Chapter One

      ‘I don’t know what your problem is,’ I said, taking a swig of my venti non-fat peppermint mocha latte. ‘What could be more Christmassy than this?’

      My best friend and constant pain in the ass took a terrified look around at the animated bear diorama behind me and shuddered.

      ‘Don’t look now but the bear directly behind you has an axe,’ Angie said with a half-hearted point in the bear’s general direction. ‘I think he’s trying to kill you.’

      ‘He’s chopping down a tree!’ I yelled, arms thrown out wide in exposition. ‘And that guy is bringing in presents and those little baby bears are writing their lists to Santa. Seriously, doll, if these fuzzy motherfuckers can’t bring your Christmas spirit alive, then there’s no damn hope for you.’

      It wasn’t often that I, Jenny Lopez, was prepared to admit defeat, but Angela was testing my limits. We’d spent all morning trudging around Manhattan in the freezing cold, hopping over slushy snow banks and trying to get her psyched for the most wonderful time of the year. Only nothing was happening. It was strange. For the last five years, I’d had to listen to her singing Christmas carols – badly – in her adorable British accent as soon as she’d taken the Halloween decorations down. She was a Christmas-o-holic. As an American, I didn’t even start thinking about holly jolly holidays until the agony of Thanksgiving was out of the way. There was only so much turkey a girl could pretend to be excited about at a time. But this year was different.

      ‘I do quite like the little one in the jumper,’ she offered, nodding towards an especially freaky-looking bear lurching back and forth and seemingly attacking a dead cat. ‘He’s cute.’

      ‘If you’re gonna be this much of an asshole every time Alex goes away on tour from now on, I might have to start going with him,’ I said. ‘There’s no way he can get back for the holidays?’

      ‘We agreed there was no point,’ she said with a rare self-pitying sniff. It wasn’t often she played the ‘poor me’ card, but when your husband takes off on a tour of Asia for three months and you’re stuck in New York, I figure you’re allowed a little leeway. ‘And I can’t go out and meet him because my bollocking bastard deputy quit.’

      ‘The perils of being a media mogul,’ I said, giving her a half-smile and matching eye-roll. ‘Want me to have her killed?’

      ‘It’s top of my Christmas list,’ she replied. ‘I can’t believe she waited until Christmas to do this.’

      I shrugged. ‘I can. The vacation at your magazine sucks ass. It’s like, what, five days?’

      ‘Eight in your first year,’ she glowered. ‘Plus public holidays.’

      I raised an eyebrow, only ever so slightly hampered by my impulsive Botox injections. If I didn’t already have a job, I’d have made a great devil’s advocate. I wondered what his benefits package looked like.

      ‘That’s how it works, Angie.’ I tossed my empty red cup into a nearby trash can, silently whooping as it landed. ‘Most people don’t think too much about other people’s schedules when they’re quitting a job. I guess she wanted to take a nice long break over the holidays before she starts at the new place.’

      ‘There is no new place,’ Angie said, her face like thunder. ‘She actually quit because she got engaged. Can you believe it?’

      ‘Only because I’m so jealous.’

      Standing up slowly, I stretched my arms over my head. They were still aching from my workout the day before. Until someone appeared to yank me off the shelf and drown me in a life