Page 10 of Santa Baby

“Are you thinking about him right now?”

“I’m thinking I actually had a good time during Thanksgiving and that Mason is one of Colin’s friends. I’m doing him a favor.” Liv didn’t look convinced as I continued. “Look, I know what I’m doing, okay? This beats trying to actually date this time of year.”

She considered that, tilting her head from side to side. “Seriously, though. Are you sure you want to do this? It’s just, he’s kind of—I don’t know—using you? And what for?”

“That’s a very good question and I’m not entirely sure what the answer is,” I told her honestly, shrugging my shoulder. The second bottle of wine certainly wasn’t going down as easily as the first. “Colin said something about keeping up appearances, so I’m guessing his board members, however that works, wanted him out on the street with a steady, long-term relationship on his arm to make his business look like the family empire it’s touted to be. Or he’s trying to make someone jealous and won’t admit it.”

“Bingo,” she replied around the rim of her wine glass.

I frowned at her, tucking my knees against my chest. “I know you think it’s weird.”

“It’s super weird.”

Another frown. “Liv, I swear I’m not in danger. Mason is actually seems like a good guy. He’s, like, how do I put this? Professional, proper⁠—”

“A gentleman?”

I nodded. “Yes, exactly. He seems like a gentleman, and Colin was telling me how shy Mason is, how this might be hard for him at first, something along those lines. So, in reality, I have the upper hand here.”

She arched an eyebrow at me. “So, he’s at risk of falling in love with you, then?”

I took a drink of my wine. “No one is falling in love with anybody, I swear.”

There was a twinkle in her eye, however. I knew what that meant. I’d known Liv for years. We met when I moved into my first apartment in the city. She put an ad out for a roommate and I answered, and for the next three years we lived together, sharing a one-bedroom apartment above her parents’ Chinese restaurant. While I moved out, wanting to be closer to the East Village, Liv still lived in our old apartment in Greenwich Village. Instead of waitressing at her parents’ restaurant, she managed the Book Haven, a cute up-and-coming hotspot that served up lattes and some of the most detailed smut I’d ever read in my life.

Liv adjusted her clear glasses on the bridge of her nose and swirled her wine, deep in contemplation. “So, about this dress…”

I grinned as I grabbed her knee, squeezing. I could tell she wasn’t totally convinced, but Liv was like me in a lot of ways, which was why she was my best friend. While she was totally right about this being one of the crazier things I’d ever agreed to do, she shared my sense of optimism. What could possibly go wrong? I fall in love and have my heart broken by a guy totally, one-hundred percent out of my league? It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Blue, blue, blue,” she hummed, tapping her manicured nails on the cheap plastic wine glass. “There’s that boutique a few blocks away. I can’t remember the name, but my mom knows the owner.”

I slouched against the couch cushions, staring up at the ceiling I’d yet to decorate with string lights. My mind was split between preparing for the many events Mason booked all of my weekends with until New Year’s and finishing decorating my apartment. I needed to get a Christmas tree soon. I needed to find a blue gown, not just a dress. A gown.

My gaze drifted over to the counter, to the credit card. He obviously wanted me to use it. Otherwise he wouldn’t have loaned it to me, right?

“I have an idea.”

Friday morning, clutching a scorching hot latte in one hand and Mason’s credit card in the other, I perused the racks at Vivaldi Boutique on Third Avenue, my heart damn near beating out of my chest. Liv stood beside me, fishing for every single blue gown in a size twelve that she could find.

I pulled a beautiful, sleek blue satin gown from the rack and winced at the price written neatly on the tag.

“Oh, that’s stunning!” Liv moved in on me, wide eyed.

“It’s seven grand,” I hissed back. “There’s no way.”

She motioned to the credit card, which I’d been holding in a death grip ever since I left my apartment this morning. I had a horrible vision of me sticking it in my wallet, then dropping my wallet down a storm drain, then a flash flood sweeping it away. Ridiculous, I knew. Still, I felt it was safer to just hold it my hand until the plastic melted through my fingers than losing it to some far-fetched calamity.

“Seven grand is nothing to a billionaire, Fia.” She motioned to the four gowns she’d found, tilting her head to a dressing room. “At least try it on.”

“Need any help?” A lovely young woman floated toward us, her trained customer-service smile casting us in a spotlight. “Oh, are you shopping for the Blue Winter Gala?”

“I—I am.” I tried to smile but my lips barely twitched. “Blue is the dress code, I guess.”

“Congratulations.” She grinned, tapping her nails together and looking at me like I was about to pay enough commission to cover her rent for the next three months. “Lucky girl. We’d better start pulling some options. It’s tomorrow, you know. No time for alterations now but we’ve got a lot of options.”

I pursed my lips to stop from frowning, but Liv gave me a little nudge. Now, we had help. That was better than trying to wade through this sea of atrociously expensive designer gowns by ourselves.

Before I knew it, I was in a dressing room being helped into dress after dress by Charlotte, a very kind associate, who turned out to be a great help. Charlotte knew her stuff and, thankfully, knew how to dress a body like mine. I’d never been stick thin. I didn’t have the kind of body seen in magazines or walking on runways.