How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas - Molly O'Keefe Page 0,3

my father had been hauled off for embezzlement no one needed to panic. There was a new sheriff in town—that sheriff being my brother—and things were A-okay at Kane Co.

The band was a nice touch.

I skirted the edge of the party, where the shadows were thick. People were gathered around cocktail tables talking shit and eating fancy snacks. They were laughing—which was good—and I slipped by them all, unnoticed or maybe even unrecognized by employees.

Getting cocky I grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and turned, only to come face to face with my mother. Gloria Kane.

Oh God.

“I didn’t recognize you,” she said. My mother was the personification of a cool breeze. A draft that made you reach for a blanket. She wore a black suit; she always wore a black suit. Her only nod to the holiday was a pin on the jacket, a gold circle that maybe was supposed to be a wreath. I mean, ho-ho-ho and all that. Her hair was in its bun, pulled so tight it made my own head hurt.

“It’s a party,” I said, running a hand across the navy sequins of my dress.

“I thought I’d dress up.”

“You look lovely,” she said. And leaned in for one of those two cheek air kisses. I was so stunned by the compliment I gave the air around her cheeks kisses of my own. But nothing came free from Gloria Kane, especially compliments. “It really is too bad you inherited your father’s hair. You always look like you’ve rolled in hay.” She pulled a curl straight, until it stung my scalp and I pushed her hand away.

She turned, looking out at the party and the fancy decorations, and I resisted the urge to rub away the sting of my scalp. The room was beautiful. The silver tinsel and the bright red and green baubles, the lights and beauty, and it looked expensive. It was so different from the way it had been when my father ran things. “You’ve heard, I suppose. He probably told you. You were probably there,” Mom said.

“Where?”

“At the wedding.”

Mom looked over at me and I couldn’t handle my shock. My surprise. Or…maybe my hurt. “Penny and Wes? They…did it?” I asked.

“Apparently.”

“Bullshit.” He would have told me. I would have been there.

“Really, Sophie. Do you have to be so vulgar?”

“Yep.”

Mom, if it was possible, got even stiffer. “He just made a big announcement. You missed it.”

The messages…

Son of a bitch actually did it.

Penelope Gold and her company, The Christmas Experience, were the second prong in the three-prong plan. What was supposed to be a merger had somehow turned into an engagement. Apparently during merger negotiations, Was had fallen in love with Penelope and asked her to marry him. I’d called bullshit on this, but my playboy brother, who usually dated a new woman every week, had been sticking to the story. I hadn’t met Penny until this week, and I’d wanted to hate her, but Penny was just too damn nice.

And now they were married.

“Your brother,” Mom said, shaking her head with sympathy and concern and every scrap of maternal instinct in her bony body. “He’s working so hard. And now married to this… unimpressive girl? I don’t like it. I told your father, not that he listened. But I don’t like this for your brother. He deserves so much better.”

This was the thing with my mom. Every girl was unimpressive. She only saw my brother and father. Like, this was old-generation stuff, right? Only men mattered. Sons and husbands and fathers—my job as a sister and a daughter was to just keep reflecting the best versions of the men in my life out into the world.

Mom had done that her whole life and look where it got her—a husband who’d lied and cheated and whom she was divorcing. And a son who barely tolerated her.

And meanwhile, my hands had calluses from doing my part to turn this company around. I went to all the meetings my brother called for, I followed the cost-saving protocols introduced by the new CFO, and I treated my crew like the family they were to me. And when I overheard a couple of employees bitching about all the changes, I told them to collect their checks and move on. And my favorite show of support—on Thursday nights after work I went up to my brother’s office and we kicked our feet up on Dad’s old desk and drank a bottle of the good stuff my Dad