Page 22 of Santa Baby

“I’m sorry to disappoint,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth. “She doesn’t carry a last name from the Gilded Age. Don’t worry, I won’t be asking for Grandma’s engagement ring. I think I can afford to buy her one on my own.”

Dad slowly looked back at me, his eyes characteristically unreadable. “You looked smitten at your Thanksgiving dinner.”

“I am.” The truth echoed through the words. I didn’t even have to try to fake it. “Did you come here to invite me to Christmas eve dinner or interrogate me?”

“I just wanted to make sure you’re thinking this through.”

“Thinking what through? My relationship?” For years, I spent my life on track to go to Yale, like he did. I would have gone into finance, like he did. I would have married a socialite from a family who founded New York City, like he did. This rift between us had been growing for years.

It started when I chose Columbia instead of Yale, getting a degree in business. Then my grandma died, and instead of inheriting a chunk of our family’s wealth, she’d given me the most priceless, most guarded secret that had been passed down from generation to generation, from a time when the men in our family where still wearing kilts and living in clans.

I hadn’t guarded the secret, though. I’d built an empire with it.

Dad might have forgiven me for following a different path in life, but he never forgave me for that. It festered, turning into something I wasn’t sure could be fixed. Being born to wealth came with expectations. I hadn’t met them yet. If anything, I’d ignored those expectations at every turn, and now that I was older and wiser, I’d begun to see the damage this rift was causing.

Hence, my fake relationship with Fia. It had nothing to do with business, and everything to do with this man, right here.

I hated that even after all this time I was still seeking his approval, that I wanted it. Sometimes I wanted it more than anything.

“We just want what’s best for you,” he said, rising from the chair. “Your mother worries you’ll never marry.”

“I’m going to marry Fia. I hope that’s enough for you.”

He blinked and nodded as he pulled out his phone. “I saw the pictures from the Blue Winter auction. The family name is making the rounds in the tabloids again. Everyone is curious about your mysterious girlfriend, and so are we. Bring her to dinner before you do anything you might regret.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Regret?”

“You’ve yet to acknowledge how precarious your situation is, Mason. She’s not from a family like ours.”

I got to my feet, my fingertips pressed to my desk. “She’s not with me for the money.”

“You’re young and inexperienced. You need us⁠—”

“I need you to trust me, Dad. I—I love Fia. I’m going to marry her. She’s not some fling, someone I’m throwing money at to keep happy. If you’d given her even an ounce of your time during Thanksgiving, you’d see why I want to spend the rest of my life with her.” The words fell so easily from my tongue that it caught me off guard. “Mom will love her.”

Dad stiffened but shrugged, which was as close to approval as he ever got. “I’ll try to trust your judgment.”

There it was. The line that always had me in a chokehold.

“I have a dinner meeting,” he said and left, leaving me reeling like a cyclone had just flown through.

I walked to the cabinets lining the far wall, pulled out an unlabeled bottle of whiskey, and popped the cork. Batch one. This stuff went for fifty to a hundred grand at auction now, and I’d brewed it in a dorm room I shared with Colin. I poured myself a dram and drank it down, barely tasting it, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

Then, without giving myself a second to talk myself out of it, I pulled out my phone and called Fia.

She answered on the second ring, Christmas music blaring around her as she laughed. “Mason? Did you butt-dial me?”

“Am I not allowed to call my girlfriend?” I sat down on the arm of one of the chairs and looked out over the clouds.

“I have to remind you that this is fake, remember? You don’t have to call me—ow!” A shattering sound burst through the line.

I sat up a little straighter. “Are you okay? What was that?”

“I’m trying to decorate my parents’ house and I just broke something, it’s fine,” she replied, a little breathless. “What are you doing right now? Wait, let me guess. You’re at your office, loving every second of being bored to death?”

“You caught me.”

“Well, enjoy it, because it sounds like we have a very busy day tomorrow. Your assistant sent me an email about… something about mistletoe? Oh, and a kissing booth⁠—”