‘You’ll never be able to come back here,’ Miles said suddenly.
‘That’s fine. The furniture’s a little small.’
‘No. To Mistletoe. People here like the inn. When they find out you’re behind its destruction, they’re going to be annoyed.’
‘That’s fine.’
‘You won’t get the promotion if you don’t get the inn.’
‘Maybe,’ Christian said, though both he and Miles knew the truth. The promotion would change either one of their lives, lend them a respectability neither of them had managed to cultivate thus far. ‘But that’s not your problem.’
‘We could go into this thing together, man. It makes sense.’
It didn’t make sense. Christian owned the inn—or he would, when his great aunt passed away. Miles was feeling desperate, Christian could tell. He wanted to even the playing field, but even Miles Pine wasn’t stupid enough to think Christian would ever agree to this, this working together business. Which meant he’d come to Mistletoe for a different reason. Fact finding.
He needed something on Christian, so he’d come to the place where Christian hailed, to find out the gossip. He wanted skeletons in closets, red on ledgers. He wanted to take Christian down.
‘How long are you staying?’
‘Sadly, I have to leave first thing tomorrow. I thought you might give me a tour of town.’
‘I’m busy.’
Christian couldn't stand Miles, and now he was being asked to work with the man, by none other than the man himself. He could say no, but no had consequences, even for a person like Christian. No led to questions—questions asked by Miles about Christian’s life, about maybe the girl he'd been seen with a lot of late, picking out Christmas trees, ice skating, ruining dinner. No led to questions, and questions led to Clara.
Christian mimed sipping his coffee. If imaginary coffee was an acquired taste, that's because imaginary coffee had no taste, not even a hollow echo of that morning’s tangible brew.
‘Are you sure?’ Miles said. ‘In that case, I’ll just ask that pretty little friend of yours to give me a tour. She seems very accommodating.’
‘She’s awful, actually,’ Christian said. ‘I heard she once bit the head off a frog.’
Christian had no idea why he said this. Clara was actually terrified of frogs. She couldn’t get past the fact that frogs were carnivorous—that small frogs ate flies, dragonflies, moths, and mosquitoes, while large frogs ate snakes, baby turtles, mice, and even other frogs.
‘Who hasn’t bitten the head off a frog?’ Miles said.
Christian really didn’t want to give Miles a tour now, but it seemed he had little choice. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Just ask me to buy you a sandwich if you get hungry.’
Thirteen
Christian was trying to like Christmas. He was trying a new breathing technique, practicing how he might stay calm when confronted with yet another gingerbread latte. He would place one hand on his upper chest and one hand below his rib cage, which would allow himself to feel the movement of his diaphragm, and he would inhale, slowly, through his nose, before exhaling through his pursed lips. He once thought he knew how to breathe. But this, this diaphragmatic breathing, it was something else.
Christian was in therapy when he realized he could breathe. His therapist asked him if he knew how to breathe, and he said he did, because ‘otherwise I’d be dead.’ But the therapist insisted. She told him he must practice his technique.
‘I don’t need to practice breathing,’ Christian told her, and meanwhile she smiled and nodded and made a note on her notepad, because his therapist still used paper and pen. The thing was though, Christian actually didn’t know how to breathe. He didn’t know how to reduce his stress and anxiety with alternate nostril breathing or resonant breathing or even the adorably named humming bee breath. But now, thanks to therapy, he did.
Now when Christian built houses—beautiful houses for people who lived beautiful lives, who owned islands and helicopters and Lamborghinis and partied with the Kardashians in Calabasas—he took a break to practice his breathing. He always knew that building houses for people this rich would intimidate some, so maybe he should cut himself some slack when his heart started to race and his palms become a little sweaty, but cutting himself some slack was another thing Christian incorrectly thought he knew how to do.
Yet he couldn’t cut himself slack when he thought of Clara with Ridge. If he hadn’t left, if he had stayed here in Mistletoe with her—but who’s to know how things would have shaken out? Maybe, she would have tired of Christian. Maybe, she would have dumped him after a year or two and ended up in Ridge’s arms all the same.
