Together for Christmas (36 page)

She snorted. “Not everyone thinks so.”

He seemed unconvinced. “Who doesn’t think so?”

“My parents. My sister.”
Alex,
she was about to say.
He thinks I’m awful!
But Casey broke in before she could.

“I haven’t met your parents yet, so I can’t speak for them,” Casey told her, “but Kristen loves you. She thinks the world of you. She’s rearranged her whole Christmas for you.”

Surprised, Heather withdrew her hand from his. “No, she hasn’t. I’ve barely made a dent in Kristen’s Christmas. I made sure my homecoming special would hardly affect her.”

Defensively, she informed Casey of the deal she’d made with the paparazzi to leave Kristen alone at her diner and at home. It didn’t seem necessary to Heather to mention that she’d only done that at the urging of Kristen’s busybody Super Friends quartet, Gareth, Talia, Avery, and Walden. He didn’t need to know that.

Besides, the truth was, she’d have done it on her own anyway. If it had occurred to her. Which, initially, it hadn’t.

“That was a good idea,” Casey said, smiling to give Heather proper credit, “but it didn’t stop everything else from snowballing out of control. It didn’t stop your fans from camping out at the diner, hoping for a glimpse of you. It didn’t stop the town from declaring the second day of every December an annual ‘Heather Miller Day’ holiday, with banners and billboards and posters of your face everywhere. It didn’t stop the animatronic reindeer or the artificial snow or the gossip. It didn’t stop your parents from canceling their plans with Kristen so they could maintain their@Heather_Hotline Twitter account.”

Gob-smacked, Heather stared at him. “Their what?”

Briefly, Casey told her about everything that had been going on while she’d been busy with her Christmas TV special—busy (fruitlessly) trying to make Alex fall in love with her.

“You know,” Heather mused when he’d finished, “this doesn’t sound like random interest in your assignment’s little sister.”

“That’s because it’s not random interest,” Casey said.

He let loose a dazzling grin. It was . . .
captivating
.

It also told Heather everything she needed to know. The Terminator—no,
Casey
—and Kristen were an item. They were in love! And just because
she’d
failed at love—here, Heather stifled a self-pitying sob—that didn’t mean her sister couldn’t win big.

“I’m happy for you,” Heather said sincerely. Because she was. Also, she was pleased to have brought Casey and Kristen together in the first place. Props to her! “But I’m afraid this means that you should probably cancel that distribution deal.” She cast a reluctant glance at the paperwork she’d signed earlier. “And the advertising campaign. And all the rest of it.”

“Why?” Casey frowned at her. “It’s already in motion.”

“Well,
un
-motion it, then!” Impatiently, Heather waved her arms at him. Unfortunately, he was not a spineless sycophant. So her gestures had little effect on him. “Kristen will hate it!”

At her abrupt change of heart, Casey looked understandably confused. “You said she’d be thrilled.”

“I might have been fibbing.”

“But if she’ll hate it, why did you agree to it?”

Heather exhaled. She didn’t want to admit this, but . . . “I’m kind of selfish sometimes. It’s true. Plus, when I did that”—
fifteen minutes ago
—“I didn’t really know you yet.”

“We met more than a week ago.”

“Right,” Heather agreed, “but I didn’t know
you
. I didn’t know you loved Kristen! To me, you were just the guy who was here to crush my TV special. I was willing to push through the deal if The Terminator was going to be the fall guy in the end—”

“I really hate that nickname,” Casey grumbled.

“—because I knew
I
would come out looking blameless. I knew I could always play dumb. I knew I could convince Kristen. After all, it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission, right?”

“No. That’s an idiotic saying.”

“But I didn’t have a smart enough accomplice to help me make the deal happen,” Heather finished, “until now.”

“Until me.” Casey gave a disbelieving chuckle—a chuckle that said he couldn’t believe he’d been outmaneuvered by a brainless pop star with a world-famous shoe collection.

“Yes. But now that it’s
you
who’ll take the fall and not The Terminator . . .” Heather sighed. “I just can’t do it.”

Casey’s expression turned grave. “Kristen will really hate it? But you two have been talking about collaborating—”

“She’s humoring me.” Heather waved off his “proof” that Kristen might be anything less than unhappy about the prospect of teaming up on a project. “It’s what she does to avoid hurting my feelings. Kristen likes keeping things low-key.”

