“That’s all I’m asking,” he said as he backed out of the office. “And thanks for this.” He tapped on the gift-wrapped book. I’m sure Cass with love it.”
“She will,” I said and followed him out, locking the office as I went.
The second I stepped outside a tiny snowflake landed on my nose. I cinched my scarf tighter and ran, as best I could in four-inch heels, to the closest subway station. Outside of a ski trip, snow was only nice on postcards. It had the potential to wreak havoc on traffic, especially at rush hour. Luckily, I didn’t have far to go, it was only a few stops from the financial district to Greenwich Village. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived at my stop, there was a full inch of snow on the ground and I, having checked the weather before work as I always did, didn’t bring any other shoes because they weren’t calling for any kind of precipitation. I trudged my heels through the already grimy slush, hoping they weren’t ruined and that my toes wouldn’t freeze off.
This was why snow is only nice on postcards.
A neighbor I didn’t talk to swept the snow off the steps to the building as I approached. “Hey, we’re doing a holiday potluck in the common room. You should come.”
I didn’t look as I passed her, didn’t acknowledge that she’d spoken. I went in the building and to my flat.
It was rude. I know. But if I didn’t talk then she wouldn’t hear my accent. And if she didn’t hear it then she wouldn’t ask me where I’m from. An innocuous question for most but when you’re hiding who you are all questions are bad questions.
I’d tried to lose it. I tried to deaden the crisp t’s and d’s and harden my r’s. But I could never do it convincingly.
I didn’t have to worry about people at work poking around with questions. I didn’t work closely with anyone besides Mr. Reed, and he was too busy running his company to even notice I was English.
I hung up my coat, tossed the tickets and my keys on the coffee table and was about to inspect the damage to my shoes and toes when the doorbell rang. I ignored it assuming it was the neighbor being overly neighborly.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Hey, Serene, open up. It’s your favorite cousin.”
“Noah!” I shrieked and ran to the door, flinging it open and throwing myself at my cousin. Noah Mercer was my closest family member. We both had kind of messed up childhoods. His a little more than mine. He and his twin brother, Nick had always been so good to me whenever I came to visit but Noah and I always had a special bond.
He chuckled as I hugged him. “Too tight, Serene. You’re gonna kill me.”
I laughed and pulled him inside. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked, leading him to the kitchen for some tea.
“Jeez. I always forget what a dump you live in.” He looked around the flat, taking in the chipped, peeling paint, the yellow stained ceiling from poorly patched water damage and my too-small-to-turn-around-in kitchen.
I pursed my lips at him and busied myself with the tea. “Are you here for a reason or just to disapprove of my life choices?” I said, tone edging on defensive. I know he didn’t mean anything by it but he knew damn well why I stayed here.
Turning to place the cups and sugar on the tiny dining table, I was met with Noah’s mournful stare. “When are you going to stop hiding, Serene?” he asked quietly.
I took a breath, steeling myself against my cousin’s gaze, and changed the subject. “How are your classes going?” I asked and grabbed my tea box from the counter.
Noah rolled his eyes at me and sighed. “Jesus, Serene. You’re a goddamn titled heiress. I get why you work, it’s no fun sitting in your castle all day counting money you didn’t earn. But why on earth do you insist on hiding in cheap student housing?”
I smiled, nervously hoping my well-meaning but irritating cousin would let it go. “Noah, you know I don’t have a castle.”
“Not the point, Serene.”
“Please, let’s drop it.”
“Nope, I’m not going to this time. What is your deal, Serene? You could own this building, hell, you could own Greenwich Village if you wanted. But here you are in a shitty apartment drinking your tea from chipped mugs. What is the thought process behind pretending to be poor?”
I slammed the milk on the table. “I’m not pretending I’m poor, Noah.”
“What then?”
