Showing results by author "Alina Jacobs" in All Categories

When your wedding-crazy, septuagenarian grandmother arranges a contest to see which of her granddaughters marries first, you have to bring out the big guns. And my billionaire boss Blade’s guns are banging! Billionaire, high-powered CEO, more money than personality, Blade Svensson is all business. He needs to win a contract, and I need a house. He and I both know that this is a logical, rational response to one of life’s many curveballs.

I should be hiding away with wine and snacks while waiting for Christmas to end. Instead, I’m wearing a reindeer mascot costume and pretending I’m oh-so-excited to meet New York City’s most eligible billionaire bachelor! Christmas is already a stressful time of the year without adding a billionaire to the mix. Between dodging bake-off sabotaging cousins, applying for a long-shot prestigious museum internship, and trying to survive being broke in Manhattan, I’m up to my black lipstick in my own special nightmare before Christmas.

Rules are meant to be broken. Except for one: Women can't get enough peonies. Even the girl in front of me in line is admiring the peonies in my hand. While I need these particular flowers for my latest plot, I'll still give Meghan the biggest, thickest bouquet I can find. It's flattering how much she wants my peonies. And I don't mind personally delivering.

Hire a hitman to take out my cheating ex? It was an eggnog-fueled mistake, I swear! On Christmas Eve, my perfect fiancé stands up at the altar to declare his pure undying love… for my evil stepsister. Cue public humiliation, a ruined wedding, and me crawling back to my small hometown to work minimum wage at my granny’s Christmas café. Just living the holiday dream. But I refuse to show up sad and alone to my cheating ex and man-stealing stepsister’s engagement party.

The Thanksgiving turkey is still warm, and I’m already up to my eyeballs in debt from my failed business. To make matters worse, my knight in flannel never appeared—you know, the guy, the one who was tall, dark, and plaid, who had a friendly yellow lab and a truck and sold firewood, the one who showed the big-city heroine the true meaning of love and Christmas. Yeah, he did not come rescue me.

After the first taste of her Christmas cookies I wanted to shove the whole thing in my face. The whole plate of cookies, that is. Not...you know. Christmas is bad enough without one of The Great Christmas Bake-Off contestants all wrapped up in a bow under my tree. Er...I meant...Christmas is horrible, right? Holly. Christmas is like the perfect sugar cookie - it slowly melts in your mouth, sweetening every taste bud, making you wish it could last forever. I love Christmas! I love the cheerful music, the fun sweaters, and the holiday lights.

My new billionaire boss looks like he needs something sweet in his life. I graciously offered to let him stick his hand in my candy jar. It has salt water taffy and gummy worms! I can't believe he thought it was inappropriate! In an effort to redeem myself, I set out to show Mace that I wasn't a clumsy, car-destroying, electronic-killing, accident-prone, walking disaster. That lasted all of five minutes before I set his seaweed and quinoa lunch on fire. Yeah, I didn't know that was a thing either.

Momma’s gonna have herself a very merry Christmas revenge. Swapping the salt and sugar so his Christmas cookies are ruined? Be still, my shriveled little heart. Spying on him so I can gather recon to ruin his holidate? Damn, I forgot how ripped his chest was. Sneaking down his chimney to steal all the presents under his tree? Amateur hour. Until I get caught....

When the townspeople of Harrogate almost riot over the Christmas décor thievery committed by the chair of the Elf on the Shelf Committee, I know I’m not going to survive the holiday season unless drastic action is taken. Biddy Jefferson turning up dead in my Christmas market stall is not exactly the type of drastic measure I had in mind. With no alibi and a town obsessed with pinning the murder on me, I have to clear my name. This is on top of planning the upcoming holiday ball, dealing with quirky stall owners in the Christmas market, and corralling confused tourists.

The Maxine Hotel was supposed to be mine. I invested my meager savings into the upkeep. I slept in a freezing-cold attic like Cinderella, but with way more wine. Then Mike Svensson swaggers in with his billions and his bad attitude, steals the hotel from me, and starts bossing me around like he owns the place. My boss is going down. But he’s harder to get rid of than I thought. Snack-addicted raccoons, angry squatters, and ghosts - nothing seems to faze him. It’s time to bring out the big guns - I have two of them strapped to my chest!

The only thing we have in common is that we’re both tall. He wears bespoke suits; I wear flats with holes in them. He runs a big shot investment firm; I’m trying to start my own company with only bubble gum and circus peanuts. He likes to show up at my horrible dates and ruin them; I…pretended I hated when he did that but secretly was thrilled even though it was a little young adult fiction.

I have no alternatives—I have to throw myself to Carl Svensson’s mercy like a wretched Victorian romance heroine in order to save my dog. I wish all I had to do was lounge around a haunted mansion in a pretty dress. Instead, Carl is forcing me to run outside in the morning, clean my apartment, and finally do something about my credit card debt. Yes, I am side-eyeing all of this. Carl’s in for a shock of his own, though. I’m a free-spirited, art-loving girl with tattoos, multicolored hair, and piercings. An uptight, suit-wearing investment banker is not going to change me.

When your grandmother stalks the star hockey player on the rival team because “You need a husband, Dakota—you’re not getting any younger!” it’s Christmas crazy on ice.

I turn weird and awkward around attractive men. I'm a nervous sweater, and when Archer walked into my art cafe that night, he was making me soaking wet. He was stupidly attractive - which caused me to go into excruciating detail about my sweating problem, insult what he had under his fig leaf, and imply I was running a brothel. My career as an artist was a joke. I was desperately trying to live the #bossbabe life after I couldn't hack it as an artist in New York City and moved back to my small hometown. Now my business is failing. But hey, suffering is inspirational, right?

In my defense, my twin sister is engaged to the love of my life. Ok, so he’s my ex of two weeks, but I have totally been in love with him since we were kids!

When you kiss your perfect boyfriend under the mistletoe...only for your cousin scream to the family that you stole her man, you realize that you will never again have a merry Christmas. In my defense, I didn’t know my boss—yup, boss. Buckle up because this is messy—was my cousin’s newly minted and totally lying fiancé. I thought he was the Nutcracker Prince come to finally show my family that I, too, was worthy of putting the star atop the Christmas tree.

Christmas is bad enough without all the music, frantic shopping sprees, and holiday parties. So many parties… with people you couldn’t stand in high school and definitely can’t stand now. Top of the list? Patty Harrison. She made my teen years miserable and, now that we’re adults, she’s trying to get me banned from the Christmas market. Even so, I’m not going to commit literal murder.

In my defense, I never claimed to be professional.... At least that’s my excuse for why I mistook a billionaire for a waiter, made off-color comments, and accidentally dumped a plate of food all over him. Embarrassing myself is a daily occurrence, just like my unpaid bill notices. But being in a wedding instead of planning one is not. I shall live vicariously through this high-end wedding and forget about the rent payments I’ve missed, the fact that my tiny apartment has no hot water, and that I’m about to be evicted anyway so it doesn’t even matter, anyway! Yay!

Five years ago, I royally screwed up, lied, and broke the heart of the woman I love. A sane man would buy her a nice present and grovel. Guess I must be crazy. I love Meg more than anything. So why am I running against her for mayor of Harrogate?

Chris Winchester is a billionaire with serious trust issues, and I am a photographer trying to survive in the world of high-end weddings. And the billionaire’s penthouse is about to be marriage and a murder if he doesn’t stop hitting his snooze button a thousand bazillion times in the morning, while I’m trying to work and get my life back on track.