She stopped me by turning her head, so I kissed along her jawline to her ear. “Merry Christmas,” I whispered as she shivered against me, making my lust surge.

“Adam…” she whispered. “Stop.”

“You don’t sound very convinced that I should.”

“This is too confusing.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

She placed her hands against my cheeks to keep my head from diving in again. She was flushed, breathing fast. She wanted it every bit as much as I did. “We can’t—we shouldn’t. We made that mistake once.”

“It wasn’t a mistake. It was the natural state for us. We’re like magnets—try to separate us and we will tear ourselves apart to get back to each other. Put us together, let us spin, and we make electricity.”

“God, you are such a nerd.” She smiled as she said it. “But that’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Emilia, come home with me. Let’s talk this out. I…I have some things I want to tell you.” I wanted so much to tell her what had gone on in New York with the parents of Tom Olmquist. How I’d opened up to them. How it was all because of her that I’d even been able to do it in the first place. How I’d realized that if I could open up to them, then I could bare my soul to her.

She’d accused me, rightly of keeping secrets. She had secrets of her own. And if I told her mine, if I gave her what she’d sought from me that night at my house before she’d fallen asleep in my arms, maybe she’d trust me enough to come to me with hers.

At least, God, I hoped she would. Sometimes you just had to concede and call a draw in order to shorten the struggle. That life lesson from the paintball war and the settlement were stuck in my mind.

Emilia hesitated. Then—I could see that it took every inch of conviction in her to do it—she shook her head.

I tried to subdue the frustration that was now building in every muscle. Frustration had gotten me into trouble too many times before. I couldn’t act on what instinct was telling me to do—step in, take charge, dominate.

I caught her gaze with mine. “Does this mean you don’t ever want to talk?”

She looked down, at the middle of my chest, anywhere but my eyes. She reached up and fiddled with one the buttons on my shirt. I shifted my stance, but still stood with one hand on either side of her head, resting against the wall behind her.

“Not today…”

I tilted my head, locked my gaze with hers. “When?”

Her eyes closed and then opened. “We should talk. But I—”

“Don’t keep putting this off.”

She shook her head. I straightened, pulled away from her. I was out of patience and getting pissed. “I hope you are able to unfuck yourself soon, because you’re sure as hell not going to let anyone help you.”

She showed absolutely no emotion at my angry words. “I don’t need help.”

“Everyone needs help from time to time. But you refuse it. Despite all the people around you who care about you. Who love you. Like your mom. Why can’t she help? Why keep everyone away? You’re talking about not going to med school. You’re changing your looks. You’re—”

Her back stiffened. “Stop pushing me, Adam.” She sidestepped and pulled away, then turned and left me standing there, under the mistletoe alone.

I scrubbed my hand over my face. I was confused, and totally powerless and I despised the feeling. And I was starting to hate the fact that I was still so hung up on her. Maybe it was just time to walk away from this mess? She clearly didn’t want to work it out. She clearly didn’t care enough about us to want to work through what we needed to. I’d had to practically coax her into even being in this relationship in the first place.

Maybe she was just too immature, too much of a coward. Just plain too young, like Jordan and Lindsay had said. She wasn’t in the same place I was because she couldn’t be. That thought dug into my gut, hurting most of all because there was no way in hell I had any control over it.

Chapter Nineteen

Two days after Christmas, I was back at work. I headed toward development for the daily meeting—which we called the early morning scrum—where we’d go over the subject of the newly opened Golden Mountains quest chain. On the way, I barely escaped a close encounter with the predatory interns from marketing. They gathered not far from the bathrooms. I paused, not in the mood for them to see me and start the swarm of stupid again.

This morning, I was in a pretty black place, actually, as I’d been since Christmas, between all the stress at work and having to deal with the family bullshit. Emilia had left not long after our confrontation in the hall. Peter had to console Kim. Though they hadn’t said anything, I knew they thought I’d said something to offend her and send her home early.