The Collector's Desire
Bonus Epilogue - A Little Christmas Mess
I stand at my floor-to-ceiling windows, watching morning creep across Chicago’s skyline. The first rays catch the steel and glass of surrounding buildings, throwing long shadow. Perfect.
The Christmas tree commands attention from the corner of my living room—twelve feet of precisely trimmed Norwegian spruce. The installation team positioned it only an hour ago, following my exact specifications. Not a needle out of place.
Behind me, forty-eight boxes of decorations wait in measured rows. Each contains ornaments I hand-selected: brushed silver spheres, gold-leafed pinecones, crystal icicles. Nothing gaudy. Nothing random. Nothing that could disturb the careful balance of my space.
My fingers tap against my thigh as I circle the tree. The professional decorators will be there to do the brunt of the work tomorrow. They’ll transform this perfect canvas according to my detailed instructions, creating exactly the Christmas scene Tessa wished for.
My gaze drifts to Tessa’s cardboard moving boxes stacked in the corner of the living room. She’s been here three weeks, and those boxes mock me daily. The old me would’ve unpacked them the moment she fell asleep, arranging everything to my specifications. But I promised her space. Freedom. Trust.
I grip the window frame, steadying myself against the urge to control. Having her here fills a void I never knew existed, yet watching her tiptoe around my space—our space—sets my teeth on edge.
Last night, she asked permission to use the kitchen. Permission. In her own home. The word burned in my throat as I assured her she could do whatever she wanted. I meant it, even as my jaw clenched watching her rearrange my perfectly ordered spice rack.
The memory of our conversation three weeks ago surfaces. I’d pushed for her to move in, convinced I could handle sharing my carefully curated world. “Are you sure?” she’d asked, those green eyes studying me with a mix of hope and hesitation. “Your space is... particular.”
Particular. A polite way of saying obsessively controlled. She wasn’t wrong.
Now her running shoes sit by the door instead of in the closet where they belong. Her coffee mug from this morning rests in the sink rather than immediately washed and put away. Small rebellions against my ordered existence that I force myself to ignore.
My fingers drum against the glass as I spot a painting she hung yesterday—slightly off-center. The millimeters of imperfection itch under my skin. But I remember her smile as she stepped back to admire it, the way she finally seemed to claim a piece of this space as her own. I left it exactly where she placed it. These small victories don’t come easy.
The Christmas tree will help, I tell myself.
Tessa deserves better than a man who measures her presence in his life by degrees of disruption. She deserves someone who can let her exist without trying to shape her into his perfect vision. I need to do better, even if I no clue how.
A soft click echoes through my penthouse, followed by the telltale shuffle of boots against marble. Tessa. She’s earlier than expected.
“Gideon!” Her voice carries from the foyer, breathless and eager. I turn just as she stumbles into view, arms laden with battered cardboard boxes that have seen better days. She said she wanted to get something from storage. Her auburn hair is tousled from the winter wind, cheeks flushed pink against her cream sweater.
“You got a tree!” The boxes tumble from her grip onto my leather sofa. I wince, but she doesn’t notice. Too busy spinning in place to take in the full scope of the spruce. “It’s magnificent!”
Her enthusiasm radiates through the space. I adjust my cufflinks, a habit that helps maintain my composure. “The finest specimen from Vermont. The decorators arrive tomorrow at nine to deck it out.”
Tessa freezes mid-spin. “Decorators?”
“Of course.” I gesture to the organized rows of boxes. “Every ornament has been selected. The design team comes highly recommended—”
“What are these?” She’s moved to the nearest box, fingers hovering over the sealed lid. Her earlier excitement has dimmed, replaced by something I can’t quite read.
“Handcrafted German glass. Each piece—”
“But I brought decorations.” She glances back at her shabby boxes on the sofa. “From my family’s collection. I thought...” Her voice catches. “I thought we could decorate it together.”
The suggestion hits like a crack in perfectly blown glass. I straighten my spine, maintaining the distance between us. “These arrangements have been in place for weeks. The tree needs to be perfect.”
“Perfect?” Her green eyes narrow slightly. “Or controlled?”
