Preface

This novel contains brief mentions of sexual assault.

1

To: Loveridge & McGowan Employee Network

Cc: Ana Loveridge-Herrera, River McGowan

From: Olivia Langley

Subject: 12 Days of Holiday Cheer!

’Twas the night before Thanksgiving when all through the office, not a person was stirring, not even Alba from Human Resources trying to get in the last of her ten thousand steps. The stockings were hung by the water cooler with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there!

If the peppermint hot chocolate on tap in the break room and the absurd lines at Macy’s (and just about every other store in this city) weren’t obvious enough, it’s THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR! But as far as I’m concerned, it’s been Christmas since November 1st and I would like to personally thank all of you for humoring my playlists—even that one person who turned it off on November 11th at 1:49 p.m. when they thought I left the building. I’m not upset. Anymore. Asher.

In the spirit of all things holly and jolly, I’ve taken it upon myself to plan a few events to get everyone in the holiday spirit!

November 27th: Christmas Kickoff!

Enjoy drinks and appetizers after work while we select Secret Santas.

November 29th: Oh, Christmas Tree!

Bring your family to our special viewing of the Rockefeller Center tree lighting ceremony!

December 1st: Lace Up Those Skates!

Bring your family back to Rockefeller Center for a night of ice skating! Hot chocolate, cookies, and skates will be provided!

December 4th: Holiday Trivia!

Join us down at the Rose Tavern for holiday themed trivia! Winner gets a paid day off for holiday shopping!

December 6th: It’s a Pajama Party!

Wear your pajamas to work and enjoy a rooftop viewing of your favorite Christmas movies! Blankets, popcorn, and heating lamps provided!

December 8th: The Christmas Crawl!

Drink around the city! Uber reimbursement will be provided for a safe sleigh ride home!

December 12th: Ugly Sweater Day and Lighting the Menorah!

Wear your ugliest holiday sweater to work! Prizes will be awarded to the most hideous! And don’t forget to stay for our menorah lighting ceremony!

December 14th: Cookie Exchange!

Bring in your favorite holiday dessert and a box to take home some extra goodies! Prizes will be awarded to the most delicious!

December 16th: An Afternoon of Giving!

Volunteer your time at the New York Children’s Hospital’s Christmas Extravaganza!

December 18th: Winter Wonderland Gala!

Enjoy a night at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for our annual holiday soirée! Mingle with coworkers, clients, and history’s finest!

December 22nd: Secret Santa Swap!

Enjoy drinks and appetizers after work while we swap gifts!

December 31st: Ring in the New Year!

Say goodbye to 2019 and hello to 2020 at the Gansevoort rooftop park! Open bar and appetizers provided!

The global calendar has been updated with each event! For everyone’s convenience! And so that you can’t say you forgot! Email reminders will also be sent a business day in advance!

I wish you all a safe and Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your extra long weekend! I look forward to Christmas Kickoff on Monday!

Yours truly,

O. Langley

Social Media Intern & Santa’s Executive Helper

Loveridge & McGowan International

98 W 52nd St, New York, NY 10019

[email protected]

* * *

“Go home, Livi.”

Celeste shoves a plastic bag at me, her dark brown eyes narrowed into a glare that suggests I better do what she says before she gets real mad.

I graciously accept her offerings, but sigh reluctantly. “You have a newborn and a husband. You should leave.”

“Baby, this is a vacation for me,” she says. “You’ve been here since nine this morning. It’s almost midnight. I’m surprised you aren’t passed out on the floor.”

“I’ve had three quad shot peppermint lattes today.”

My hands are still shaking. I’m wired. I don’t think I’ll sleep again until the new year, which is perfect because I have too much to do.

“No wonder you’ve got your crazy eyes on,” she laughs. “Go home. Go to bed. You gotta do this all again tomorrow.”

It doesn’t take any more convincing. I grab my coat from the backroom and wave a quick goodbye as I skirt around the tables of Porcelain Straw and exit into the hotel lobby.

It smells like mulled wine and gingerbread cookies. A warmth rushes through me, one that’s saved specifically for this time of year. It’s happiness and cheer and overwhelming joy all rolled into one perfect little bubble. I’m giddy. Bursting at the seams. Five seconds away from breaking into song and dance. I’m Christmas drunk and not at all ashamed.

“Have a good night, Olivia.” Bernard smiles at me as he pulls the door open. “Thanks again for the cookies.”

“Make sure some make it home to that wife of yours.”

“I can’t make any promises.”

I laugh. “Goodnight, Bernie!”

I brace for the cold and pull my coat tighter. I’m still smiling.

