Page 19 of The Naughty List Agreement

“What is it?” asked Fliss.

“Alta and Marsh.”

“Where?”

“At the table.” Alta and Marsh were vendors she’d had to fire at the end of the last season.

“They’ve spotted you. Do you want to leave?” Fliss asked.

Cora wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. They’d tried to sue Winter Wonderland for unlawful termination of employment but because Cora had gone through HR with each of their infractions, they’d had no legal leg to stand on. She fixed her biggest smile on her face and walked over to them.

“Hey, guys! Happy holidays. I thought you’d be heading to Florida for Thanksgiving, Alta,” Cora said brightly.

“I fly out in the morning. It’s cheaper to fly on the actual holiday,” Alta snapped. “Heard there was a bit of a scandal with Next Gen,” she added with undisguised glee.

“Yikes, yeah, nightmare for them. Luckily for us, we’d already decided to go with a different vendor this year,” Cora fibbed. One white lie wasn’t going to hurt anyone, and she was definitely going to stick with that version. “Mind if we join? It’s so busy in here.”

“We were just leaving,” Marsh said. “You can have our table.”

“Thanks so much. Great seeing you both,” Cora said.

Fliss waited until Alta and Marsh had grabbed their coats and left the table before taking one of the seats. “That went way better than I anticipated.”

“I think they both know I didn’t single them out in any way. Their performance was the issue,” Cora said. “It was a fair decision.”

“Yeah, but if you hadn’t documented every infraction they might have got away with it,” Fliss said.

“I do it for everyone. Even you. Of course, mostly it’s praise for you, but there have been times when you took an extended lunch⁠—”

Fliss threw her head back, laughing. “I’m well aware.”

“It’s only fair to make sure everyone’s following the same rules,” Cora said, settling back into her chair.

“Fair matters to you, doesn’t it?”

“Absolutely. It should matter to everyone, but it doesn’t.” Cora didn’t bother to pretend that this wasn’t a huge issue for her. She might drop the odd white lie to the board, but she thought of them as pre-promising because she always made sure she could deliver. She told herself it was because she was managing all the pieces that were in the air so she knew where they’d fall.

The scandal with Next Gen had thrown her but that was her fault. She’d become complacent. She knew better than to believe that life was going to run smoothly. A few good weeks or months could lull you into a false sense of security because something unexpected was usually right around the corner. She’d known that fact but still had thought … well never mind. She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

“Enough about that. Are you going home for Thanksgiving?” she asked Fliss. Her friend tended to take the major holidays off and Cora assumed she went home but had never asked. This evening when she’d wanted to celebrate with Fliss, it had struck her how little she knew of her personal assistant’s life away from the office.

“Actually, I am,” Fliss said. “Christmas is always a really busy time for my family, and we don’t really see each other until New Year’s.”

“Do they do something festive? Anything we could steal for the festival?” she asked, feeling a bit bad that she hadn’t asked before.

“Um, yes, but not in the traditional way you’re probably thinking.”

“Traditions have their place,” Cora said carefully, swirling her cocktail, “but you know I’m all for embracing the new. We need to evolve. Not everyone has heirlooms and happy memories to dust off. Some people want to build fresh, new ones and that means buying fresh, new things.”

Fliss tilted her head. “Some people will feel excluded by that.”

“The best Christmases are the ones you build from scratch—and building takes resources, materials, and unfortunately money.”

Fliss leaned back, expression thoughtful rather than critical. “Just … make sure you’re staying true to yourself. Sometimes if you push the season too hard, it pushes back.”

“Will do,” Cora said with a little laugh.

But even as she said it, something unsettling flickered in her chest. The season had already started to push back; first Next Gen and now Nick Bari’s annoying conditions attached to his participation. And just like that, she heard an all too familiar deep belly laugh and realized Nick Bari was here. With Hannah Waters.