“I want this Christmas to be exactly what you wanted.”
“What I wanted?” Tessa steps closer, close enough that I catch the scent of vanilla and winter air. “Gideon, what I want is to make memories with you. Real ones. Messy ones. Not some staged photo shoot. I knew you didn’t have personal heirlooms from your family, but I do…”
I feel my jaw tighten. “The decorators—”
“I want us to decorate it together.” Her voice is soft but unflinching. It’s not a request.
Before I can form a coherent argument, Tessa vanishes into the hallway. She returns seconds later, arms straining under the weight of more battered boxes.
“These are the best ones.” She drops them onto my floor with a thud that reverberates through my chest. Dust motes dance in the morning light—evidence of years of storage.
My carefully arranged boxes stand forgotten as she attacks the tape on her first container. The sound of cardboard tearing feels like fingernails on glass.
“Look!” She pulls out a shapeless mass of tissue paper, unwrapping it to reveal a ceramic snowman with a chipped nose. “My late grandmother painted this in her ceramics class. And this—” She reaches deeper, sending packing paper cascading across my floor. “Dad bought this in Germany before I was born.”
A box tips. Glitter—red and gold and silver—spills across my hardwood floors like a spreading virus.
More ornaments emerge: A faded paper angel. A plastic reindeer missing an antler. A bell with paint worn thin from decades of handling. Each one carries a story she’s eager to share, each one another crack in my perfectly constructed plan.
The strict rows of my own boxes mock me from their corner. I watch as Tessa creates her holiday hurricane.
She turns to me, eyes bright, cheeks flushed. An ancient star of tarnished gold dangles from her fingers. “Help me hang this one? It always went on top of our tree when I was little.”
My throat tightens. I step back, straightening my tie. “I have work. Urgent calls.” The lie tastes bitter.
“Oh.” Her smile dims slightly, but she crosses to me, rising on tiptoe to press a kiss to my cheek. “I’ll clean everything up later, I promise.”
I retreat toward my office, my shoulders rigid. The sound of more paper rustling, more boxes opening, follows me down the hall.
My office feels wrong. The familiar leather chair, usually a throne of productivity, now seems like exile. I stare at the quarterly reports on my screen, but the numbers blur and shift.
A gentle tinkling sound filters through the door—glass ornaments meeting, like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. Tessa’s laugh follows, musical and unrehearsed. The sound settles somewhere beneath my ribcage, an unwelcome warmth.
I adjust my tie. Tighter. The pressure should help me focus.
But then her voice joins the Christmas music playing softly in the living room. Not perfect pitch, slightly off-key, but something about its authenticity pulls at me. “Silent night,” she belts, and there’s nothing silent about the way it disrupts my concentration.
My fingers hover over the keyboard, frozen mid-sentence. A new scent drifts under the door—warm, buttery, nostalgic. Popcorn.
The aroma winds around me, at odds with my office’s leather and sandalwood palette. It speaks of sticky fingers and shared bowls, of casual intimacy I’ve spent years avoiding. My stomach tightens—from resistance or hunger, I’m not certain.
More sounds intrude, the rustle of tissue paper, the soft thud of cardboard on hardwood, Tessa’s quiet humming. Each noise is an assault on my fortress of solitude, yet I find myself cataloging them, tracking her movements through their symphony.
The laptop screen dims to black. I haven’t typed a word in minutes.
A fresh peal of laughter, followed by the distinct sound of something falling—likely more glitter contaminating my floors. I should be angry. Instead, I’m standing, my body moving before my mind consents.
With a sharp exhale, I close the laptop. The battle between control and curiosity tips, and curiosity wins.
The scene that greets me stops me dead. My pristine living room has transformed into ground zero of a Christmas explosion. Silver tinsel creates metallic rivers, sprawling in haphazard patterns that defy every principle of order I live by. The boxes I’d arranged with military precision lie scattered like fallen soldiers, their contents spilled in chaotic celebration.
And the tree—my perfectly proportioned Norwegian spruce—stands half-decorated in a pattern that could only be described as joyfully random. Vintage glass ornaments cluster beside dollar store plastic, gold ribbon tangles with silver garland, and not a single branch adheres to the design scheme I’d planned.
