I froze. The voice that haunted my Christmas nightmares—Amber.
“Heya, sis,” she said, sauntering down the stairs.
I glared at her. “Don't tell me you're part of the bake-off. No. I literally cannot have this. You ruined enough Christmases for me. I cannot take another!”
When I went off to culinary school, Amber had decided that she would go to culinary school too. I did my best to avoid her, but I believed in spending the holidays with family, even if it killed me, so I had to see her over breaks. At the very least I didn't have to work with her at my various restaurant jobs.
“You always do this!” I yelled at her, “You stalk me and try to ruin my life! It's just like culinary school when you flirted with the dean so he would give you my schedule so you could take the same classes as me.”
“I'm not here foryou. I'm here to snag a billionaire,” she said, admiring her freshly manicured nails. “Rumor has it one of the Frost brothers is going to be a judge. Chloe landed Jack Frost last year. Now I want my own billionaire too. I even adjusted my look,” she said, fluffing her hair, which she had dyed a peroxide blonde.
“Gag,” Morticia said.
Amber glared at her. “Naturally, Holly, you would be friends with the queen of the dead.”
I stepped between them before Morticia could plant her heavy boot in Amber's face.
“Don't you dare try to steal my man,” Amber warned me. “You were always trying to steal my boyfriends.”
“No I wasn't. I literally was not trying to steal any of those crusty males you were stalking. You have the worst taste in men.”
“Liar!” Amber hollered.
“I cannot even believe I’m having this conversation. St. Nick, give me strength! I am almost thirty. I am not acting like a teenager around you. I refuse!” I said, throwing up my hands.
Amber flounced away.
Morticia gave a black-eyeliner stare at Amber's back. “She was picked to add drama, so I've heard.”
“Which means she's going to be here for the majority of the competition.”
“Yep.”
“Great. Just great. I need a drink.”
“Do you want a white Christmas or a red Christmas?” a fun-looking girl with a pixie cut asked, holding up a bottle of wine in each hand.
“Just put an IV of each in each arm, please, spirit of Christmas alcohol,” I said, following her to the couch, where she had glasses laid out.
The girl laughed. “I’m not a Christmas spirit, just Fiona!”
“Good enough for me!” I said as she filled the glasses.
“To Christmas baking!” We clinked glasses.
“I couldn't help but overhear,” Fiona said to Morticia, “but are you the one who got us all private rooms?”
“Morticia has ways,” I said.
“Thank every spirit of Christmas. I've done another competition like this, and we were four to a room. One person got sick, and it spread like wildfire,” Fiona said.
“And that's why I insisted we use a huge penthouse,” Morticia replied, sipping the dark-red wine. I'd never seen her drink white. “I did make sure Holly got the best room, though if I'd known how cool you were, I'd have made sure you got the second best,” Morticia continued.
“What I have is actually bigger than my entire apartment in Manhattan that I shared with two other people, sonamaste,” Fiona said, making a little bow.
“For what it's worth, Amber did get the worst room.” Morticia smirked.
“I'll drink to that!”