“But she needs the money,” Casey insisted, jutting his jaw in a stubborn gesture. He didn’t seem accustomed to encountering obstacles. Probably, he wasn’t. “She has bank representatives hounding her. I’ve seen them. Hell, I’ve
talked
to them—”

“You talked to them?” Heather widened her eyes.

“—and while I didn’t get very much information,” Casey admitted, “I do know that running a small business is no picnic. It’s a low-margin endeavor with every possibility of failure—”

“Kristen’s not going to fail. She’s very talented!”

“—and it can’t hurt to have a safety net,” Casey went on doggedly. “Like a lucrative partnership with a chain of international luxury cafés and high-end chocolate boutiques that’s three thousand outlets strong.
That’s
the security Kristen needs.”

Heather shook her head. “Good luck convincing her of that.”

“I don’t need luck to convince her of that,” Casey insisted with typical confidence. “The facts will do it for me.”

“If ‘the facts’ could work that kind of magic, I’d have a boyfriend right now.”
A boyfriend who didn’t have suspiciously nonexistent “chicken pox” and questionably horrible photos of me on his cell phone
. Intently, Heather leaned toward Casey. “I’m serious about this. It’s one thing for me to finagle a deal for Kristen and strong-arm her into doing ads with me.
That’s
just life. That’s just sisters being sisters.” Feebly, she grinned. “But if the man she
loves
does that to her—”

“You think Kristen loves me?”

At his adorably hopeful expression, Heather felt her heart turn over. She was glad she’d spoken up before it was too late.

“Well, I can’t know for sure, since all we’ve been doing lately is trading texts and voice mails,” Heather told Casey. “But I can say that if Kristen ever invites you to spend the night at her place, you’ll know you’re in. Because Kristen
never
invites—”

“She
already
invited me to stay over. All weekend!”

Casey’s eyes were big, his voice was raspy, and his hands . . . Well, his hands were actually shaking. Heather laughed with joy.

She wished she had a man who loved her so much that his hands literally shook at the thought that she might love him back.

“You’d better start looking for another Kismet-based troubleshooting job,” she advised him with a gleeful poke to his arm, “because I think you might be here for a while.”

“I
might
be here! Even for Christmas.” Casey seemed astounded by the idea. “Even with all this snow and ice and holiday hoo-ha, and not a single margarita in sight.” Suddenly, his cheery demeanor vanished. His stricken glance met hers. “Except I’ve already put out feelers about the Galaxy Diner pie-distribution deal. I’ve already spoken with people at Torrance Chocolates. I’ve already gotten the rumor mill cranking, made potential investors aware that a deal might be in the works—”

“I guess you were pretty sure you could convince me to go along with this,” Heather put in. Casey didn’t need to agree with her. The truth was obvious. She’d only thought she was in the driver’s seat today. “Can’t you just call it off?”

“I’m not sure,” Casey admitted, his handsome brow furrowed. “This whole town is crawling with media. I took advantage of that and slipped out a few hints when I arrived on set today. Plus, I made a few additional phone calls this morning.”

“That . . . doesn’t sound so bad?” Heather tried encouragingly.

But Casey only shook his head. “Part of what makes this deal so perfect is its tie-in to your holiday TV special. That sponsorship—and the associated advertising—could single-handedly make up for all the budget overruns. I can’t undo all that.”

“You can try!” Heather jostled him. “You’ve got to try!”

Appearing conflicted, Casey bit his lip. From outside the dressing room came the sounds of Heather’s prerecorded version of “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Everyone must be gearing up for another take of her “live” finale number. Her record label insisted it had to be Auto-Tuned to within an inch of its life for “consistency’s sake.” Remembering that, Heather sighed.

This . . .
phoniness
was not why she’d become a performer.

Looking at Casey Jackson’s anguished expression was not why she’d just sacrificed her longed-for advertising gig with Kristen, either. She could have made it work. Heather knew she could have.

She’d be darned if she’d make a rarer-than-natural-blondes personal sacrifice, just to see her efforts to go waste on a man who didn’t justify them. On a man who wasn’t worthy of Kristen.

