How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas

“It’s a party,” I said, running a hand across the navy sequins of my dress.

“I thought I’d dress up.”

“You look lovely,” she said. And leaned in for one of those two cheek air kisses. I was so stunned by the compliment I gave the air around her cheeks kisses of my own. But nothing came free from Gloria Kane, especially compliments. “It really is too bad you inherited your father’s hair. You always look like you’ve rolled in hay.” She pulled a curl straight, until it stung my scalp and I pushed her hand away.

She turned, looking out at the party and the fancy decorations, and I resisted the urge to rub away the sting of my scalp. The room was beautiful. The silver tinsel and the bright red and green baubles, the lights and beauty, and it looked expensive. It was so different from the way it had been when my father ran things. “You’ve heard, I suppose. He probably told you. You were probably there,” Mom said.

“Where?”

“At the wedding.”

Mom looked over at me and I couldn’t handle my shock. My surprise. Or…maybe my hurt. “Penny and Wes? They…did it?” I asked.

“Apparently.”

“Bullshit.” He would have told me. I would have been there.

“Really, Sophie. Do you have to be so vulgar?”

“Yep.”

Mom, if it was possible, got even stiffer. “He just made a big announcement. You missed it.”

The messages…

Son of a bitch actually did it.

Penelope Gold and her company, The Christmas Experience, were the second prong in the three-prong plan. What was supposed to be a merger had somehow turned into an engagement. Apparently during merger negotiations, Was had fallen in love with Penelope and asked her to marry him. I’d called bullshit on this, but my playboy brother, who usually dated a new woman every week, had been sticking to the story. I hadn’t met Penny until this week, and I’d wanted to hate her, but Penny was just too damn nice.

And now they were married.

“Your brother,” Mom said, shaking her head with sympathy and concern and every scrap of maternal instinct in her bony body. “He’s working so hard. And now married to this… unimpressive girl? I don’t like it. I told your father, not that he listened. But I don’t like this for your brother. He deserves so much better.”

This was the thing with my mom. Every girl was unimpressive. She only saw my brother and father. Like, this was old-generation stuff, right? Only men mattered. Sons and husbands and fathers—my job as a sister and a daughter was to just keep reflecting the best versions of the men in my life out into the world.

Mom had done that her whole life and look where it got her—a husband who’d lied and cheated and whom she was divorcing. And a son who barely tolerated her.

And meanwhile, my hands had calluses from doing my part to turn this company around. I went to all the meetings my brother called for, I followed the cost-saving protocols introduced by the new CFO, and I treated my crew like the family they were to me. And when I overheard a couple of employees bitching about all the changes, I told them to collect their checks and move on. And my favorite show of support—on Thursday nights after work I went up to my brother’s office and we kicked our feet up on Dad’s old desk and drank a bottle of the good stuff my Dad had hoarded for the end of the world.

But maybe it was because I worked in the back, in the shipping department, and Mom hated that. Because I couldn’t even be a girl right. Or maybe it was because I was a girl and so somehow…less in her eyes. I didn’t know, and frankly, I was long past caring. I’d tried so hard to get this woman to love me and it didn’t matter.

“It wouldn’t kill you to support your brother,” Mom said, interpreting my silence as not supporting my brother.

“Let’s not do this tonight, Mom. We’re supposed to be having fun.”

“Is that why you’re dressed that way?” she asked. Her silver hair reflected the green and red lights and her eyes…well, they reflected what they always reflected when she looked at me.

“Yep,” I said.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with that boy being back.”

Only Mom would call a decorated Marine that boy.

“Okay Mom, it’s been lots of fun talking to you, but I’m going to go—” I twirled a finger around “—mingle.”

“All right, Sophie. Try…”

To act like a Kane. To make her proud. To be less myself. More like my mother. Dignified and quiet and whatever.

“I always do, Mom. Believe it or not, I always do.”

I turned and sucked back my champagne, setting my glass down on an empty table. The champagne was fizzy and sweet, and went to my knees and my head at the same time. A fast drink on an empty stomach was one of my favorite things.