Snowbound Christmas Wish

Chapter Four – Terms and Conditions

The storm did not let up.

By late afternoon the sky over the village had turned the color of wet concrete, and the snow that had fallen all morning hardened into slick ice on the square. From the window of her room Emma watched a group of children slide across it, shrieking with laughter while their parents pretended not to be terrified.

Her laptop sat open on the desk behind her.

The document she had started after lunch was mostly blank.

> Working title: The Village That Split Christmas In Half.

Underneath, only a handful of sentences:

> On the map, the village looks like a postcard. Up close, it looks like a choice no one wants to make.

At the center of it stands a family name carved into land deeds and grave stones: Hartmann.

She drummed her fingers against the sill.

She could write this story. The angles were all there. Old money, new money, tradition, progress, a grieving heir who did not know how to stop apologising for existing.

She could also destroy him with it.

A knock at the door broke her staring contest with the clouds.

“Come in,” she called.

Helga did not appear this time.

Instead a teenage girl, maybe sixteen, poked her head around the door. She had a messy brown ponytail, a nose ring and the kind of unimpressed expression that came with being born in a tourist town.

“Ms Keller?” the girl asked.

“Yes?”

“Grandma says to tell you that some of the villagers agreed to talk. If you want interviews.” The girl’s German was sharp and precise. “They are downstairs by the fire. I am supposed to bring you or drag you, depending.”

Emma’s stomach dipped.

So that was it. Her story was no longer just an idea in her inbox. It had legs, boots, and was waiting for her by the fireplace.

“What is your name?” Emma asked.

“Lina,” the girl said. “Helga is my grandmother.”

“Right.” Of course she was. The eyes were the same: bright, assessing, more than a little amused.

Lina leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. “You are the journalist who shared a room with Hartmann, right?”

The words landed with the casual precision of a thrown knife.

Emma choked on nothing. “That is— we just— the inn was full.”

Lina’s mouth curved. “Relax. This village has more important things to gossip about than who you sleep next to. For now, anyway.”

“For now?”

“If you write something stupid, you will be the only thing people talk about until Easter,” Lina said cheerfully. “So maybe do not.”

Then she pushed off the doorframe and jerked her head.

“Come on. Before old Mr Krüger falls asleep and starts snoring into your recording.”

---

There were six of them gathered near the fireplace.

Helga, of course, knitting something with alarming speed; Lina perched on the arm of her chair; a farmer with hands so big his coffee mug looked like a toy; a woman in her thirties with tired eyes and a toddler asleep against her shoulder; an older man with a cap and a permanent frown; and a middle-aged woman with perfectly applied lipstick and the confident air of someone who had been on a local council more than once.

Emma introduced herself, phone and notebook in hand. She did not say “I slept with Liam” out loud, but from the way a few glances slid between the villagers she suspected at least two of them knew and all of them guessed.

Helga clapped her hands once.

“Rules,” she said. “You listen more than you talk. You write what people mean, not just what they say. And you remember that everyone here has to live with your words after you go back to your city, ja?”

“Yes,” Emma said, throat dry. “I understand.”

Helga’s gaze softened the tiniest bit. “Good. Then sit.”

Emma sat.

She turned on her recorder, opened her notebook and let them talk.

Mr Krüger, the farmer, spoke first. “My son works seasonal jobs in the city,” he said. “The resort would give him a full-time contract. He could stay. Maybe start a family here. I am not young enough to run the fields alone forever.”

The woman with the toddler lifted her chin. “And what happens when rent doubles because tourists want cute mountain apartments?” she asked. “Where do we go then? Down the valley? To the next village? This is our home.”

The council woman with the lipstick tapped her red pen against the table. “We cannot freeze in time,” she said. “The inn is not enough. A resort means taxes, infrastructure, more business. New life. The forest does not feed our children.”

“The forest keeps our air clean,” Lina cut in, voice sharp. “And our drinking water. And our sanity. You want to replace it with concrete because you like shiny brochures.”

