I don’t see how this marriage is going to work.

Her heart squeezed at his words. It was like he was holding it in the palm of his hand and squeezing all the life out of it. “What? What do you mean?”

“I mean it feels like we’re losing sight of what’s important,” he replied.

She studied him, trying to make sure she understood what he meant. The expression on his face was unreadable. “You want to leave me? You want a divorce—”

“What are you talking about?” he interrupted sharply. “Of course not.”

Air forced out of her lungs. Breathe. She had to breathe. Her emotions were all over the place. And her nerves were completely fried from stress. No wonder she had assumed the worst. “So, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that sometimes it’s good to reassess,” he explained. “Figure out if we’re on the right track. On the same page.” He closed his eyes and heaved out a sigh of exasperation. “Maybe I’m not making sense.”

“We’re not losing sight of what’s important,” she insisted. “How is wanting to get home to be with our families the wrong priority? Family is what Christmas is all about.”

“I’m your family, too, Allyson,” he said, opening his eyes. “I know being here isn’t what you wanted, but this is our chance to get some alone time.”

She buried her head in her hands. This was wrong. All wrong. Christmas wasn’t about being alone. It was about being surrounded by all your friends and family. Togetherness. Why couldn’t he see that? With a muffled groan she lifted her head and asked, “Did you spend a lot of Christmases alone when you were a kid?” Maybe something in this childhood would clue her in.

His corners of his lips tugged down into a frown. “I had my parents most Christmases. We’d vacation in upstate New York. Though there were some years when they were too busy with work, so I got shuffled off to other relatives.”

“Did that make you feel lonely?” she asked. “When they weren’t around?”

He shrugged. “Sure, I guess. Honestly, I probably felt lonelier when they were around. We didn’t have quiet Christmases when my parents were around. We’d host banquets—”

She made a face at the word banquets.

“Yes, Allyson,” he rushed on, “banquets. And it felt like all of high society was around. I never got a moment’s peace. I don’t know how many dukes, senators, and heiresses I had to talk to when all I wanted to do was be a kid. In a lot of ways, even though my parents indulged me, I got treated like an adult.”

“So that’s why you haven’t warmed to the idea of having so much family around for the holidays,” she said softly. Being paraded around like that must have been stifling for him.

“I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but I guess my upbringing is part of it,” he said. “Half the people we’re inviting over for Christmas are high-society types. And you know how I feel about most of them.”

She sighed. “This is such a mess. All I wanted was to be in New York tomorrow. That’s all I wanted.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why tomorrow especially?”

She opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out. Dammit. Already she’d revealed too much. He wasn’t supposed to know about the plans she had made with Cameron. Wasn’t supposed to know the real reason she had been distracted all these weeks.

Grimacing, she said, “We were supposed to spend time with Holly’s new baby. I just wanted to spend some quality time with my nephew, is all.” At least that wasn’t a complete lie. She really had been looking forward to spending time with Owen, but that wasn’t the reason for the desperate, aching panic that tightened her stomach.

Not to mention, with so much going on she needed her family with her. Needed their support while she went through this. Being alone with Dane like this and not being able to tell him the truth... it was shattering her.

“So that’s all that’s been bothering you?” he pressed.

Before she could stammer out a response, Chef Durand appeared in the living room.

He cleared his throat loudly and said, “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Prescott. Dinner will be set in ten minutes.”

Allyson felt her face flush with embarrassment. Had Chef Durand heard their heated argument? She didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. Especially since he had agreed to work on such short notice.

“Good evening, Chef,” Dane said. “Thank you. Do you want us in the dining room or outside?”

The chef spread his arms wide to gesture around the room. “The dining room, outside, the living room, the kitchen... wherever you’d like, Mr. Prescott.”

Dane shot her a questioning glance. “Allyson?”

“The living room would be great,” she replied. “Thank you so much, Chef.”

Chef Durand flashed a smile and headed back out of the room.

“Do you think he heard us arguing?” She chewed her bottom lip, concern flooding her.

Her husband sighed. “I hope not. No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t matter. He won’t say anything to anyone. He’s the hired—never mind. Maybe, let’s just try to make the best of this. I know this isn’t what you wanted, but we’re here now.”

She wished she knew how to make him understand. But looking at him now, she was reminded of how different they were. Every time it felt like they were getting closer and closer to each other, life threw a wrench into the works.

Despite his assurances that he wasn’t entertaining a divorce, anxiety was setting her on edge. As bad as a divorce was, that wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to them. Nothing scared her more than the prospect of waking up one day and finding that she and Dane were strangers to each other. Two people living under the same roof, who had no idea how they had gotten there in the first place.

“I’m sorry I’ve lost a bit of my Christmas spirit,” she said gloomily.

“Well, earlier when I wasn’t feeling it, you tried to get me all excited about Christmas,” he pointed out. “Now, it looks like it’s my turn to get you excited again.”

She glanced back at the television. The weatherman was talking in front of a map of the United States. “Oh, Dane! Turn up the volume.”

He pointed the remote as the television and the weatherman’s voice filled the room.

