by Alina Jacobs
Rudolph seemed a lot happier now that he had a harness and could sniff to his heart's content. The puppy bounced around from a tree to a stoop to a friendly doorman. I was constantly trying not to trip over the leash.
“I hope he manages to keep up the energy,” Morticia said. “We have a marathon shopping session ahead of us.” She pushed through the door to a high-end home-goods store.
“The dog needs to wait outside, please,” the saleswoman said when she saw me.
Owen had acted as if he didn't like the husky, but I would have bet all my Christmas cookies that if anything happened to the puppy, he would be furious.
“We're here to buy decorations for The Great Christmas Bake-Off,” I explained. “Owen Frost is partnering with them, and we need enough Christmas decor to fill the lobby of his company, Quantum Cyber.”
As soon as the name dropped and I waved around Owen's credit card, the salespeople were all over us. A pillow was procured for Rudolph, and the manager literally closed the shop for us and insisted on leading us through the several floors of home decor.
“We have all our Christmas products out, as you can see,” she said.
Morticia showed her the sketches, and we explained the theme. “We need a mile of garland,” I added.
“Some of that we'll have to ship, but you can see our samples,” one of the saleswomen explained as I admired the lengths of garland. It was a nice sage green, interspersed with fairy lights that glowed warmly.
“I want a few of those abstract trees,” Morticia said, pointing to a crop of white, almost skeletal trees.
“I guess they don't look too bad,” I said. “They're sculptural.”
Another saleswoman led us through the furniture.
“We need cozy benches,” I said, admiring a white tufted couches and loveseats.
“We should have some other types of seating arrangements too,” Morticia said. “These leather chairs will look great draped with one of those fur throws.”
“These will be a nice arrangement next to a Christmas tree.”
“Right, the trees,” I said. “We need ornaments.”
“We have several sets of crystal ornaments,” the saleswoman said, leading me into another room. The glass ornaments sparkled in the light.
“These might be a bit much,” I said hesitantly.
“You wouldn't use these exclusively,” the saleswoman said. “Just to add some sparkle.”
“All right, let's do it!”
Morticia added several huge white, silver, and gold bows to our order, then we were ready.
“We'll have the items that are in stock delivered today, and the rest of the items we'll have rushed as soon as they package them from the warehouse,” the store manager said pleasantly as she swiped Owen's credit card. “Would you sign please?”
I stared at the total, the six-figure number swimming in my vision.
“How—how did we spend that much money?”
“It's a huge lobby,” Morticia answered. “Besides, Penny said it was okay.”
“All right, I guess,” I said, signing the receipt. “I hope Owen doesn’t freak out.”
14
Owen
The text interrupted Greg's tirade about Quantum Cyber not having an adequate staff of computer programmers. I stared at it coldly.
“What the fuck?” I said as I read the text message.
Belle: Don't freak out, but you're going to see a $108,000 charge on your credit card for Christmas decorations.
“Who spends that much money on Christmas decorations?” I said aloud.
“Probably the Holbrooks,” Walker replied. “Their decorations are all over social media, tagged of course, with #TechBizTopCompany. All the tech blogs are already speculating on who's going to be at the top of the list.”
“And that brings us back to the topic of the meeting,” Greg said. “For the last two years, Owen, Quantum Cyber has not been hiring the best and brightest. We're opening that new facility in Harrogate in partnership with Svensson PharmaTech. At this point, I'm highly doubtful that we will have qualified workers to manage it.”
“It's this idiotic TechBiz list,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “Not only do the Holbrooks vacuum up all the good workers, but they also have first dibs on any start-up trying to sell.”
“It's all because of the corgi,” Walker said. “Kate and Grant just post random pictures of him. Look, here's another one. They decorated their sign, and they have Gus the corgi in front of it. It's so blatant. All Kate wrote is, 'You know you want to work here.' Here's another picture of Grant and the corgi in matching hats.”
