Winter Wishes

by Vivian Arend, Vivi Andrews

  All eyes were on the gap expanding in the clouds as a figure appeared, riding the rays of light.

  Gold-kissed wings spread wide in an eight-foot span to slow his approach until the white-robed figure seemed to float on his graceful descent from the heavens.

  Sasha rolled her eyes. How cliché can you get? Trust an angel to play it up for the crowd. The holier-than-thou bastards were worse than starlets when it came to mugging for the cameras.

  Sasha squinted, trying to identify the wings. Michael? Gabriel? L.A. always ranked an Arch at their angel mass, but they rotated through, taking turns awing the gullible masses into submission. Sasha was far from wowed. She’d been surrounded by the façade of celebrity for too long to be impressed by flashy PR stunts.

  The robes, the layered clouds, even the angle of the sun had all been contrived to match Michelangelo’s famous painting of the angels’ First Appearance. Every detail was choreographed to remind mere mortals how grateful they should be for the Angelic Intervention of the fifteenth century, when the heavenly host revealed themselves to mankind, exposed the demons living in secret among humans and banished them from the earthly plane.

  In their appearances during the rest of the year, angels were just as likely as mortal celebs to be photographed in designer jeans and couture gowns—specially tailored to allow for wings, of course—but around the holidays they always upped the pageantry and went biblical. Halos, sandals, togas, the whole nine yards.

  And their adoring public ate it up. Even if the heavenly host hadn’t done anything more useful in the last four hundred years than cut a few ceremonial ribbons and pose for the fawning masses.

  Angels. Just another brand of L.A. fame whore.

  “Aren’t they magnificent?” A gusty sigh whooshed past Sasha’s ear, eating into her personal space. “I swear I’ll never get used to seeing them flying above the city. My heart just races every time I see wings.”

  Great. An angel groupie. This really was her lucky day.

  Sasha made a vaguely affirmative humming noise, smiling without turning her head as she sidled away from the confidences of the chick behind her in line.

  Her new best friend closed the gap with a sidestep. “Do you go to the angel masses? I haven’t missed a single holy day since I moved out here from Tulsa.”

  Why are they always from Tulsa?

  Sasha was not the kind of girl who bonded with people in checkout lines—no matter how excruciatingly long they might be. Maybe the Angel Lover breathing down her neck was just feeling friendly—please, let it be that—but in the best-case scenario they’d only be besties for another ten minutes and she didn’t see the point in bonding.

  Sasha eyed the line. Maybe fifteen minutes.

  Worse, and far more likely, was the possibility Miss Tulsa had finally placed Sasha’s face. And its relationship to her mother’s face. By the time they got to the front of the line, it would be “Could you just pass my screenplay along?” or “I bet you know lots of casting agents.”

  The line inched up and Sasha shuffled forward, putting as much distance between herself and the Angel Lover as possible—for the two-point-five seconds before Miss Tulsa stepped forward and nudged her arm. Sasha glanced in her direction with a porcelain smile frozen on her face and her mother’s voice echoing in her head. Be a doll and smile for the people, baby. We don’t want them to think we’re aloof.

  Her mother hated aloof. It ranked among her favorite complaints. You’re so guarded, Sasha. Would it kill you to show a little warmth and vulnerability?

  Miss Tulsa looked like she’d never been called aloof in her life. Wholesome, Midwestern beauty. Early twenties, but short enough that she could play younger—or opposite Tom Cruise without him standing on apple crates for the close-ups. Hopeful. Bright-eyed.

  Classic actress hyphenate. Actress-waitress, actress-barista. Sasha gave her three minutes before she pulled a headshot out of her shoulder bag and began begging.

  “Do you? Go to the angel mass?” Miss Tulsa giggled—a coy, practiced sound.

  She must be going for high-school roles.

  The pride of Oklahoma sighed enviously. “The angels probably come to your house for Christmas dinner. They say even the Arches stop and stare when Layla Christian walks down the street.”

  And there it was. Miss Tulsa needed to work on her timing. She’d jumped her cue. Desperation could do that to a girl.