So, even though Heather knew that what she was about to do was a little questionable in the morality department, she decided it was for the greater good. It was for Kristen’s sake.

“Well, do whatever you have to do.” Dredging up every ounce of acting ability she possessed, Heather stood. She tried to seem as divalicious as possible. “But I’m afraid you can’t have it both ways. I’m not here to be taken advantage of.”

“Huh?” Distractedly, Casey looked at her.

“If you call off the distribution deal and the joint ad campaign with me and Kristen,” Heather clarified, nodding toward the paperwork between them, “I’ll cut my crew’s available hours. I’ll revert to my original twenty-four-hour timetable.”

Casey frowned. “That won’t be enough time.”

“That’s not my problem. It’s yours.” Holding up her chin, Heather took herself regally toward the door. “Because I’m pretty sure that if my TV special doesn’t get done, neither does the job your agency sent you to Kismet to accomplish. And even if my special does get done somehow, without the additional sponsorship the budget overruns will crush it before it airs.”

Casey caught her meaning quickly enough. “You’re offering me a choice: my career or my relationship with Kristen.”

Heather shrugged. It wasn’t easy. But if Casey couldn’t bring himself to work a little harder to make Kristen happy, then maybe he didn’t deserve her. “Call it what you like,” she said flippantly. “If someone comes back with my matcha latte, I’ll be on set . . .
maybe
considering working before leaving town.”

Then she held her breath, breezed out of her dressing room, and left Casey behind—hopefully to do the right thing for Kristen. Because at least one of the Miller sisters ought to be happy at any given moment, Heather reasoned . . . and right now, it looked as though Kristen had the best possible chance of that.

Striding through the disorganized downtown bungalow that served as the primary on-set location for Heather Miller’s holiday TV special, Casey felt a new solidarity with the beleaguered-looking crew, extras, and catering staff who were milling around. Because he felt pretty sure—now that he’d spent more time with her—that Heather Miller was certifiably crazy.

She went through moods like a chocoholic through Hershey’s. She was up one minute and down the next. She was kind, then haughty, then helpless. She was demanding and illogical, loyal and naïve, peculiarly smart and infuriatingly imperious, all at the same time. She was unfathomable. She’d set him up for a two-in-one deal that would simultaneously salvage Casey’s assignment in Kismet
and
give him something wonderful to give Kristen for Christmas . . . then she’d cruelly and irrationally snatched it away.

Even more than Casey resented all the holiday lights, all the dancers ho-ho-ho-ing in Santa Claus suits, all the decorated Christmas trees and the wreaths and the candles and the candy canes he stalked by in those few minutes, he resented Heather Miller. Because she’d stuck him with an unthinkable choice.

Worse, she’d actually seemed to relish doing it.

Feeling ambushed and confused, Casey hurried past a few backup singers dressed as giant tin soldiers from Tchaikovsky’s
The Nutcracker
. He nodded at some crew members he knew. He pushed past the garland-wrapped foyer, stepped onto the bungalow’s snowy front porch while pulling on his coat . . .

. . . and almost ran smack into Shane Maresca.

“Casey!” His arch nemesis brightened. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Something’s happening. Some crazy Heather-impersonation scandal just broke, and I think you ought to—”

“I don’t have time for this, Shane.”

Preoccupied, Casey glanced at his watch, then brushed past Shane. He didn’t know if he could trust Heather or her take on Kristen’s feelings about the Galaxy Diner–Torrance Chocolates deal. He didn’t know if he was doing the right thing or even approaching the ballpark.

But he
did
know that he’d never failed to successfully complete an assignment. Being the man who completed assignments, every single time, on time, was his entire identity. And he knew that seeing Shane gave him even more reason to go forward with the deal. Because after all, his former friend had
also
advised him that Kristen wanted to put a baked-goods-distribution deal in motion.
Especially
if it involved Heather.

Casey had done that. So it looked like he won.

Or at least he might have won, depending on which version of Heather’s story was true. She’d already admitted lying to him once. Was she actually lying about lying? Would Kristen appreciate the deal or not? If she was reasonable, she would. But reason didn’t always trump feelings. Damn. This was a mess.