So, she mixed and mingled and complimented everyone on their ugly Christmas sweaters, all the time watching the clock for a socially acceptable time to ditch the party, grab her dogs, and Uber her ass out to Gable House. It was on one of those furtive glances at the huge ornate clock that hung above the doors that she spotted the top of her uncle Buckley’s signature cowboy hat moving through the crowd.

She held onto her flute of champagne a little tighter, not wanting it to slip out of her suddenly clammy palms as her heart raced. Her uncle hadn’t made an appearance at the foundation or her apartment since the judge’s ruling came down. There was no way he was going to be anything but nasty when they came face-to-face. She did not have the energy for that today.

Downing the rest of her champagne, she scanned for the safest passage away from her uncle who, no doubt, was with the building’s resident Grinch, Suzanne. Chelle’s luck being Chelle’s luck, however, meant that everywhere she turned there were people making any kind of getaway as slow as a slog through the snow with her short-legged dogs. She tried going toward the open bar but turned back almost immediately. Then she went left with the goal of getting through to the back exit that led to what had originally been the servants’ stairs when the building had still been a Gilded Age mansion. She made it halfway there before two couples from the third floor started caroling so badly and off-key that everyone around them stopped dead to watch the train wreck.

Yeah. Maybe the open bar had not been one of her better decisions.

Determined to get out of there as her anxiety had her pulse roaring in her ears, she turned around—careful to avoid the cake table with the five-layer copy of the building iced with real buttercream—and nearly slammed into the crabbiest cowboy in the West himself.

Her gut dropped down to her toes.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite niece,” Buckley said with a smarmy grin. “I see your lawyers got one past the judge.”

Annoyance at his arrogance whipped her spine straight. “You mean they did their job and did a better job than your lawyers.”

“For now.” Buckley looked around dramatically, his gaze sliding over the people in the packed conservatory as if he’d just seen them for the first time. “Where’s that so-called husband of yours?”

Beads of sweat dampened her hair at her temples as panic ate away at her ability to come up with a quick lie. There was no way she’d give Buckley the satisfaction of the truth, since she was determined to fix the mess she’d made of her marriage.

Finally, her brain clamped down a plausible fib that would hopefully lead to the least number of questions. “With his family.”