Page 95 of Santa Baby

“I want you to be my wife. I want to wake up next to you every morning. I want to spend every holiday together, even the boring ones. I want to watch our children open presents on Christmas morning a few years from now and look back on this moment knowing I was making the best decision I’d ever made in my life, because I love you, Fia Webster. Will you marry me?”

It took several seconds for my heart to start beating again.

When it did, I rushed into his arms, tackling him into the snow. “Yes! Oh, my God, yes!”

EPILOGUE

FIA

One Year Later

“It was fake, and you all fell for it,” Colin rasped, leaning on the table with a mic in his hands. Mason gripped the tablecloth to prevent a horrendous accident from occurring while I secured my glass of champagne and narrowed my eyes at my brother, who looked sharp but slightly inebriated in a classic black and white tuxedo. “But little did I know that behind closed doors, these two were falling madly in love, and I credit myself for it.”

A few playful boos rang out from the crowd arranged at round tables in the ballroom at the Plaza Hotel, where glimmering white decorations turned the gilded room into a sweeping winter wonderland.

“What? Come on!” Colin said smoothly as he made a face, rolling his eyes to the crowd. “You’re welcome, all right? I should get credit where credit is due.”

“Get that mic away from him,” my dad barked somewhere in the crowd, to the laughter of our friends and family and all of the employees, investors, and business relationships on Mason’s side.

Mason leaned in, whispering in my ear, “You look beautiful, darling.”

“Thank you. I got married today.”

“So that’s why you’re wearing a white dress.” He pressed a kiss just below my ear that made me squirm in my seat, smiling like a big, blushing idiot. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“He’s a billionaire.” I wiggled my eyebrows at him over the string music rippling through the air.

“Wow, congratulations. How’d you land a guy with pockets that deep?”

“I’m rather impressive in bed,” I said softly.

Mason had just leaned away to take a drink from his glass of scotch and nearly choked on it. The fiery look in his eyes told me enough. We were both ready to get out of here, to go home to our brownstone and curl up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and watch the live action Grinch for the third time this week. But it was Christmas Eve. We had things we had to do, people we had to see, and also, we were literally at our own wedding.

The reception was going off without a hitch, though. Everyone was merry, drinking champagne and swirling on the dance floor. I looked over at my parents, who were seated with Mason’s parents. My mom and Mason’s mom had become friends over the past year while helping me plan the wedding. And yes, of course, I had planned my own wedding, with Heather and Abigail’s help.

I turned my head to look for the fiery old ladies and found them talking companionably together at one of the tables. Friends again, I noticed.

“One more dance from the beautiful newlyweds to round out the best Christmas event of the season, I think?” Colin crooned, still holding the microphone as he walked around the dance floor. He was looking for Liv, of course. They’d been dating under a veil of secrecy for several weeks now—at least we thought so. Neither was willing to say a thing about it yet.

“One dance, and we’ll go,” Mason whispered as he took my hand and led me away from our table and onto the dance floor.

“Play that song, maestro,” Colin barked into the mic, motioning to the string quartet.

A romantic, dramatic rendition of Santa Baby floated through the air as Mason swept me into a dance, his hand in mine, his other hand resting on my hip.

My dress swirled between us—a full skirt and a pinched waist that showed off my curves. It was made of white satin and silk, with pearl beading throughout. I’d worn my Nonna Gemma’s pearls and my Nonna Gianna’s vintage veil, but safely tucked it away after we were married at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, much to the delight of both of our families.

Exactly a year ago, Mason proposed in Central Park, and obviously, I’d said yes. We’d stumbled back to his parents’ apartment, giddy with excitement and madly in love, where I officially met his mother for the first time. Thankfully she fell madly in love with me from the very beginning. Somehow, we’d managed to persuade them to join us for Christmas dinner at my parents’ house, and the rest was history.

We spent the last year moving out of our apartments and into the brownstone he’d bought before we met. We turned it into a home together. I chose deep, emerald green paint for the living room. He chose a bright yellow wallpaper for the kitchen. It was warm inside that house. It felt like we’d lived there forever, filling the hallways with pictures and art we’d found scouring the flea markets on the weekends. We spent our summer split between his parents’ estate in the Hamptons and our house in the city, and this past fall my mom and I spent a week with his mom at their family estate in upstate New York, where I brought my camera and captured the changing of the seasons and the new wrinkles around my mom’s eyes from smiling so much.

I’d never been happier.

The song came to an end. Mason pulled me in for a kiss, dipping me over his arm, much to the delight of everyone in attendance. After a few quick congratulations, we finally saw an out and took it.

We ran right into the street in a full white gown and tuxedo, laughing and blushing with so much love I felt like I could burst.

“Rex is at the reception!” I laughed. “We’ll have to take a taxi home.”