook, dry and useless, like even my nausea had been humiliated.

Logan followed.

"Are you sick?" He rubbed my back. "Did you eat something?"

I flinched away from his hand.

"Is Sienna just your assistant?"

He frowned.

"Of course she is."

I laughed.

It sounded ugly.

I pulled up the posts and handed him my phone.

"Then what's this?"

Logan took it.

He read.

For a long time.

I watched his face carefully.

Shock would have been nice.

Anger would have been better.

Guilt would have been something.

Instead, he only looked tired.

"She's young," he said. "She likes attention. She exaggerates everything online."

"She exaggerated the Christmas lights?"

"Ava—"

"She exaggerated your ring in her hand?"

His mouth tightened.

"She exaggerated the lip gloss on your collar?"

Logan looked away.

There it was.

The smallest confession.

Not enough to be honest.

Enough to insult me.

"Don't make this bigger than it is," he said.

I stared at him.

"Do you know I hate cinnamon?"

He blinked.

"What?"

"Do you know I hate cinnamon?"

He didn't answer.

Because he didn't know.

Every December, Logan bought cinnamon candles because he liked how they made his apartment smell "warm." I had sneezed through them for five years.

He did not know.

But Sienna's post said he remembered she liked peppermint mocha with oat milk, no whipped cream, extra chocolate drizzle.

He knew that.

"Do you know I like spicy food?" I asked.

His expression grew confused.

"You never—"

"I stopped asking because your stomach hurt every time we ate it."

Silence.

"And the passenger seat?" I continued. "Remember when I brought that little ceramic fox from my first work trip and wanted to put it in your car?"

Logan's jaw flexed.

"You said you hated clutter," I said. "But Sienna has a pink blanket, lip balm, a stuffed reindeer, and a glitter sign that says Princess Seat."

He rubbed his temple.

"I'll clean the car."

"That's not the point."

He looked at me then, and his voice softened.

"After Christmas, I'll transfer her. I'll make everything normal again. We can still have the engagement party in January."

Normal.

As if betrayal were a table he could wipe down.

As if my ring, my dinner, my six-hour drive, his assistant's perfume on his shirt—none of it mattered if he paid someone to delete a few posts.

Sienna had written that I only had the title.

Maybe she was right.

If being his fiancée meant standing in his kitchen while another woman documented the places her mouth had been, she could have the man.

I looked at Logan.

"No."

His eyes sharpened.

"No what?"

"No engagement party."

"Ava."

"No wedding registry. No venue. No January announcement."

He stared at me like I had spoken a foreign language.

I took the ring off my finger and placed it on the sink between us.

"I'm done."