“Lina,” Helga warned.

“It is true,” the girl muttered, but she sat back.

Mr Krüger nodded at Emma. “The company says they will replant,” he said. “Trees for every tree they cut.”

“Baby trees,” Lina said. “In cages. Along nice paths for tourists who like feeling green while they throw plastic cups in our streams.”

Emma’s pen flew across the page, trying to keep up.

They argued in circles and straight lines, voices low but intense. Money versus roots. Jobs versus silence. The kind of future they wanted for their children, the kind of past they were willing to sacrifice.

Hartmann came up again and again.

“He is not a bad boy,” Helga said at one point. “Just a boy who never learned how to say no to people with louder voices.”

“Boy?” Mr Krüger snorted. “He is a grown man with a castle on the hill and a car that costs more than my tractor.”

“He also buried his girlfriend six months ago,” Helga shot back. “Grief makes children of all of us.”

The room fell quiet.

Heat rushed to Emma’s face, even though the remark was not aimed at her. Until that moment she had not known exactly who the woman “who believed in Christmas wishes” had been to Liam. Now she had a word.

Girlfriend.

The word sat heavy.

Helga’s needles clicked faster.

Emma cleared her throat. “Do you blame him?” she asked, directing the question to the group rather than anyone in particular. “For the resort. For all of this.”

“Yes,” the tired mother said.

“No,” said Mr Krüger at the same time.

The council woman sighed. “We blame whoever is closest when the bill arrives,” she said. “The company will leave if the deal fails. The mayor will retire in a few years. But the Hartmanns will still be here. Their name is on everything. It is convenient.”

“Besides,” Lina added quietly, “if you squint hard enough he looks like a fairytale prince. People love to blame those.”

That drew a few reluctant chuckles.

Emma felt tension ease from her shoulders by a degree.

By the time her coffee had gone cold, she had a notebook full of quotes and a recorder full of voices. Enough to write half a feature. Enough to make someone very angry, no matter how carefully she framed it.

As they began to disperse, Helga caught her hand.

“Remember what I said this morning,” the older woman murmured.

“About not pretending?” Emma asked.

“About not pretending,” Helga confirmed. “With him or with your readers.”

Lina hooked her arm through her grandmother’s and steered her toward the kitchen. “She will mess it up anyway, Oma,” she called over her shoulder. “That is what out-of-towners do. Then they leave.”

Emma winced.

Helga smacked her lightly with a rolled-up napkin. “Hush. You were born here and still make worse mistakes.”

Their voices faded through the swinging door.

Emma stood alone for a moment by the dying fire, the heat on her shins and cold air at her back.

She had enough now to write a balanced piece. Voices from both sides, a sympathetic portrait of a village on the edge.

All she needed was the man in the middle.

---

She found him in the only place in the inn that was almost empty: the small reading room at the end of the second-floor corridor.

It was a narrow space with built-in shelves, two armchairs and a window that looked out over the forest. Someone had left a half-finished puzzle on the low table, sky pieces scattered like lost thoughts.

Liam sat in one of the armchairs with a book open on his lap and his phone facedown on the armrest. His hair was damp again, as if he had gone out and come back without properly drying it. The lamplight carved shadows into his cheekbones.

He looked up when she stepped in.

“Helga’s interrogation went well?” he asked.

“How did you know I was there?” she asked back.

“Helga put everyone on shifts,” he said. “Half the village in the dining room to talk to you, the other half staring at me like I am a ticking bomb in the square. Very efficient.”

His mouth quirked.

She came closer, suddenly conscious of the faint smell of his soap, of the way his sweater stretched across his chest.

“Can we talk?” she asked. “Properly. No doors banging, no cliffs.”

His gaze dipped to the notebook in her hand, then back to her face.

“Journalist talk or Emma talk?” he asked.

“Both,” she said. “Honestly.”

He leaned back in the chair, studying her for a long moment. She had the strange feeling of being weighed and measured in ways that had nothing to do with her word count.

