Three

      Stef had gone to bed late last night, staring at the ceiling for a long while, her mind lost on her current predicament.

      She hadn’t stayed up late to pack—she’d done that already and her matching luggage was lined up dutifully next to her apartment door. Knowing that Emmett would pick her up promptly at 7:00 a.m., she also hadn’t indulged in more than one glass of sparkling rosé before bed. No, her insomnia couldn’t be blamed on a lack of planning or too much alcohol. She’d lain awake, earning this morning’s puffy eyes and groggy brain for one reason.

      She was tired of being everyone else’s problem.

      It wasn’t enough to tell her parents and her brothers that she was an adult. She had to show them. In order to show them, she needed to take care of the Blake situation herself.

      Penelope was equipped to handle any PR disaster, but the more Stef thought about it, the more Pen’s plan to “wait and see” sounded like a slow track to a solution. Chase’s election was less than six months away. Stefanie refused to let Blake continue to drag her family’s good name through the muck.

      Chase had made it clear last fall that he didn’t hold Stefanie accountable for her act of indiscretion with Blake. In spite of his absolving her, her guilt remained.

      That Blake held this much power over her infuriated her. She refused to let him cause her to lose even one more minute of sleep.

      Last night while staring at the ceiling of her apartment, she’d decided not to let Blake have that power over her family, either.

      Penelope’s words rang in her ears.

       If you were anyone other than my sister-in-law, I’d advise you to get married.

      Well, why hadn’t that been Pen’s suggestion? It shouldn’t matter that Stefanie was her sister-in-law. A solution was a solution! There was only one eensy-weensy problem. Stefanie would have to find someone to marry, and fast.

      She wasn’t sure who to approach, let alone how to ask. She’d climbed out of bed during the wee hours, unhooked her phone from the charger in her kitchen and poured one more small glass of wine. Then she started scrolling through her contacts in her phone’s address book.

      Every prospect she thumbed through seemed worse than the last. She passed over ex-boyfriends, hookups and acquaintances alike. None of them were marriage material—not even temporarily. Plus, how would she ask for a favor like that from someone she hadn’t talked to in months, or years in some cases?

       Hi, I know you haven’t heard from me for a while, but would you mind marrying me for a few months?

      Not to mention she would need her groom to keep their marriage arrangement a secret. The entire purpose of the ruse would be to convince the press and that horrible blogger woman that Stefanie wasn’t involved with Blake. Then Blake would be forced to recant his bullshit statement.

      After she’d thought it through, she decided an engagement announcement would look like a desperate cover-up. It gave Blake too much wiggle room, and she couldn’t risk him slithering into her family’s life again.

      Wineglass empty and fatigue finally overcoming her, Stef had dragged herself to the couch, pulled a blanket over her body and caught about three hours of tossing-turning sleep.

      The knock on her front door came way too early, even though she was ready for it. She’d pulled her hair into a sloppy bun on top of her head, dashed on a layer of makeup and donned big, dark sunglasses so that if a photo was snapped of her in the wild, she wouldn’t look like she’d had a sleepless night fretting over Blake.

      Stef had called Pen yesterday afternoon and suggested releasing a statement that she was no more marrying Blake than she was marrying Kermit the Frog, but Pen had recommended against it.

       We can’t turn this into he said, she said, especially while you’re out of town. Let’s let the dust settle and we’ll handle things in the new year. Enjoy your Christmas party!

      Despite what she’d led everyone to believe, Stef wasn’t going to a Christmas party with her girlfriends. She was hosting a massive charity dinner that she’d arranged for some of the poorest families in Harlington, a city outside San Antonio.

      Over the last three Christmas Eves, she’d hosted similar dinners and, so far, had kept her little Christmas secret. She didn’t want publicity or attention for it—not yet. She wanted to do it her way, and without input from family members on how to arrange the place settings or what kind of food to serve.

      Providing for the less fortunate and giving back filled her with a sense of satisfaction like nothing else. To Stef, this dinner party was about more than writing a check. She’d personally witnessed gratitude and happiness on the faces of men, women and children who otherwise wouldn’t have had a merry Christmas.

      Hiding what she was doing from her family wasn’t too difficult, but keeping her identity a secret from her guests was a bit trickier. So far so good—no one had recognized her yet. She might be widely recognized by the snooty Dallas upper crust, but to the hardworking people of Texas proper, she was simply a young woman helping out.

      Her goal was to grow the charity event larger starting next year, which would mean she’d need to reveal her true identity in order to expand and give it the attention it deserved. But she couldn’t do that while living in the Ferguson shadow or tiptoeing around her brother and his career as mayor.

      Yes, going public would mean she’d have to do a bit of pruning to her own reputation before next Christmas.

      “Coming!” she called when the knock at the door came again.

      She rushed to the door and held it open, but rather than ushering Emmett forward, she ended up walking outside into the cold with him.

      “Is that snow? Oh my gosh, that’s snow!”

      Snow in Texas was a rare occasion. Typically this time of year temperatures hovered in the forties.

      “Yeah—hey, where are you going?”

      She ignored him to step out onto her upstairs front stoop. The snow wasn’t sticking, sadly, but the flakes were enough to fill her heart with joy. Each delicate, sparkly and, yes, sloppy flake was a reminder that her favorite holiday was nearly upon them.

      “It’s beautiful.”