Chapter 27
Valerie
The cold teriyaki beef slipped from my chopsticks and landed beside the limp broccoli.
I wrinkled my nose at the leftover takeout that equaled my lame attempt at breakfast. On the plus side, I’d never mastered chopsticks, and now I’d have plenty of time to practice—alone, during the holidays, in my chilly apartment where I didn’t cook because I sucked at it.
Yes, Valerie Spellman could solve a fifty-year haunting, but she couldn’t boil an egg. And apparently, she couldn’t hold on to the man she’d fallen for either. She’d also developed a disturbing new talent for thinking about herself in the third person.
I groaned and tossed my chopsticks into the plastic dish. I wasn’t hungry anyway. Who could eat after screwing up the best thing that ever happened to them?
The drive back to the city last night had been brutal.
The looping carols on the radio made me want to cry, so I’d switched them off, riding in silence.
Which, funny enough, did make me cry. So I switched the carols back on and sang through my tears.
That back-and-forth, realizing my heart was broken either way, and all I could do was sit in that discomfort, was the world’s cruelest joke.
It was literally my job to recognize and nurture love, and instead of actually telling Grant I loved him, I’d delivered a masterclass in emotional miscommunication.
I was the trope everyone hated.
Myself included.
And I knew what came next. I should be hiring a skywriter—except no one’s done that since the nineties. Or sprinting through an airport to catch the plane before it takes off—but TSA kind of killed that move.
It was grand-gesture time, but I didn’t even know where his grandparents lived, so crashing the Delaney family Christmas with a Bluetooth speaker was officially off the table.
So I did what any self-respecting woman in love does at seven in the morning on Christmas Eve: I stared at my phone, drafting and deleting a dozen versions of the perfect text. One that wouldn’t leave me gutted when I got the three-dot typing bubble that vanished and left me on read for eternity.
I was on version thirteen when my phone rang.
I fumbled for the screen, swiping so fast my finger blurred. When Sage’s cheerful face popped into frame, I slumped back in my chair and scowled.
She frowned right back, her voice crackling through the speaker. “Hey, I know I sent you a vanilla candle set I re-gifted for Christmas, but this reception is very frosty.”
“The candles are fine. I sent you one of those planners no one actually uses, so we’re even.”
“So what’s the problem, then? I got your text. You solved the case, won the key—congrats, by the way—and now you can ditch your accidental husband. It’s a Christmas miracle!”
I dropped my head into my hands. “Yeah, about that. I kind of want to stay his wife. Permanently. Only, I may have… implied the opposite.”
“Wait. Back up,” Sage said. “You want to be married to Grant?”
I nodded and gave her the short version of the past two weeks. By the time I finished, Leo had joined her on the couch, both of them staring as if I’d sprouted nine heads with antlers and was auditioning to replace Santa’s team of reindeer.
Leo folded his arms, disappointment settling over his face like I’d tripped a bro-code landmine, and he’d been remotely activated.
“So let me get this straight—you told a man whose entire identity is wrapped up in feeling like a stand-in that you wanted to keep a key that could erase him from your life?” He shook his head slowly. “Wow, Val. Way to twist the chiseled candy cane right in his emotional wound.”
Sage winced. “He’s not wrong. What’s next? You gonna hit his grandma with a sleigh?”
“Stop it, both of you!” I growled into the phone like a feral groundhog.
“This is serious. It wasn’t supposed to come out like that.
I thought he’d be happy. I thought I was telling him that I didn’t want to things to end.
I just—” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“—didn’t pick up on the nuance until I heard it out loud. ”
Sage’s expression softened. “Val…”
“But I think I was just scared,” I said quietly. “I did exactly what I’ve watched my aunt do for years.”
Leo nodded as if the couch had granted him a psychology degree. “Classic. Fear dressed up as logic. You tell yourself you’re protecting your heart, but you’re really breaking it.”
“That is so wise, honey.” Sage rubbed his shoulder.
I stared at the ceiling. “I hate this call.”
“So what are you going to do?” Sage asked.
“Find a way to apologize, I guess. Maybe send one of those giant cookies to the office with icing that says Will you marry me… for real this time?” I shrugged. “But it’ll probably just end up in the breakroom. Nancy will make sure everyone gets a perfectly proportioned piece.”
Leo snorted. “Romantic and fair.”
Before I could respond, my phone buzzed with another incoming call. My stomach clenched. For one irrational second, I thought it might be Grant.
It wasn’t.
The screen flashed Mr. Delaney, Sr.
“I have to take this call.”
Sage squinted at me through the camera. “Your face looks like someone poured eggnog in your cereal.”
“That doesn’t sound half bad, right now,” I muttered, swiping to answer. Sage and Leo disappeared, and I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Ms. Spellman,” Grant’s grandfather said, his voice deep and cold as marble. “I know it’s early, but I’d like you to come into the office this morning.”
I straightened in my chair. “Of course. Is everything all right?”
A pause. “It’s about Grant.”
My pulse skipped. “Is he—did something happen?”
“I’d prefer to discuss it in person.” The line crackled faintly. “Nine a.m. sharp.”
And then he hung up.
A painful silence followed. Even the hum of my fridge felt judgmental.
I stared at my reflection in the black screen. The twinkling lights from my tabletop tree blinked behind me, turning my image dim and ghostlike. I barely recognized myself—this woman who’d spent her whole life believing in love, and still managed to lose it anyway.
The thought hollowed me out.
Except it wasn’t really lost, was it? Daniel had spent decades searching for something he knew was still there. He’d raised hell, sent guests packing, and cornered the market on creepy mirror writing. I exhaled a quiet laugh. He stayed for the woman he loved.
And I had no intention of becoming the Ghost of Christmas Future Annulments—especially since we’d already voided the warranty on that option. Thoroughly. And repeatedly.
A slow smile spread across my face. I knew exactly what I had to do.