“Sam hated me after he caught us in bed together. In his mind, I was as guilty for hurting Della as Connor was, and if he knew I had this whole online affair with someone and . . . oops, it’s Connor! If he knew the real reason I came to the cabin after your wedding, I don’t know if he could forgive me.”

“So what’s your plan? To carry on and hope he doesn’t ever find out?”

“Not forever. Just until things aren’t so fragile.”

Hanna’s quiet for a minute, her eyes tired and looking too wise. She went through a lot to get to her happily-ever-after with Nate. In a lot of ways, she’s much more mature than I am. She’s definitely had to make harder decisions than I have.

“I think you should do it sooner than later,” she says. “I don’t want you hurt. Please be careful.”

* * *

Sam

I start my Christmas morning with a run. The sun’s shining on the blanket of snow, and the air is crisp but not cold enough to keep me inside. I should have had her stay over last night. What would it be like to wake up with Liz in my arms every day? To bring her coffee in bed and make love to her before I leave for the bank? What would it be like to know she’d be there when I got home?

By the time I’ve logged five miles and am coming back around the block to my house, I’m straight up grinning. I didn’t have her stay with me last night. I didn’t get to wake up next to her on this Christmas morning, but next year—

“It’s her second Christmas.”

I jerk my head up to see Asia Franks sitting on the floor of my front porch. She’s leaning against the door in a big black coat that swallows her up.

“You aren’t supposed to be here. You got your money. Leave.”

When she lifts her head, tears clots her thick, dark lashes. “I can’t stop picturing her. This pudgy-faced two-year-old tearing at Christmas wrapping.” She shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Get away from me,” I breathe. “Get away from my house. You have no right—”

“How can you act like I’m the evil one here?”

Because you took my child. But I don’t say the words, because the woman in front of me isn’t the calculating witch who blackmailed me weeks ago. This is a mother with a broken heart.

“They won’t let me see her,” she says, her voice small. “I just want to see her.”

“What are you talking about?”

She stumbles as she pushes to her feet. God. She’s drunk. Christmas morning and she’s so drunk she can hardly stand straight. “You have to talk to that man. You walk around thinking I’m the devil and that man is the one lying to you.”

“What man?”

“The man who bribed me to get out of your life. The man who told me I had to tell you I got an abortion, even if I promised to give her up for adoption.”

My thoughts of Liz must be making me hallucinate. That’s the only way to explain all this hope in my chest. It’s the only explanation for the question I hear myself asking. “Are you saying you had the baby? You had our baby?”

“I sold my soul.” Her face is wet with tears now, and my gut twists into knots. I don’t know if I can believe her or if this is just another manipulation. “I sold my soul to a blond-haired devil and now I’m paying the price.”

* * *

Liz

I don’t know why he invited me.

The dinner table is overflowing with the dishes Sam’s mother and sisters prepared, and the dining room is so full of people, smells of warm food, and at least half a dozen conversations that I don’t feel like there’s room for me to breathe, let alone think.

Watching Mr. Bradshaw with his wife and kids is fascinating. He’s not the candidate today. He’s the man. And it’s so refreshing to see that the two aren’t all that different that it makes me like him even more.

I love the way Sam’s siblings poke at each other, joking and teasing.

I want to love this. I want us to be any other couple sharing a family holiday for the first time. But I feel like everything changed the minute I walked in the door. Connor was holding his baby and paled at the sight of me. Della sneered. And when Mr. Bradshaw spotted me, something flashed over his face, and I could tell he was hurt that I didn’t stay away from Sam as he’d requested. But worst of all is Sam. He barely greeted me when I arrived, and he hasn’t said a word the entire time. He keeps glaring at Connor, and he barked at him when Connor dared wish him a merry Christmas.

If Sam’s rethinking having me here, I wish he would have called and asked me to stay home. That would have hurt, but it would have been preferable to being a pariah at another family’s Christmas.

“Potatoes?” Sam asks from beside me. I jump at the sound of his voice, then paste on a smile and dish myself some out of the big ceramic dish.

Sam’s younger brother, Ian, takes the seat next to me. “If you have some time after dinner, you should let me show you the Corvette I’m restoring in the barn.” He drags his eyes over me meaningfully, obviously. “I’m pretty good with my hands, you know.”

“Little man,” Sam warns in a growl, never turning toward his brother or me, “if you don’t take your eyes off my girlfriend, I’ll do it for you.”

Ian flushes and turns his attention to his food, and my cheeks burn too. Maybe he’s in a bad mood, but he just called me his girlfriend again. Such a silly little word, and it means everything.