Page 93 of Mistletoe and Mayday

“Good thing you’re a pilot.” The corner of his mouth lifts—that half-smile that short-circuits my ability to form coherent thoughts.

“I’ll never fit in your world.” My final defense crumbles as I take another step, close enough to feel his body heat, to catch the cedar notes of his cologne.

“Then we’ll build our own. One city at a time. One snow globe at a time.”

“This is crazy,” I whisper against his coat as my free hand fingers curl into the soft leather.

Sebastian’s arms wrap around me, pulling me close.

“Says the woman who survived wolves and my mother in the same month.”

His voice rumbles through his chest and into mine. The vibrations travel deeper, settling somewhere in the middle. I tilt my face up, still disbelieving he’s here, surrounded by hundreds of glass dreams.

“Your mother still hates me.”

The memory flashes—her perfect pearls and horrified expression when Sebastian mentioned “the pilot.” The woman who raised him to be flawless, to marry flawlessly, to live flawlessly—confronted with messy, chatty, snow-globe-obsessed me.

Sebastian’s smile softens, eyes crinkling at the corners. “She’ll learn to love you. Or we’ll convert her mansion into the world’s largest snow globe museum.”

The absurdity—his proper mother with tourist trinkets cluttering her perfect mansion—bubbles a laugh from my throat. But it emerges choked, wet, because something expands in my chest, something too vast and raw to contain.

My vision swims with tears I can no longer hold back. “You’ve broken the cardinal rule of aviation,” I manage between shaky breaths.

“Which is?”

“Never make the pilot cry during landing.”

His thumb catches a tear on my cheek, brushing it away with a tenderness that only triggers more. Sebastian’s touchburns warm against my skin, his gaze never wavering as his hand cups my face.

“We’re not landing. We’re taking off.”

Here we stand in a hallway transformed into a universe of miniature worlds, yet somehow the only world that matters is the vanishing space between his lips and mine.

“Sebastian?”

“Hmm?”

“Shut up and kiss me before I remember all the reasons this is crazy.”

Twenty-Seven

SEBASTIAN

Her lips crash into mine, and the world shatters into a million glittering pieces.

I’ve negotiated billion-dollar deals, faced down boardroom sharks, and built an empire on control—yet nothing in my life prepared me for the devastating impact of Bailey Monroe’s kiss.

My hands cradle her face like she might dissolve into smoke if I don’t hold tight enough. I pour everything into this moment—all the terror from the crash, all the confusion of those cabin days, all the bone-deep certainty that I’ve found what I’ve been searching for without knowing it.

She makes a small, desperate sound against my mouth that ignites something primal and possessive deep in my chest. I press her against the hallway wall, deepening the kiss until we’re both gasping.

Her fingers tangle in my hair, clutching fistfuls as she pulls me closer. This is what’s been missing from my life. Thisbeautiful chaos, this glorious unpredictability, this remarkable woman who shattered everything I thought I wanted and replaced it with everything I need.

Something hard and solid connects with the back of my skull.

“Ow!” I jerk back, rubbing the spot where pain blooms sharp.

Bailey’s eyes widen to perfect circles, her hand flying to her mouth. “Oh God! I hit you with Alaska!” She holds up the cabin snow globe, her expression a magnificent collision of horror and barely contained laughter.