Frosting Her Christmas Cookies - Alina Jacobs Page 0,23

make caramel popcorn and laugh at the carnage when Keeley notices. You, of course, will be too busy being a hot tub nymph to partake with us, but we will screenshot the best comments for you.”

12

Jonathan

I wasn’t sure if my libido could handle a hot tub party. I had barely been able to keep it together when Morticia had been doing nothing more than trailing her fingertips across my hand.

“You have to be the luckiest guy in New York right now!” Carl boomed. He had been waiting for me outside my office. “All those hot women in skimpy bikinis, a hot tub, and all the desserts, specially made for you, that you can eat.” He nudged me. “You better watch your diet.”

“Please. I already have it covered,” I said. “I went for a ten-mile run instead of my usual five this morning.”

“Greg will be pleased about that,” Carl said. “He was worried you were going to lose your girlish figure. Oh shit!”

I turned to see my sister, in four-inch heels and a black skirt suit, striding over to us. “Come on, boys. We don’t want to be late for Greg’s meeting.”

“Dude, no!” Carl whispered to me in horror. “She can’t come to the meeting.”

“Why?” Belle countered. In her heels, she was almost as tall as Carl, though I knew from experience that when my sister turned that cold gaze on a man, he and his balls shriveled up to the size of a peanut.

“I just—er—there are trade secrets?”

“The Great Christmas Bake-Off is my show, which my company is producing,” Belle reminded him. “Jonathan is attending the meeting to discuss the performance of his…” She blew out a breath. “Alcohol company. It interfaces with The Great Christmas Bake-Off, which means it is in my purview.”

“Did you tell Greg?” I whispered to Carl as we shuffled behind my older sister into the lobby of the Svensson Investment tower.

“I decided it would be better to surprise him. If I’d told him earlier, it might have given him a chance to stew in his anger and resentment and then explode all over everything when we showed up.”

“I don’t know. It could have given him a chance to cool off,” I said uncertainly.

Carl looked concerned for a moment. “Ah, shit. Maybe I should have…”

“Carl!” Greg barked as he stepped off one of the elevators that let out onto the polished marble floors. “You better not have brought her here.” He turned to Belle, who was completely unfazed. “This is a proprietary meeting,” Greg spat at my sister. He seemed very angry.

I was concerned for a moment that he might actually hit her. I wasn’t sure what had gone on between them. My older brother, Owen, had said that they’d had a, quote, “thing,” but the tension in the lobby didn’t seem remotely like even the most toxic aftereffect of any bad hookup I’d ever experienced.

“And that’s my little brother, and we’re pimping his alcohol on our show. If you’re not talking about the alcohol sales, then I don’t need to be here, of course,” Belle said simply. “Maybe, instead, you’re talking about a big potential land deal. Far be it from me to speculate, of course. I don’t know what you do. You’re so disorganized over here.”

I had sworn up and down that I wouldn’t talk to anyone about the land deal. The Svenssons had sworn me to secrecy under pain of…not death, but they had threatened that they would tie me up and make me spend a weekend subjected to the whims of two dozen of their half-feral little brothers.

Unfortunately, it seemed Belle already knew or at least had an inkling about the pending Hamilton Yards deal. I looked up at the ceiling then at the floor—anywhere but at her. Because if she wanted to, she could make me spit it out. The woman should have been a CIA agent.

“There’s no land deal,” Greg and Carl’s half brother, Hunter, called from across the lobby, putting his phone in his pocket. “Belle. Nice to see you again. Hope your business is going well.”

“Likewise.” She shook his hand.

“Hope Meg is well,” Greg spat at Hunter.

Oof! Shot off starboard, Captain. Meg was Hunter’s unrequited love. Carl had told me Hunter was in the middle of some sort of elaborate scheme to win her back. Personally, I would have just groveled apologies, but hey, what did I know?

Hunter’s nostrils flared slightly.

Belle looked between them. She was almost at eye level with the brothers, and the two gray-eyed men