Page 5 of A Cozy Kind of Christmas
“I gotta go. Today’s my interview.” She knelt next to the bed to look for her tights. “I can’t be late.”
“Aw, come on, please,” Connor pleaded, batting his long lashes as he propped himself up on one elbow. “I’ll make you coffee. Breakfast in bed? Pancakes? I’ve got a bottle of that pumpkin pie creamer you like. Add that to a splash of your coffee, because I’ve seen how you guzzle pumpkin spice, and basically, it’s the full room service treatment. What do you say?”
“Nope. Hard pass.” She scooped up her clothes and slipped into the bathroom, drowning out his voice with the rushing hot water in his bathroom sink.
“You’ll kill it, Johanna. I don’t know why you’re so uptight about it. You run the place,” Connor called from bed.
She splashed water on her face, avoiding her reflection. She couldn’t look at herself. She’d sworn she was done with him.
This is the last time.
The last time.
This has to stop.
She wiggled into the dress and tugged on her tights, trying to remember if she’d kicked off her boots by the front door or next to the bed. Probably the bed.
Her phone buzzed.
Damn, she was late.
There was no time to go home and change. She wetted her hair down and sloshed mouthwash, wishing she could rinse away the memory of last night. She had calledhim. So pathetic. No more wine after 9:00 P.M. It always led to bad decisions, and Connor Howard was the worst of her bad decisions, even if he did make them seem like very good decisions indeed at the time. The problem was that no one she’d ever dated gave her the chills the way Connor did. The good chills. The ones thatleft her feeling slightly weak in the knees and barely tethered to the ground. A tiny touch from him made her ready to ditch all rational thought and run off into the sunset—or maybe the subway station for a quick jaunt for a slice—with him and forget about all future plans.
She hurried to the bedroom, scanning the floor for her boots.
“Johanna, you’re no fun.” Connor flashed her a sleepy, annoyingly sexy grin. “Stay.”
“No, it’s late.” She silenced the alarm on her phone. “You’re late, too, Connor. You know today is big for me. I have to be on my A game. The all-hands meeting starts in twenty minutes. Then I head straight for the firing squad, and I round out the day with story pitches from you and the bros. It’s going to be brutal. Nonstop. Starting now.” She tapped her wrist twice.
“Fine, we can go together.” He threw off the covers, exposing his naked body, chiseled and firm in all the right places. He was tall, dark, and handsome, like he’d been plucked straight from a Hollywood movie. His hair was the color of basalt and always had a messy, I’ve-just-woken-up quality thanks to an expensive trio of gels and mousses. The same was true for his flawless skin—buffed and polished like a statue of the Greek gods.
“Oh, my, Lord, are you insane? Like actually insane?” She found one boot underneath the bed. Where was the other?
“You’re so uptight. No one cares.” He stood with his hands on his hips, showcasing his body like he was auditioning for a role as a male stripper.
“I care. I care.” She shot up like a rocket. “No one can know, Connor. Absolutely no one, understood?” A cold sensation crept down her arms. “You haven’t said anything, have you? Because I swear…” She trailed off. Yet another reason this was idiotic and her fault. She knew better than to trust Connor Howard, but she couldn’t seem to shake free from his orbit, or maybe a blackhole was a better analogy. If he sucked her in one more time, he would destroy her for good.
She needed to be singularly focused today. She had an interview to nail and a promotion to land.
This was a mistake.
A mistake she kept making.
A mistake she absolutely, unequivocally would not let happen again.
FOUR
MEG
A week later, back at her apartment, Meg sat frozen in front of her laptop, staring at her first-everNew York Timesfeature story. Today was the day. The one thing she had dreamed about for her entire adult life—her byline in theTimes—had finally come to fruition.
She blinked twice, her eyes blurry with disbelief as she reread the byline again and again:By Meg Reed.
She should have felt giddy. She should have been blasting Frank Sinatra Christmas carols and dancing around her living room in her pink fuzzy slippers in front of her bedazzled pink tree, soaking in the cheerful vibe of her space. Her apartment was quintessentially cozy, with hand-cut paper snowflakes dangling from the ceiling, rope string lights adorning the window, and bundles of cinnamon-scented pinecones piled near the faux fireplace, where her pink stocking hung on a tiny bejeweled hook.
Instead, she fought back tears as she scanned the story.
Never, not in her wildest, most ambitious dreams, would she have imagined that pursuing her passion would come at such a cost. She’d given up nearly everything and everyone she loved in the process of searching for her truth.