‘You drink coffee?’ Christian said now as Ridge stepped into the inn.
‘He drinks everything,’ Clara said as she followed her boyfriend, her tone sharp.
‘Just grab me a beer, then.’
Clara wasn’t happy. ‘It’s eight in the morning, Ridge.’
‘You just said I drink everything.’ Ridge looked at Christian as if expecting confirmation. Christian just shrugged.
‘Yeah,’ Clara said, ‘but not anytime.’
Ridge scoffed, ‘It was subtext.’
‘You know what subtext means?’ Christian said, surprised.
Ridge took one look at Christian and left, just walked straight out of the inn.
‘Thanks a lot, Thornton,’ Clara muttered.
Christian placed a hand over his heart, feigning innocence. ‘You’re the one who called him a raging alcoholic.’
‘I did not.’
‘It was subtext.’
‘You know what subtext means, then.’
‘Uh-huh, it means your boyfriend is mad.’
Clara placed both hands on Christian’s chest and gave him a playful shove. ‘Quit looking so smug.’
Christian did look smug. He thought of Clara and Ridge and their life—their life! The fact they shared a sleigh drove him nuts. After all, why New York? Why bother with money and validation and a penthouse apartment and his name on the door of a prestigious architectural firm, if he couldn’t be with the one person he had ever truly loved? He could give Clara everything she wanted, but so could Ridge. It was perfect. Ridge was perfect. He whittled toys. He loved Mistletoe. And most of all, he loved Christmas.
‘What are you reading?’
‘Hey,’ Christian said, thinking of a way he could cheer Clara up. ‘Do you want to spy on Yuletide?’
Clara stood up straight. ‘Always,’ she replied.
‘Excellent. Me too.’
Christian didn’t want to spy on Yuletide, of course. He wanted Clara far away from Mistletoe, because Miles Pine was in Mistletoe—the Miles Pine who knew about Magdalena and Christian’s plans to knock down Milleridge and build a luxury hotel in its place. Thankfully, Miles did not know that Christian was pretending to be engaged to Clara, just like he didn’t know that Clara was oblivious to Christian’s plans to knock down her beloved Milleridge.
When Christian and Clara arrived in Yuletide, he was stunned. Christian knew that Yuletide went all out for Christmas, but wow, the reindeer! The sleighs! Sure, Mistletoe had sleighs, but these were sleighs, which meant they were pulled by the reindeer. It wasn’t just horses like Buckingham Palace and Mr. Nibbles. It was Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. The sleighs and the reindeer, it really was just like something from a Christmas carol.
‘That’s Hazel St. Claire,’ Clara said. She nodded to a bespectacled woman wearing a Fair Isle sweater.
‘Ah, yes, the infamous Hazel St. Claire,’ Christian replied. ‘Wait—who’s Hazel St. Claire again?’
‘She’s a writer for Merry Living Magazine. She must be doing a profile on Yuletide. I can’t believe this. First, Yuletide steals our decorations, then they steal our Santa, now they’ve stolen our Merry Living Magazine journalist.’
‘Was she doing an article on Mistletoe?’
‘Well, not exactly,’
Clara said. ‘But still.’
Yuletide’s festivity would give Hazel St. Claire a heartwarming story—a story about sleighs and deer and families skating hand in hand. Merry Living Magazine’s readership would be thrilled.
‘I can’t stand to look at anymore of this,’ Clara said bitterly.
They decided to walk around the elf campus. The campus consisted of four gingerbread buildings, not made from gingerbread, where men came to strip off their civilian clothes and change into their elf attire. None of the men were short, which seemed to be a prerequisite of the job, and many of them were covered in prison tattoos.
Christian and Clara decided to eavesdrop on one of the buildings. They crawled beneath a window, and there sat shivering as they listened. Inside the gingerbread clubhouse, a group of elves gathered to discuss strategy, nostrils flaring, knuckles white, lips pursed, voices sharp enough to let the more relaxed among them know that this was not a relaxing time. This was Christmas, and Christmas meant joy, damn it, so you had better spread the magic.
