Chapter 1
Russell
If I have to hear “Jingle Bell Rock” one more time tonight, I’m going to prison for the homicide of an entire jazz band.
Or, maybe just for the party planner who apparently could only think of three whole Christmas songs before giving up on the playlist altogether.
To anyone else, this ballroom might be bordering on magical—what’s not to love about a constant flow of bubbles, beautiful women, and too many quirky masquerade-style masks on the faces of a hundred people, all clamoring to offer you their condolences at once?
Of course, my father had to announce his diagnosis here, in front of a whole arena’s worth of our closest colleagues and vague acquaintances. He knew it would fatten the fundraiser’s success, and he’s nothing if not selfless.
Even if that meant Alena, Calvin, and I had to stand here and take it, smiling stiffly through the declaration of something very private to our family.
Something we’d only learned an hour later, when our father pulled us aside and quickly gave us the facts.
Alena and I, his children, and Calvin his nephew, discovering his cancer just shortly before everyone else in the world would.
Terminal. Not long. Should definitely use the situation for good.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I say, clearing my throat and interrupting the woman talking to me. She has her weathered hand on mine, and her face is doused in pity. My head is buzzing, and I can’t hear a single word she just said. “I need the restroom.”
I turn and walk away as the band starts on “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Again. As I leave, I can hear my sister making excuses for me, saying I need space and time toprocess,and she’s sure they understand.
The only thing to process is how soon my dear father and sister will be leaving Manhattan, going back to Chicago where they belong. It’s not bad having Alena here, but the novelty of my father in the city wore off fast.
When I’m here in the city on my own, I’m able to shirk the weight ofBurchas my last name. It’s notthatoriginal. But with my father in town, more and more of my colleagues are making the connection to the generations-old Chicago medical dynasty.
I’m so caught up in my head, running the familiar grooves of my father, and the space he occupies in my mind, that I nearly don’t catch the woman who practically barrels straight into me.
In an instant, I’m hit with the sensations of her—the warmth of her body, the press of her chest into mine, the crushed velvet of her dress under my hands. She smells like pepper and vanilla, something spicy and sweet at once. Like German sugar cookies in the Christmas village, with the slightest, faintest tinge of pine beneath.
The kind of woman who wears seasonal perfume. Maybe even the kind of woman whoenjoysChristmas. The idea is foreign to me.
“Apologies,” I say automatically, even though she’s the one who ran intome.
It’s easy to right her with my hands on her biceps, keeping her from toppling to the side in her heels. For a second, I wonder if she’s drunk, but then she shakes herself, pushing her hair back and raising her head to look at me with a completely sober, sparkling gaze.
Her molten brown eyes meet mine through the ruby red mask on her face, and for a moment, I don’t hear the shitty renditions of Christmas classics droning on in the background.
“No worries,” Ruby Mask says, and she has the kind of low,fuck youvoice that travels straight to my cock. I’ve always been a sucker for women with deeper voices, and hers is like an Emma Stone or Kathleen Turner, but warmer, feminine, slightly raspy.
Her hand rests on my arm, and she moves to pull it away but stops herself at the last moment, instead tightening her grip, “Actually, could you do me a favor?”
“What kind of favor?” I don’t mean for it to come out suggestively, but it’s impossible for it not to. Ruby here is not just a voice—she’s also got the body to back it up, in a velvet dress that hugs her curves and practically makes my mouth water.
The antithesis to Margot. Even all these years later, I can’t help but compare every woman I meet to her. For the first time, I realize my ex is the runner-up. The woman in front of me is captivating, and every part of me notices.
I’m aware, distantly, that it’s a little fucked up, how turned on I am just ten minutes after my father’s grand speech about his cancer diagnosis, but I’m just a man. Who can blame me for finding a distraction as good as this one?
Ruby glances over her shoulder, then back at me, and I trace the delicate movement of her swallow, her throat working before her gaze finds mine.
“I’m here to network,” she begins, an admission tinted with shame. Before my father took the stage, this was just afundraising gala, but now it’s heavier than that. Maybe Ruby feels bad for coming here to shoot her shot.
So, who is she then? Maybe another doctor? A nurse? Staffer? Who would come to a place like this to network if not someone working in health care?
“I really need a new job,” she lowers her voice, steps in closer to me, so I get another wave of that sweet, spiced perfume. “Started talking to this older guy, and he seems to think I’m interested in…something else. I tried to make it clear that I absolutelywas not,but I think he’s really taken advantage of the free champagne. I was coming this way to get away from him, but you know how it is. Maybe if he sees me talking to another guy, if you can pretend to be interested in me for a moment, he might forget about me and move on.”
A very specific request from a woman I’m starting to think is good at making a plan. I don’t bother mentioning the fact that compared to her, I’malsoan older guy.
