Page 17 of Grinch Girl

What? That didn’t make any sense. “Why in the world did you sign up for the dating series then?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Bella hired me two weeks ago. Her product is launching in March, which means we basically have no time to get everything in place. She’s designed a great product, and I’m excited to be a part of it. If we do this right, it’ll be a huge success. For her and for me. But this is her first rodeo—she has no idea the amount of work it takes to get the PR, marketing, communication, and training in place.”

He sighed. “A week after she hires me, she tells me she’s going to Wisconsin for the entire month of December. Not a big deal, I thought. I’m used to working with clients remotely.” Heshook his head. “But right away, it was clear that it wasn’t going to work.”

“Why?” I shifted my weight to one foot, intrigued for no reason.

He blew out a long breath. “She’s staying at her grandmother’s home, and there’s a terrible internet connection. Our Zoom calls dropped half the time.”

I winced, sort of taking it personally. Greta would never let me fix it. “When you’re in this house, you’re off the clock, Jane,” she’d say gently. She also preferred to read in the evenings instead of being on any sort of screen. “What do I need fast internet for anyway?”

“That wasn’t even the bad part,” he said. “Since she got here, she doesn’t seem to be able to concentrate on work at all. She’s mourning her grandmother—which I get! But out of nowhere, she’s also spending all of her time helping that Carol woman with the Christmas Village.”

His frown got deeper. “Then she walked into the diner last night, and the minute she locked eyes with her ex, I wanted to groan.”

That made two of us. “Why?”

He snorted. “Because if she goes nuts for a bloke, that’ll take all of her remaining focus. If I have a few of those web series ‘dates’ with her, at least I can be sure of her attention for several hours at a time.”

He looked down at the calendar app on his phone and back up at me. I recognized the stress in his gaze now. I saw it in my own eyes every morning in the mirror when I thought through my daily schedule. “We have so many deadlines to hit in the next four weeks. If she’s spending every minute with that lumberjack himbo, we’ll miss them.”

“Michael’s not a himbo,” I said defensively. “At all. He’s very smart.”

Nate paused at my auto-defense, and then a slow smile spread across his face. “Oh.”

I should have put the Scoville 10+++ sauce on the table.

“So he’s whyyousigned up,” he mused.

“No!” Not totally. I crossed my arms over my chest.

“This is great!” Nate said, leaning forward. “Totally great.”

I began clearing the dishes from his table onto my tray. “You’ve lost me.”

“Don’t you see?” He beamed at me, a bright smile laced with malice. “We can work together. Try to do things that will get Bella paired with me and Michael paired with you.” He rubbed his hands together maniacally. “It’ll be fun too. Hatching schemes?”

What kind of lunatic actually used the phrase “hatching schemes”?

But isn’t this exactly the kind of thing I’d been planning on my own with my “bad girl” persona? Maybe it wouldn’t be terrible to have a cunning partner for this kind of thing, especially since I now needed to focus on other important stuff too, like figuring out how to buy out Bella’s half of the shop.

Besides, weren’t “alliances” a key part of reality TV?

“Deal.”

*

I slept hardthat night, and when I woke it was to Sean pounding on my front door and Bruce barking in response.

“The votes are in!” Sean said excitedly, standing on my stoop with an open laptop and two to-go cups of coffee.

“And I needed to know them right now, at the butt crack of dawn?” I snapped, yawning and squinting at my watch.

I forgave him though when he handed over one of the coffees and said, “I’ll go walk Bruce while you wake up, and then we can look at the results together.”

I handed over Bruce’s leash and harness, muddle-headed and grateful I didn’t need to face the brisk November wind. Bemused, I popped a couple of English muffins in the toaster and got out some butter and jam. I hadn’t seen Sean so invigorated by anything in the time I’d known him. The kid had so much potential.

When he and Bruce reappeared, his nose and ears were red. “Brrr. It’s not even thirty degrees yet.”

---