‘Oh, look.’ Clara nudged Christian. ‘It’s our old friend, Pudding.’
The last time they saw Pudding, Clara had knocked him out with a giant novelty candy cane. If Christian once thought it impossible to feel cold dread at the sight of a grown man in little velvet briefs, the kind worn on the outside of tights, like Superman, he reconsidered. But then, when a man spends many windowless days in a gingerbread house not made by gingerbread, listening to the Head Elf speak at length about miracles, damn it, he’d be a little intense too.
‘We should probably get out of here before Pudding spots us,’ Clara said.
Christian agreed. ‘Maybe spying on Yuletide wasn’t my best idea.’
Pudding stepped outside, dropped his cigarette onto the snow, and crushed the butt with the tip of his green velvet slipper.
‘Well, well,’ Sugarplum Mary said, appearing behind them. ‘You know, I really should have you both killed.’
‘That’s a bit intense,’ Christian replied, but Clara elbowed him in the ribs.
‘Go ahead,’ she told Sugarplum Mary. ‘Make my day.’
‘There is no need for that,’ Christian replied weakly.
‘Torture them,’ Sugarplum Mary said, speaking to someone over her shoulder.
Christian snorted, ‘What?’
‘Do you still have that cyanide pill?’ Clara hissed in Christian’s ear.
But Christian didn’t get a chance to reply. Suddenly, two elves grabbed his arms and dragged him into a gingerbread house, where he was tied to a chair with tinsel. Clara received the same treatment.
‘What are you doing?’ Christian said as Sugarplum Mary stood before them, smirking.
‘We have a very low tolerance for spies here in Yuletide,’ she replied. ‘You must suffer the consequences.’
It made Christian feel crazy—this intensity. It’s just Christmas, he told her. But the Christmas people didn’t want to hear that it was just Christmas. The Christmas people were perhaps deficient in beneficial monounsaturated fats, magnesium, and vitamin E after switching their pine nuts to hazelnuts.
‘Torture them for information about their replacement Santa,’ Sugarplum Mary said to Pudding. ‘Clara is an incompetent Christmas consigliere, but even the most incompetent Christmas consigliere is still able to land a Santa for her town.’
Sugarplum Mary turned and exited with her elves—she had left them alone with Pudding, who immediately slipped off his velvet hat and collapsed into a chair.
‘Er—are you all right?’ Christian said.
‘I don’t think so,’ Pudding replied.
Clara looked sympathetic. ‘Do you feel comfortable telling us what’s going on?’
Pudding didn’t say a word. Then he nodded. It turns out that Pudding was a man named Jeff. One day Jeff was looking for clarity, and he already owned the velvet knickers, so he decided to become a Yuletide elf. He attended elf school even on days when elf school was not held, because that’s how committed he was to this—this job, yes, but also this second chance at life. Suddenly Jeff, the man, became Pudding, the elf.
Pudding wasn’t about to just let any old elf take his rightful vengeance on the dirty no-gooders who knocked him out with his very own giant novelty candy cane, the very candy cane given to him during his elf graduation ceremony. The very candy cane which obviously held sentimental value, otherwise he’d have just eaten it when he had come home to discover his wife in the arms of Cuddles, another elf.
‘That’s why I volunteered to torture you,’ Pudding said. He took out a flask and took a swig of eggnog that Christian suspected wasn’t eggnog. ‘But I’m not this elf. I’m not capable of torture.’
‘You’re probably still a little fragile after your wife left you,’ Clara added. ‘You know, whenever I’m heartbroken, I like to watch movies and eat and cry. What do you say, Pudding?’
He thought for a moment. ‘Can I put on some popcorn?’
‘Absolutely. Thornton, you want popcorn?’
Christian had no idea what was happening. ‘No.’
‘He’d love popcorn,’ Clara told Pudding. ‘The important thing is to eat, you know? To eat those feelings and repress them.’
‘Mittens the Parking Elf says repressing your feelings is bad,’ Pudding said.
‘What would Mittens know? If he was a halfway decent elf he’d be a Photography Elf. I mean, are you really listening to a punk Parking Elf?’
‘No.’