It’s flurrying tonight in New York City and I feel like I’m living in a snow globe. I walk home, despite being numb from head to toe. I can’t stand the thought of missing this in favor of the subway. This is the reason I moved to the city. I’m going to soak up every last snowflake.

No one else looks as happy as I do. Their necks are tucked into their scarves and their hands are shoved into their coat pockets. They brush by me without a second glance. Places to go. People to see. Everyone’s in a rush.

I’m not.

I take my time. I admire the window displays and the dusting of white that’s coating the ground.

When I do get home, my face is chapped and my lips are quivering. I pull off my jacket, scarf, and mittens and change into a pair of flannel pajamas and my bathrobe. Joey’s door is closed, like it always is. I know she’s home because the TV is on, but it’s late, so I don’t knock to see if she’s awake. Instead, I curl into a spot on the couch and reach for the remote.

My Thanksgivings have never been traditional. There were no fancy dinners or pumpkin pie. No extended family gatherings or football teams to cheer for. Some years I ate day-old pizza. Other years I sat in the nurses’ lounge at the hospital while my mom worked. I was alone. A lot. Most of the time, I would pretend I wasn’t. I’d make the best out of my situation. With stuffed animals and dolls, I’d create my own Christmas stories. And when my mom got done working, I’d reenact all my favorite scenes. I guess it was our own weird tradition.

Tonight I’m sitting on the couch. With restaurant leftovers. Watching a recording of the parade that took place while I was setting tables.

Another holiday alone.

Like always.

2

Levi Booker is ten thousand times hotter when he’s standing underneath the mistletoe holding my hand. I am also ten thousand times hotter when Levi Booker is standing underneath the mistletoe holding my hand. I’m dizzy and lightheaded. I think I might pass out.

“You, my dear, are a breath of Christmas cheer.” He presses his lips to the whites of my knuckles and I want to bottle up this moment in a snow globe and keep it on my mantel forever.

Me and Levi Booker. Underneath the mistletoe. Like that movie he starred in last year. I’m his leading lady. We’re in love. He’s going to propose. We’ll have a June wedding, and three children with his dreamy blue eyes and my blonde hair. A house in Connecticut. With a white picket fence. And a Range Rover.

Our Christmas cards will be legendary.

“Olivia? My bagel?”

My eyes don’t leave Levi. I throw the white paper bag at Asher. My lack of hand-eye coordination leaves it landing at his feet. I feel him scowl.

“It better be cinnamon raisin.”

“It is.”

“Double-toasted?”

“Of course.”

“Extra cream cheese?”

“A whole tub.”

Levi Booker is still holding my hand. Underneath the mistletoe. Like a freaking romantic comedy. Where is my Oscar for Best Outstanding Actress in a Dream Role?

“From the place—”

“Asher, she’s an intern. Not a waitress.”

Levi drops my hand and looks over my shoulder at Asher. I feel empty, like a box that was carelessly opened on Christmas morning and cannot be used again. I’m ruined. Destroyed. Throw me in a recycling bin.

“I’m aware,” Asher snaps. “But if you offer to get my breakfast, I don’t expect it to be thrown at me and I’d prefer it to be delivered before I die of starvation.”

“I see someone’s brushed up on their acting skills since middle school drama club.”

The whole office laughs. Asher doesn’t. He slams his door shut and the wreath I hung this morning falls to the floor. What a Grinch.

“I guess some things never change,” Levi laughs and glances back at River McGowan, the co-CEO and Asher’s father, who is also laughing.

“Let’s go to my office,” he says.

For one last time, Levi looks down at me and winks. “It was a pleasure standing under the mistletoe with you.”

The only thing I can think to say is, “thank you.”

He walks away and I don’t move for at least forty-five seconds. I keep waiting for him to come back. To get down on one knee and confess his love.

He doesn’t.

I sigh wistfully as I search blindly behind me for the doorknob and stumble back first into Asher’s office.

“I hope you’re here to apologize for assaulting me with a bagel that is neither double-toasted nor slathered in cream cheese.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, you sound it.”

Levi Booker held my hand. Underneath the mistletoe. If I had a blog—which I definitely don’t, especially not one about extraterrestrial conspiracy theories that the government might be interested in—I’d never stop writing about this moment. For the rest of my life. It’s all I’m ever going to talk about. I have officially peaked.

“Levi Booker is a fucking toad.”

I take a deep breath and count to three, which is how I start every conversation with Asher.

“There’s a Prince Charming inside every frog.”

“No, he’s just a fucking toad,” Asher says and he has cream cheese smeared over his lips. “But he sure did charm the panties right off of you.”

“That’s rude.”

He shrugs. “I wouldn’t feel too special. He did the same thing to Harriet from accounting and she’s, like, sixty-eight.”

“Stop trying to ruin my moment.”

