Noah introduced me to everyone like it was the easiest thing in the world.
My parents. My older brother. My aunt. My uncle.
I barely lifted my eyes. The only Chase family member I recognized on sight was Noah’s older brother, Adrian Chase, the famously cold-headed head of the family business. I had seen him at public events before. He looked at me like a man reviewing a merger.
I eventually escaped to the restroom just to breathe.
On my way out, Adrian was waiting for me.
He extended his hand. “Should I call you Ms. Lane or Mrs. Frost?”
The question was deliberate.
I shook his hand and met his eyes. “Ms. Lane. My marriage to Ethan Frost is over.”
“And yet you were still married when you and Noah became involved.”
He was not going to let me hide behind polished manners.
So I didn’t.
“Yes,” I said. “That is the truth. I knew Noah before the divorce was finalized. You can call it emotional cheating. I won’t defend the timing. I also won’t pretend I regret choosing him.”
A flicker of surprise crossed his face.
“He’s younger than you.”
“He is,” I said. “He is also an adult. I respected his choice and followed my own heart when I accepted him.”
The air stayed tense for a beat too long.
Then Noah appeared, slid between us, and said with open irritation, “I already told you about us. Why are you interrogating her?”
Adrian’s expression eased by a fraction.
“Because this is marriage,” he said. “I verify things myself.”
That was all.
No disapproval. No contempt. No lecture about my divorce, my age, or my history.
Later, he informed Noah that the legal team was already prepared to finish whatever remained of the Frost divorce issue if Ethan kept making trouble. After that, there would need to be a proper engagement celebration.
I stared at him.
He stared back as if this were obvious.
When I quietly asked Noah whether his family really didn’t mind that I had been married before, Adrian answered from down the hall without even turning around.
“My brother is an adult,” he said. “He has the right to choose his own marriage. We respect that.”
It was the strangest, healthiest thing I had ever heard from a powerful family.
Over the next two weeks, I slowly relaxed into the Chase household. They were warm in ways rumors never mention. Noah’s parents liked silence, not cruelty. Adrian looked terrifying and turned out to be all bark around the people he loved. Noah, of course, remained Noah—clingy, shameless, infuriatingly affectionate.
Winter deepened.
Weather reports predicted a major snowfall in the north by the end of the month.
Noah immediately began packing and announced that he was taking me to see the first snow.
He was born in the south and had fallen in love with milder winters. I teased him for days, dragging my feet, until he finally admitted the real reason for his urgency.
We stood together in the snow after landing, our hands in each other’s coat pockets for warmth.
“You already said yes to my proposal,” he muttered. “And next month I’ll finally be old enough for the marriage license. Don’t you think we should hurry and meet your parents properly? We need time to win them over.”
I turned to him, snow falling into his dark hair.
“You’re really that eager to get married?”
He squeezed my hand harder.
“Yes.”
There was no hesitation in him. No fallback plan. No spare hearts held in reserve for someone else. Just me.
The legal fight with Ethan was still echoing in the background, but for the first time, it felt far away. Small. Like noise from another life.
I looked up at the white sky, then back at Noah.
Maybe love was never supposed to be as complicated as Ethan made it.
Maybe it was supposed to be this.
A hand that did not let go.
A future chosen clearly.
A heart that stayed where it said it would stay.
I smiled and stepped closer until our foreheads almost touched.
“All right,” I whispered. “Let’s go home and tell them.”
And somewhere behind us, in the cold distance I no longer feared, the last chapter of Ethan Frost faded out for good.