Then she was gone before Cosima could formulate a response. She stared at the phone as if it’d grown two heads before passing it back to Tristan with a shake of her head. “I can’t believe you made me an accomplice in lying to that sweet woman.”

Cosima was so busy trying to ignore the way her body reacted to the slightest touch of his fingers against hers as he took the phone she offered back to him that she almost missed it when he said, “It doesn’t have to be a lie.”

She took a huge gulp of her hot chocolate so she could buy some time and not make a spectacle of herself trying to respond while butterflies waged war in her stomach. Perhaps there was more whiskey in the hot chocolate than she’d anticipated because nothing else could explain what got into her head when she asked, “Are you asking me, a woman you just met, to spend Christmas with you?”

“No.”

Cosima’s stomach dropped so quickly she felt dizzy.

“I’m asking you to spend Christmas Eve with me too.”

6. Tristan

Chapter 6

Tristan

Tristan showed up at Cosima’s building the next day at their agreed time of ten in the morning, half-expecting she wouldn’t answer when he called. There was a small voice in the back of his head that whispered there was no way she wouldn’t change her mind. Hell, that small voice was the reasonable part of his brain. He hadn’t given much thought to any of his actions since sitting at Cosima’s table the night before. He'd been acting off instinct ever since.