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“Hungry?” Pascal asks, stepping in before the silence gets awkward. “Let’s make dinner.”

“With the power out?” I ask.

Jarek’s eyes glint in the firelight. Before I know it, we’re all sitting in front of the hearth, nibbling from a charcuterie board and sipping our drinks.

“Who says we need power to make a good meal?” Pascal remarks, popping an olive into his mouth.

The way his jaw moves as he chews distracts me with thoughts I shouldn’t be having about one of my employers. The crackling fire, the candlelight, and the warm tingle of the bourbon seem to be softening my resolve.

“We should play a game,” Jarek suggests.

“A game?” Zander raises an eyebrow, as if deciding whether his friend is serious.

“Yeah. Isn’t that what people do when the power’s out?”

“We still need to decorate the tree,” I chime in, glancing at the bare pine in the corner and the boxes beside it.

“I agree with Nina,” Pascal says, getting to his feet. “Let’s decorate the tree.”

Pascal is the one I can’t read.

Since I arrived, he’s seemed a bit more distant than the others. Everything about him is a finely groomed image, manicured down to the designer button-down shirts and Beaumont-crest cufflinks he wears almost every day. Unlike Jarek, who has his life on display, or Zander, whom I’m starting to figure out a little, Pascal reveals little about himself. It’s almost as if he was raised to become a role rather than a person, every decision filtered through reputational risk—even one as small as decorating a Christmas tree.

“We can’t do much else tonight without electricity, and we do need to get this place decorated,” he continues, proposing a strategy to make the best of the night. “Besides, Nina was instrumental in finding these ornaments and saving the day when plans went awry.”

Praise. Wow. No one has praised my work since Reid’s scandal hit my business. I can’t help letting a small smile slip.

We all gather around the tree. Zander opens the box of ornaments and lifts each one out carefully, as if handling forgotten memories. In the dim light, I can’t tell from his expression whether they’re fond ones.

“Look, mistletoe!” Jarek beams, pulling a very dried sprig from one of the boxes and dangling it teasingly in front of me. “Should we hang it up? Maybe it still works.”

I laugh. “I think that thing expired a few Christmases ago.”

Still, I follow him to the study doorway, more curious about how he’ll hang it than whether the legend is true. It’s just one of those stories you’re told as a kid, back when you still imagined romantic fairytale endings.

He fishes a small hook out of the ornament box and pushes it into the top of the doorframe. I watch his arm flex against his shirt as he hangs the mistletoe. Then I pull out my phone to snap a photo.

“Hey, hey, no pics! What are you, the paparazzi?” he jokes, shielding his face with one hand while securing the mistletoe with the other.

“Sorry.” I shove the phone back in my pocket. “I just thought it’d be nice to get some pics of you guys decorating.”

“Nope. I’m photographed often enough. Let’s just enjoy the moment.” He smiles, thankfully not upset. “Alright, should we test it out?”

“Test what out?”

Jarek grins and wraps an arm around my waist. Before I can react, he pulls me close and points up at the mistletoe.

I hold my breath, thinking he’s actually going to kiss me beneath this tiny bit of Christmas lore. He’s probably just messing around, as is his nature, but something about the moment feels deliriously real. Especially when he leans closer, and I notice the slight heave of his chest.

“Quit playing around, Jarek,” Zander scolds, interrupting what was quickly becoming an almost-kiss. “This tree isn’t going to decorate itself.”

His eyes say the remark isn’t really about the tree. For a second, it looks almost like possessiveness. But that can’t be right. He probably just likes being the boss, especially since this is his house.

We spend the next hour or so hanging ornaments and stringing lights, though they can’t be lit yet. When we’re nearly finished, Pascal hands me the star.

“You want to do it?”

I stare up at the towering tree. “I don’t think I can reach.”