Snowbound Christmas Wish

Chapter Ten – The Hearing

Two weeks later, Berlin looked exactly the same.

Emma did not.

She sat at her small kitchen table with her train ticket printed out beside her coffee mug, watching the clock on the stove as if it might change its mind and go backward.

Departure in three hours.

Her suitcase waited by the door. The pinecone from the forest sat in the front pocket of her bag, rough edges pressing through the fabric when she brushed against it.

Her phone buzzed.

Liam:

On my way to the lawyer. Still hate this city. Still wish you were meeting me at the inn instead of at a courthouse.

She smiled despite the knot in her stomach.

Emma:

I am meeting you at the station. That is something. And then I will glare at anyone in a suit who looks like they want to eat you.

Liam:

Please do not get arrested before the hearing. My lawyer will quit.

She traced the edge of the pinecone with her thumb.

Emma:

Text me the courtroom number again. I pretended to remember to impress you, but I was lying.

Liam:

Ground floor, room 3. Ugly building, uglier carpets. I will send you a photo so you can be properly horrified in advance.

She pushed her chair back and stood.

There was nothing else to wait for.

Her mother called as she was locking the door.

“We will watch the news,” her mother said. “Your father keeps saying the judge will obviously be on the side of the trees. He has never met a judge in his life, but it makes him feel better.”

Emma held the phone between cheek and shoulder as she wrestled her suitcase down the stairs.

“Please do not tell the neighbors I am dating a defendant,” she said.

“I already told the neighbors you met someone,” her mother replied, completely unapologetic. “They are very invested. No one knows about the lawsuit part yet. I am not stupid.”

Emma snorted.

“If anyone asks,” her mother added, “I will say he is a man who likes trees. That sounds respectable.”

“Mostly accurate,” Emma said. “I will call tonight. After the hearing.”

“Good,” her mother said. “Be kind to him. Courtrooms are cold.”

Emma hung up on a small rush of affection and terror.

Outside, Berlin breathed around her, loud and indifferent. Trams clanged. People hurried across the street with coffees and headphones and arguments. No one cared that somewhere else a judge was about to decide how much of a forest could be turned into profit.

She dragged her suitcase into the noise and tried not to think about everything that could go wrong in the next twenty four hours.

The train was half full. Business people with open laptops, a student snoring softly against the window, a couple sharing headphones and a packet of chips.

Emma took a seat by the window and put her bag on the seat beside her until someone claimed it. She pressed her forehead lightly against the glass as the city slid backward.

Her phone vibrated.

Liam:

At the lawyer’s. He is currently telling me all the ways this could go badly. He is very good at his job.

Emma:

I am on a train full of strangers who have no idea you are a walking disaster. So that balances it.

Liam:

I feel strangely comforted.

Typing dots blinked, then stopped.

She waited.

Another message.

When you get here, your editor is going to want you to be two things at once. My lawyer is going to want you to be invisible. And my father will want you to be non existent. Still sure you want to do this?

She did not answer immediately.

The countryside outside blurred. Bare trees. Flat winter fields. Occasional clusters of houses pressed close against the cold.

She typed.

I am sure I want to be in the room when a company tries to freeze your life on paper. I am sure I do not want to read about it from my sofa. I am sure I am not just your reporter.

There was a longer pause this time.

Then:

Ok. Then we deal with everyone else after.

He was waiting for her at the station.

She spotted him before he saw her. A tall figure near the information board. Dark coat open over a grey suit. Tie already slightly crooked, as if he had been pulling at it. Hair an attempt at order that had lost somewhere near the ears.

He scanned the crowd. His shoulders were tight, his jaw set.

She stepped off the train and walked toward him, dragging her suitcase. For a bizarre second she felt shy, as if this were a first date and not the continuation of something that had already been far too intimate to pretend it was nothing.

He saw her then.

The tension in his face shifted. Not gone, but rearranged. Less like a wall, more like something braced.

He moved to meet her halfway.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” she said.

They stood a breath apart, close enough to reach, far enough to pretend they did not want to grab on immediately.

Then he reached anyway. His hand slid around the back of her neck, fingers warm against the skin just under her hair, and he pulled her in.

