Page 7 of Grumpy Glitter Christmas
Felicity stopped smearing. Grant blinked.
Meena was beaming, a genuine, thousand-watt smile. She looked from Grant’s thunderous face to Felicity’s mortified one. “This is perfect.”
“Perfect?” Grant choked out the word as if it tasted like poison. “There are non-regulation particulates in the vault.”
“There’s tension,” Meena corrected, her eyes gleaming. “There’s creative friction. You, Grant, are the stable, traditional foundation. The history. The trust.” She gestured to Felicity. “And you are the future. The joy. The sparkle.”
Felicity stared, bewildered.
“You two are the story,” Meena declared. “The perfect embodiment of this campaign. Tradition meets innovation. Order meets chaos. Grumpy meets sunshine.” She might have actually said that last part under her breath. “Which is why you will be brilliant co-chairs for this project.”
Grant looked like he was about to short-circuit. “Meena, with all due respect, our approaches are… incompatible.”
“They’re complementary,” Meena chirped. “You’ll balance each other. You need her creativity, and she needs your… structure.” She glanced at the glitter-smeared counter and added, “And possibly your oversight on materials handling.”
Felicity’s head was spinning. She wasn’t fired? She was… the story?
“The Gala is in three weeks,” Meena said, her tone shifting back to brisk, corporate command. “You’ll have a budget, you’ll have volunteers, and you’ll have my full support. Make it magical. Report to me frequently.” She gave them both a look that was equal parts encouragement and warning. “Don’t let me down.”
And with that, she turned on her heel and clicked away, leaving a stunned silence in her wake.
The silence was broken by Ida. “Well, this should be more entertaining than the town council meetings.”
Felicity slowly turned to face Grant. His jaw was clenched so tight she was surprised his teeth hadn’t powdered. He looked at her, then at the iridescent mess, then back at her. A war was being waged behind those stormy eyes.
Forced partnership. With him. Mr. Grumpystiltskin. On the single most important project of her career.
A tiny, hysterical bubble of laughter rose in her chest. She ruthlessly squashed it down, replacing it with a bright, determined, and utterly defiant smile.
He might be the beige, but she was the glitter. And the battle for the soul of the Frost Pine Ridge Bank had just begun.
CHAPTER FOUR
Grant closed his office door behind him with the careful precision of a man defusing a bomb. He leaned against it for a moment, then walked to his desk and sank into his chair with the slow, deliberate movements of someone whose world had just tilted off its axis.
Three weeks. He had three weeks to decorate the bank and plan a gala with a woman who had just contaminated his vault with craft supplies.
He ran his hands through his hair, then immediately regretted it when his fingers came away dusted with something that caught the light. Glitter. Of course. The stuff was probably embedded in the molecular structure of the building by now.
He brushed at his jacket lapel, watching iridescent flecks drift onto his pristine desk blotter. Each tiny speck felt like a personal affront to the natural order of things. Banks were supposed to smell like leather and old paper, not... whatever scent followed Felicity Adams around. Something that reminded him of cinnamon and winter mornings and?—
No. Absolutely not.
A sharp knock interrupted his spiral into madness. “Come in.”
Mrs. Finch entered, her face wearing the expression of a woman who had witnessed the apocalypse and found it mildly disappointing. She carried a small hand vacuum and what appeared to be a dustpan, approaching his desk with the grim determination of a battlefield medic.
“Mr. Whitaker,” she said, her voice crisp with barely contained outrage, “I’ve managed to remove most of the... particulates... from the teller stations. However, I’m afraid the vault may require professional cleaning.”
Grant watched her use a small hand vacuum to remove the glitter efficiently from his desk, each mechanical buzz of the device a small comfort. At least someone understood the gravity of the situation.
“Mrs. Finch,” he said carefully, “in your professional opinion, how catastrophic would you rate today’s... incident?”
She paused in her cleaning, adjusting her glasses with the air of a general surveying a lost battle. “On a scale of one to ten? I’d give it a solid seven. The glitter has achieved what I can only describe as ‘tactical distribution’ throughout the main floor.”
“And the woman responsible for said tactical distribution?”
Mrs. Finch’s mouth pursed like she’d bitten into a particularly sour lemon. “Miss Adams appears to be... enthusiastic.”