The weatherman gestured to the northeast and started talking about the snowstorm. “This storm is heading towards the East Coast. It’s probably going to start snowing hardest at about 1pm local time tomorrow.” He continued, explaining specifics of the snowstorm. “This is a very dangerous storm, and flights to and from New York have been cancelled. The storm looks like it will last longer than predicted, going into Christmas Eve. So, if you’ve got any plans that require you to fly into or out of New York, you might want to cancel them.”

~~*~~

“I KNEW IT.” SHE WAS still staring at the TV. “We’re not going to have a Christmas.”

Dane frowned. It was clear that Allyson had a specific idea of what Christmas should be, and she had no desire to entertain anything else. “We can try to do some of the things you usually do with your family.”

“We can’t make a snowman here,” she said flatly.

“No, we can’t.” He stood up. “I’m going to check upon Chef Durand. Maybe eating something will lift your spirits.”

“I doubt it,” she said.

Forcing aside his annoyance, he headed into the gourmet kitchen to check on Chef Durand’s progress. Minutes later, the chef brought out their dinner and served them at the dinner table. With dinner served, he walked back to the kitchen, leaving Dane alone with his wife.

She took a seat across from him and looked down at her stewed pork. “It really does smell good,” she admitted.

It did. Dane dug in. Though the food was good, eating in such tense silence with Allyson wasn’t exactly his idea of festive.

Still, it wasn’t going to do any good being upset with her. He hadn’t been all that excited about the prospect of Christmas in New York, so she deserved a little leeway with her feelings now. Even if it did sting to know that his plan to spend their holiday in the tropics didn’t sit well with her.

“What kind of things do you usually do with your family for Christmas?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Exchange gifts. Sing carols. Drink eggnog.”

“I don’t know about the eggnog, but we can do all that other stuff here,” he said.

“Yeah, but it’s not the same,” she murmured.

“It’s not,” he relented. “But what if that’s the beauty of it? All over the world people celebrate Christmas differently, and that’s what makes it so great.”

Her expression softened. “It would be nice to learn about how people celebrate Christmas here. I mean, Christmas is probably beautiful all over the world. It’s not bad or wrong just because it’s different.”

“Right.”

“I just miss my family,” she said. “I was really looking forward to both of our families spending time together for the holidays. That’s the thing about Christmas—we don’t know where we’ll all be in the future, but at least we know for this Christmas we’ll be together. Or at least, I thought we would be.”

He took a big gulp of fruit juice. “You never know. The weather might still clear up and we’ll get back to New York before Christmas Day.”

Allyson lowered her eyes and her entire body seemed to wilt. “With my luck, I doubt it. No, Dane, I think we’ll be spending the holidays here at the villa.”

“Relaxing might do you some good,” he reminded her.

“I don’t want to relax.” Her voice rose, the agitation unmistakable. “If I wanted to relax I wouldn’t have decided to organize Christmas. Now it’s looking like we’ll have to cancel everything, and that takes organization, too, believe it or not.”

“You need to organize a cancellation?” he asked, baffled.

“Yes, of course I do,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “The caterers are coming over tomorrow so that we could both taste the final product. It took forever for me to find the right caterers. I had to make sure the food was something everyone would like. It had to be the comfort food my family would like, but somehow appeal to your family, too.”

“Makes sense.” Getting the right food had probably been a serious undertaking for her. While his parents would have been content to eat caviar, her parents wouldn’t have known what to make of it all. Sure, her parents sometimes tried a little too hard to seem like they had adjusted to Allyson’s newfound wealth, but they were still middle-class people. Caviar and escargot wasn’t exactly the type of food the Smiths had on their traditional Christmas menu.

“And,” she went on, “it would have been great for your side of the family to finally meet Owen. He’s my nephew, but he’s yours as well, Dane. You might not be related by blood, but you’re family now. This was our first chance to make real connections as a family.”

“We can still try to do that,” he said. “If we make it to New York too late, we can try to find a weekend to celebrate Christmas—”

“No. Absolutely not,” she interrupted. “Christmas is Christmas. There’s no replacement for it.”

Unwilling to give up, he suggested, “How about New Year’s?”

“It’s not the same,” she said, shooting him down. “There’s nothing like Christmas. Now it’s ruined. This whole day has been a disaster.”

He stabbed his food with a fork and forced down a bite. It might as well have tasted like sand. Things weren’t going according to plan, but it hurt like hell knowing she’d rather not be here with him. She was acting like finally getting time alone together was the worst she could have gotten. How had they drifted so far apart so quickly? Exasperation gripped him.

He scowled. “So, being alone with me is a disaster?”

“You’re twisting my words,” she cried.

“Am I? Because right now it looks like you can’t wait to get the hell away from me,” he said. “You talk about wanting to be with family, while forgetting that I’m your family, too.”

“That’s not fair,” she said.

The suspicion that he had bottled up and locked away was rising to the surface. He could feel it. “Considering how much you’ve been hiding from me, I shouldn’t be surprised that spending Christmas with your own husband is the last thing you want to do.”

“That’s not true and you know it.” Furious, she tossed her napkin onto the table and shot to her feet. Without a second glance she spun on her heel and stormed out of the living room, leaving him alone to stew in his anger.