The kiss was not long. It was not dramatic. Just a firm, sure press of his mouth to hers, right there under the arrivals sign, as if he was staking a small claim in a city that did not care.

Someone brushed past with a suitcase. A child laughed. An announcement echoed over their heads.

He slid back half a step.

“Train ok?” he asked.

“Lawyer ok?” she asked at the same time.

They both huffed a quick laugh.

“Come on,” he said, taking the handle of her suitcase before she could protest. “Your hotel is close. I booked it so you can walk to the court tomorrow. My father wanted you in a different building. I told him this was my problem, not his.”

“Brave,” she said.

“Stupid,” he corrected. “But consistent.”

The hotel room was smaller than the one at the inn, and it smelled like generic cleaning fluid instead of pine and old wood. The window looked out on a busy street instead of snow and trees.

Emma sat on the edge of the bed and watched Liam pace.

He had been pacing since they left the station. A slow, contained movement, like energy was building with nowhere to go.

“My lawyer would really prefer it if you did not talk to anyone from NordAlp tomorrow,” he said. “Especially not Clara.”

“I had planned to spit in her coffee, but sure, I can adjust,” Emma said.

He gave her a quick, exasperated look that ruined some of the pacing.

“I am serious,” he said. “If she can paint you as biased in court, or use you as proof that I am letting emotions and journalists make my decisions, she will. She will drag you into this if it serves her.”

“I know,” Emma said. “I am not going to stand up and make a speech from the gallery. I promise.”

His mouth twitched.

“Do not say that like you have already rehearsed one,” he said.

She hesitated.

“I have thought about it,” she admitted. “There are things I would like to say to that judge.”

He stopped pacing and dropped into the chair opposite her.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Like the forest is not a luxury backdrop for tourists,” she said. “That the village is not lazy because they do not want a casino. That the contract was written in a way that assumed you would never grow a conscience.”

He watched her with that same focused look he had turned on the trees from the overlook.

“Anything else?” he asked.

She took a breath.

“That you are not brave because you refused,” she said. “You are brave because you did not run when you realised you had signed something you did not believe in anymore. There is a difference.”

His throat worked.

“Emma,” he said quietly. “If you say that in court, I will probably lose the ability to form sentences.”

“Then it is good I am staying in my seat,” she said, forcing a small smile.

He leaned back, letting his head fall against the chair, eyes closing briefly.

“My father wants me to distance myself from you,” he said without looking at her. “He thinks you complicate things. And that your article made us lose leverage, even if it gained public sympathy.”

She swallowed.

“And you?” she asked.

He opened his eyes.

“I think he is not entirely wrong,” he said. “You do complicate things. My lawyer would have preferred that you were never in that inn and never in that room and never in my bed.”

That hurt. It also was not news.

“But,” he continued, before she could reply, “I also think I am done making decisions because they look good in someone else’s eyes. If this goes badly, it will not be because I let you hold my hand in a hallway.”

Relief and fear tangled in her chest.

“What if your lawyer asks who I am tomorrow?” she asked. “What if the judge does?”

“Then you tell them your name,” he said. “And that you are here as my support, not as their free live feed.”

“And if they ask about the article?” she said.

“Then you tell them what you already told the television,” he said. “You wrote what you saw. The rest is on me.”

She nodded.

He watched her for a moment longer, then pushed himself up and sat beside her on the bed.

The mattress dipped toward him. She listed slightly in his direction, stopped herself with a hand on his thigh, and then did not move that hand away.

“I hate that you are here for this,” he said. “And I am so glad you are here for this. At the same time.”

She smiled, small and tired.

“I know,” she said. “I feel it too.”

He reached up and cupped the side of her face, thumb brushing under her eye as if erasing something only he could see.

“Stay tonight,” he said. “Sleep. That is all. Lawyers and judges and my father have stolen enough of you already today.”

“I am in my own room,” she reminded him. “You are the one invading.”

“Then I will leave at a respectable hour,” he said. “And you will sleep. Or we can lie here and stare at the ceiling and be silently terrified together.”

She laughed once.

“Fine,” she said. “You can stay until you snore. After that, you go.”

“I do not snore,” he objected.

“You do,” she said. “A little.”

He frowned as if this was the first truly serious problem they had faced.

“That is deeply upsetting,” he said.

She lay back and patted the space beside her.

