Page 13 of Her Holiday Arrangement
Riley sat across from her, trying to act like she belonged. Her knees bumped the table leg as she reached for the champagne flute, and Elizabeth noted the way her fingers trembled slightly. Not from cold.
“Nervous?” Elizabeth asked, not looking up from her tablet.
Riley froze mid-sip. “Uh… you mean about pretending to be your girlfriend in front of your probably terrifying, old-moneyfamily over the most emotionally loaded holiday of the year? Nah. Totally chill.”
Elizabeth arched a brow. “You’re surprisingly articulate for someone who just used the phrasetotally chill.”
“Thank you. It’s the champagne,” Riley quipped, then promptly knocked the edge of the flute against the table as she set it down. A few drops sloshed over the rim onto the pristine table.
“Sorry! Damn it.” She reached for a napkin.
Elizabeth beat her to it, plucking one from the tray. She leaned forward with clinical efficiency, dabbing at the spill, and just as she wiped near the base of the glass, her fingers brushed Riley’s wrist.
Warm. Soft. Trembling slightly.
The touch lingered.
Riley stilled, eyes darting to hers.
Elizabeth pulled back as if it hadn’t meant anything. “Try to contain your drink,” she said lightly, but her tone came out lower than intended.
“Right,” Riley murmured, cheeks pinking. She curled her fingers around the stem of the glass more carefully this time and stared down into the bubbly liquid like it held answers.
Elizabeth returned to her tablet. The digital itinerary glowed coldly on the screen. She flipped to the notes she’d made: bullet points, timelines, backstories.The script, as she’d started to call it in her head.
“Pay attention,” she said, setting the tablet on the table so Riley could see. “We’ll need to be aligned on a few key details.”
Riley perked up, dutiful again. “Fake girlfriend briefing. Got it.”
Elizabeth tapped the screen. “They already know you’re my assistant. The story is that somewhere along the way, we became more. Four months together. We took a trip to Santa Barbarain October, rained the whole time, we got food poisoning, but laughed through it.”
Riley blinked. “That sounds grimly romantic.”
“It’s believable,” Elizabeth said. “The chaos adds authenticity.”
“Guess I’m method acting now.” Riley leaned closer, reading through the list. “Your mother’s name is Annette. Your father is Marcus. Your brother is Julian, and your sister is Margot—she’s the one who has three kids and judges everyone, right?”
“Two kids. But yes.”
Riley smirked. “I’m great with judgy siblings. I dated a guy once whose brother was a Fox News anchor.”
Elizabeth gave a dry blink. “Charmed, I’m sure.”
They moved through the rest of the details, inside jokes, pet peeves—Elizabeth had prepped it all: gifts they would have exchanged, songs they danced to, memories fabricated for emotional resonance. She had control. She always did.
Until she didn’t.
It hit her somewhere mid-sentence.
She was halfway through explaining her mother’s obsession with old-fashioned carolers when she realized,
She didn’t know Riley’s mother’s name.
She didn’t know if Riley had siblings. Or where she’d gone to school. If she liked Christmas, or if this whole charade was pushing her into something that felt like a lie.
Over a year of working together. Dozens of late nights, early mornings, airport terminals and coffee orders and briefings and…
She didn’t know Riley at all.