But it’s Tessa that steals my breath.
She’s balanced on my kitchen stool—my custom-crafted leather kitchen stool—wearing pajamas I’ve never seen before. The fabric is covered in dancing snowmen, a far cry from her usual elegant attire. Her hair has escaped its earlier styling, falling in auburn waves around her shoulders as she stretches toward a high branch, tongue caught between her teeth in concentration.
The stool wobbles.
My body moves before my mind engages, crossing the room in three long strides. My shoes crunches over scattered glitter, but I barely register it. The stool tilts further, and my hands find her waist just as she loses balance.
Her skin is warm through the thin fabric of her pajamas. She steadies herself against my shoulders, and her laugh—breathless and genuine—hits me square in the chest. The sound vibrates through my palms where they rest against her sides, spreading an unexpected warmth through my ribcage.
“My hero,” she says, looking down at me with eyes that sparkle like the Sunday morning. There’s joy there, pure and unrestrained, mixed with something that might be mischief. Her smile—not the polished one she wears at corporate events, but something real and slightly crooked—reaches past the careful walls I’ve built.
I should step back. Should remind her about safety protocols and proper ladder usage. Should point out the destruction of my carefully curated space even if I told her it could be hers too.
Instead, I find myself holding on, my fingers pressed against the ridiculous snowmen on her pajamas.
I lower Tessa from the stool, but instead of setting her down, I keep her suspended against me.
“You’re not letting go,” she whispers, her fingers curling into my shirt collar.
“No.” The word comes out rougher than intended. “I’m not.”
Her lips part slightly, still curved in that imperfect smile that’s been haunting me all morning. A smudge of glitter catches the light on her cheek. Without thinking, I brush it away with my thumb.
The touch ignites something. Before I can second-guess myself, I capture her mouth with mine. She tastes like Christmas—sweet peppermint and butter from the popcorn she’s been stringing. But underneath is the familiar taste of her, the one that’s been driving me mad since the day she walked into my life.
Tessa makes a soft sound against my lips, her hands sliding up to tangle in my hair.
I deepen the kiss, and she responds with an enthusiasm that matches the chaos she’s brought. Her body melts against mine, soft where I’m hard, yielding where I’m rigid. The contrast burns through my veins like whiskey.
The world narrows to sensation: the press of her lips, the slight tug of her fingers in my hair, the warmth of her skin beneath thin cotton. Somewhere in the background, Christmas music still plays, but it’s distant compared to the sound of her breath catching when I tighten my hold.
Tessa pulls back first, though her fingers linger at my neckline. Her lips are slightly swollen, and that crooked smile returns, more devastating than before. A stray piece of tinsel clings to her hair.
“As much as I’d love to continue this,” she says, her voice soft and warm, “I promised to clean up the chaos I created.” Her eyes drift to the scattered decorations, the mess of tissue paper and boxes. “Your beautiful floors deserve better.”
I want to tell her the floors don’t matter. That nothing matters except the way she feels in my arms, against my chest. But she’s already sliding from my grasp, bare feet touching down on the glitter-strewn hardwood.
“Besides,” she adds, bending to gather a handful of fallen ornaments, “this tree isn’t going to decorate itself.” She pauses, glancing at my organized boxes in the corner. “Unless you still want those decorators to handle it?”
The question hangs between us. I look at the tree—half-decorated in its chaotic glory, each mismatched ornament representing a memory she’s shared. Then at my pristine boxes, with their perfect, soulless contents.
“No decorators,” I say, and the smile she gives me is worth every speck of glitter embedded in my floors.
Tessa kneels beside another box, tissue paper rustling as she unwraps something small. Her movements slow, becoming almost reverent.
“This one...” She holds up a glass reindeer no bigger than her palm. One antler is chipped, the red and gold paint worn thin in places. The light catches its imperfections, each flaw telling its own story.
“It was Grandma Margaret’s favorite.” Her voice carries a softness I’ve never heard before. “She’d always hang it right in front, where she could see it from her chair.” Tessa’s thumb traces the worn spots with such gentleness that something shifts in my chest.