I took a breath, wanting very much not to have this conversation. It tumbled out anyway. “Do you know how hard I worked to build a name for myself on my own? Do you know how long it took me to cultivate all those relationships so that at a moment’s notice I could get pretty much anything done? That sweep-her-off-her-feet date you asked me to plan last month? That took five different contacts. Five people who trust me not because of who I am or who my father is or how much money I have but because I earned their trust. The hard way—years of proving myself over and over to these people. Do you have any idea how hard it is for everyone to assume your daddy bought you your job? Do you know what it feels like to have no one listen to your ideas because clearly, you’re just a trust fund bimbo without a thought in her head? Well, do you?”
“I—I...”
“No you don’t. So don’t judge where I live. Don’t judge the choices I’ve made. I love my job but only because I know I earned every bit of respect, prestige, and dollar that comes my way. Got it?”
Noah put his hands up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you all worked up.” He stepped toward me but I backed away. “Serene, I’m just a big believer in getting everything you want. I think you can have your contacts and respect and not have to hide who you are.”
I knew better. My first job out of school had taught me well. It only took one person figuring out who my father was and that I was part of the British aristocracy for the rumors started. It was two months before the stories got so out of control HR requested a meeting with me. They informed me that buying secrets from their competition was not only frowned upon but considered corporate espionage. They gave me a generous severance package and terminated me on the spot. They didn’t bother asking if I’d done it. Just like the thought never crossed their minds that I was good at my job and I didn’t need to cheat to do it well. I didn’t bother trying to change their minds but I left with a vow to learn from that mistake.
“Drink your tea,” I said, accidentally putting far too much sugar into my own.
It took a few minutes for the tension to leave the room and for Noah to move on but eventually he did, just like always. “You know that date won her over, right?”
I smiled. “Of course it did. Although, from what Nick tells me—”
“All right, let’s not get into that.”
I smirked at his discomfort. I didn’t care how he and Nick lived their lives. Sharing the same woman was bound to raise a few eyebrows but I only cared that I’d made Noah as uncomfortable as he’d just made me.
Now we were even.
“Anyway, I’m here to thank you properly.” Noah pulled an envelope from inside his jacket pocket and slid it across the table. I opened it expecting tickets to something I wouldn’t attend.
“Hm,” I said surprised I wasn’t holding a pair of tickets. Instead, I held a picture of a snow-covered cabin on a mountainside, a low moon just visible through streaks of clouds. “What’s this?” I asked.
“I booked you a Christmas trip to Aspen.” Pleased with himself, Noah grinned from ear to ear.
I pursed my lips at him. It was a ticket, it just didn’t look like one. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Noah but completely unnecessary.” I tucked the paper back in the envelope and thought of all the people I knew who might make better use of it.
“Every thing is taken care off, lodging, shuttles, meals, even ski rentals.”
I scoffed at my cousin. “I have my own skis, Noah.”
He smiled at me. “Then you’ll go?”
I sighed. “I can’t take off work. But thank you. I really do appreciate the gesture.”
Noah c
rossed his arms at me. “You’re an awful liar.”
I knew I was. But I wasn’t backing down. No way was I going anywhere. I liked working.
Noah rolled his eyes, then went to the front of the flat. To my astonishment he came back with the airfare tickets Mr. Reed had given me, dropping them on the table. “Jeannie and Cass are friends,” he said as an explanation.
Bloody hell. Mr. Reed’s girlfriend must have told Noah’s girlfriend, Jeannie, what he’d gotten me as a bonus. I wracked my brain trying to think of an excuse, any excuse to bow out of their gifts.
Noah shook his head at me. “How good does it feel when you can deliver the precise thing someone has asked for? It’s rhetorical,” he said when I tried to answer. “And what kind of warm and fuzzies do you get when you gift one of your contacts something really extravagant as a thank you?”
“Well—but that’s different.”
“Still rhetorical, Serene. Look, all I’m saying is it’s pretty shitty that you’re refusing to let us have those same great feelings because—what? You’re too much of a workaholic? You’re scared someone will find out who you are? Just go, okay. Have fun. Build a damn snowman. You deserve it.”