‘Pudding.’ A second Yuletide Elf stuck his head around the door. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m about to torture these two interlopers from Mistletoe,’ Pudding said. ‘Maybe kill them. Feed their bodies to the reindeer.’
‘All right. Fine. Please don’t eat Crumpet’s coconut yogurt again. We all know it was you.’
‘Fine.’
‘He has a dairy allergy, Pudding!’ The elf vanished.
Clara and Pudding decided to watch Little Women, the 1994 adaptation, followed by Little Women, the 2017 adaptation. Each time, Pudding cried when Jo rejected Laurie’s marriage proposal, and each time, Christian glared at Clara, not just because she’d made Pudding cry, but because she’d made him cry, too.
‘I hate Professor Bhaer,’ Christian said, as Pudding handed him a tissue. ‘Why did Jo have to marry him? Why couldn’t she just have said yes to Laurie?’
Clara shook her head. ‘Because Jo March wanted to do something splendid, which meant doing something more than just marrying the rich and handsome boy-next-door.’
‘Marrying the boy-next-door would have been more splendid than marring Professor Bhaer!’ Christian cried softly while Pudding nodded in agreement. ‘Besides, there is nothing wrong with being rich and handsome.’
‘You don’t get to watch either film again,’ Christian said, snatching the remote out of Clara’s hand. ‘No more Little Women for you.’
Clara’s mouth dropped open. ‘Why not?’
‘Because Pudding and I don’t want to be around your negativity for a minute longer. Isn’t that right, Pudding?’
‘Er—’ Pudding looked from Christian to Clara.
‘See,’ Christian said. His voice was thick with accusation.
Christian ushered Clara out of the room, which meant she had to sit in the sleigh until he finished watching the 1997 film. Finally, he emerged.
‘You must feel very silly right now,’ Christian said.
‘Why would I feel silly, Thornton? It’s not like I kicked my friend out of the room for being right about Jo March.’
But Christian wasn’t listening. ‘I don’t like it when Beth dies,’ he said.
‘I don’t think you’re meant to like it when Beth dies,’ Clara said. She slipped her arm through his. She used to slip her arm through his all the time, but lately, since he had returned, she liked to keep a little distance. Perhaps because Ridge wouldn’t approve.
Ridge. Christian groaned as he climbed into the sleigh. Christian wasn’t just a
better man, but a better match for Clara, even if he did disagree with her about Jo March. Sure, sometimes Christian understood why Louisa May Alcott refused to marry Jo to Laurie, but understanding isn’t the same as approving, and he would never, ever approve of Jo with Professor Bhaer.
Ever.
Fourteen
Christian had been hiding in his room for hours. He wanted to avoid Ridge. Besides, it was lonely in his room, though in the best possible way—the shutters drawn and the fire crackling and the snores of Boxer heavy in the air. But then there came a knock on the door. For an instant, Christian thought about ignoring it until the person left him beautifully alone.
Instead, he opened the door.
‘Why does Ridge think you’re avoiding him?’ Clara asked.
Christian rolled his eyes. ‘Because I am avoiding him.’
‘You know, it would mean a lot if my fiancé and my boyfriend were buddies.’
‘You need to lay off the jingle juice.’
Clara muttered something and pulled Christian out of his bedroom. So that she wouldn’t wake up the whole inn with her complaints, he let her drag him along the hall, down the stairs, and into the kitchen.
‘What are we doing?’ Christian asked.
‘Something of the utmost importance,’ Clara said gravely. She turned her solemn eyes on him, and his heart pinched. ‘An intervention.’
A smile spread across Christian’s face. ‘Ah, so Ridge is finally going to be told he has a problem with alcohol.’
‘The intervention isn’t for Ridge, Thornton. It’s for you.’
‘Me?’
‘You,’ Clara said firmly.
Christian blinked hard. ‘Why do I need an intervention?’
‘You eat a billion candy canes a day, Thornton. I think all that peppermint is giving you hives.’ Clara tried to lift up Christian’s shirt.
Christian shooed her away. ‘The hives are not from the peppermint. The hives are from the stress.’
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