A Loser by Christmas (Con Riley’s Christmas Collection #4)

Chapter 1

VALENTIN

Christmas is for losers. At least, my employer thinks so. And if I don’t make a sale when London’s premier winter boat show opens, I’ll join his loser category.

“Tonight’s the night, Valentin!” my boss booms out, as if I’m on the far side of the River Thames instead of the same shore as him.

“Just wait until the opening party. You’ll help a city banker lose control of their Christmas bonus, I can feel it!

No one does that better than a Juno. Or faster. Sales are in our blood, son.”

This is why I regret taking a temp job with my father—telling mon père that I don’t share his love for sales never seems to sink in.

What does top my Christmas wish list is getting back to my true vocation.

I can’t do that without the repairs Dad says he’ll only make to my own boat if I hit his sales target.

So here I am, freezing my nuts off at a marina beside the Thames.

That’s the opposite of a joyeux Noel in my opinion, but I do need my boat to be seaworthy ASAP, so I zip my lips.

I also zip my jacket over something I don’t want him to notice.

Too late.

Dad strides down the jetty, tugs at my jacket, and spies my chest-mounted GoPro.

“Don’t let that camera distract you from making a sale, Valentin.” His voice fades a little. “We should have made some already.”

He’s right. This marina below Tower Bridge is usually bustling long before the boat show officially opens.

I spent my teen years watching him circle city professionals like a shark, then sell them the dream of owning their very own maritime midlife crisis.

The usual early flood of buyers is strangely absent this December.

I’ve barely seen a trickle, and I guess that’s why he’s left the warmth of the sales tent to stalk me.

Dad frowns. “I’ve sent three potential clients out for early test drives.” Last year, he would have sent thirty. “None of them came back to the sales tent to place an order. Well, one did come back,” he grumps, “but that was to complain about you.”

He squints, studying me so closely that I give my jacket zipper a guilty tug even higher. “Did you really tell him that a new speedboat wasn’t a cure for erectile dysfunction?”

Merde.

That client must have understood French.

I shrug, which subscribers to my YouTube channel would describe as a charmingly Gallic gesture. Dad isn’t impressed by my nonanswer. He does that English thing of speaking louder, like that will aid my comprehension. “Listen, if you want to make it in this business—”

“I don’t.”

He steamrollers ahead as if he didn’t hear me. “You could be a lot less . . .” He squints again, thinking for so long that I prompt him.

“A lot less what?”

Dad barks a definition that actually fits him better. “Blunt.” He tags on another descriptor that my subscribers would have agreed with, back when I was regularly uploading life-and-death marine rescues. “You say exactly what you’re thinking with no sugarcoating.”

I translate that for him. “You mean I tell the truth.”

Dad snorts. “And I’m telling you that making sales at this show should be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

Especially at Christmas. Try being more approachable tonight at the opening party.

” He gestures around the marina where other boatyards compete for fewer customers than usual.

“Seriously, this show is important. The busiest two weeks of the whole winter.”

Busy?

I hope for his sake that it is busier tomorrow.

Right now, St. Katharine Docks is a watery ghost town apart from the event photographer—who can fuck off—and one other guy in the distance who is also braving gusts of icy weather.

Dad gusts just as fiercely. “Try not to scare away anyone else. Say whatever it takes to loosen their grip on their budgets. Our business needs it.”

“Our business? It isn’t my—”

Dad steamrollers over me for a second time in as many minutes.

“Twenty-four is more than old enough to learn the ropes of a real business. One sale is all you need, Valentin.” He booms so loudly that the guy in the distance swings around, an unwanted witness to this pep talk.

“Your luck will change tonight, I know it.”

His voice is as big now as I remember from Christmas Eves across the English Channel when I lived with my grand-mère.

No wonder I thought he was Père Noel when I was younger.

Who else appears once a year laden with presents?

I thought him arriving on a speedboat instead of a sleigh was amazing.

So was what he told me in the terrible French that my grand-mère translated.

He says you’re right at the top of his nice list, Valentin. Your papa is so happy to see you again. Look at this lovely jigsaw he’s made just for you in his factory!

Now there’s no mistaking Dad for Santa. Not while he stands under a banner emblazoned with the name of his real baby.

Juno Speedboats.

Dad points up at that fluttering fabric.