“Lie down,” she said. “I will live with it.”

He stretched out on top of the blanket. She slid under it and turned toward him, curling into the familiar shape his body made.

His arm slid automatically under her neck, his hand resting on her shoulder.

“Scared?” she asked into his shirt.

“Yes,” he said. “You?”

“Yes.”

They lay like that for a long time, listening to the city move outside the window.

At some point he did start to snore. Very softly.

She smiled into his chest and closed her eyes.

The courthouse looked exactly like she had imagined. Too big. Too cold. All stone and glass and an attempt at intimidation.

People milled in the entrance hall. Lawyers in dark suits. Clients who looked either resigned or furious. A few journalists with press badges and tired eyes.

Emma’s own press badge sat in the bottom of her bag. She had decided not to wear it.

Liam stood near the stairwell with his lawyer. The man was in his fifties, short, compact, with a sharp nose and sharper eyes. He looked like he could cross-examine a priest until he confessed to stealing his own candles.

Liam saw her and excused himself.

He was fully in his suit now. Tie straight. Hair tamed. Only the muscle in his jaw betrayed how much effort it took to look calm.

“You ok?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “You?”

“No,” he said.

They both took a breath.

“Remember,” he said. “You are here for me. Not for them.”

She nodded.

“Mr Hartmann,” his lawyer called. “We should go in. I want a word with the clerk before they start.”

Liam gave her hand a quick, tight squeeze.

“Back row, left side,” he said. “I will find you with my eyes. Even if you hide.”

She watched him walk away toward the courtroom door, every line of him arranged with more control than she knew he felt.

“Ms Keller.”

The voice came from behind her.

Cold and familiar.

Emma turned.

Clara stood there in a perfect dark suit and a coat that probably cost more than Emma’s rent. Her hair was pulled back, exposing the clean, sharp lines of her face.

Emma felt her spine straighten.

“Clara,” she said.

Clara’s gaze flicked over her, taking in her plain dress, the scuffed boots, the absence of a press badge.

“Not in the front row with the others,” Clara noted. “Interesting.”

“I am not here for commentary,” Emma said.

“No,” Clara said. “You already gave yours. Nicely written. Very emotional. You will have to tell me sometime how it feels to sleep with your subject before you write him into a corner.”

Heat flared hot in Emma’s face.

“If you want to insult me, you can at least do it without pretending to be clever,” she said. “You knew exactly what you were doing when you waved that contract in front of him in that village. He signed too fast, you thought you had him. He changed his mind. Now you are angry that your toy decided it had thoughts.”

Clara’s eyes flashed.

“You think this is a game,” she said quietly. “It is not. It is work. People’s jobs. Investors’ money. Deadlines. You write a pretty article and go back to your city and feel righteous. I have to explain to people with millions on the line why one man in a bad mood and one journalist with a conscience can stop their project.”

“And that justifies threatening to freeze an entire family out of their land,” Emma said.

“It justifies leveraging every legal tool we have,” Clara replied. “If he wanted to be a hero, he should have thought of that before he signed.”

She stepped closer, lowering her voice further.

“You want advice, journalist,” she said. “Stay out of this. You are not here as press today. You are here as a weakness the other side can see. Do not make yourself useful.”

Emma felt something ancient and stubborn rise up in her.

“I am not his weakness,” she said. “I am his witness. To the parts of this that do not fit in your papers.”

Clara smiled, small and sharp.

“Judges read papers,” she said. “Not feelings.”

She turned and walked away, her heels clicking on the floor like punctuation.

Emma stood very still for a moment, breathing.

Then she went into the courtroom.

It was smaller than the movies made them look.

Rows of benches. A raised desk for the judge. Tables for each side. A bored looking clerk. A couple of other cases waiting on the list, faces already blurred with anxiety.

Emma took a seat in the back row, left side, as Liam had said.

When he came in with his lawyer, he looked up almost immediately, scanning the room. Their eyes met. His shoulders dropped half a centimeter.

He was there. She was there. It helped.

His father sat at the row in front of her. Broad shoulders. Expensive coat. Hair going grey along the sides. He had Liam’s jawline without Liam’s softness.

He glanced back once, took her in, and turned away without expression.

Fine.

