Christmas By Design

10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Gemma

We’re able to stop at a grocery store and grab some bread, peanut butter, cereal, and a few other snacks to hold us over. There won’t be power at the house since it was shut off to do the electrical rewiring, so we can’t cook. I haven’t allowed myself to think about what sleeping in a house with no heat or power in the middle of a snowstorm is going to be like. My mind is racing, and so is my heart. I can only deal with one step at a time.

While Beckett gets the food, I hang back in the car so I can call my parents, though I don’t tell him why. I just quietly ask if he wouldn’t mind going in alone, and he doesn’t ask questions. I do a video call so I can see Nova’s sweet face. She smiles at me and tries to grab at the phone. My parents keep moving it out of her reach as they assure me up and down that she’ll be just fine and not to worry at all.

By the time I hang up with them, I’m holding back tears and biting my nails. It doesn’t matter how much they tell me not to worry. I’ve never spent a night away from my baby, and I’m nervous as hell about it.

Beckett comes back holding several paper grocery bags. He slides them into the back seat and wordlessly pulls out of the parking lot. I keep my face turned toward the passenger side window in case I start crying. I don’t have a lot of shame about my emotions, but I will not have a crying panic attack in front of Beckett Camdon. I can control this anxiety like I always do. I just need a minute.

He takes a breath as if he’s going to say something, then lets it out slowly. After a minute or so, he does it again. All of my energy is going toward not breaking down, so I don’t have any reserves to worry about what he’s trying to say.

When we pull up to the house, it has just started to snow. Big, wet flakes smack against the windshield. My hot chocolate sits in the cupholder to my left, probably cold by now. The bag of muffins is at my feet. I had been starving when I ordered one, but now I feel like I’m going to throw up.

One night. I can make it through one night. Nova is fine. My parents will love the extra time alone with her. It’s all going to be okay.

“It’s…” Beckett trails off and takes a breath to start again. “I’m not…”

“Spit it out, Kit.”

“What?” he asks, confused.

“You’ve been trying to say something for the past five miles at least. Just say it,” I insist, still not turning my face from the window.

“I heard Alex talking to you yesterday. I know it’s none of my business but—”

I whip my head toward him at that. “You what ?”

“He is not a quiet man,” Beckett says defensively, and I have to give it to him because that’s true. “He’s not hard to hear. And I was coming back to your desk with an update about something, so I wasn’t far.”

I search his blue eyes, trying not to let my hurt show. But the hurt feels good. It feels so much better than the panic that has been creeping up on me since the coffee shop, so I lean into it. “You didn’t.”

The space between his eyebrows creases. “Didn’t what?”

“Come back to give me an update.”

“No. I—”

“Because you heard what Alex said,” I cut him off again.

The crease between Beckett’s eyebrows deepens slightly, then he snaps his mouth shut as if he has just realized why that would be an issue. He heard Alex insinuate I was flirting, which is embarrassing enough, but then he shut me out of a project update because of it. Even though he knows I’m more than capable of doing this job. Even though he’s never treated me like that before.

I expect him to say something in his defense, but he doesn’t. He just quickly opens the car door and gets out. He grabs the grocery bags and stalks through the falling snow up to the front door. White flakes cling to his wool coat and land in his dark hair as he walks.

Okay, then.

Now, the panic is back tenfold because not only do I have to spend the night away from my baby, but I have to do it with a pissed off Beckett Camdon, who either thinks I was flirting with him or thinks people think I was flirting with him.

I watch him enter the house and flick an internal light switch. Nothing.

Great.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I guess I was hopeful they’d have the electricity back on, at least.

Well, it’s more likely that I’ll freeze to death in a car buried by snow than in a house, even if that house doesn’t have power or heat, so there’s nothing left to do but go inside. I loop the handle of the bag of muffins over my forearm and take both my hot chocolate and Beckett’s before shoving the car door open with my foot and kicking it closed.

When I get inside the house, Beckett closes the door behind me. It’s warmer in here than it is outside without the wind, but not by much. The panicky feeling starts rising in my chest. I can feel my breaths starting to get shorter and shallower.

Not here. I can’t do this here. I shove it down as much as I can and walk toward the kitchen so I can set down the things I’m carrying. I hear Beckett’s fancy shoes clicking on the tile right behind me.

“Were you?” he asks.

“Was I what?” I say through clenched teeth. I take the muffins out of the bag just for something to do, but I don’t think I could eat right now even if I wanted to.

“Flirting.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I manage to say. I’m going to lose it. I can feel it. And I’m not going to lose it in front of a coworker. With all this talk about flirting, he already probably thinks I can’t be professional. I don’t want to prove him right. “Listen, I just… I need a minute, okay?” I don’t wait for a response before walking through the living room and sitting room and straight into the first-floor office. I carefully push the door shut.

That done, I lean against the wall and sink to the floor. I pull my knees into my chest and rest my forehead on them. I try to take some deep breaths, but it’s hard to breathe around the knot of panic in my throat. What comes out instead are a couple of big, gasping sobs as the tears start flowing.