Asher rolls his eyes. “You’re gonna meet a lot of Levi Bookers in this industry and the sooner you realize he’s already forgotten your name, the sooner we can move on to more important matters, like this exceptionally wrong bagel and the press releases I needed on my desk thirteen minutes ago.”

“I was just getting them.”

“Were you? Because I think you were drooling over a troll.”

“That is so—”

“Time is money, Olivia.” Asher clicks his pen and tucks it behind his ear. “And while you were making a fool out of yourself with one client, another just gave birth to Nashville’s next little country starlet. Ava Mae Rutland. Born at 4:45 a.m. on November twenty-seventh at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Nine pounds. Six ounces. Twenty-one inches long. Mother and daughter are both happy and healthy. Dad and big sister, Maisie Lane, are smitten with the family’s latest addition—why aren’t you taking notes?”

“Oh, you want me to write this press release?”

“Yes, Olivia. I’m a busy man. You think you can pull yourself away from the North Pole long enough to get some actual work done?”

I take a deep breath and count to three again. “You’ll never get off the Naughty List with that attitude.”

“That’s not really my top priority.”

“Well, it should be,” I say before grabbing a stack of manilla folders from his desk, and then I leave him alone to eat his normally toasted bagel in brooding silence.

* * *

Darius throws back a nip of tequila and chases it with a gingerbread cookie. He smiles at me and shrugs, “’tis the season!”

The break space at Loveridge & McGowan International is shaking to the beat of a Mariah Carey song. I want to start belting out the lyrics, but I bite my tongue. It’s too early in the evening for a choreographed performance. I need everyone to be significantly less sober. Not that I’m shy, or anything, but for the sake of my coworkers, my dramatic rendition of Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) must be viewed with vodka-colored glasses. They would thank me later.

“Olivia, you’ve put together such a lovely evening.” Ana Loveridge-Herrera is standing next to me and she’s glowing like a Christmas tree that’s fitted with thousands of tiny, bright white lights. If I hadn’t walked into the bathroom at the same time her pregnancy test returned a faint positive sign, I would assume her glow was holiday related. Turns out she likes Christmas a normal amount and is just hyped up on all those blissful baby pheromones.

“Thank you for humoring me,” I say, replenishing a tray of peppermint hot chocolate cupcakes. “I know it’s a lot, but I just really love this time of year.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” she laughs. “It’s about time someone got this office into the holiday spirit. Keep up this enthusiasm and after your internship is over, we might have ourselves a permanent holiday coordinator.”

“Really?”

“Really,” she says. “I’ll have my assistant email you about getting involved with the winter gala. I think you deserve a spot on that team.”

I wait until Ana walks away before I squeal. It’s not every day that you practically get a job offer from the most badass publicist in New York City. She once stormed onto a set of a live morning talk show because the host asked a question they weren’t supposed to. It was the most streamed video on YouTube for three months.

“Are you having a seizure? Should I call an ambulance?”

Asher blinks at me before his eyes shift into a glare. He lives in a perpetual bad mood, which I think is a shame. Life is too short to be unhappy all the time. And he’s too cute for frown lines.

Also, he has a penthouse apartment in SoHo and his girlfriend is a freaking Rockette. He hit the life lottery.

“Of course I’m not having a seizure,” I say. “And I would hope you’d have a bit more urgency if I was.”

“There’s fifty other people here,” he says. “I’m sure someone knows how to dial 911.”

“Wow, you’re definitely the person I’d want to be around during an emergency.”

“Speaking of,” he says as he reaches for a cupcake. He takes a bite and puckers his face in disgust. I’m offended. “I need you to moderate a book signing tomorrow in Union Square.”

“You consider that an emergency?”

“Not really, but I was tired of the small talk and it was the reason I came over here, so… be at Barnes & Noble at four o’clock. It’s for Emmy Raynard. Her book is about nail polish, so it’ll be a bunch of tween girls asking for makeup tips. You’ll fit right in.”

“I’m sorry, Asher, but I can’t.”

“You can’t?” Now he looks offended, like I just insulted his very expensive Gucci boots or ran over his grandmother’s dog.

“When I got the internship, I told HR that I couldn’t do late nights on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. They said it wouldn’t be an issue.”

“Of course it’s an issue,” he huffs and takes another bite of a peppermint hot chocolate cupcake. His face puckers again. “Because if you don’t do it, then I have to do it, and I would much rather get my wisdom teeth extracted without anesthesia than moderate a reading about nail polish.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t sound really sorry,” he says. “What could you be doing that’s more important than this? Are you singing Christmas carols to homeless people in Central Park?”

“No, that’s not until December tenth.”

“Of course.” He rolls his eyes. “I’m very upset.”