“Every VIP will want a test drive tonight.” He paints a vivid picture of a high-society evening that I’ve been dreading.

“It will be so dark the city will glitter, and if you drive fast enough, clients won’t even notice that the Thames is full of rubbish.

Just steer them away from any homeless encampments on the riverbanks, and you’ll be golden.

Sell them the dream, Valentin, and you’ll get a sale, no problem.

I know doing that will get your heart pumping.

” He lands a heavy arm around my shoulders to herd me towards the sales tent. “You’ll learn to love it.”

I’m not so sure about that. Neither are the ducks in this marina. They paddle away from decibel levels more suited to a boat-building factory, and I’d paddle away with them if I had any other option.

I don’t. Not while my own boat is still held hostage over a year since killer whales nibbling on her rudder meant I had to beg Dad to save her. That means all I can do is pause with him at the foot of a red carpet and listen.

“Here’s what you need to do to be successful. Stop pretending to clients that you only speak French.” Dad switches to that language. He’s rusty, his accent still appalling. “And stop wondering out loud if clients know there’s a cost of living crisis. That isn’t any of our business. What is?”

He waits until I answer.

“Stuffing their stockings with a Juno speedboat?”

“That’s right.” He reverts to English. “It doesn’t matter why they buy from us, just that they do.” He adds a sweetener. “Make a sale tonight and the commission will more than cover the repairs you asked me to make. I’ll move that old tub of yours right to the top of my workshop schedule.”

There’s nothing tub-like about a boat I inherited at eighteen and promptly sailed away on. Yes, she’s elderly in boat terms, but she’s also all I have left of my grand-mère. La Sylvie is my home. My edit studio. And she’s my one and only way to get back to chasing what really gets my heart pumping.

The truth.

Dad tells the whole of central London a truth of his own. “If you want those repairs made anytime soon, go all out to make a sale by midnight. That’s your deadline.”

No. It’s his.

Two other deadlines of my own are more important. In fact, both of my goals are life-or-death related, and one is so close to expiring that I can’t help checking my watch.

Shit. Nearly three o’clock already.

“I need to go.”

Again, Dad doesn’t listen, which would rankle if not for the sliver of me that remembers sitting on his lap each Christmas Eve. He did more than help me piece together puzzles. Dad’s visits made me believe in magic.

Fast forward a decade or two and I’m pretty sure he’s still talking about boat sales.

His mouth is moving, so he must be. I tune it out, but I can’t help studying his face and seeing worry.

The filmmaker in me spots so much more silver in his hair than in the photo I used to kiss bonjour and bonne nuit when I was little—the same photo I learned to hide as soon as I was transplanted to a boarding school where British boys called me a French cry-baby.

Today, it’s impossible to ignore how deeply his brow creases each time he says our and we and us as if Juno blood and Christmas jigsaws aren’t our only real connection.

His recent determination to involve me in his business is another puzzle I set aside when Dad heads inside the sales tent without me.

I turn away, then bump straight into this boat show’s real biggest loser.

Ugh.

Lito Dixon.

London’s sleaziest event photographer snags my elbow.

“You’re not leaving before the party, are you, gorgeous?

” He’s stalked the marina all day on the hunt for hookups in the boat show’s bathrooms. Now his eyes sparkle, no doubt due to whatever left his hairy nostrils dusted with white powder.

My hand drifts to my chest on instinct. I ease down the zipper on my jacket just enough to record a visual of the first snow in London this December.

Lito is too busy blocking my exit to notice.

“You can’t go yet, darling.” His voice is a slick reminder of engine oil on water.

So are the shoulder-length strands he flicks like he’s a supermodel instead of this city’s saddest wanker.

That hair isn’t his sole greasy aspect. Lito easily glides so much closer that his shoes must be slick too.

“I’ve got an early Christmas gift to give you. ”

“If it’s sexually transmitted, I don’t want it.”

I might feel bad about him looking so affronted if everyone on the boat-show circuit didn’t already know that Lito Dixon is a one-way ticket to a clap clinic.

He blocks my escape route, a hairy-nostrilled spider still trying to lure me into his web of STDs.

“You can’t leave without giving me one little Christmas kiss.

” He unfastens his jacket and points a nicotine-stained finger in the general direction of his penis.