Maya Bryson has always trusted the quiet language of light. As a meticulous holiday designer, she turns empty rooms into glowing scenes, then leaves before any of them feel like home. When she’s hired to transform a secluded seaside mansion, she expects order: measured lines, soft arches, a project finished before the snow fades.
She does not expect Tessa Rowan.
To the world, Tessa is a rising film star with a camera-ready smile. Inside her coastal hideaway, she’s a woman worn down by attention. Fame trails her like a storm she can’t outrun. Alone in the mansion, she hides behind dog-eared scripts and fresh interview notes, certain tenderness is a luxury she can’t risk.
Beneath grey winter skies, the two women drift together in muffled laughter, late nights, and stolen glances that glow warmer than any lantern. A rare meteor shower leaves streaks of silver across the shoreline. The balcony lights flicker, as if answering a wish unspoken. The pull between them becomes something neither can ignore.
But when a single photo slips beyond the mansion walls, Maya and Tessa must decide whether fear or courage will write the next part of their story.
Can a love born under winter stars survive once the spotlight finds it?
***
This story is one ember in the Fires of December a series where every flame tells its own tale of winter passion and unexpected love.
In a month built for cozy nights, five women learn that heat hits harder in the cold. Snowy cabins, bright city windows, a hidden inn tucked into the mountains, even skies brushed with aurora they all set the stage for desire that refuses to stay quiet. Each story carries its own spark: a forgotten crush finally spoken aloud, a moment with a stranger that feels too sharp to ignore, a flicker that might be human or something just out of sight. And every December, with holiday lights buzzing in the dark, one question lingers: what kind of fire will they find this time?