“And yet here you are, Owen,” Hunter said. “Complaining as opposed to taking actionable steps to correct the problem.”
“He's trying,” Walker protested, attempting to stick up for me. “We have a nice Instagram post with him and the puppy. Penny's decorating the lobby.”
“It's all so petty,” I complained. “Quantum Cyber pays very well, and our employees have a lot of autonomy. The Holbrooks are terrible, but they throw up a picture of a corgi in a Santa hat in front of a Holbrook Enterprises–themed Christmas tree, and everyone is falling all over themselves to work there.”
Hunter gave me a flat look. “People are sheep. They want a shallow Instagram moment, and they want to feel good about where they work. You two need to try harder. You know how I feel about the Holbrooks. I'm taking this as a personal affront if their company is at the top of the list again this year. If the Holbrooks are using the holidays to lock in the top spot on the TechBiz list, then Owen, you better get on board with Christmas.”
“I need a drink,” Walker said after several more hours of Greg and Hunter picking apart the company finances, the progress of the new gene therapy facility in Harrogate, and their general disappointment with me.
“Both Hunter and Greg are usually difficult to deal with, but Greg especially seemed in a worse mood than normal,” I remarked.
“It's because Crawford came back,” Walker said.
“Your brother? I thought you said he moved to Tokyo.”
Walker shrugged. “He's back. Greg won't even let us say his name. He's still furious at him. I didn't think he could despise anyone more than Hunter, yet here we are.”
“Speaking of people we despise,” I growled. Sloane was waiting in the lobby. She waved to me, uncrossed her legs, and stood up, smoothing her hands slowly down her body.
Holly does it better.
“You should be nice,” Walker insisted. “Give her the Owen Frost five-star treatment. Can't hurt to have an edge in the competition. We do need to, if not win, at least achieve a higher ranking. I did a poll of our employees, and eighty percent of them wouldn't recommend the company to a friend because it's not a fun place to work.”
“It's a company specializing in cybersecurity and cryptoanalytics. There's nothing fun about that,” I retorted.
“Exactly,” Sloane said, sauntering up to us. “That’s why you have to try extra hard to make it exciting.” She slid her hands down the collar of my jacket, pretending she was doing it to smooth out my tie.
“I really enjoyed our last date,” she said. “We should do it again.”
“It was six months ago,” I said, trying to push her off me.
“You're a busy man. I can come by tonight and wear something sexy. I'll be your elf on the shelf.”
“No, thank you.”
“You need to relax,” she said. “Being a billionaire and running a huge company must be stressful. I can help you strategize about increasing your TechBiz ranking.”
“I am not interested,” I said firmly. “I have a lot on my plate right now.”
“We'll catch up later,” she said, her hand drifting around my waist before I pushed past her.
“I can't believe you're rejecting her, dude,” Walker said as the valet handed me my keys. “She's pretty, and she could help your business. Win-win.”
“Lose-lose. She's crazy. We went on one d
ate. Sloane hasn't left me alone since then. I've tried ignoring her. I've tried telling her clearly that I do not see a future together. It's like she doesn't even hear me. Every few days, she texts me. It's insane! Six months, this has been going on. Isn't she exhausted? It's not like she doesn't have a job.” I blew out a breath. “I will never date again.”
“You could string her along long enough to beat the Holbrooks and get my brothers off our case.”
“That sounds like dealing with the devil. Besides, I already am making enough deals with evil spirits. I have all that Great Christmas Bake-off nonsense, which I know is going to come back and bite me.”
As I pulled up in front of my tower and handed the keys to the valet, I remembered how much The Great Christmas Bake-Off was already ruining my life. When I walked into the lobby, it looked like a storage facility. Six figures’ worth of Christmas decorations filled the space. Holly was happily skipping through the maze of boxes like a demented ballerina in The Nutcracker.
“What the hell?” I growled. People were going to think my company was going out of business.
