Page 3 of A Very Daddy Christmas

He picks at an imaginary piece of lint on his dark brown overcoat, then looks at me, a coldness in his eyes. “While I sympathize with your parents’ passing—”

“It was ten years ago, Mr. St. James.” And not something I want to talk about, especially not with him.

“Be that as it may, I get it. You and Eva have worked hard to keep the Levine Bakery afloat. You’re the pâtissier, as you like to call yourself—”

“Well, to be fair, I do have a degree from Paris to back that up,” I cut him off.

“Right, right, and your sister is more like the administrative brains behind the operation. I admire and respect what the two of you have been doing. But like I said, it’s no longer enough.”

“And I have to ask you again, what do you mean?” I can hear the tension in my voice.

Orson’s lips twist into a satisfied sneer. My stomach drops before the words even come out of his mouth. “I found a clause in that old contract of yours.”

“Mrs. Selznick’s lease agreement, you mean. Which you purchased along with the building. That contract.”

“Yes. I didn’t have the time or the energy to have a battle of legal wits with Mrs. Selznick back then, but as it turns out, I didn’t really need to.” He takes out an envelope and hands it to me. “I’ve printed you a copy of the contract for your consideration.”

“I know what it says.”

“But do you remember Clause 8B?”

I stare at him, rather dumbfounded for a few moments, before I tear the envelope open and unfold the copy, scanning the lines of practically ancient text to find Clause 8B. As I read the aforementioned clause, I can feel the blood draining from my face.

Orson is quick to pick up on it.

“Miss Levine, consider this your official notice. You have three months to clear the premises. My sincerest regrets, though I am willing to give you a good discount on any of my commercial spaces at the Parkside Mall, which is more than my other tenants ever got.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am. And I’m also lucky I noticed the time frame. Three more months, and I wouldn’t have been able to enforce it. I am enforcing it now, though. You have until December thirty-first.” He pauses and nods at another vendor, two stalls over. “Dmitri! Fancy seeing you here! How’ve you been, old sport?” He looks at me and smirks one last time. “Good luck with the rest of the fair, Miss Levine.”

I lean against the stall, trying to measure my breaths as I read the clause over and over. In the eventuality of a sale, the new owner has up to two years to evict the existing tenants with proper notice. Otherwise, the new owner must respect the current lease agreement terms until the contract expires.

Eva and I knew the contract was signed for eighty years. Our grandfather saw to it with Mr. and Mrs. Selznick, long before we were even developing in our mother’s womb. He wanted the bakery to pass on to us. He had a vision for the future.

Now that vision is about to go up in smoke.

It’s an old contract. Some of the sale and rental laws have changed since it was drawn up, but we still stuck to it, just like our parents did before us. This contract was supposed to keep our bakery safe for another thirty years, at least, except for this stupid clause.

Mr. Selznick must’ve assumed a new building owner might want to do something different, and he didn’t want them necessarily tied to us. A two-year time frame seemed reasonable enough to give the guy time to figure out if he wanted the bakery there or not.

Orson is about to destroy our lives. How am I going to tell Eva?

“That son of a—” I mutter, my attention briefly caught by the distressed wails of a little boy a few yards over to my right.

“I don’t wanna!” he shouts, kicking, screaming, and flailing every limb.

The three men with him appear flustered, trying to remain calm while the boy grows increasingly aggravated. “Dario, please,” one of them says. “We’ll take you to Santa’s Workshop later. We just need to meet with a client first.”

He’s tall, dark, and handsome with broad shoulders. Black hair with specks of gray and white, and just enough of a stubble to outline his strong jaw. The dark green suit he’s wearing brings out his athletic frame, tailored to perfection, while the burgundy flannel scarf and the black overcoat give him a definitive note of distinction.

I can’t look away from him.

His companions are equally as stunning. And one by one, they all look my way. The tallest among them sports a rebellious shade of ginger hair and a neatly trimmed beard, the tattoos on his thick neck disappearing beneath a crisp white shirt and a camel-colored vest, while his linebacker thighs struggle against blue denim jeans.

The other reminds me of a California surfer boy turned stockbroker—blonde hair, blue eyes. Time has left its marks on both—fine lines around their curious eyes and delectable mouths, and confident statures—just enough to tell me that I’m looking at three grown men. Devastatingly handsome grown men.

But Dario has no intention of cutting them any slack.

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