On the other side, Clara sat with the company lawyer. He was taller than she was, with a thick file and an air of professional outrage.

The judge entered. Everyone stood.

Emma swallowed.

The case was called.

The words blurred together at first.

Contract dates. Clauses. Numbers. The company lawyer arguing that NordAlp had already invested significant sums based on the signed agreement and that any delay caused harm. Liam’s lawyer countering with the timetable, the clause that allowed withdrawal before final planning permission, the lack of transparency about the extent of deforestation. He mentioned the village. The jobs that would be lost and gained.

Very little sounded like trees or people. Almost everything sounded like money.

Then the company lawyer said, “And in addition, Your Honor, there has been a coordinated public campaign to pressure my client. An article that went viral. Television appearances. A portrayal of my client as an aggressor and Mr Hartmann as a victim, which is inaccurate and prejudicial.”

Emma felt her stomach drop.

The lawyer held up a printout. She recognised her headline in thick black letters.

“We would like the court to note that this piece, written by Ms Emma Keller, who is present in the room, has already influenced public opinion and potentially the council in the village,” he said. “This is an attempt to litigate through media, not within the legal framework.”

The judge looked up.

His gaze swept the room and landed on her.

“Ms Keller,” he said. “Stand, please.”

Her legs felt wooden as she obeyed.

“Are you here today in a professional capacity,” he asked, “or as a private citizen?”

Her throat felt dry.

Every journalist instinct told her to say professional. To claim her place and her work.

Every part of her that had sat on a bed in a wooden room with Liam’s hand on her heart told her that this answer mattered more than any byline.

“As a private citizen,” she said. “I am here in support of Mr Hartmann.”

The company lawyer smiled a little, like he had expected that.

“And you wrote this article?” the judge asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I stayed at the inn in the village. I saw what was happening. I wrote about it.”

“The court is not concerned with media narratives,” the judge said. “We are concerned with facts and law. Do you intend to report on these proceedings live or for immediate publication?”

“No,” she said. “My editor knows I am here. He does not have a deadline on this hearing. I have not brought a recorder. Only a notebook.”

The judge considered this.

Then he nodded.

“You may sit,” he said. “The court will treat you as a member of the public gallery. Counsel, if you wish to submit the article as evidence of public impact, you may do so. We will not spend our limited time arguing about headlines.”

Emma sat down again, feeling Liam’s father’s shoulders tense in front of her.

Clara’s expression was unreadable.

Liam glanced back once, quick and sharp. His eyes found hers. There was gratitude there, and something like apology.

His lawyer stood.

“If it pleases the court,” he said, “the article in question is not an attack. It is a description of a divided community. It notes my client’s responsibility as much as it notes the company’s influence. If anything, it shows that this is not a case of one party acting in bad faith, but of a flawed agreement made under incomplete understanding that should be reexamined rather than enforced at all costs.”

The judge held up a hand.

“I have read it,” he said. “It was attached to the company’s filing. Ms Keller can be reassured that her prose is not on trial. We are here to decide on a preliminary injunction regarding assets.”

He turned to Liam.

“Mr Hartmann,” he said. “You signed this preliminary contract.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Liam said.

“You then refused to go forward,” the judge said. “Why?”

The room held its breath.

Liam’s lawyer had prepared an answer. Emma knew that. They had gone over it for hours.

Still, when he spoke, his voice sounded like it came from somewhere deeper than rehearsal.

“Because I signed too fast,” he said. “Because I let money and pressure talk louder than my own doubts. Because someone I loved thought this project would give the village a future, and I wanted to believe her. Then she died. I looked at the plans again and realised the future she believed in was not the one the company had in mind.”

The judge watched him.

“You understand that the company has invested based on your signature,” he said.

“Yes,” Liam said. “And I understand that if you force us to go ahead, I will be rich and the village will be poorer in ways your spreadsheets do not show. The forest will be smaller. The jobs will be seasonal, unstable, tied to tourists and winters without snow. The inn will be overshadowed. The people who live there now will have to decide whether to work for a resort that changed their home or leave. I know this cannot be only about feelings. But I also know that contracts signed under incomplete understanding are not sacred. That is why there are courts.”

His lawyer looked pleased. The company lawyer looked annoyed.

The judge scribbled something.

