Page 1 of Cruel Winter with You

Chapter One

In an ideal world, Marc Compton would be acting like a total dick.

I’m not asking for much. Some gloating, maybe. Obnoxiously raised eyebrows. A sneered, “Well, well, well. Look who showed up unannounced on Christmas Eve.” I’m not picky: any of the above would make me feelexponentiallybetter about the situation.

But no. Marc opens the front door in a blaze of towering midwestern good looks, and when I look up at his handsome face, all I can detect is genuine surprise to find me standing on his parents’ snow-covered porch.

Surprise that quickly morphs into worry.

It’s like he doesn’t wish me ill. Like he doesn’t even hold a grudge over the terrible things I said to him a few months ago or over my fumbled, insufficient apology.

Then again, holding a grudge would require him to spend time thinking about me, which might be something that no longer occurs.

“Jamie?” he says, voice incongruously warm in the freezing dark. It’s barely six, but the sun sets so early, it might as well be the middle of the night. “What the hell are you doing out in this weather?”

A good question. To whichI—a levelheaded professional who keeps her cool under pressure, regularly saves people’s lives, and sometimes even manages to make it through an entire Pilates class without bursting into tears—eloquently reply, “Um, yeah.”

Marc cocks his head.

Frowns at me with something that looks uncomfortably similar to pity.

Repeats, skeptical: “‘Yeah’?”

“Um, yeah.” I’m such an accomplished conversationalist. Maybe they’ll give me an award for that. “As in ... Yeah. Yes. Itisme. Jamie.”

“Glad to know you’re not being deceitfully impersonated by an evil doppelgänger.” He takes a step back and roughly orders, “Come in.”

“No!” I say—way too vehemently, judging from the line that appears on his forehead. I walk that back by adding, “Thank you, but no. I really can’t stay. I should go home before the storm gets bad.”

“It’s late December in Northern Illinois. The storm isalreadybad.” I don’t have to turn around to know what he sees over my shoulders: long stretches of no visibility interrupted by large, furious snowflakes flurrying like turbines under the streetlights. The soundtrack—occasional creaking of branches, constant hissing of the wind—doesn’t make the scene any better. “You have to come in, Jamie.”

“Actually, my dad sent me here to borrow a copper roasting pan. As soon as you give it to me, I’ll just head back.” I smile, hoping it’ll get Marc to feel some sympathy and speed things up. I am, after all, just a girl. Cast out to the brutal elements by her only parent, all in the name of a treacherous but essential quest: plundering her childhood best friend’s home to procure a magic pan.

Iamdeserving of compassion.

Especially because the childhood best friend in question didn’t even have the decency to be here. Tabitha is with her parents and husband on a balmy, all-inclusive cruise somewhere in the Caribbean, slurping pure joy out of a coconut. This holiday season, the only Compton in town is Marc. Tabitha’s little brother, who ...

Well, for one, he’s not little at all. Hasn’t been in a while, really. And he flew in from California a couple of days ago to take care of Sondheim, the Comptons’ geriatric high-maintenance-and-even-higher-misanthropy cat.

I asked Tabitha why they didn’t simply hire a sitter, and her only reply was, “Why would we, when Marc was available?” Apparently, spending Christmas alone with a family pet who daydreams of eating eyeballs right out of their sockets is a totally normal activity for a tech mogul.

And thus, here we are. Out of eight billion people on this floating rock of a planet, Marc is the only one capable of short-circuiting my brain. And he happens to be all that stands between me and my quarry.

“Please tell me you didn’t walk two miles in a blizzard for a copper pot.”

“I did not. Dad’s home is closer than that”—by .3 miles, I estimate—“and what I need is a copperpan.”

“Jesus.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and leans against the door.

“It’s probably in the kitchen. And Dad says it’s necessary to bake the ham. So, if you could go get it ...”

“Who the hell owns a copper pan?”

“Your mom.” I feel a spark of irritation. “Because they’re great. She wanted it, so Tabitha and I went in together to buy one for her last Christmas.” On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t have told him. Tabitha and I could barely afford theone we bought, but Marc is probably just making a mental note to tell his butler to have a baker’s dozen custom made. Seven for his parents and six for my dad, all gold foiled and emerald encrusted. With their initials embossed on it.

It’s soweird. Marc—Marc the jock, who charmed his way in and out of trouble; Marc of the coasting grades; Marc the college dropout—got filthy rich at twenty-three and paid off his parents’ mortgage after his company’s first liquidity event. He now has a net worth of millions. Billions. Bajillions. I don’t even know; as decent at math as I am, numbers that large always get slithery in my head.

Meanwhile, Tabitha and I—the dutiful, well-behaved, overachieving daughters—can barely afford appliances of the non-bedazzled variety.

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