Page 65 of A Very Merry Enemy
Lucas
Tomorrow night. Don’t be late.
Her response comes immediately.
Holiday
I’m going to be annoyingly late.
I chuckle, knowing she won’t. Holiday is the kind of girl who arrives early and waits. Maybe she’s changed, though.
I go upstairs and change out of my work clothes when I hear knocking on the front door. I pause, pulling a clean T-shirt on, and then I hear it again. It’s loud and persistent, the kind of knock that saysHurry the fuck up.
I jog downstairs and see Sammy’s truck in my driveway. I open the door, and he’s standing there with a six-pack of beer, wearing a look I recognize but don’t like. It’s the same one he had senior year when Theo Williams made Holiday cry at prom.
“We need to talk,” Sammy says.
I step aside, letting him in. “Everything okay?”
He enters my living room and sets the beer on the coffee table, then looks around.
“You don’t have a fire goin’? It’s cold as hell in here, Lucas.” He’s already moving toward the fireplace.
“I got it,” I tell him, grabbing logs from the stack and arranging them. Seconds later, flames lick the wood, filling the room with that smoky smell that means winter’s arrived.
He cracks open two beers, hands me one, and drops onto my couch.
“So,” he says. “Dominic fucking Laurent.”
I take a long drink, following his lead. “Yeah.”
“That piece of shit is coming here.”
“Next week.”
“He’s going to try to win back my sister.” Sammy’s jaw tightens. “Which is why I’m here.”
I sit in the chair next to the couch and glare at him. “Only one part of that is my business. Your sister does whatever and whomever she wants.”
“Thatcannothappen.” He leans forward, and his blue eyes narrow. “I need to tell you some things that she won’t tell you because she’s ashamed. Things I only know because Mom dragged it out of her last Christmas when she canceled coming home again. Keep it to yourself.”
My stomach knots. “I don’t need?—”
“Yes, you fucking do.” Sammy takes a drink, and his jaw clenches tight. “Holiday met Dominic her final year at culinary school. He was guest teaching a pastry course, and she was starstruck because this famous chef with connections was paying attention to her.”
The fire crackles. I say nothing, not wanting to hear about their love story.
“Years later, after she interned at a few elite bakeries, he offered her a job in Paris. They immediately started dating. He told her she was talented, special, and that he could take her far.” Sammy’s voice hardens. “Within six months, she’d moved into his condo. Within a year, she was managing his bakery. He took credit for her hard work.”
My heart races, and the beat pounds in my ears. “How?”
“Every recipeshedeveloped, every techniquesheperfected, he put his shitty name on it and told her that’s how the industry works. That she was learning from the best and should be grateful, and they were getting married, so it was something they could share.”
My hands tighten around the beer bottle.
“Oh, it got so much worse,” he says, kicking his feet up on my coffee table.
“I can’t fucking listen to this unless you want me to fly to Paris and John Wick him.”