  “She’s something,” Sasha agreed and flicked her gaze back up to the flat-screen, giving up on smiling and reverting to stay-away-from-me-you-grasping-wannabe now that Miss Tulsa had tipped her hand. She was so not in the mood for this shit today.

  Miss Tulsa giggled again, still working the angel angle. “You’ve met one, haven’t you? What do their wings look like in person?”

  Why did everyone always assume all celebrities knew each other? Like once you’d achieved a certain level of fame, you became instant BFFs with every other figure in the public eye.

  “No idea,” Sasha replied without taking her eyes from the screen. “I’ve never seen an angel up close.” Unless you counted her mother, and many people did, though the “Angel of Hollywood” had never had wings.

  “Never?” Miss Tulsa gasped in shock. “You’re kidding me. Aren’t you Layla Christian’s daughter?”

  Of course she had to say it at a decibel to rattle the windows. Sasha was suddenly the focus of every eye in the Malibu Ralph’s. “Christmas Eve in Sarajevo” sounded freakishly loud over the store’s PA as all impatient shuffling and rustling abruptly stopped. The woman with at least eleven items in her basket twisted around in front of Sasha and openly gaped.

  Oh, joy. So much for incognito.

  “I know it’s you. I saw you on that Barbara Walters special about Hollywood dynasties.” Miss Tulsa’s hand crept toward her shoulder bag. Sasha was impressed she managed to restrain herself from whipping out her headshot right then and there. “You’re in the biz, too, aren’t you?”

  “Sort of,” Sasha mumbled, fighting the urge to duck her head to hide her face, empathizing with microscope slides. My life, the spectator sport.

  If only she could be openly rude without it ending up in the tabloids and getting back to her mother. She could hear the lecture now. We can’t afford to be seen as ungrateful, Sasha. Perception is everything.

  A man in line at checkstand four waved his iPhone in what was clearly supposed to be a casual gesture, as if she wouldn’t notice he was taking her picture. Sasha wondered what the odds were that this entire episode wouldn’t be up on somebody’s blog complete with photos by the time she got back to her—possibly burned down—apartment.

  Miss Tulsa the Angel Lover wrinkled her nose. “Do you do those boring indie movies? Is that why I haven’t seen you in anything?”

  A font of culture and taste, that Miss Tulsa. “I’m not an actress.”

  Tulsa tipped her head, playing up her lack of comprehension for their viewing audience. You never knew when a casting agent was watching. “Why not? You’re super pretty.”

  “Thanks.” Sasha decided not to explain there might be a little something more to being an actress than looking good. It would be too much like telling a kid Santa Claus didn’t exist, and it was Christmas Eve.

  “You really aren’t an actress?”

  Sasha glanced to the front of the express lane where even the cashier was stealing looks toward them between scanning items. “Stunts,” she said curtly, hoping the relative lack of glamour in her chosen profession would get the attention off her.

  Tulsa gasped, horrified. “You mean you do all the crazy, dangerous stuff and then they edit out your face so no one even knows it was you?”

  Sasha’s mouth quirked in a genuine smile. “Yep.” It was a pretty good description of her job—especially if you added explaining to idiot actors how not to shoot themselves in the face with prop guns and blowing stuff up for fun.

  “Couldn’t your mom get you an acting gig? I mean, doesn’t she try to talk yo
u into doing something safer?”

  Only every single day for the last six years—though neither of them had ever publicly said anything other than the PR-approved statement Sasha spoke now. “She’s very proud of me.”

  Even if Layla vocally bemoaned her daughter’s disinterest in ballet and Shakespeare, she’d still cheered at every karate tournament and fencing meet. She may have longed for a precious little angel in her own image, but her mother barely flinched when Sasha begged for a membership to a gun range for her sixteenth birthday.

  “But why doesn’t she want you to be a star? Doesn’t she want you to be happy?”

  Sasha set the molasses bottle on the conveyor belt and reminded herself that shattering hopes and dreams was bad Christmas karma—even when those dreams really ought to be shattered for the good of the dreamer. If Miss Tulsa believed being famous would make her deliriously happy, wouldn’t Sasha be doing her a service to clue her in to the reality?

