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“I’ll handle it, Mindy.” I return her phone. “Send Miss Grey into my office, please.”
“How can I possibly do that?” She crosses her arms. “You gave her this week off as well.”
“I didwhat?”
“That was the first email you sent me. Don’t you remember?”
“No.” I narrow my eyes. “Show it to me right now.”
FOUR
PARK CITY, UTAH
GEORGIA
If I knew about all the access senior interns gained to the CEO’s personal life and password collection, I would’ve begged to be demoted months ago.
Alas, I’m currently knee-deep in tiny styrofoam trees that lead the way to my living room, and I’m three chrysanthemums away from crafting the perfect gingerbread and stocking mantle.
I’m also slightly drunk and drowning in regrets.
This time last year, I was working my dream job at The Grace Estate.
It’s a six-star resort in Colorado that’s owned by my grandmother, and I was on the verge of becoming the youngest executive manager in its history.
Well, I was until I made an unforgivable mistake, and she forced me to resignindefinitely.
Although I begged her to change her mind, she refused. She said I “wasn’t mature enough yet” and “didn’t understand true work responsibility.”
So, I bailed and came here to Utah, determined to prove I could be a mature workaholic like my older sister, Savannah.
As I’m hanging my family’s special ornaments on the tree, I can’t help but sigh.
My grandmother might’ve had a point.
“Can we turn some of the nutcrackers in the bathroom around?” Jessica steps in the doorway. “I feel like they’re watching me pee and it’s starting to creep me out.”
“They’re only in there until I finish rebuilding the faux gingerbread houses that’ll hold the towels,” I say. “Two more days at most.”
“Okay, I can deal with that.” She walks over to the train station near our fireplace. “Does this train need to run all night?”
“Yes.” My chest tightens. “It does…”
“Why, though?” She picks up one of the railroad signs. “I mean, the chugging is kind of soothing and it’s one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen, but—”
“Butwhat?”
“But it goes through our entire apartment and it never stops. I don’t think the little passengers will care if their route only runs for a few hours a day instead of all day, right?”
“I’llmind, so drop it.” I nearly hiss. “I’ll adjust any of the decorations except the goddamn train.”
“Okay, okay…” She holds up her hands in a slight surrender before grabbing her coat. “I’ll be back later. Hopefully you’ll be more chill about discussing things then since I live here, too.”
She slams the door shut, and I wince as the walls rattle.
I walk over to the train and make sure the two passengers in the luxury car, my parents, are still sitting upright in their best Sunday clothes. That my mother’s gloves are still on her lap, and she’s smiling about her and my father’s final destination that never came.
I set this train up every year for the holidays without fail, no matter where I am. As if it’ll somehow reverse fate, I never turn it off until the new year.