“Fine,” he said at last. “Terms and conditions.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You are not the only one allowed to have rules,” he said. “If we do this— if you interview me— we set some first.”

She pulled the other armchair closer and sat, the small table between them. “Okay,” she said slowly. “What are your terms?”

“Number one,” he said, holding up a finger, “you tell me when you are taking notes and when you are not. No surprise quotes from conversations I thought were… personal.”

“Fair,” she said. “And agreed. I already decided that about last night.”

A shadow moved over his face at the mention of last night, but he did not look away.

“Number two,” he continued, “you let me read the article before you send it.”

She hesitated. “I cannot promise changes,” she said. “My editor—”

“I did not ask to edit your work,” he interrupted. “Just to see what version of myself the world is about to meet.”

She thought of his confession in the forest, the way his voice had cracked when he talked about the trail and the woman who loved it.

“All right,” she said. “I can send you a draft.”

His shoulders loosened, just a fraction.

“Number three,” he said, and this time his voice shifted, rougher. “Whatever happens between us does not become clickbait.”

Heat crept up her neck.

“I would never—”

“I have seen articles,” he said quietly. “Heiress on the run. Senator’s affair. They sell very well. ‘Billionaire heir sleeps with journalist in snowstorm while village burns’ sounds exactly like something your editor would love.”

She flushed because he was not entirely wrong.

“Off the record,” she said firmly. “All of it. You have my word.”

His eyes searched her face, as if checking the strength of that promise. Whatever he saw there seemed to satisfy him.

“All right,” he said, voice softer. “Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Your terms.” He raised a brow. “You can have some.”

She had not expected that.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Number one: you do not lie to me anymore. Not by omission, not by silence, not by hoping I will not ask.”

He flinched like she had prodded a bruise.

“Agreed,” he said.

“Number two,” she went on, heartbeat picking up, “if this gets too hard, if you want to stop the interview at any point, you say so. But you do not get to pretend you never started.”

His mouth curved. “You really do not like people walking away from half-finished things, do you?”

“Not anymore,” she said.

“And number three?” he asked.

She swallowed.

“Number three,” she said, “we keep being honest about… this. The thing that keeps happening between us. We do not pretend it is not there just because it is inconvenient.”

His eyes darkened like a storm cloud.

“Honest how?” he asked.

“Honest as in…” She forced herself to hold his gaze. “If you want to kiss me, you say so. If I want to sleep in the other bed, I say so. If either of us thinks this is a mistake, we say it. No pretending we are just two polite strangers trapped by a snowstorm.”

Silence fell, thick and charged.

He leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees, closing some of the space between them.

“Right now,” he said quietly, “I want to kiss you. And I also want to ask you questions that might make you hate me. Both feel like mistakes.”

Her breath stalled.

“Right now,” she managed, “I want to record your answers and I also want to climb into your lap and forget how words work. So we are even.”

A slow, almost disbelieving smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Honest enough for you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, a little hoarsely. “Now pick which mistake we make first.”

He exhaled, the sound half laugh, half surrender.

“Interview,” he said. “Before I forget how sentences work.”

She pulled out her phone with shaky fingers and set it between them, screen up.

“This is on the record,” she said. “Ready?”

He nodded, face rearranging itself into something more guarded.

She hit record.

“State your full name,” she said, falling back on the safe, standard opening.

“Liam Johann Hartmann,” he said. “Thirty-three. Currently very tired.”

“Occupation?”

He hesitated. “Officially? Investor. Unofficially? Family disappointment.”

She shot him a look. “I am writing ‘landowner and local investor,’” she said. “Not ‘disappointment’.”

“Suit yourself.”

As the questions progressed, something strange happened.

At first his answers were clipped, polite, the kind of safe phrases a media-trained heir might use. “We are exploring options.” “The community has valid concerns on both sides.” “No decision is without cost.”

Then she pushed harder.

“What was the name of the woman you used to come here with?” she asked quietly when there was a lull.

His throat worked.

