Page 2 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

The party was a raging success. Peony had finagled the measly budget Mr. Blanderley gave her to manage gifts for staff and their families, delicious canapés from the deli across the street, and fizzy wine and mocktails.

“Oh yes,” she heard Mr. Blanderley say from across the room as she made her way to the mic. “It’s all the new manager’s doing. Really, I’m astonished it took this long…”

Her heart glowed as she hopped up onto the makeshift stage and looked out across the room. She knew every shelving unit by heart. After the weeks leading up to Christmas, she could even label the gaps in the rows of books lining them. The quiet teenager who’d come in every Saturday for a month and stared at the graphic novels without touching them before finally buying the first volume ofHeartstopper; the older woman she would swear was his mother or aunt who’d swept in the next day and picked up the rest of the set; the genteel-looking gentleman who’d hunted for the most bloodthirsty pirate adventure novels he could find; the whole empty shelf where a harried dad had bought multiple full sets of that popular kids’ series with the unicorns because his daughters would raise hell if one of them got to read any of the books before the others.

But the books were only half the story. The people who were celebrating tonight were her family-away-from-home.My family-away-from-mateless-guilt, she thought, guiltily. Adrian had worked here for years—he could find a special order for a customer even if the book had been out of print for decades. Muriel knew everything there was to know about TikTok trends. Then there were the part-timers, like Jamal, who only needed to look at a customer and he knew the perfect book for them.

He needed more hours, too. Peony made a mental note to look at the roster first thing after the holiday.

Not all the party-goers were employees of the bookstore. Other people from the building were always welcome at the Hypatia’s end-of-year party, and some customers had either managed to sneak in after closing or had lingered around the shelves when they heard it was party night. Mr. Blanderley was here as well, and the usual crowd of half-familiar faces:Investors, Peony thought vaguely, and other local business-owners.

“Thank you all so much for coming out this evening,” she began, her voice ringing clearly over the crowd. Mingled cheers and whoops answered her, and her cheeks pinked. “It’s been another wonderful year at the Hypatia. Sales numbers are…” She flicked over a page on the clipboard by the mic and laughed as her colleagues groaned and pretended to run away. “Not important! It’s Christmas, and we’re here to celebrate! Maybe even longer than you RSVP’d for, if the snow keeps up.”

More laughter. She made more, even worse, jokes, thanking everyone who’d come to support the store, until Mr. Blanderley started to look impatient.

Okay, time to wrap it up.She couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she swept her eyes across the crowd one last time. Why had she been so down, earlier? Even if her magical life was lacking, she was so happy here.

My real life can’t be any better than this, whatever it turns out to be.

“Once again, thank you all for your support of Hypatia Bookstore this year. I can promise you that next year will be even more exciting. We’ve got an incredible line-up of events planned, with all your favorite storytellers—”

Cheers.

“—murder mysteries—”

More cheers. Was it possible to die from smiling too much?

“—and who knows, maybe we’ll even fix the leak in the ocean sciences section!”

Laughter and more cheers. Except from Mr. Blanderley. She probably shouldn’t have made a joke at the expense of the maintenance he was meant to be in charge of, but that last sip of bubbly wine had gone to her head and…

Peony’s voice faded away. The room went muffled around her.

Standing next to Mr. Blanderley was the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on.

Holy heck, she thought, light-headed.I didn’t know they made them like that outside of romance novel covers.

He was tall, dark, anddelicious. Hair like jet, pale skin, illegally sharp cheekbones, and eyes that caught her and pinned her like a butterfly beneath a cat’s claws.

Some people were good-looking. Some people were handsome. This man washot. He exuded sexiness. She couldn’t look at him without thinking of sex. And she couldn’t look away from him.

Who is he?She didn’t recognize him from the guest list. Was he someone’s partner? A nasty feeling twisted inside her. Jealousy. She’d only seen the guy for ten seconds and she was instantly, seethingly jealous of whoever got to take him home at the end of the night.

She fumbled the end of her speech and handed off the mic to Mr. Blanderley. He cleared his throat directly into the microphone, and she barely even winced, because all her focus was still on Mr. Illegal Cheekbones. Her boss blended into the echoey nothing the rest of the universe had blurred into.

The guy was looking at her. He waslooking at her. His eyes were bright and sharp as broken glass, and he waslooking at her, and maybe she should take a left here into the Mysteries section because she needed to find out a way to murder whoever this guy had come in with and steal him for herself.

“… under the management of Mrs. Fisher, this year’s party will be the last party…”

Parts of Mr. Blanderley’s speech made it to her ears, but her brain wasn’t listening. The man was still looking at her. His eyebrows drew together and his lips—oh god, hislips—puckered slightly. Was it a scowl? A frown? Was he frowning ather?

Was she… was she staring at him like a complete lunatic?

Mr. Blanderley’s voice took on a distinctly sour tone. “… pleased to announce the sale of the Hypatia to Mr. Mordecai Leith, who has proposed the redevelopment of the site for an exciting new multi-purpose complex…”

Peony’s brain finally caught up with reality. She watched the man—Mordecai Leith—stalk up to the stage, and horror crashed through her.

“Good evening.” His voice was too good to be true. And it was awful, too. As awful as the unpleasant glint in his eyes as he said he imagined none of them had expected to hear this news tonight. He wasn’t looking at her anymore, or her colleagues and their families. His eyes were on Mr. Blanderley and his friends. The men who owned the building they were all standing in.

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