Holly stopped and blinked at me, and Rudolph ran over to greet me. I picked him up and walked over to her. Holly pulled a wad of receipts and my credit card out of her coat pocket and handed them to me. I took them silently out of her hand.
“Merry Christmas?” she said sheepishly.
15
Holly
I hadn’t had a lot of time to go through the decorations the night before. Owen, a scowl firmly on his face, had picked up the dog and disappeared upstairs. After a full day of shopping, I didn't have the energy to go through each box. Instead, I sat in bed and ate a bowl of peppermint ice cream and chatted with my fans on Instagram while old holiday cartoons played on my laptop.
The next morning, I had a sugar hangover. I sucked down coffee while Zane clipped on my microphone.
“Today,” Anastasia said after the judges had all sat at the reclaimed-wood table, “is the Santa's cookie challenge. It's not Christmas without Christmas cookies. And we have the queen of Christmas cookies, Chloe from the Grey Dove Bistro, here as a guest judge. Chloe, do you have tips about cookies that could help the contestants?”
“I love a good sugar cookie!” Chloe said. “At the Grey Dove Bistro, we make several thousand cookies and decorate them by hand every day for Greyson Hotel Group to give as welcome gifts to patrons. Remember to keep the dough cold. A steady hand while decorating is also important. Also, I feel like there's no such thing as a bad cookie. Good luck!”
I was excited for this challenge and knew exactly what I was going to make: my grandmother's famous sugar cookies. They were light and fluffy and practically melted in your mouth. I would frost them with a layer of buttercream and a sprinkle of rock sugar. They were my favorite Christmas treats in the world, and I was determined that my baking would bring Owen some Christmas cheer. Who in the world hated Christmas and baked goods? No one, that's who. Owen just needed someone to remind him what the holiday was all about.
These cookies were sweet, but everyone I fed them to said they were addicting. The buttercream didn't use all that much sugar, and it tempered the sugar cookie dough. Even Morticia liked them, though she always requested Halloween shapes.
I was making candy canes, stars, bells, Christmas trees, stockings, and snowmen. The cookies were tasty, but I was worried that they wouldn't be enough to win. I chewed on my lip and looked around in the pantry. I didn't want my dish to be a sad plate of a few cookies. It needed to be a true platter with a mound of cookies.
Last Valentine's Day, I had made cookie sandwiches with this recipe. Maybe I could do something similar for Christmas and have a beautiful plate. For Valentine’s Day, I had used raspberry jam in the middle and either frosted the top piece, left it plan with a sprinkling of colored sugar, or drizzled ganache over it.
For this challenge, I decided to do all of the above and filled my basket with ingredients then toted everything back to my station. These sugar cookies seemed simple, but they did take a while to make. There was a lot of waiting—waiting for the dough to chill, waiting for the cookies to bake, waiting for the pans to cool.
Since the dough needed to be good and cold, I made it first. The dough wasn’t that difficult to make. Cream the cold butter and the sugar, add the salt, flour, and baking powder then the eggs. When I was done, I had a buttery-colored plank of dough. I put it in the freezer to chill then set about making the filling.
Instead of raspberry jam, I reduced raspberries to a rich red syrup. I also made an orange reduction, zesting several organic oranges and squeezing the juice. I didn't add any sugar. I wanted the tang to contrast against the sugar cookie. Since it was Christmas and I wanted to have something green, too, I made the final reduction out of key limes. I strained all three fruity sauces and set them aside to cool.
The dough was finally cold. I split it into portions and rolled the first ball out on the parchment paper.
To make the sandwiches, I cut out a large star and cut a smaller star out of the middle of it for the top of the sandwich so you could see the filling inside. I repeated this for the other shapes like the Christmas trees and the bells. After I had a nice set of tops, I peeled the remaining dough off the parchment paper and put in in the fridge to cool again. When I got back to my station, a cookie tray had appeared next to my rolling pin. I looked at it suspiciously.
“I had to borrow your cookie sheet for a second,” Amber said innocently.
