Jingle This! (2 page)

Heidi blinked. "Roger dumped you? As in, broke up? As in, I'm no longer going to woo you in hopes that the extensive Miller inheritance will wind up in my bank account once I marry you?"

"Apparently, he doesn't want to use me for my family's money, seeing as how he dumped me. So, you were wrong. He's not a gold-digging bastard like you thought." Yay, her. Shallow victories were the small joys in life.

"This is great! I can't tell you how happy I am to hear this." Heidi looked absolutely delighted, and even had the mind-boggling insensitivity to actually applaud the breakup. "Now you can really enjoy the holiday season! Imagine if you'd gotten yourself wedded to that slow-brained, penny-pinching, sponging dimwit? Christmas came early for you!"

"Seriously, Heidi?" Funny how Angie wasn't feeling a strong female-bonding thing right now. "You better watch it. When Roger and I get back together you're going to have to make up for insulting the man I love."

"What? You wouldn't dare get back together with him, would you?" Heidi looked horrified. "I've been hoping for this day for two years. If you take back this gift, then you aren't a true friend."

"You're the one who isn't a true friend. Can't you see I'm devastated?" Understatement of the millennium. "I love Roger. We belong together." Angie felt the burn of tears at the back of her eyes. Bastard. How dare he make her cry? She lifted her chin. "Can you hand me the tree again? I really need to vent." She picked up the lighter. "I'll pretend it's Roger. That should make you happy."

Heidi grabbed the tree and cradled it to her glittery red vest. "No chance. Hand over the lighter or I'm turning you in."

"To who?"

"The authorities. Granted, I'm all for torturing Roger, but if you end up burning down this office, then I'll be out of a job, and I won't be able to pay for all my new clothes for the holiday parties and my honeymoon. You wouldn't do that to me, would you?" Heidi set the tree down on the carpet beside her chair and leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with the excitement of a woman about to get married to her true love.

Sigh. She'd been so close to having that sparkle…

"So, I'm thinking of going to Tiffany's and making a list of the items I like, so Quinn will know what to buy me for a wedding present," Heidi said. "Do you think that's tasteless? I mean, I know he's going to buy me jewelry, so there's nothing wrong with giving him a little guidance, is there? He is a guy, after all. They usually aren't born with a natural sense of fashion."

Weird how hearing about someone else's upcoming nuptials wasn't improving her mood by any great margin. Why would that be? "How did you know that talking about your upcoming wedding would be exactly what I needed to make me forget that I just got dumped by the man I thought was going to propose?" Angie shoved her chair back from her desk and started yanking decorations off her walls. "You must be a genius. A dear and sensitive friend who knows exactly what her broken-hearted friend needs to feel better—"

"Hey there, missy." Heidi jumped up and grabbed Angie's wrist before she could really gather some good momentum in the holiday destruction effort. "How can you let some jerk destroy your joy in your favorite season and your excitement about your best friend's wedding? Ten years from now, you'll look back and be so angry at yourself for letting some loser ruin your holiday." Heidi's rouged elfin cheeks were so chipper and spritely, the complete antithesis of the burning anger, depression and total misery pervading Angie's body and soul.

She glared at her friend. "He's not a loser."

"Course he is. If he wasn't a loser, he wouldn't have dumped you, right?"

Angie had to acknowledge there was an appealing logic to that argument. "Well, you have a point."

"See? I'm a genius." Her eyes still sparkling with good humor that felt so hopelessly out of reach, Heidi leaned forward. "Hey, on a completely unrelated topic, I don't mean to pressure you, but what time are you going to have your story done? I need to copy edit it and get it posted online by five o'clock today. You may technically have a midnight deadline, but with me as your copy editor, I'm saying five o'clock. I'm not interested in staying late."

The story. The mere thought of it made Angie want to drop her forehead to her desk. Hard. And repeatedly. She'd totally forgotten about her assignment for the next month. The company she worked for, New Age Marketing, had been trying for months to land a high-profile client, Swift Department Stores. In September, Angie had been part of the team that had persuaded Swift to give them a try with a holiday marketing campaign for their well-known diamond collection. Angie's assignment? To write a daily online serial to convince men to give diamonds to the women they love for Christmas, to be posted on the home page of Swift's website. If she impressed Swift, they would hire New Age for more projects. If she didn't, her company would get no further deals from Swift.

