Hostile for the Holidays

Is there anything worse than getting sick on the four-hour flight home for the holidays?

How about the fact that my childhood rival, Jasper Jensen, is there to not only witness it, but to take care of me so he can hang it over my head for all of eternity?

Or maybe when an old fling is waiting to pick me up at the airport, hoping to rekindle our past over the holidays, and I'm so desperate to avoid him that I present Jasper as my boyfriend.

Jasper agrees to play the part if, in return, I attend his family's famous Christmas Eve party to keep his meddling family from setting him up. It's a small price to pay for my holiday peace.

But nothing is peaceful about the holidays this year. My sister's getting married on New Years' Eve and wedding planning is taking over Christmas. My family has no time for our holiday traditions; we don't even have a Christmas tree.

Until Jasper swoops in.

Between helping me decorate for Christmas, taking me to look at light displays, and wrapping presents for underprivileged kids, Jasper shows me a side of him I've never known.

I've vowed to keep the hostility between us—my heart is safer that way—but that might be one tradition that I can't hold onto this Christmas.