“Listen to what, James?” Her eyes, dark pools of accumulated hurt, locked onto his. “More empty promises? Pleas based on the child you only just remembered exists?”
She took a step closer, the cold air frosting her breath. “You say you were worried last night? Where was that worry when I sat alone at Dante’s? When I needed you and you were draped over Vicky? Your sudden concern is convenient, James. Pathetic.” Her voice dropped, each word a hammer blow.
“‘Come back for the child’s sake,’ you say. ‘I’ll support your career.’ As if that fixes anything. As if that’s what I need from you.”
She drew herself up, the borrowed parka seeming too large yet failing to diminish her presence. “You haven’t changed, James. Not really. You still don’t see me. You never did. You only see what you want, what you’ve lost control of.”
A bitter understanding crystallized in her gaze. “You never loved anyone, James Moretti. You only ever loved the idea of possession. Of dominance. I left, and your world felt unbalanced. That’s not love. That’s your colossal ego throwing a tantrum.”
She gestured vaguely at the devastation around them, at his mud-caked, bleeding hands. “This frantic search? This dramatic mountain rescue? It’s not love. It’s just another form of your profound, consuming selfishness. It’s self-gratification. Don’t confuse your guilt and your bruised pride for anything noble.”
The truth of her words, the stark, unvarnished indictment of his entire being, hit James like a physical blow. He swayed slightly, the world tilting. Delayed affection is worthless, the thought echoed in Sophia’s hardened eyes, cheaper than weeds. She wanted only to sever the final ties.
Suddenly, the fierce energy animating, Sophia flickered. The color drained from her face. Her knees buckled, the strength seeming to evaporate from her body. She listed sideways, a fragile figure against the stark white landscape.
“Sophia!”
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“Ms. Moretti!”
Two voices, James’s raw with panic and Eric’s sharp with alarm, rang out simultaneously. Eric, who had been hovering nearby observing the tense exchange, moved swiftly forward. James was faster, lunging to catch her before she hit the snow.
He gathered her slight weight against him, the feel of her, even unconscious and bundled in layers, sending a jolt through his system-fear, possessiveness, a desperate, aching tenderness.
“I’ve got her,” James stated, his voice leaving no room for argument. “I’m her husband.” He cradled her carefully, ignoring the protests straining on Eric’s face.
The mighty James Moretti, accustomed to command, found himself meekly following Eric’s directions towards a smaller, quieter medical tent, utterly subdued by the imperative of caring for her.
Inside the relative warmth, James laid Sophia gently on a cot. Eric fetched blankets and a medical kit, his expression guarded but professionally cooperative. James ignored him, his focus solely on Sophia’s pale face. He spotted a small camp stove and a ration pack containing powdered milk.
Moving with a concentration he usually reserved for high-stakes negotiations, he meticulously heated water, mixed the milk, and poured it into a clean metal cup.
Kneeling beside the cot as Sophia’s eyelids fluttered open, he held the cup steady. His voice, when he spoke, was softer than she’d ever heard it. “Drink this. It’ll help restore your energy, warm you up.”
He saw the immediate resistance in her eyes, the instinct to push him away. “Please, Sophia. For the baby.”
Her gaze flickered to the cup, then back to his face, weary but defiant. “I can hold it myself.”
“Let me,” he insisted, his tone gentle but firm. He produced a small, flexible straw from a nearby kit. “Just use the straw. I’ll
hold the cup. Easier this way.”
He positioned the straw carefully near her lips, his hands remarkably steady despite the tremors of exhaustion running through
him.
Sophia hesitated, the simple, practical kindness disarming her reflexive hostility. Finally, with a small sigh of resignation, she parted her lips and sipped.
James held the cup unwavering. He had scrubbed the worst of the avalanche grime from his hands using snow and antiseptic wipes, but the evidence of his ordeal remained stark and undeniable.
Angry red scratches crisscrossed his knuckles and palms. Deep, painful-looking cracks split his skin around the nails and joints. Dark purple bruises mottled the backs of his hands. Swollen, raw patches spoke of frostnip. These were not the hands of the impeccably groomed mafia prince. These were the battered, laboring hands of a man who had dug through frozen hell with his bare fingers, fueled by terror and regret.
Sophia’s eyes, as she drank, were drawn to those ruined hands holding her sustenance. A complex wave of emotion washed over her – disbelief, a reluctant pang of sympathy, and a profound sense of dissonance,
For four years of marriage, this man’s touch had ranged from indifferent to possessively passionate, but never tender like this. Never serving. He had commanded empires with these hands, signed death warrants, casually dismissed her existence.
Now, blistered, bleeding, and shaking with fatigue, they held a cup of warm milk for her with infinite, trembling care. The sheer incongruity of it, the tangible proof of his desperate, physical effort, chipped away at the wall of ice around her heart, just a fraction. It was a tenderness that arrived tragically, devastatingly late, yet undeniably real in this frozen moment.
Once Sophia had drained the cup and some color returned to her cheeks, she insisted on resting alone. James reluctantly retreated outside the tent, leaning against the canvas, his own exhaustion threatening to overwhelm him. He hadn’t eaten in over a day;
The adrenaline crash combined with the brutal physical exertion left him hollowed out.
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Yet, the image of Sophia’s face, the feel of her weight in his arms, the sight of his own damaged hands – they anchored him, fueling a determination that burned brighter than his fatigue.
Later that day, deemed recovered enough, Sophia was back among her team. James watched from a distance as she moved with renewed purpose across the snowy research camp. She stopped by a cluster of colleagues examining core samples, her voice clear and authoritative as she pointed something out on a chart.
Then, needing a specific tool from a supply sled on the other side of the compound, she broke into a brisk jog. The oversized white lab coat she wore over her thermal layers billowed out behind her like a sail catching the crisp Alpine wind. Her dark hair escaped its practical braid, whipping around a face alive with focused intelligence and a vibrant energy James had never truly witnessed.
