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Sparkling lights were festooned over outdoor ays filled with locals and tourists bundled up against the cold, browsing dozens of decorated outdoor stalls, filled with char homemade items, centered around an enores of every kind, bockwurst and knockwurst and every other kind of wurst, sizzled on outdoor grills, adding the delicious salty smell to scents of pine, fresh lühwein Smiles were everywhere on rosy cheeks

Past the eighteenth-century buildings around the square, including a town hall with an elaborate cuckoo clock that rang the tiy, snow-covered Alps rose above the tiny valley

As she pushed her baby’s stroller through the crowds, everyone elco Gertrud and Karin, elderly sisters who ran a bakery in town,over the baby Gunther and Elfriede, selling scented hoenerously praised Holly’s ie skills

Holly was surrounded by friends She’d made a home

So why did she feel so miserable?

Stavros, she thought Just his na hiined And hts to Freddie, she’d been shaking inside

Why had she been so afraid? Even if he’d never actually nancy as she’d once feared, he’d still made his total lack of interest in fatherhood clear

So if he’d seemed hurt by her words, ittold he wasn’t wanted Obviously What else could it be?

Dying inspiredbehind A wife A child That’s why I slept with you, Holly That’s why I said I wanted toI did want it

Was it true? Had he really been dying?

She hadn’t believed him at first But a proudlike that, so that exposed weakness

Holly’s hands tightened on the stroller handle It didn’tfor hi, it was no excuse for how he’d treated her—seducing her, abandoning her!

But if he’d really thought he had only months to live

Her heart twisted What ant tycoon to be helpless, facing death? What was it like for a powerful man to feel so powerless?

He’d kept his illness secret She was the first person he’d told He’d obviously thought it would ive him