“Mara,” he said. “Mara Weiss.”

“How long were you together?”

“Six years.”

“Did she support the resort?”

“At first.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “She thought it would bring life back to the village. New families. Better schools. She grew up here. She knew how… stuck it could feel.”

“And then?”

“Then she saw the maps,” he said. “Saw where the first cut would go. Through the trail where her father used to take her. Through the spot where he proposed to her mother. She said we were trading stories for money. She was not wrong.”

His voice had gone rough. The lamplight caught the faint sheen in his eyes.

“Mara died before the final contract,” she said gently.

He nodded once.

“In summer,” he said. “Rain instead of snow. Wrong season for funeral black.”

Her hand itched to reach across the table. She did not.

“Do you think about her when you look at the forest?” Emma asked.

“Every time,” he said.

The honesty of it punched through her.

They circled through guilt and obligation, through the weight of his family’s expectations and the way his brother Markus held anger like a full cup, always on the verge of spilling.

“Why did you sign the preliminary agreement?” she asked at last. “If you were this conflicted?”

“Because I was a coward,” he said.

The answer came so fast it startled even him.

“I thought if I signed the first paper I would have no choice later,” he continued, staring at the wall over her shoulder. “If my hands were already dirty, I would stop pretending I could keep them clean. It is easier to be the villain than to stand in the middle and disappoint everyone slowly.”

She looked at him for a long moment.

“You do understand that makes absolutely no sense,” she said softly.

His mouth twisted. “I know,” he said. “Mara told me the same thing. She just used nicer words.”

She let the silence sit.

Finally she asked, “What do you want the people reading this to know about you?”

He thought for a long time.

“That I am not doing this for money,” he said eventually. “And that whatever I choose, I will hate it a little. Maybe that is what people should know about progress. Someone always hates it.”

She stopped the recording.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For trusting me with that.”

He leaned back in his chair, looking suddenly exhausted.

“Do you?” he asked.

“Do I what?”

“Trust you,” he said. “I just handed you the shovel for my own grave. I am not sure if that makes me brave or just very, very tired.”

She closed her notebook.

“I cannot promise to protect you,” she said. “But I can promise to be fair. And not to pretend I am not part of this story too.”

His gaze held hers.

“Do you want to be?” he asked.

Part of it. Part of his.

She swallowed.

“Yes,” she said.

The word felt like a step off another ledge.

He drew a breath, slow and careful.

“Then we should probably stop pretending this is still just an interview,” he said.

The air in the small room thickened again, full of that same familiar pull.

She slid her phone and notebook to the edge of the table, away from the space between them.

“Off the record,” she said.

“Off the record,” he echoed.

Neither of them moved for a heartbeat, two, three.

Then the door banged open.

“Liam!” Markus’s voice crashed into the room like a wrong note. “The company’s lawyer just called. They are sending a representative up the mountain tomorrow morning. They want a final answer before Christmas Eve.”

Emma jerked back.

Liam closed his eyes briefly, the muscles in his jaw jumping once before he turned.

“Of course they are,” he said.

Markus stepped into view, scanning the scene in a single glance: the recorder, the notebook, the space between the chairs that was still too charged to be casual.

His mouth flattened.

“Perfect,” he said. “You picked the worst possible time to fall in love with the press, little brother.”

Emma’s heart stuttered.

Liam’s shoulders tensed.

“We are talking,” he said quietly. “That is all.”

“Sure,” Markus said. “And the company is just visiting for the scenery.”

He looked at Emma, eyes hard.

“You wanted your story, Ms Keller?” he asked. “Tomorrow you will have it. The executioners are on their way.”

He turned and left before she could respond.

The door slammed shut behind him.

The puzzle pieces on the table rattled.

Emma stared at the empty doorway, her pulse thudding.

“Representative,” she said faintly. “Tomorrow.”

Liam let out a breath that sounded a lot like defeat.

“Looks like our deadline just moved up,” he said.

He glanced at her, something raw and unguarded in his expression.

“Both of them.”