She holds it out to me, and I find myself reaching for it before I can stop. The glass is cool against my fingers, its weight negligible yet somehow significant. A hairline crack runs along one leg, nearly invisible unless you know where to look. In my other hand, I still hold one of my perfect German ornaments, its surface flawless and pristine. The contrast is stark.
I should hate everything this little reindeer represents—its asymmetry, its obvious wear, its complete defiance. I’m surprisingly drawn to the stories etched in its imperfections.
Moving to the tree, I search for the right spot. Not hidden in the back where flaws belong, but front and center, where an elderly woman once loved to see it catch the light.
“Here?” I ask, surprising myself.
Tessa’s smile could power the city. “Perfect.”
The word hits differently now, its meaning shifting like light through old glass. She’s already diving back into her box, emerging with a construction paper angel bearing a child’s careful signature. “Oh! This was the first ornament I ever made in school!”
More treasures emerge: a salt dough star with tiny fingerprints preserved forever, a faded photograph sealed in a simple frame, a wooden soldier that lists slightly to one side. Each comes with a story, each carries the weight of memories I never knew I wanted to share.
My hands itch to adjust, to organize, to regain the control I crave. But watching Tessa hang each piece with such care, such joy, but I’m holding back. The randomness begins to form its own pattern—not of design, but of history, of love, of life lived fully.
When takes a handmade star, clearly crafted by young hands, my crystal topper sits forgotten in its velvet box. The star tilts slightly when she places it, and my fingers twitch. But I watch her step back, face glowing with pride and memory, and for once, I let imperfection stand, losing its importance more and more.
The final ornament—a delicate glass bird with a broken wing—finds its place among the chaos of memories and mismatched decorations. I step back, Tessa moving with me until we stand together, surveying our creation.
The tree before me defies every design principle I’ve ever valued. Vintage glass clusters next to plastic snowmen, while tinsel drapes in uneven swags across the branches. That handmade star she insisted on using tilts slightly to the left, caught in perpetual defiance of symmetry.
My fingers flex at my sides, the urge to adjust, to perfection, to control still humming beneath my skin. But something else stirs beneath that familiar impulse.
“Does it look right to you?” The words leave my mouth before I can catch them, genuine curiosity coloring my tone.
Tessa’s fingers find mine in the soft glow of the lights, intertwining with gentle purpose. “It’s perfect,” she whispers.
The word landing somewhere deep in my chest where certainty used to live. I turn to her, watching the lights play across her face. “We still have to add our own, you know. Find some unique pieces. Just for us.”
Her eyes light up. “Really? We could even make some—”
“Let’s not get carried away,” I cut in, but my lips twitch upward as she laughs.
The warm glow bathes us both, casting soft shadows that blur the edges of my usually sharp world. I squeeze her hand, and something shifts inside me—a realization that perhaps perfection isn’t found in control at all. It’s found here, in this moment, in the beautiful chaos of letting someone in.
The tree’s glow bathes Tessa in warm light, catching the glitter still clinging to her cheek. Without hesitation, I pull her into my arms, drawing her close against my chest. Her body fits perfectly, a softness that counters my hard edges. The solace and love I now craved above anything else.
“Thank you,” I whisper against her hair. The words feel insufficient for what she’s given me—not just a decorated tree, but a glimpse into a world where imperfection holds its own kind of beauty.
She tilts her face up, those bright eyes meeting mine. “For making a mess of your pristine apartment?”
“Our penthouse, but no. For sharing your memories with me.” My hand finds the small of her back, drawing her closer. “For showing me again that some things are better unplanned.”
Her smile—that wonderfully crooked one that’s been undoing me all day—spreads across her face. I lean down, capturing her lips with mine. The kiss is gentle, sweet, filled with something I know too well, the spell she had woven into my heart. Her hands slide up my arms, coming to rest on my shoulders as she rises on her toes to meet my lips.
When we part, I press my mouth to her brow, breathing in the scent of her mixed with pine needles and warm sugar. “Merry Christmas, Tessa. Welcome home.”
Copyright 2024
