Page 87 of Five Days of Christmas Spice

“Xander, it’s Holly. I’m sorry about your toddler, but you must show up on set.”

“Fuck, Holly, I can’t leave him,” Xander says.

“Yeah, I know what that’s like.” I launch into my spiel, even as my heart is breaking.

19 NOEL

DECEMBER 30TH

“What?” I growl into the phone.

“Who pissed in your cereal?” Evan says.

I throw off the tangled sheets. I didn’t sleep well after leaving Holly. I tried not to take it personally, to shake off her rejection, but it still felt like cold water being thrown in my face.

She’ll be on that flight home and away from me in only a few hours.

Fuck, I hope she hasn’t left yet.

I scramble into my clothes, trying to understand what Evan is saying.

“Evan, if there is a problem with the contract from Winterhaven Farm, get Brent on it.”

“You’re not listening.” My grumpy younger brother growls into my ear. “Brent has left for vacation for two weeks. The name is incorrect on the contract.”

“Stella…something, right?” I drudge the name from memory. The woman always sounded harried when I called her and rushed with a lot of clamouring in the background. Maybe she misspelt it or something.

“Right, that’s who I thought owned the property. But that’s not the name on Brent’s offer sheet.”

“So he made a mistake?”

“Yeah, or something weird is going on. Can you please fix it?”

I open the door to my private suite and take the stairs two at a time. “Okay, what’s the name on the offer sheet?”

Maybe it’s a simple fix, like missing an l or something, and I can fix it within an hour.

“Holly Burkholder.”

“Say that again?” I stop mid-step.

“Holly Burkholder. She has an Edmonton address.”

Even though I tell myself not to leap to conclusions, my mind is whirring. Could she have taken advantage of Stella? I mean, that woman seems ripe to fall victim to scams that could talk her out of a lot of money, or is it another Holly Burkholder and not the woman I’ve been fucking all week?

“An address in Edmonton?”

“Yeah, I think it’s a condo. Anyways, if I can email this to you, can you try to contact her? If we get it done today, we can celebrate at the party.”

“I’ll take care of it.” I run back to the resort, to Rosa’s desk.

“Hey, where’s Holly?”

“Outside, she’s leaving now,” Rosa says. “Noel? What’s going on?”

“I said I’d take care of this, okay?” I hang up on Evan.

A sharp anger surges through my veins. She didn’t even say goodbye? The cold air hits me. She’s wearing the cloak I gave her. Martin is helping her load her bags into the trunk.

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