Frosting Her Christmas Cookies - Alina Jacobs Page 0,1

dream. It would earn me bragging rights and my work a spot in some of the nicer galleries around Manhattan. The art world would finally start taking me seriously.

I threw open the door of an eight-story brick building in which Romance Creative had set up production for the show.

“Thank goodness you’re here,” Dana Holbrook said when she saw me. She and her business partner, Belle Frost, hurried over. “The bake-off bachelorettes will be here soon. It’s a disaster.”

I scowled at Dana. “I did the best I could with what I was given,” I said, gesturing around the historic heavy-timber building. Though I hated Christmas with a passion, I had nevertheless managed to turn the studio space into a fairyland of merriment and cheer. I had made it as tasteful as possible, with loops of garland—real pine and juniper boughs, thank you very much—large glass ornaments, and, of course, Christmas trees.

“Aside from the voodoo doll you hid in the elf-on-the-shelf scene,” Dana said, handing me the creepy doll with two fingers, “it all looks great. No, the issue is that one of our bachelorettes fell pregnant, and the doctor put her on bed rest.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Fell pregnant? Like pregnancy just plummeted down from the heavens?”

“That’s what she’s telling her ultrareligious boyfriend,” Belle said dryly. “Swears up and down that it must be an immaculate conception, because she and her boyfriend were saving themselves until marriage.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, setting down Salem’s carrier. “So penises are just falling out of the sky now.”

“Yup,” Dana said. “Better watch out.”

“But now you’re here,” Belle said, “and you can help!”

I looked at her suspiciously. “Wait, this is a bake-off, right? So why are you calling the contestants bachelorettes?”

“We’re upping the ante,” Dana explained breezily. “The bake-off just isn’t drawing the numbers we need. Now it’s a bake-off slash date-off. The Bachelorette meets baking plus Christmas. It’s a gold mine!”

“Sounds like you all have your hands full,” I said, leveling my gaze at Dana then at Belle. I wasn’t stupid; I knew where this was going. Now to see if they had the balls to ask me. Of course, my answer would be no.

“There’s our lady and savior, bachelorette number thirteen!” boomed Gunnar Svensson, one of the producers of Romance Creative, as he came out of a side hallway, lugging the decapitated head of a reindeer…mascot that is.

“No,” I said, giving them my best witchy glare.

Belle, who might as well have been the Witch of the North herself, was unaffected. But Gunner stopped short.

“Uh…” he said, gray eyes flicking between us. “Now, Morticia…”

“No,” I said. “I will not debase myself and sacrifice my values to parade around as some simpering girl in nothing but tights and a holiday sweater and tell some douchebag billionaire that he’s so handsome, and I want him to make my Christmas Eve!”

“See, you’re a natural!” Gunnar wheedled.

“The beauty of it,” Belle added, taking the head from Gunnar, “is that you barely have to do anything. That’s what the mascot costume is for. Just show up dressed as a reindeer. In this iteration of the show, the fans have a say in who stays and who goes. You’re abrasive and odd. No one will like you, the fans will vote you out of the kitchen and the bedroom, and then you can collect a check and be back in Harrogate by tomorrow evening.”

“We just need a sacrificial Christmas goose,” Gunnar begged. He took out a check and waved it at me.

“I cannot be bought.” I crossed my arms. “I spent a whole summer on an art retreat in Mississippi wearing clothes I made out of animals I hunted myself.”

Gunnar shuddered.

Dana tossed her dark, shiny hair. “I can arrange for one of your sculptures to be installed in the Holbrook Enterprises tower lobby,” Dana negotiated. “It will have a big plaque displaying your name as the artist. There would be a press release.”

“Oh!” Well, maybe I could be bought a little bit. The Holbrook Enterprises tower lobby was three stories tall.

No! Stay strong!

“Unlimited budget,” Dana bribed.

I caved as visions of the homage to Hecate that I would create sparkled in my vision. “Only if I get to choose what it is,” I countered.

“Only if we approve the design first,” Dana corrected.

“Fine, but I’m naming my price.”

Dana extended her hand, and we shook.

So sue me. It was Christmas, after all: the season of commercial sellouts.

Gunnar handed me the head and the skin of the reindeer. “Looks like it’s going to be a Merry