He asked more questions. About dates. About negotiations. About what had been said in that office in the village when Liam put his name on the paper.

When he finally finished, Emma’s legs were cramped and her fingers had gone numb around her notebook.

The judge sat back.

“I have heard enough for today,” he said. “I will not be granting a full freeze of the Hartmann family assets at this time. Nor will I force the company to halt all preparations indefinitely. It is clear to me that both parties have behaved in ways that were, at best, optimistic and careless.”

Emma let out a breath she had not realised she was holding.

The company lawyer started to speak. The judge cut him off.

“I am prepared to issue a temporary order,” he said. “The company will cease all further physical development on the site for the next three months. No tree cutting, no ground breaking. In that time, both parties will enter mediation with a court appointed mediator. You will explore alternatives to the current project size and location. If, at the end of that period, you still cannot agree, we will reconvene and I will decide on the injunction and potential damages.”

He glanced at both tables.

“Use that time well,” he said. “If you return here without having moved at all, I will not be kind.”

The gavel came down.

The sound was smaller than Emma expected for something that shifted so many plans at once.

People rose. Papers rustled. Voices broke out in low clusters.

No total victory.

No total loss.

Something in between.

Liam’s father stood, shoulders tight, and walked out with the lawyer without looking back.

Clara and the company team gathered their files. Her face was calm, but there was a tightness around her mouth that had not been there before.

Emma stayed in her seat for a moment, letting the room move around her.

Her phone vibrated in her bag. A message from her editor.

Well?

She typed with hands that shook slightly.

No freeze. No green light. Three month pause and mediation. Judge not a fan of anyone.

He replied quickly.

That is something. We will talk later about a follow up. For now, breathe. And tell your tree loving defendant that being quotable in court is not recommended but very good for readership.

She smiled despite herself.

In the hallway, Liam waited by the window at the end of the corridor. His tie was loosened again. His shoulders had dropped, but his face was pale with fatigue.

When he saw her, he straightened.

“Well,” he said.

“Well,” she echoed.

They stood facing each other, a meter of polished court floor between them.

“No disaster,” he said. “No miracle either.”

“Just time,” she said.

“Time with court appointed mediation and three months of my father reminding me that this could have been over already,” he said.

“And three months where no one cuts a tree,” she replied.

He let out a breath.

“That too,” he said. “Your priorities are better than mine.”

He stepped closer.

“I am sorry,” he added. “About them dragging you into it. About the judge saying your name like that. This is not your fight.”

“Yes, it is,” she said. “You made it my fight when you asked me what you should do in that inn. I made it mine when I got on that train.”

He looked at her like he wanted to argue and wanted to believe her at the same time.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I was more frightened when the gavel came down than when your cousin tried to teach me to ski,” she said.

He smiled, a small, tired thing.

“Do you regret coming?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Do you regret asking me to?”

He shook his head.

“Come here,” he said.

She did.

The hallway was not private. Lawyers and clients walked past. A clerk carried a stack of files. Somewhere a door slammed.

Still, when he put his hands on her waist and lowered his head, none of that mattered.

The kiss was brief, careful. The kind you give someone at the edge of a cliff.

He pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against hers.

“Three months,” he said. “To find a way not to lose everything.”

“More trains,” she said.

“More calls,” he said.

“More fights,” she added.

“More of you,” he said.

Her throat burned again.

“I have to go back tomorrow,” she said. “My editor will want words. My mother will want gossip. Berlin will want rent money.”

“I know,” he said. “I have to convince my father not to hire a second lawyer who specialises in sons who disappoint him.”

She snorted.

“Does that exist?” she asked.

“In this country,” he said, “everything exists.”

They stood there a moment longer, pressed together in a patch of weak winter sunlight that managed to find its way through the tall window.

Finally he stepped back.

“Come with me,” he said. “I will buy you coffee that is slightly less terrible than the gas station kind. We can sit in a place that does not smell like paper and fear. For at least one hour, this will not exist.”

She took his hand.

“Deal,” she said.

They walked down the corridor together, past people who did not know that somewhere between a village and a city and a stretch of forest, something fragile and stubborn was trying very hard to hold.

For now, they had time.

Not enough.

More than nothing.

Between fear of losing and hope of keeping, they would have to learn how to live.