Read Chapter 34: The Choice

The breakfast rush was over, the dining room empty except for the last crumbs of abandoned scones, and Maren had just finished wiping down the espresso machine when she heard voices in the hallway. Julian's office door, slightly ajar. She hadn't meant to stop there. She'd meant to walk past, down to the basement where the festival decorations had been gathering dust since November.

But Natasha's voice, low and silver-toned, pulled her up short.

"It's not just an invitation, Julian. It's an opportunity." A pause, the soft creak of his chair. "We'd be co-writers. Equal credit. My publisher is already interested in a joint project—imagine what a month in London could do for your draft."

Maren's fingers tightened around the rag in her hand.

"I don't know." Julian's voice came through the crack in the door, hesitant in a way that made her stomach clench. "The inn—"

"Can run itself for a month. You have staff." Natasha's laugh was light, musical. "And honestly, you're not doing yourself any favors playing innkeeper forever. You have a second book in you, Julian. I read the first one—it was good. But this new thing, about your father, about this house? That's the one that matters."

Silence.

"You're not saying no," Natasha noted, and there was something almost pleased in her tone.

"I'm not saying yes, either." But Julian's voice had an edge of uncertainty that sounded, to Maren's ears, like a man already packing his bags.

She moved before she could hear more, her footsteps soft on the worn floorboards as she retreated down the corridor. The rag was still in her hand, twisted into a knot so tight her knuckles ached.

So that was it. London. Co-writing a screenplay with a beautiful, famous novelist who could open doors Maren couldn't even see from the back kitchen of a Vermont inn.

Maren had told him to go. She'd stood in the snow not three days ago, stung by jealousy, and practically pushed him out the door. What had she expected? That he'd refuse? That he'd look at her with those gray eyes and say, *No, I'm staying here with you*?

He hadn't. He hadn't said anything.

She threw herself into the winter festival with a ferocity that startled even her. The town had embraced the idea—a lantern walk through the snowy woods, a bonfire in the meadow, sledding for the kids, and a tasting menu in the inn's barn, which she'd spent two days transforming into a warm, string-lit haven of wooden trestle tables and pine garlands. She made lists. She checked them twice. She cross-referenced them with new lists.

She did everything except walk past Julian's office again.

It was absurd, really. They were business partners. They had an inn to run. The festival was, in theory, a joint venture—their names had gone on the flyers together, Maren Cole and Julian Ward, the same line, separated by a tiny ampersand that felt like a gulf. But she didn't ask his opinion on the mulled wine recipe she was testing in the kitchen. She didn't tell him that the lantern supplier had called with a delivery delay. She left notes in his office with clipped, professional instructions and signed them with her initials, like he was a contractor she barely tolerated.

She knew she was being unfair. She knew he was confused. She could feel his gaze on her from across the dining room during the evening service, could sense the questions gathering at the edge of his mouth, but she always found an excuse to be elsewhere—refilling the salt cellars, checking on a table, disappearing into the cellar for another case of wine.

"You're being weird," Lily said bluntly on the third evening, finding Maren in the kitchen at midnight, staring at a tray of unfrosted gingerbread cookies she'd baked for the festival's children's corner. "Like, aggressively normal. It's unsettling."

"I'm just focused." Maren picked up a piping bag, squeezed a careful swirl of royal icing onto a snowman's belly.

"Mm-hmm." Lily hopped up onto the counter, her legs swinging. "And the fact that Julian came by the front desk three times today, making up excuses, clearly looking for you—"

"Was he?" Maren's hand slipped; the snowman gained a lopsided extra arm.

"He was. He asked if you'd tried the new coffee beans. Which, by the way, you haven't—they're still in the pantry, unopened." Lily studied her sister. "What happened? You were frozen solid when I got here, but at least you were thawing. Now you're ice again."

"Nothing happened." Maren set down the piping bag, wiped her hands on her apron. "He's going to London. With Natasha. For a month."

"Did he say that?"

"He didn't have to."

Lily was quiet for a moment. "Maren. You cooked him dinner. You helped him dig up letters from his dead father. You ran an inn with him through a blizzard. And you haven't had one actual conversation about how you feel?" She shook her head. "You're both idiots."