  The total lack of privacy, being treated like a sideshow act every day of your life and harassed by random strangers in the checkout line at Ralph’s…Oh yeah, that was the definition of bliss right there.

  Only the cheerful ring of her cell phone saved her from pulling a Grinch and popping Miss Tulsa’s fame bubble. Thank God, a distraction. Sasha made an apologetic face and dug into her purse. One look at the caller ID and she almost wished she hadn’t heard it ring.

  “Hello, Joan. Did you pick up my dry cleaning?”

  The spectators to her life who were leaning in, eager to eavesdrop on the conversation, sighed and looked away, disappointed by the normalcy of her greeting.

  On the other end of the line, her mother huffed. “Why are you using my incognito name? Who’s listening? You told me you were staying home all day baking.”

  “Joan…”

  “I do wish you would stop calling me that. The Mommie Dearest crack has never been funny.”

  “I happen to think it’s hysterical.”

  “Your sense of humor is defective. Just like your father’s. Now why would you lie to your mother on Christmas Eve?”

  “I didn’t lie. I ran out of molasses.”

  “Is that code for something? Like the dry cleaning thing? I never could remember those silly codes.”

  Sasha rolled her eyes. “It’s an ingredient, Mo—ahem, Joan. I need it to finish the gingerbread.”

  “I don’t understand this domesticity fetish of yours,” said the woman whose definition of baking consisted of requesting a special pastry from her private chef.

  “It’s called normalcy, Joan. You should look into it.”

  “Normalcy is for other people. You’re special, baby. You deserve the extraordinary.”

  Special sucked most days, but this was not a conversation Sasha wanted to have standing in line at Ralph’s. Besides, it was almost her turn. Eleven-items-or-more was handing her rewards card to the cashier as she spoke. “Was there a reason for this call?”

  “I just wanted to find out what time you and Jay would be over in the morning.”

  Sasha ground her molars and reminded herself that matricide was morally wrong, no matter how appealing it sounded. “We’ve been over this.” Repeatedly. “Jay can’t make it.”

  “Well, yes, you did say that, but I thought you would come to your senses. Just the thought of that poor boy all alone on Christmas Day with no family…”

  Sasha pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on. The ache was familiar—the pain of dealing with a woman no one in the world ever said no to. “Joan, nix the dramatics.”

  “I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I can’t stop thinking about his sad, lonely Christmas. And the more I think about it, the more I wonder why my baby refuses to introduce her boyfriend to her mother. Which one of us are you ashamed of?”

  Sasha groaned. No one could guilt trip quite like a professional drama queen. “Neither. It isn’t a conspiracy. He just can’t come.”

  It wasn’t like she hadn’t asked. And asked. And asked. Never let it be said that Sasha Christian gave up easily.

  “Is he deformed?”

  “Oh for the love of God. No horns. No cloven hooves, I promise. He just has other plans.”

  Which he refused to tell me about. But she wasn’t going to read anything into that. It wasn’t a red flag that he wanted out of their relationship. It wasn’t, dammit.

  Jay was the first guy she’d met in years who wasn’t using her to get close to her famous family. The first guy she’d trusted enough to actually start caring about—with all the frustrating vulnerability that entailed. But she refused to entertain any fears of being dumped on Christmas Eve.

  So what if he’d been acting edgy and evasive for weeks? It was just holiday-induced weirdness, nothing to worry about. Yes, lately she had been self-medicating with compulsive holiday baking as she waited for the ax to fall on their relationship. But everything was fine.

  Even if he was too damn nice for her.

  And even if he had said he wanted to come over tonight because they “needed to talk.” Because conversations starting with those words never ended badly.

  “Six months,” her mother wailed, clearly enjoying her own dramatics. “Six months and I haven’t seen anything more than a blurry picture of the latest hot biker MBA.”

  “He isn’t a biker. We met in a library, for Chrissake.”

  “I thought that was just a cover story to tell your father. Mythical librarians aren’t usually your type, are they, sweetie?”

