Frosting Her Christmas Cookies - Alina Jacobs Page 0,25

are seeing a bit of an uptick,” Weston said, “but it looks like it’s traced directly to the bake-off images. Let’s pull up your online sales chart.”

I felt sick as he called up the chart on the screen. The growth line was anemic. We could see that all my advertising since Black Friday had hardly done anything.

“What’s that uptick there from today?” Belle asked, pointing.

“Running a sale maybe?” Blade said. “With this software we designed, you can get granular data. It looks like ninety percent of this traffic is coming from one Instagram post. From this morning by… who is this? The handle says Witches vs. Patriarchy.”

“That’s Morticia,” I said, studying the profile picture.

Blade pulled up the post.

“That’s me!” I said happily. It was the picture Morticia had taken at the bar. I preened as I added, “I look hot!”

“And yet somehow, we are all shocked that he doesn’t have a handle on his company,” Belle said.

Greg smiled slightly. He and Belle caught each other’s eyes then immediately looked away, like two cats who didn’t mean to be on the same shelf.

“Okay, so I’ll just tell the marketing company to make more pictures and posts that will appeal to women,” I said confidently. “Easy.”

“Actually,” Weston suggested, “you need to pay Morticia to do it, since she has the proven track record now. Also, you need someone nimble. Christmas is over in twenty-five days, so you need to move on this right now.”

“Shit.”

“Don’t tell me you can’t manage that,” Hunter growled. “We’ve invested a lot of money in your company.”

“Er…yeah,” I said. “It will be fine. Morticia…”

Likes me? Hates me? She took that picture of me and posted it, so she must not hate me all that much…Maybe she was still mad I grabbed her in the park?

“I’ll work it out with Morticia.”

“I bet money that you don’t,” Weston said with a snort. “That meme of her throwing the candy cane dildo at you is all over the internet. She hates your guts!”

13

Morticia

“Why are you posting pictures of him?” Keeley demanded, cornering me in the pantry and ruining my concentration.

I needed to find inspiration for a scholarship-winning art piece. But all I could think about was Christmas. The poppy holiday music that had been piped into the store on a loop was stuck in my head. I needed to listen to a Baroque funeral requiem and clear all the fake snow out of my mind.

I gave my cousin a flat look. “I don’t know who you mean.”

“Yes you do!” she insisted. “You’re posting pictures of my future husband.”

“So we’ve come to this part of the evening,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“What part?” Keeley was confused.

“The part where you have completely given in to your delusions and think someone like Jonathan is going to willingly shackle himself to someone like you.”

“Oh yeah? It’s not like he’s going to be with someone like you,” Keeley shot back.

“I don’t want him,” I said slowly. “I am happiest alone with my cat.”

“Because you’re a weirdo,” Keeley hissed. “You’re going to die old and alone, eaten by that animal.”

“Better than being bitch-slapped to death after you sleep with the wrong woman’s husband.”

Keeley huffed. “They weren’t married then.”

“Sarah is your own sister, and that was her fiancé. They were about to be married,” I reminded her.

“You’re jealous that I’m going to be Mrs. Frost. I have a plan. I’m going to get pregnant. Then he’ll have to marry me or at least pay child support.”

I rolled my eyes. “Jonathan’s dumb, but he’s not that dumb.”

Keeley took a little pillbox out of her purse. “I have Santa’s little helper,” she said, shaking the box at me. “It’s guaranteed to knock a grown man out for eight hours but still keep everything down there working.”

“You can’t drug someone and sleep with him!”

“I can if I’m his fiancée, which I will be when I win the contest.”

You cannot leave Jonathan to Keeley’s mercy, I told myself. Though I dressed like a devil worshiper, I didn’t consider myself a bad person. I could be malicious, but Jonathan didn’t deserve to be tied to Keeley his whole life. However, if I went to him and told him her plans, Keeley would just spin it like I was the crazy one, just like she had done freshman year, which had ended with me locked up in a psych ward.

“They’re never going to be alone,” I assured myself.

But how can you know?

“Morticia.” Jonathan, hiding in a doorway, grabbed me as I