Regardless of how perturbed she was by his sudden appearance, Hunter was ever the gracious host as he shepherded Roxanne past her fawning relatives, both of them waving away her family with assurances that they’d be right back with promises of stories about Madrid and Roxanne’s snowbound adventure when they returned. She didn’t need too long, Hunter promised on her behalf in his best showman’s voice, she only needed a few moments to freshen up. He walked behind her with one hand placed tenderly on her lower back and the other steering her by her upper arm. Anyone looking would have thought they were madly in love, but it was all an act they’d perfected after spending years evading paparazzi at fashion shows and haute parties.

It was the choreography of people escaping other people, although Roxanne and Hunter both probably had very different reasons for doing so. Roxanne was not looking forward to the inevitable deluge of questions when she and Hunter were tucked privately away behind closed doors. The last they’d spoken Hunter had suggested that the needed to talk about their relationship. She had been sure that was the end, but his being here—and the delicate way he was handling her—made her second guess herself.

They didn’t speak to each other as they made their way to the back bedroom that had been Roxanne’s when she was a girl and would visit the cabin. Instead, Roxanne pulled her suitcase along behind her and distracted herself by letting her thoughts run through the contents of her luggage, refusing to let her façade falter until she’d cached all remaining thoughts of Mark and decided on what to wear for the remainder of the evening. She’d over-packed, like usual. Mercifully, Hunter was quiet behind her, and didn’t ask any questions she didn’t want to answer. A small Christmas miracle.

When they pushed into the bedroom at the end of the hall, Roxanne was surprised to find that not much had changed about the room in all these years since she’d stopped showing up for family holidays. For the most part, the room still looked exactly as it had a dozen years ago: overwhelming pink, with paper dolls and back issues of Cosmopolitan and other assorted fashion magazines piled high along the cozy window seat that faced out on the western side of the cabin. There were dozens of old sketchbooks, too—the ones she’d drawn her very first designs in. She even spotted her old caboodle, covered in Lisa Frank stickers, beside a fringe-rimmed pink pillow.

Spencer had been right, Roxanne thought. Being here was quaint, but damn if it didn’t feel like home.

Christmas Eve was a semi-formal event in the Hudson household, and from her mental inventory of her luggage Roxanne had mentally selected a holly-red tea-length cocktail dress for the occasion, simple and classy with a bateau neckline, sleek princess seams, and a scooped back. But as her eyes landed on the bed, Roxanne could see that Hunter had something else in mind. Roxanne stared at the dress he’d laid out for her, taken with the feeling that she knew the dress—that she recognized the stepped neckline, the slight dip under the breast. The flare at the helm.

She stared at the dress and realized that it was hers. It was one of the designs she’d drawn and handed off a copy to Vivian, but it was here. It was real.

Her heart in her throat, Roxanne lifted the luxurious ivy-green velvet from the bed and held it against her body, admiring the rich, shimmery quality of the fabric as it tumbled from her chest to the wooden floor at her feet. It was long but not heavy, with long-sleeves and a wrap waist balanced by a thigh-high slit. She admired the delicate hand stitching, and the slight tapering at the wrists. All of the little details she’d drawn were there in her hands.

“I can’t believe it. It’s my dress. Hunter, it’s…it’s stunning,” she gushed, shifting her focus to Hunter, who had already traded the dark jeans for black slacks and was watching her in the reflection of the room’s dressing mirror as he unbuttoned and peeled off his shirt, exposing his remarkably chiseled physique in the glass. Roxanne held her breath like she did every time when she watched the muscles of his stomach and back bunch and roll in tandem, sucked into the show he was casually performing as he took his time buttoning each of the mother of pearl buttons on a stark white shirt and then shrugged into a tailored knit green cardigan. His reflection rewarded her gaze with a satisfied smile, which could have just as easily been directed at her praise of the dress or of him. It was hard to be sure with Hunter.

He slipped a thin textured charcoal tie under his collar and worked it into an intricate Eldredge knot, then turned to her as he affixed a silver tie clip to complete the look. “A beautiful dress for a beautiful woman,” he said, in a voice so low she could barely hear it. It was not at all what she’d expected him to say and she wasn’t sure she’d ever heard him use that tone before. It was so much softer and gentler than his usual voice that for a moment she had to question whether he’d actually spoken at all. He gave her a small smile, and tapped on the face of his watch in the universal signal for her to hurry up and change.

She did, excitedly pulling off the layers of borrowed, snow-crusted clothes, then sliding the fabric up her legs and over her arms. She turned her back to Hunter and he stepped forward, pulling the dress’ hidden zipper up her back in a cool breath of silk against her skin and clasping the single pearl button and the nape of her neck. It fit like a glove, and Roxanne closed her eyes and pulled it a deep breath, held it, and exhaled.

She felt Hunter’s hands land on her shoulders and the soft press as they swiveled her body toward his. When she opened her eyes again she saw both of their reflections in the mirror, and the breath she had been holding released caught in her throat. The dress had been beautiful on paper and striking on the bed, but on her body it was magnificent, clinging and flowing alternatively in all the right places as the color caught the hazel of her eyes and made them fleck like gold. Maybe she really had what it took to be a designer after all. Behind her, Hunter was radiant, and even though she’d seen images of them side by side in more photographs than she could count, the combined effect was really quite astonishing. They truly did make a perfect couple; the kind the camera loved—which went a long way in the world of fashion, regardless of whether it was real or not.

Hunter swept her hair to the side and his eyes met hers in the glass. He smiled. “What do you think?” he asked, his breath as soft on her neck as the velvet was on her skin. “It’s my favorite of your designs so far, and I thought you needed to have it for your very own. I apologize for being so late coming home, but it wasn’t quite ready by the time the shoot was completed, and I thought it was worth it.” His right hand slipped down her arm and landed on her hip, and something about the way he was holding her made her heart skip a beat. It had been a long time she’d seen Hunter—he’d been traveling nearly none stop for months—and even longer since he’d touched her like that. “Was it?”

“You were late coming home,” Roxanne paused to select the right word, “for this dress—for me?”

He seemed satisfied with her answer. “Yes. I stayed so I could bring this home with me, and deliver it personally. I wanted this Christmas to be perfect, and you are perfect, Roxanne.”

“I thought,” she started. It was harder to say than she’d thought it would be. “When we talked a couple of days ago, you said you wanted to talk about our relationship. I thought that meant you want to—”

“What, to break up?” Hunter cut her off with an abrupt laugh as if the idea was preposterous. “I did say that, didn’t I? But I meant to talk about our relationship, to make it better. We’ve been spending too much time apart. Loosing touch. I want to change that.”

He laid a tender kiss in the dip of her shoulder, sending shivers down her skin. “I want to change us.”

Roxanne smiled, and placed her hand over his where it rested on her hip. Hunter’s words were so earnest, and a good dress could do wonders for the spirit. As she considered their reflection in the mirror Roxanne was reminded of how hard she had worked for the life she had earned, and how—despite his flaws—Hunter had been there with her through it nearly every step of the way. Sure, she and Hunter had their problems, but what couple didn’t? Perhaps she’d been too hard on him before. He was doing his best, in his own way. She could feel the effect of the pride she felt as it moved through her body, straightening her posture and sweeping away the sentimentality that had begun to collect in the edges of her thoughts. It had been an interesting past few days, but at the end of it, they were gone—Mark was gone—and Hunter was still here.

She studied her reflection in the mirror and felt more like herself than she had since she’d left New York.

“I want to change us, too,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here, Hunter.”