“Uh-huh.” After all her accusations of me trying to steal Owen, I didn't trust her. I inspected the sheet and all the cookies I had rolled out. The cookie sheet was the kind I preferred, constructed of two pieces of metal with an air pocket sandwiched between. It seemed fine. I checked my oven temperature then took out two more cookie sheets and slid the pieces of parchment paper onto them. I put them in the oven and set a timer.
I was rolling out the next set of cookies when a whistling sound came out of the oven. Zane and another camera guy raced over, hoping to capture the drama.
“It's nothing. Sometimes ovens make noises,” I assured them.
Bang! I was cut off when an explosion came from the oven.
“What in the world!” I raced to open it. “My cookies!”
They were ruined. Somehow, one of the cookie sheets had literally exploded. The cookies had been knocked off in the carnage and were smoldering at the bottom of the oven. Struggling not to cry, I turned off the oven and grabbed an oven mitt. Anastasia came over with a fire extinguisher.
“What happened? I thought baking was supposed to be safe!” she exclaimed.
“Something was wrong with the pan,” I bit out. I couldn't remember which cookie sheet was the one Amber had given me. But she was working at the next station over with a smug look on her face.
“What did you do?” I yelled at her.
“I didn't do anything!” she protested.
“You took one of my cookie sheets, and now my cookies are ruined. I know you did something. I want to review the footage,” I demanded.
“All I did was use the sheet and wash it. Maybe some water got in the air pocket. I don't know,” Amber said in feigned innocence. “We can't know. You can't blame me for your issues, Holly.”
I tried to stay calm. I didn’t need to go viral for screaming at a fellow contestant, even if I did want to shove her face-first into a bowl of icing.
None of the cookies in the oven were salvageable. I threw them all away, trying not to swear. I had made extra dough, but I couldn't afford to mess up anything else. We had to make four identical plates, one for each judge and then one that Romance Creative would use to take photos and videos of our dish. That meant a lot of cookies.
Checking the clock, I rolled out and cut more cookies, carefully monitoring the oven while they baked. I repeated the process several more times then let the perfect sugar cookies cool. I could not frost them when they were at all warm because they would break.
“Can yo
u watch my station, please?” I asked Fiona. “I need some chocolate and a double boiler.”
“Sure!” she said. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “I saw Amber dunk that cookie sheet under water. I bet she tried to fill up the air pocket on purpose.”
“Of course she did,” I said.
While the cookies cooled, I made a glossy chocolate ganache, mixing the heavy cream and rich, dark, unsweetened chocolate together. It was a special imported Dutch cocoa that made an almost black chocolate. It also turned pretty hard when it cooled, which was good, because I didn't want it to smear on the cookies.
Thankfully, they were cool. I mixed up a huge bowl of buttercream frosting using good European butter, confectioners' sugar, heavy cream, imported vanilla extract, and sea salt. I usually added a bit more salt than other people. As in life, a little salt made one appreciate the sweet things even more!
I tasted a big dollop of the frosting.
“Delicious! I could seriously eat buttercream frosting just by itself,” I announced.
Fiona giggled from where she was mixing up royal icing. “I know, right?”
I started with the cookie sandwiches. I spread one of the fruit glazes I’d made onto the solid bottom cookies then carefully lined up the top ones and pressed, making sure not to crack anything. On some of the shells, I had sprinkled large rock sugar granules before putting them in the oven. Those sandwiches were ready to go, and I set them aside. The second set received a drizzle of ganache.
The clock was ticking down. I carefully frosted the remaining cookies with a layer of buttercream. It shouldn't be smooth, because I wanted it to be a bit rustic to catch the sugar. I arranged them on the platters with a few minutes to spare.
“Hands up!” Anastasia called as the buzzer sounded.
I looked over at Fiona's dish. She had beautifully decorated chocolate cookies that resembled tiny works of art. I looked back at my cookies. Maybe they weren't good enough?