I sighed, knowing Noah had won. I’d go to Aspen. I’d ski my ass off. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.
Chapter Four
Jeffrey
THE COMMUTE WASN’T bad for a snowy Friday before a holiday and I made it to East Village with enough time to pack and order a pizza before I had to leave for the airport. I grabbed two slices and checked to see if my cab was here yet.
This was my first vacation since I’d taken the position at NYU. Up to now, I couldn’t justify the extra expense of travel and lodging with nearly twenty grand in medical bills looming over my head but I’d made the last payment a few months ago and this trip was a Christmas gift to myself of sorts.
Natasha had made me promise to keep traveling after she was gone.
It was how we’d met.
I’d been forced into backpacking across South America as a course requirement for an International Studies class. I’d taken the class on a whim, needing a filler in my schedule but if I’d known travel was a part of the deal, I would never have signed up. I hated every minute of it. The bugs and heat, the constant water vigilance and the fear of slipping up and being bedridden or worse, bathroom ridden, had me an anxiety-riddled mess. But then, during a tour of Machu Picchu, I saw her. Dark hair whipping around in the wind, bronzed skinned and big, dark eyes—I couldn’t look away. She was a mirage to my parched soul, a siren calling me to her, and I went to talk to her right then and there—in the middle of her tour.
We were married a year to the day after.
It killed me to do it at the time, to make that promise, seeing her in hospice care, a thin, hollow version of the woman I married, but I promised all the same. She’d also made me promise to keep trying new things.
“Not just trying a new kind of sandwich bread, Jeffrey. I mean the big scaries. The things that make you want to shit your pants. The things I would make you do.”
That one was the hardest. Left to my own devices I’d stay fairly well entombed in my comfort zone of work, students and an occasional movie at the cineplex. But Natasha had been my biggest cheerleader, tempting me into trying new foods and taking up new hobbies. She showed me how big the world could be and I did my best to keep that promise.
Every year since she passed I’ve done one thing that’s scared the living shit out of me. This was the fifth year of doing crazy shit without her. Seven years since I lost her. And I’m doing the craziest thing I’ve ever done.
Skiing.
Do you know how many people die in skiing accidents? It’s more than race car drivers. I know because last year’s scary thing was learning to drive a race car and that little fact was part of the driving instructor’s “you’ll be fine, look at all this safety equipment” spiel. Side note—what I did probably didn’t count as race car driving since I barely got the speedometer over eighty but it did count as a new thing. But back to how crazy skiing was because the number of people who die pales in comparison to the people who paralyze themselves or knock themselves into vegetative states. Skiing, to me, was for people with a death wish.
But I was going to try it anyway. I had a promise to keep.
I checked the window again for my cab, double checked the note I’d left for the pet sitter and gave my fat gray tabby a pat on the head. He chirruped at me, asking for more pets and I happily obliged. Chester had been Natasha’s and he’d taken her death just as hard I as had. It was weeks before I could get him to eat anything more than a few bites, months before he stopped waiting for her at the door, and at least a year before he was back to overeating and lounging on windowsills.
People say eventually the pain goes away. They’re wrong. The hole Natasha left in my heart aches every day. I miss her every day and wish she were here every day. But I’m not consumed by it anymore. The pain isn’t suffocating. I don’t feel like it could kill me anymore. But it does hurt. And I’m okay with that.
My phone buzzed, letting me know my cab was here. I gave Chester one last chin scratch, grabbed my lone bag stuffed with every sweater and pair of fleece socks I owned and headed out to keep my promise.
Luckily the cab driver wasn’t a talker. We got to JKF in decent time. I tipped him, told him to have a nice holiday and went about finding my terminal.
I settled into the hard plastic chair at my gate and waited to board. I couldn’t help smiling. The terminal was full of decorations and the hurried people seemed happy to be traveling to see loved ones.
“This is for you, Nat.” I mumbled as I boarded.