“You look very upset. Especially with all that chocolate all over your mouth.”

His face turns a funny shade of red as he reaches for a napkin to wipe his mouth.

I feel bad because, well, I always feel bad when I disappoint people, which is why I try very hard not to do it. But I can’t skip a shift at the restaurant. I make more in tips in one night than I make here in a week. I don’t have a trust fund or a wealthy great aunt to fall back on. I have rent and student loans that aren’t going to pay themselves.

“Will it be over by seven?”

“I would hope so,” he says. “How long can teen girls talk about makeup?”

“Hours. Days. Months, really.”

“Then it’ll probably go all night.”

I sigh. “I can stay until seven.”

I’d only be a half hour late for my shift. I could make it up after hours. Staying at the restaurant until one in the morning won’t be fun, especially when I have to get up four hours later to make it here by eight, but I knew this wasn’t going to be easy and I’m prepared to lose sleep in order to achieve my goals.

And there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Ana said that if I continue to do a good job, they’d take me on permanently. It’s probably not in my best interest to blow off this book signing.

“Fine,” he says. “Seven it is. I’m sure her manager can manage after that.”

“Perfect.”

I’m daydreaming about the four crème brûlée lattes I’m going to need to drink tomorrow when the Secret Santa hat comes around to me and Asher. He snarls at it like the Ebenezer Scrooge he is.

“I’m not participating,” he says.

“Yes, you are,” I tell him. “Your name is in there. You have to.”

“I didn’t put it in there.”

“I did.”

“That’s forgery. It’s illegal.”

“As if I could forge your terrible penmanship,” I say. “Please stop trying to ruin the spirit of this. Pick a name and then buy a twenty-five dollar present. But not a gift card! That’s thoughtless and impersonal. And I think everyone deserves a little time and effort and not something that’s bought ten minutes before the party at Duane Reade.”

He glares at me as he shoves his hand into the Santa hat that Alba from HR is holding. When he reads the name written on the tiny piece of folded paper, his face stiffens.

“Wow, someone’s gonna be real happy when they find out you got them.”

He crumples the paper in his hand before he stomps off towards his office. I sigh and pick a name.

Eleanor McMannis.

A copywriter on a visa from Ireland.

She just became the luckiest person in the office.

3

“What’s your second favorite lipstick color?”

I glance at my watch and then back to the three pages of makeup tips I’ve acquired over the last two hours. It’s 6:58 p.m. Emmy’s momager has been on her phone in the War History section for the past forty-three minutes. I’ve developed a nervous twitch, which may or may not be due to ridiculously high amounts of caffeine consumption.

“Can you recommend me a good palette? And, like, what’s your favorite foundation blending technique? Because, like, whenever I use a stippling brush it looks cakey, but like, I watched this video on beauty blenders and they’re, like, really unhygienic.”

My watch ticks to 7:03 p.m. and I get out of my chair. I’m not supposed to leave the talent unattended, but the most controversial question that had been asked tonight was which One Direction member she preferred, which sparked a heated debate that I wasn’t prepared to referee. I figure Emmy will be fine on her own for a few minutes.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Raynard?”

Elizabeth Raynard is leaning against a shelf of World War II books and she waves me off with the back of her hand.

“Like I was saying,” she cackles. “They tried to put me in business class. Like, hello! Do you know who I am?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Raynard?”

Her eyes narrow like daggers to mine. Her glare sends a chill through me. “I’m on the phone.”

“I know,” I say. “But Asher told you I have to leave by seven.”

“He told me no such thing.”

I wrote the email.

“I’m sorry that he didn’t make it clear,” I start, “but I have a prior engagement that requires me to leave now.”

“And what do you suggest I do with this room full of bumbling tweens?”

“They’re asking harmless questions. I haven’t had to divert any topics. The store manager says the curfew is eight, so it won’t go much longer.”

“That’s an hour away,” she huffs into her phone. “Kathy, I’ll have to call you back… I know… It’s ridiculous. I’m arguing with some airhead of an intern.”

I glance at my feet. “I’m really sorry about this—”

“I’m not paying Asher to work ninety percent of the time.” She steps closer to me, her lanky figure looming over mine. It’s hard not to be intimidated by a woman who carries five phones and is ten inches taller than me. “If this sort of behavior continues, I’ll consider finding more professional representation.”

“It won’t happen again,” I say. “I can assure you that, Mrs. Raynard.”

“Don’t make me promises you can’t keep,” she snarls. “I’ll be speaking to Asher about this.”

The Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

Enjoyed this preview? ❤️ Do not stop here!

Read the complete book free online → 🔗

Continue reading now on BooksBarbecue and discover every page!

Love reading? Bookmark BooksBarbecue.com for more amazing books!

Happy Reading!