A Christmas Bargain (Midnight Holiday Affairs #2)

1. Claire

1

CLAIRE

I narrowed my eyes at the screen, then reared back and blinked again. And again.

“I’m telling you,” Shawn said as he breezed into my office with another coffee to drop off to me. Steam wafted from the hole in the lid, but I wondered if it would be sweet enough. No caffeinated beverage could be tolerable without pumpkin spice galore at this time of the year.

“You’re telling me what?” I replied cheekily, taking the coffee and sniffing it before tasting. He was my personal assistant and had been for all six years since I’d taken the helm of managing Barone Realty. I’d be lost without him. He knew it. I knew it. But that didn’t mean I liked his I-told-you-so tone, especially before he, well, told me so.

“You’re ruining your eyes with too much screen time,” he said with a sigh as he crossed his arms.

“Bah. That’s nonsense.” I waved him off, sipping the drink. I’d rate it six and a half out of ten. Not bad, but not the best. And a workaholic careerwoman like me would be able to determine subpar caffeine from decent. “It’s the light,” I argued mildly, keeping a smile on my face.

“Light?” He exaggerated a slow look around my office at the corner of the floor. “What light?”

Floor-to-ceiling windows surrounded my workspace on both walls. I had prime real estate on this floor in the skyscraper, and that was how it should be. My sister and I had taken over for Dad to run the business when he retired a while back, and when we took over, we split his massive office suite into two big ones for ourselves.

On a normal day, I could enjoy a fantastic view of downtown Denver. Today, with the unrelenting rain, I was treated to gray clouds and nonstop deluges.

I shrugged, not bothering to argue with him there.

“You’re working too much,” Shawn nagged good-naturedly.

I waved at him again, lacking the energy to counter his point. I put in lots of hours. Maybe it wasn’t wise, but it was how this business worked. Sales didn’t last forever. Deals couldn’t be made when I was asleep.

“I’ll slow down when I’m old,” I teased with a wink at the younger man.

“ When you’re old?” He grinned, then ducked when I chucked a balled-up piece of scrap paper at him.

“You be nice. Get in the holiday spirit and all.”

“I am in the holiday spirit. I’m thankful for my job. But I’ll be more thankful if I have job security in the fact that you won’t be keeling over from burning out.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not burning out,” I protested. “Go easy on me. I’m taking the weekend off, aren’t I?”

He huffed a laugh. “Only because you have to. Because it’s a national holiday.”

True enough. As soon as I satisfied my dad with a visit home for Thanksgiving tomorrow, I’d be right back here, light or not. Work simply didn’t wait, and I never liked the concept of you snooze, you lose .

“If it weren’t for the holidays, you’d never take a break,” he chided as my sister hurried into my office.

“Hi, Grace— Oh. Whoa.” Shawn stepped back, seeming allergic to a single drop of water on his immaculate shirt and pants. He smoothed down his tie, ruffled by her hasty entrance.

Her long hair was matted to her face. Soggy clothes dripped, and every quick step she took squeaked. Whoa is right.

“Forget an umbrella?” I teased.

“Claire?” She strained to swallow as she pushed her hair back to better stare at me with wide eyes. “I’ve got a problem.”

Shawn raised his brows and backed up. “Uh-oh.” He closed the door after him as he left.

A problem? I tried to smile to defuse her panic. Again?

“You know how I was talking about those tips I got?” She winced, wringing her hands together.

I couldn’t help it. A groan built within me, raging to rip loose. No, Grace. Not again. “Yeah?” I replied through clenched teeth. This smile would not fall. She would not see me falter.

“They… I…” She exhaled a deep whoosh. “They didn’t, um, work.”

“Which tips?” I asked. She was only one year younger than me, but she always claimed that I was too old-fashioned and conservative to ever take a risk and gamble. That was so not true. Real estate was a gamble. The entire business felt like a massive gamble of deals and offers and estimates of what could happen with properties and land. That wasn’t enough of a risk for her, though. She’d never kick this gambling habit.

“The, uh”—she bit her lip—“the crypto things I told you about last week.”

I clamped my mouth shut and held in a scream. Oh, crap. “Oh,” I said breezily, projecting my usual calm and peppiness. “How much are you talking about? What’s the loss?” I picked up my pen to jot down numbers and do some calculations.

“All of it.”

The pen fell out from my grip. “All of?—”

“The whole account.” She let out a whimper and slumped her wet body into the chair across from mine.

I rubbed my eyes, wondering if they were giving me so many headaches from strain, a denial that I needed glasses, or life in general. “The whole account?” I knew she dabbled with accounts and moved things around. Our dad, John Barone, had been a little liberal with investments and taught us how to fudge and transfer funds. Personal and business accounts easily got combined with us. “The whole account you usually use for gambling?”

“It’s not gambling ,” she argued, as always. “It’s investing in?—”

I laughed, hating that it sounded so hysterical and forced. Holding up a hand, I looked at her and wondered when she’d ever learn. Admitting that it was gambling had to be the first step. How could she ever understand her habits were damaging if she couldn’t acknowledge what it actually was?