  “I don’t have a type.” Which was a bald-faced lie and they both knew it. Sasha was a sucker for bad boys. All hot leather and tough-guy sex appeal. Jay was…a boy she’d met in a library. Sometimes even she wondered what she was doing with a cupcake like him. “And he isn’t mythical.”

  “He’s mythical until you introduce him to me.”

  “He exists, Joan. Shockingly, reality doesn’t hinge on your awareness of it.”

  “I see, therefore he is,” Layla announced theatrically. “I want to meet this boy, Sasha. I won’t be stalled.”

  “Do you want a bag for this, Miss Christian?”

  Sasha looked up to find the cashier watching her expectantly, holding her molasses. “Crap. Joan, I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow around ten, okay?”

  “With Jay.”

  From the way Jay’d been talking lately, seeing him tomorrow morning would be a bona fide Christmas miracle. Sasha was just hoping she wouldn’t be crying into her eggnog.

  “Goodbye, Joan.” Sasha punched the end button and smiled at the cashier. “Sorry about that. No bag, thanks.” Then she realized the cashier was scanning Miss Tulsa’s items. “Oh sorry, I’m just the molasses.”

  She pulled out a ten, but Miss Tulsa the Angel Lover caught her wrist. Sasha stiffened. She hated being groped by strangers—a lifetime of being jostled by paparazzi could do that to a girl.

  “No, no, sweetie, you let me get this for you,” Miss Tulsa gushed.

  “Thanks, but I would rather—”

  “I insist,” she cooed. “How often does a girl get to chat with someone who knows the Layla Christian?”

  Sasha forced a smile. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I would really prefer to pay for my own mo—”

  “Nonsense!” Miss Tulsa barked, her Midwestern wholesomeness cracking a bit under the force of the word. “You’re going to let me get this for you. In the spirit of Christmas.”

  Sasha wanted to believe this sudden fit of charity was motivated by the Christmas spirit. She really did. But life had taught her there was no such thing as free favors. Every good intention came with a price. Miss Tulsa’s came out of her shoulder bag in the form of a homemade DVD in a pink jewel case.

  “Oh, look at that! I totally forgot I had this with me.”

  God, she was a terrible actress. Even being cute wasn’t going to help her in this town if she couldn’t lie any better than that.

  “You will let me give you my reel, won’t you, Miss Christia
n? Like a gift.” She giggled. “After all, it is the season of giving.”

  Sasha gritted her teeth as she smiled, somehow managing not to give Miss Tulsa a mouthful of knuckles.

  Chapter Two

  Mistletoe & Mephistopheles

  Jay leaned against the hood of his car, staring across the street at Sasha’s apartment building. She’d been expecting him ten minutes ago and for the past six months he’d made a point never to be late. Not once.

  Since the second he’d laid eyes on Sasha, Jay had redefined his standards for best behavior. He’d been the considerate boyfriend. The good listener. The new Jay made Dr. Phil look like an insensitive prick.

  And it was all a fucking lie.

  He’d arrived early, as usual, and for the last twenty minutes Jay had gazed at her building with stalkerish intensity. He needed to go over there and confess everything before the neighbors called the cops, but his feet refused to move.

  Guilt-induced paralysis.

  Jay hadn’t intentionally broken the first and only rule in his dating book: Thou shalt not lie to your girlfriend about the fact you are half demon. But it just sort of happened. Accidental deceit. And somehow he didn’t think Sasha would accept “I’m sorry, baby, I really meant to tell you my mother is a soul-sucking demon queen” as a harmless little misunderstanding.

  Knowing demons exist in Hell and take periodic field trips to the mortal plane to cause mischief is one thing. Dating a guy with a demonic pedigree is something else entirely.

  It didn’t help the situation that demons had the crappiest PR image in the history of the world. The holier-than-it-all angels worked the press, keeping a sparkling reputation in spite of all the shit they’d done over the millennia. They rubbed elbows with celebs and lapped up adoration as if it was their due.

  The demonic approach had always been to cloak yourself in mystery. The less your enemies knew, the greater your strategic advantage. But secretiveness as a public-relations tactic sucked. Deserved or not—and yeah, sometimes it was deserved—demons had become the public face for all things evil.