"Thank you for that profound insight."

"Anytime." Lily slid off the counter, came to stand beside Maren at the table. "Look. I'm the last person who should give relationship advice. My whole life is a cautionary tale right now." Her voice flickered, a shadow passing over her face. "But if you let him leave without saying something real, you'll regret it. Trust me. I know what regret feels like."

Maren looked at her sister—the dark circles under her eyes, the way her hands twisted together when she thought no one was watching. There was so much she hadn't told Lily. About their mother. About the letters. About Nora.

"Maybe I will," she said finally. "Say something real. After the festival. When things are calmer."

Lily's smile was small but genuine. "After the festival. Sure. Because that's worked so well for you so far."

The night of the festival arrived on a breath of bitter wind and clear, star-bright sky. Maren had barely slept the night before, but she moved through the evening on a current of adrenaline, directing volunteers, lighting lanterns, replenishing the mulled wine in the huge copper pot that sat steaming at the barn's entrance. The inn glowed golden against the snow, and the meadow had become a fairyland of candlelight, the children's laughter echoing across the frozen ground.

It should have felt triumphant. And for moments at a time, it did—when she watched an elderly couple swaying to the string quartet she'd hired, when a little girl tugged on her sleeve to show her a snowflake she'd caught on her mitten. Maren smiled and nodded and kept moving.

She didn't see Julian until the bonfire.

He was standing at the edge of the light, silhouetted against the flames, a glass of mulled wine forgotten in his hand. Natasha was beside him—she'd come, of course, all glamour and good humor, wrapped in a fur-trimmed coat that probably cost more than Maren's entire wardrobe. She was laughing at something Julian had said, her hand resting lightly on his arm.

Maren watched them for a long moment. Then she turned away.

The barn was quieter now, most of the guests outside by the fire. The trestle tables were littered with empty cups and plates. She started gathering them, mechanically, her hands moving while her mind remained stubbornly on the image of Natasha's hand on Julian's sleeve.

"Maren."

She didn't turn. "The coffee beans," she said flatly, stacking a plate. "I found them. I'll try them tomorrow."

"That's not—" Julian's hand closed around her wrist, gentle but insistent, turning her toward him. The barn's string lights caught the worry in his eyes. "You've been avoiding me for a week. Did I do something? Did I say something?"

"No." She pulled her wrist free, set down the plates. "You didn't do anything wrong. You're fine. Everything's fine."

"Maren." His voice was low, frustrated. "You're not fine. You're—you're radiating cold, and I don't mean the weather."

She laughed, a short, humorless sound. "I'm a winter guest, remember? Cold is what I do."

His jaw tightened. "That's not—what happened? Is it the festival? Is it the auction aftermath? Because if there's something I can fix—"

"You can go to London," she said. The words came out before she could stop them, crisp and final. "That's what you want, right? A month in London. Co-writing a screenplay with Natasha. A door she can open that I can't even see."

Julian stared at her. Understanding dawned slowly across his face, followed by something that looked like hurt. "You were listening. At my office door."

"I wasn't spying. I was walking past."

"You heard me hesitate."

"I heard you not say no." Maren's voice cracked, and she hated it. She drew a breath, steadied herself. "Which is fine. It's a good opportunity. You should take it."

"I—" Julian ran a hand through his hair, words tangling. "It's not that simple."

"It is, actually." She forced a smile. "It's very simple. You want to write. She's offering you a chance to do that. I want this inn to thrive, and I can run it alone—I have been running it alone, really, since Arthur left. We're business partners, Julian. We were never anything more than that."

The silence between them stretched, taut and terrible.

"Maren—"

"Go enjoy the bonfire." She turned back to the table, picked up another stack of plates. "I'll handle the cleanup. You have company."

She heard him exhale behind her, heard the scrape of his boot on the floorboards as if he might step toward her, but she didn't turn around. She kept stacking plates until she heard his footsteps retreating, and then she stood there, alone in the barn, surrounded by the remnants of a perfect evening she couldn't feel.