She liked pressure. She liked writing. Plus, she adored diamonds, relished every moment of the holiday season and was a hopeless romantic, so she'd jumped at the chance for the project. In October, the assignment had been her dream come true, a chance to prove herself. She'd spent all fall researching it and interviewing couples for inspiration. Last week, before she'd headed off for the Thanksgiving weekend, she'd made sure everything was organized. When she'd walked out the door, she'd been fired up and ready to attack the stories when she got back into the office.

But now? She just wanted to crawl under her desk and hide.

"Well?" Heidi looked at her expectantly.

"You really think I'm going to be able to write a daily serial about love and the Christmas season after I just got dumped? When I proposed this project in October, I thought I'd be celebrating my own holiday engagement, so it would be the perfect complement. I can't write about everyone else's love now." Not when every holiday decoration or song was like a club to the head, reminding her of the sewer her love life had become. Ever since she and Roger fell in love over the Christmas season two years ago, every twinkling light made her think of him, which had been perfect when they'd been dating.

Now? The phenomenon was a little more inconvenient. Depressing. Incapacitating, even.

Right now, thinking of Roger all the time would really not be conducive to her mental or emotional well-being, hence her plan to completely deny the existence of Christmas this year. Which included not writing a story about how the holiday season renews the love of various couples.

Heidi snorted. "Gah. Could you sound more pathetic? You have a job to do, my friend, so do it you must. You know this entire company is depending on whether we impress this client or not. My future…no,
all
of our futures are in your hands."

Oh, God. Heidi wasn't exaggerating. Swift was critical to the future of their struggling marketing company. Angie groaned and banged her forehead on her desk. "So you write the damn thing."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm a copy editor, not a writer." Heidi popped out of her chair, her elfin balls jangling. "So, there's a vastly expensive party at lunch today to kick off the Christmas season. All our clients or potential clients are invited. The owners are hoping to bring in lots of holiday business."

"Yeah, sure. I'll be there." Seeing as how one half of the "owners" was also the loser who'd dumped her four days ago, it was quite likely Angie would get lost on the way to the conference room and not quite manage to find the holiday party.

Heidi leaned forward and set her hands on the table. "Angie."

She covered her head with her arms and pressed her cheek to the cool wood of her desk. "What?"

"Roger isn't good enough for you," Heidi said quietly. "Don't sweat the breakup."

Tears filled Angie's eyes at the note of sympathy in her friend's voice. "I know. I know he's a jerk." But even though acknowledging Roger's failure as a human being wasn't quite enough to make Angie jump out of her chair and start dancing for joy, it still gave her the wherewithal to sit up in her chair and fight for composure. She would not let him ruin her favorite season. She just wouldn't. "I'll have the article for you by three. Is that enough time?"

"Barely. Don't be late." Heidi grinned. "Love you, hon. Try to enjoy the Christmas season, okay? You'll feel better."

"Sure." Angie managed to keep herself vertical until Heidi had shut the door behind her, but the moment Heidi's cheerful energy was gone, the loneliness and doom settled over Angie again, like some black shadow of Scrooge. With a groan, she laid down on the floor, propped her feet up against the wall, crossed her arms over her face and closed her eyes.

Okay, she could meditate herself out of this state of misery and apathy, right? Calm her mind. Think of a flowing river, of rainbow fish leaping out of the swirling water—

Dammit. How was she supposed to write a story about love, romance and the holiday season every day for the next twenty-five days?

And to think she thought this assignment would renew her enjoyment in her job.

Fat chance of that—

"Come on, Angie," she chastised herself. "Focus."
Let the negative thoughts go. Let your mind be at peace.

The door swung open again. "Hey, pathetic creature," Heidi said.

Angie sighed and gave up on the meditation. "What?"