“Gambling,” I reiterated firmly while trying not to sound nagging.

She took it as a chiding tone, anyway. “Oh, God,” she moaned, covering her face with both of her hands. “We’re going to lose everything. The whole company. Our jobs. Our lives!”

“Let’s hold off on the doomsday worries,” I said as cheerily as I could. I moved my mouse to wake up the screen. “The whole account,” I confirmed.

“Yeah.”

We used that specific account for several things, but the worst part about this news was that other accounts, deals, and propositions were tied in to it. This would have ripples, big, sloppy, mean ripples that could turn to waves. She hadn’t lost hundreds, but potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars. Other investors and backers might back out if they notice this huge loss. Deals could fall apart. The ramifications would be endless.

“Dad’s going to be livid,” she whined.

No doubt about that. “Well, we don’t have to mention it. At least not until we can do some damage control.”

“He’ll know. He always does.” She shot me a worried glance from behind her fingers.

“Okay, that’s true.” Even though he retired a few years back, he kept a steady finger on the pulse of the business through us. He saw it all. “But don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.”

Grace cringed, not convinced.

I had to stay peppy and positive. That was just who I was. When our mom passed away, that was the role I gave myself. To be bright. Optimistic. No matter what. I would do the damage control, like always. I would figure something out. I always did.

Not for this much of a loss, but hey, what’s another challenge on my plate?

“I don’t know, Claire. It’s a lot.”

I saw that in the banking program I logged into. “It’s fixable,” I insisted.

“How? It’s a lot to recover.”

I shrugged. “Come on. Don’t be so negative. I’ve covered for you plenty of times, haven’t I?”

She furrowed her brow, unhappier. “Is that just another reminder that I fuck up often?”

“No. No.” I smiled wider. “Just a reminder that nothing is impossible. We’ll figure something out.”

“How?” she wailed.

Irked that she’d expect me to handle it and not try to clean up her own mess, I sighed. “Somehow. Remember when you made a typo on those documents for the merger last year?”

She winced. “That was bad, saying the offer was for two hundred dollars instead of two hundred thousand.”

I nodded. “And I fixed it with a technicality the other party missed.”

She pouted, looking at the ground.

“Oh. And remember when you were hungover for your final and you spilled coffee on your laptop during finals?”

“Yeah. How could I forget?”

I smiled. “Well, you said that was impossible and we managed to salvage most of your paper for that last exam.”

“Why am I such a screw-up?” she whined, hiding her face behind her hands again.

“You are no such thing.” I got up and walked around my desk to pat her shoulder. “I’ll think about this tonight. Things can be moved around. And we won’t try to hide it from Dad when we go home tomorrow. He’s only madder when we lie.”

She nodded, still whimpering.

“He’ll have an idea,” I said. “He always does.”

“I guess telling him about this mistake will take his mind off all those hints he keeps dropping.” Smirking, she glanced up at me and shook her head. “How many times is he going to say that he can’t wait for when our Thanksgiving dinners will look bigger?”

I laughed once. “He’ll comment and drop hints until he gets what he wants.”

“Us settled? Married and popping out grandkids for him?” She rolled his eyes. “As if there’s any decent men out there to settle down with.”

I sat again, too nervous about her gambling to even think about his hints and reminders that he can’t wait for our family to grow. It had just been the three of us for so long, Dad, me, and Grace. I couldn’t fault him for looking forward to having another generation. Since he’d retired, I bet he was lonelier with all that downtime. At twenty-seven, I was sort of older, but not geriatric like Shawn was teasing.

“Decent men?” I teased. “What’s that again?” I returned my focus to the screen to play with numbers and see what could be moved to cover this loss.

“It’s fiction. A myth. No decent man exists,” she commiserated.

“I don’t know,” I said without looking away from the screen, typing and recalculating. “You seemed to really like Tom.”

“Tim. His name was Tim. And I couldn’t stand him! What respectable man picks his nose?”

I laughed and shrugged. “He couldn’t have been as bad as that pre-med guy I was dating last year.”

She snorted a laugh. “Dating? You weren’t dating him. He was taking you to holistic medicine forums for so-called dates.”

Smiling, I thought back to that disaster and was glad it was in the past. “That wasn’t as bad as how much of a mama’s boy he was.”

She laughed again. “Oh, I forgot about that! She still tucked him into bed every night, right?”

“Yep.” I shook my head, amused.

Neither of us had much luck dating. But even if I could find a decent guy, a normal , well-adjusted adult of a man, I still wouldn’t be able to settle down.

Dad retired, putting the weight of the responsibility of this business on me and Grace. With her pattern of screwing up and hoping I’ll fix it all, it was up to me to keep Barone Realty alive.

I’d keep the business alive, but it came at a cost—the death of a potential love life.

I squinted at the screen again, debating whether I was reading a three or an eight on the line.

It seemed like my workaholic pace would come with the cost of my eyesight, too.

I rubbed my eyes and sighed, realizing this weekend away wouldn’t be a break at all.