Page 2 of Holly, Jolly, and Oh So Naughty

“Ah.” Mark’s tone lifts and he taps the poster again. “Not the sort of thing you would take a boyfriend to, I’d imagine.”

Is he… trying to flirt with me?

I smile wider, trying to maintain a polite air as the clock drags its hand toward the hour mark. “I don’t have a boyfriend. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have him attend something like that. It’s for family, y’know?”

“Sure,” Mark says, pressing the poster back onto the board. “But a boyfriend can become family.”

“True.” I laugh softly. “I’d need to get one first.”

Mark suddenly straightens up next to me, and when he faces me, he’s a few inches closer than he was before.

Is this really happening?

“You run that bakery in town, don’t you? What’s it called, Sweetest something?”

“Sweet Noel,” I correct him quickly. “Cliché, I know, but I opened at Christmas and my festive designs always get the biggest surge of attention online, so it’s fitting.”

This is good. I can talk about business and baking until I’m hoarse and whoever is listening is bored stiff. Baking wasn’t my initial passion when I entered the culinary world. I had dreams of becoming a top chef at some fancy restaurant where peoplewould spend their house down payments on one of my steaks. But college had different ideas for me and from my first cake decorating class, I was hooked.

Spending my evenings up to my elbows in marzipan isn’t as glamorous as a fancy, rich steakhouse in the city, but it’s definitely more enjoyable.

“No judgment from me.” Mark lifts both his hands, palms upward. “Half this town is named after something Christmassy. Even that crazy old Inn,Fir Tree? The food is good, but the name?”

I snort softly. “Oh, my parents' inn?”

“Your parents’?” Mark’s face loses a few shades. “When—when I say crazy, I just mean in a kooky sort of way, y’know, like something out of a postcard.”

Whether fate wanted to save me from the conversation or Mark from his embarrassment, I couldn’t be sure, but as those words left Mark’s lips, a sudden yell rose up from down the hall. Two kids quickly became engaged in a small brawl over who was the owner of the silver coat.

“Shouldn’t you…?” I raise a brow and tilt my head in their direction. Mark’s relief is clear as he makes excuses and quickly hurries after the quarreling children.

In his absence, my next breath shifts easier in my chest. I can’t fault him for trying to take an interest in me. The dating pool in this town is rather limited, but dating is far from my mind.

My heart still, painfully, belongs to one man, and I’ve yet to draw it out of his grasp.

James Anderson was a handsome, brilliant man who blew onto my college campus for a medical seminar with his father, and he blew right into my heart. As a small-town girl, there was something so beautifully intimidating about people who lived their lives in the spotlight of the city, and James was exactly that. His father was famous in the medical world, to a degree, and he was next in line.

He was funny and kind, so incredibly sweet and attentive, and the sex was… I adjust my stance and pull lightly at the collar of my blouse. He completely stole my heart.

And then he left as quickly as he arrived, leaving me heartbroken and confused.

And pregnant.

I tried for weeks to get in touch with him to tell him he was going to be a father, but the only person I was able to reach was his mother.

Turns out his sweetness was all an act and he was the kind of asshole who got his mother to break bad news. He didn’t want to see me, didn’t want to hear from me. I was an easily forgotten fling and nothing more. That didn’t change even when I told his mother I was pregnant.

Her response still haunts me to this day.

My eyes close, and I swallow down the ache of old hurt that threatens to rise at the memory. James made himself clear, so I honored his wishes.

I never contacted him again.

That doesn’t stop me from looking him up on social media after one too many glasses of wine, but he’s been inactive for years. Some nights, it’s hard to believe he was even real.

“Mommy!” Emma’s bright, happy voice bursts through the air and immediately pulls me out of my dark thought spiral. I’d been so caught up in memory lane that I didn’t even hear the bell I yearned for.

“Hi, darling!” I open my eyes and crouch just in time for my daughter to barrel into my arms with an excited cry. She hugs me with all her might, not caring for how the strap of her rucksack smacks me in the mouth or how her folder stabs me in the stomach.

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