"I'm going to Tiffany's at ten to make my list for Quinn. Want to come? Maybe it'll give you inspiration for your story." She grinned cheerfully. "You know, diamonds. You love those sparkly stones. I know you do."

Angie opened her eyes and looked up at her friend, who was standing over her. "I can see up your elf skirt. Nice candy cane underwear."

"Sweet. I'll remember that when I see Quinn. Maybe it'll lead to some good foreplay." Heidi wiggled her butt. "Think that'll work? Sexy enough for ya?"

Angie groaned and closed her eyes. "I can't deal with you."

"Great. So I'll be by at ten to pick you up."

"I can't go. I have to write my story." About love and the holiday season. For her boss. Who dumped her.
I hate my job
.

"You'll still be lying here on the floor at ten. Checking out Tiffany's will be great to help you focus on your client, who is, after all, trying to beef up their department store jewelry counter so they can outsell Tiffany's this season. What better research than checking out the competition?"

For a moment, Angie paused, considering Heidi's suggestion…then she imagined running into some young couple looking at engagement rings, and her throat tightened up again. "I'm not ready to do that yet."

"Sure you are. It'll be good for you."

"Go away."

"No. Not 'til you promise to come."

So nice to know she had her own personal stalker. "Are you going to wear that elf outfit in public?"

"Of course. It's the Christmas season. Want me to get one for you so we can be twins?"

Angie gave her friend a baleful look. "Seriously? You're actually asking me that?"

Heidi shrugged. "Okay, so maybe not today. I'll see you at ten." Heidi left the door open behind her, no doubt trying to shame Angie into getting off the floor.

Heartless fiend. Next time she was going to pick her friends better.

* * *

By Tuesday morning at eleven, it was all Kyle Black could do to keep himself from racing down the hall, grabbing his partner by the neck and demanding that Roger hand over the company before he destroyed it. Instead, Kyle managed to stroll casually, stopping in the kitchen to refill his coffee, then continued down the hall where his friend Roger Lockhardt had his overly plush and not-at-all deserved office.

Kyle nudged the door open with his toe to find Roger doing push-ups. "Roger. We need to talk."

"In a sec. This is my last set."

"Unbelievable. You're doing push-ups." The man was actually working on his pecs when their business was crumbling down around them? It was difficult to believe they'd been best friends in college. Kyle found very little to admire about the guy now, knowledge that would have come in handy
before
he'd partnered with Roger and given the lazy bastard half-ownership of New Age Marketing. Roger had ponied up the dough, Kyle had invested the brains.

Though Roger bordered on brilliant, his work ethic had never been admirable. Kyle had figured that putting money on the line would get Roger's attention. It had, for a brief time, but once he'd started dating Angie Miller two years ago, Roger had barely been present. He'd spent his time running off on a moment's notice to do couple things instead of working until the early hours of the morning to get things done. No small company would survive with nine-to-five leaders. Not only was Roger working half-time, but he was still making decisions as if he had full information. Kyle had cleaned up more than a few messes as a result of Roger making the call when he'd missed key information due to his playing the dutiful boyfriend to Angie.

Angie Miller and her cute little dimples were the cause of Roger's abdication of his responsibilities as a leader of the company, and Roger's abandonment of his role was dragging the company down into the sewer.

The fact that Angie was tempting enough to distract Roger from their company made Kyle damn pleased he hadn't followed through on his attraction to Angie two years ago when they'd been working on a project together. The sparks had flown between them, and he'd almost made a move more than once, stopped only by his realization that he couldn’t afford to do anything that would threaten his company, like dating his best copy writer. Instead, he'd accepted the advances of Angie's sister, Sheila, a firecracker who could keep a man entertained but who was too independent to cramp his style.

Yep, he'd always be grateful to Angie for introducing him to her sister before he'd made the move on Angie. Not that the thing with Sheila had lasted more than six months, God help him, that was more than enough time to deal with her hysterics and melodrama. But by the time he was free from Sheila, Angie had her hooks in Roger. She'd been officially off-limits, and Kyle had been able to shove his still-lingering desire for her aside. But after seeing how Angie was dragging Roger away from the company, he wasn't feeling a lot of love for her these days anyway.