Coach was worse than I remembered. At well over six feet tall I had zero leg room. My knees pressed firmly into the back of the seat in front of me. I hadn’t remembered flying coach being so awful with Nat. But then, everything was better with her.
Next time I’d spring for business class.
Chapter Five
Serene
IT WAS BEAUTIFUL HERE.
I’d gotten in so late last night I’d hardly had the energy to look at the cabin. I plopped in bed and fell right to sleep but now, as I looked around it was clear my cousin had spared no expense.
I rolled over, stretching out like a starfish in the king bed, sinking deeper into the thick comforter as I took in the incredible view. It looked like I was in a damn snow globe. All the exterior walls of the bedroom were glass, giving me a sweeping view of the resort—peaked white mountain tops dotted with evergreen trees, drooping and heavy with snow for as far as I could see. To the left was another ski chalet, with steeply pitched roofs and turreted windows just like the one I looked out of.
I reached for the remote on the side table and turned on the gas fireplace to take the morning chill out of the air.
Aspen was a very good idea. It had taken my boss and my very favorite cousin to convince me but I was glad I was here.
I put a toe on the floor, testing to see how cold it was and was pleasantly surprised to find the hardwood floors were heated. I climbed out of bed, grabbed a fluffy robe and headed to the pre-stocked kitchen.
I only found a low-end brand of breakfast tea in the cupboard but that blow was softened when I found a room service menu with a note stating the room came with a personal chef at my beck and call. It had been a very long time since I’d had anything prepared by a trained chef. I’d have to remember that for later. Right now, I was interested in getting something quick and catching the next shuttle to the ski lift.
In my teenage years, I’d been a pretty decent skier. Holidays spent in the Alps tend to do that. But it had been quite some time since I’d strapped on a pair of ski boots so I made sure to find out which shuttle went to the bunny hill lift. A little caution never hurt anyone.
I grabbed a muffin from the complimentary gift basket and headed back to the bedroom to change. After getting my under-the-snowsuit-clothes worked out, yoga
pants and a fitted long sleeve t-shirt, I went to work pulling on the deep purple, one-piece suit I’d worn in my youth.
I was only twenty-six so it hadn’t been that long since I’d worn the suit. But I struggled to get it over my hips. After breaking a sweat, I finally got it zipped to my middle only to find it wouldn’t zip over my boobs. I gave up, pulled the top of the suit down and changed into a tighter, smooshier sports bra. That did the trick. I was zipped and ready to go. I grabbed my skis and fluffy white hat and gloves and went to the shuttle stop.
I’d hoped to be the only one up this early and get to the slopes before the big crowds but I had to settle for a few others waiting at the stop.
“Hi! I’m Tammy and this is my husband Dale,” said a woman with a southern accent in a pink suit so bright it was hard to look at. She held out her ringed, manicured hand. I yanked off my glove with my teeth and shook.”
“Pleasure, Tammy. I’m Serene.”
“Oh myyyy,” she drawled. “Isn’t that a posh accent? Cambridge?” Her ruby lips pulled back into a warm smile as she assessed my nearly ten-year-old ski equipment. I knew what she must think. I either didn’t have enough money to afford new ski clothes or just didn’t know any better.
I didn’t bother changing the assumption.
I smiled back, impressed she’d nailed my accent down so easily. “Oxford Business, actually but very close.”
“Well, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, isn’t that right, Dale?” Her husband nodded dutifully.
I had no idea what to say to that odd turn of phrase. I nodded and smiled. What occurred next happened so fast I hardly had time to register it let alone stop it.
“Oh, honey you’re about to bust right outta that suit. Why don’t you and I go over to the pro shop and get you something that does those curves justices.” She took my hand and tugged me away from the shuttle stop.
“Oh, no, that’s truly not necessary.” I wanted to yank my hand from hers but being so blatantly rude just wasn’t something I could do. “Really, I wouldn’t dream of taking up your time.”
Christmas Crush (Holiday Studs Book 3) Page 2