The fire in the granite hearth snaps, sending a shower of orange sparks up the flue. It’s the only sound besides the relentless hiss of snow against the panoramic windows, a white wall that has erased the city and every exit.
Elena doesn’t step back. She squares her shoulders, a move he’s seen a hundred times in press scrums. “You’re delusional. The only business we have is you giving me a decent quote for my column tomorrow.”
“Column’s dead. Power’s out at the print hub. No one’s reading anything tomorrow.” Cole’s voice is a low rumble, almost lost under another gust. “Just us.”
Her eyes dart to the empty concierge desk, the dark hall leading to the bar. The hotel is a gorgeous tomb. She’s calculating exits, he realizes. Always working.
“So we sit on opposite sides of the lobby. Like civilized people.”
“We’re not civilized.” He says it simply. A fact. “We spent the whole season trying to tear each other apart in the papers. You called me a ‘washed-up cannon with a misfiring brain.’”
“You called my reporting ‘vindictive blade-work.’” A flicker of satisfaction in her dark gaze. She remembers every word.
“See?” He takes another half-step. The scent of her cuts through woodsmoke—espresso, ink, something clean and sharp. “We know each other.”
His thumb is still suspended in the air near her cheek. He lets it drop, but not back to his side. It comes to rest on the cool marble desk beside her hip. Caging her in without touching.
She stares at his hand. The knuckles are scarred, the nails short and clean. A working hand. A throwing hand. “Back up, Dawson.”
“Tell me about the scar.”
“It’s old.”
“Not that old.” His gaze is relentless on her mouth. She does the twist again, a subtle curl of her upper lip. Hiding it. “You were twenty-four. Your byline photo before that didn’t have it.”
She goes very still. He’s done his homework. More than homework.
“You don’t get to audit my face.” Her voice is tighter now. The polished veneer has a hairline fracture.
“Why not?” He leans in, his shoulder blocking the firelight, casting her in his shadow. The heat from his body is a solid wall. “What’s so terrible about a little mark?”
Her breath hitches. It’s barely audible, but he catches it. A victory.
“It’s not terrible.” She looks past him, at the storm. “It’s private.”
“Nothing’s private tonight.” He watches the pulse jump in her throat. A frantic, betraying rhythm. His own heart answers it, a heavy thud against his ribs.
The silence stretches, filled by the crackling logs. Then, slowly, her head turns back. Her eyes meet his, and the defiance in them is a live wire. “You want to know?”
“Yes.”
She lifts her chin. “A source. A bad one. He didn’t like the questions I was asking. Threw a glass.”
Cole’s jaw tightens. A cold, sharp anger unfolds in his gut, unrelated to their rivalry. The image is too clear: her, younger, facing a shattered tumbler.
“He missed,” she says, her voice flat. “It hit the wall. A shard caught me on the ricochet. Seven stitches.”
She delivers it like a police report. No emotion. But her hand, resting on her thigh, is clenched into a white-knuckled fist.
Cole doesn’t think. He moves. His callused thumb, finally, brushes the silvery crescent above her lip. It’s smoother than he expected. A faint ridge.
Elena flinches as if burned. But she doesn’t pull away.
Her skin is warm. Soft. The contrast with the rough pad of his thumb is shocking. Intimate. He holds his breath.
Her dark eyes are wide, locked on his. The carefully constructed wall in them is gone, replaced by pure, unguarded shock. And underneath it, a heat that mirrors the fire at his back.
He traces the scar once, a whisper of a touch. “You shouldn’t hide it.”
Her lips part. No sound comes out.
The world narrows to the point of contact, to the storm outside, to the frantic beat of her pulse under his thumb where it now rests on the corner of her jaw.
Everything has changed.