Frosting Her Christmas Cookies - Alina Jacobs Page 0,37

removed my sculpture.”

“This is a very preliminary design,” I assured her. “Obviously all of this is in flux.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “Well, why don’t you all think on that vision some more and get back to me.”

“I thought you said you buttered her up,” Greg groused when we were back in front of my office. “Or are you just giving her free alcohol? How much have you given her? I know that bottle of cognac was worth, what, three hundred dollars?”

“It’s going to pay off,” I insisted. “She likes me.”

“Likes you? Of course! She has you wrapped around her finger. She doesn’t have to sign a thing, because you show up and keep her entertained and liquored up. Honestly,” Greg said, shaking his head in disgust. “Every time I deal with one of you Frost brothers, I tell myself never again. Yet here we are.”

“I’ll get her on board,” I promised.

“I doubt it,” Greg sneered. “You acted like you were hungry to make the top-one-hundred-richest list, yet you’re acting like an amateur.”

“I will convince her to sell,” I told him.

“Hm.”

Except I didn’t know how.

19

Morticia

“Why won’t he leave?”

Jonathan was across the street, arguing with two tall blond men in dark suits and overcoats.

I was in the bar at the base of his office building. Lilith, Emma, and I had set up shop there and spent every free moment in the place when Romance Creative wasn’t filming. At night, I would sometimes catch myself staring up at Jonathan’s condo in the residential building across the street. I would wonder what he was doing. Was he cooking, showering, lying on the couch? Did he sleep nude? Did he walk around his apartment barefoot and shirtless in gray sweatpants?

“Where is his coat?” Lilith asked, sliding into the seat next to me with Salem in her arms.

I stroked the black cat’s head.

“Maybe he’s a winter spirit,” Emma said, “or the god of snow.”

“She’s been rereading Twilight,” Lilith told me, rolling her eyes.

“You totally need to sleep with him,” Emma said with a giggle.

“Wow, where did that come from?”

“It might help your creative juices flow!” Lilith said, poking me in the side.

“And other juices!” Emma snickered.

“You still don’t have an idea for the scholarship, since you refuse to use my naked pictures of Jonathan idea,” Lilith reminded me.

“I need a better idea than that,” I said, standing up. “I’m going across the street to that property with all the art to work.” But I needed Jonathan to move first. Why was I so worried about running into him?

You’re acting like a high school freshman, I scolded myself.

I grabbed my cape and my bag and frog-marched myself outside. I ran mental scenarios of what I was going to say or not say to him. It was just like high school, when I’d had a crush on Justin…until it all blew up in my face.

Which is exactly what’s going to happen with Jonathan if you aren’t careful.

I needed to just walk right past him, maybe deliver a cool but casual nod.

But when I walked outside, he wasn’t there. Instead, Keeley was. “What are you doing in Jonathan’s building?” she demanded.

“None of your business.” I pushed past her, but she followed me.

“You think he likes you?” she spat at me. “Jonathan doesn’t. He’s just tolerating you and stringing you along.”

“Kind of like how your parents tolerate you?” I cut in.

“You bitch!” Keeley screeched.

“Like we’re all supposed to pretend like you didn’t fuck your own sister’s fiancé the night before their wedding? Don’t try to intimidate me or my friends,” I told my cousin, jabbing my finger at her. “I will put a curse on you then post all over the internet about how you’re a cheater. All the fans of the show will vote you off next episode.”

“Oh yeah?” Keeley snarled. “Well, I’ll tell people how you stalked a boy in school then tried to kill him.”

“That’s not what happened! You set me up. You’re such a liar!”

“I guess we’re at a stalemate,” Keeley said nastily. “Stay out of my way. You have more to lose than me.”

Furious, I went to my favorite spot on the bench in the old industrial property, but I couldn’t concentrate. It was as if I had been transported back to that fateful day in high school. The cops had been called. I had tried to explain that it was a love potion, but the principal took one look at my dark hair, makeup, and goth clothes and gave me a one-way ticket to the