The Perfect Gift: A Bad Boy Christmas Romance

by Mia Ford

  I was more than a little grateful when I saw my buddy Alastair approaching us with a very serious look on his face. Alastair was originally from London, but he’d been living in the States for many years. I had met him our first year at Yale, when the two of us had quickly established a system of looking out for each other and helping the other out of unpleasant, seemingly endless conversations.

  I had no doubt that his serious, almost grief-stricken, expression now was a part of that ruse. I made a mental note to buy him a beer later on, once we were free of all these stupid professors who couldn’t seem to let us go, now that we were on our way out of Yale’s door and headed out into the real world.

  “Neil,” Alastair said in a low, serious voice as he put one hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, mate.”

  “What’s the trouble?” Professor Dan asked pompously, immediately going into control mode. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Alastair repeated, really putting on a good show, one worthy of an Oscar in my humble opinion. “It’s terribly rude of me to interrupt. It’s just, there’s a phone call for him. About his father.”

  “I better take this,” I cut in with my own grave tone, doing my best not to crack a smile and ruin the whole show. “Please, excuse me.”

  “Of course! Of course, Neil. Please let me know if you need anything.”

  The good professor turned to go. After watching to make sure that he was well out of sight, I turned to Alastair with a grin spreading across my face. Unfortunately, it was a grin that never made it to its full potential. My friend’s expression had not changed. He looked afraid and sad and a little bit like he was going to throw up. Nothing that suggested he was just trying to help me out of a bad conversation.

  “What’s the matter, man? You look like shit.”

  “I wasn’t bullshitting you,” he said. “There was a phone call. You weren’t near your phone, and it kept ringing. So I picked it up.”

  “Okay, so what’s the problem?” I asked.

  “It’s your father, Neil. He’s gone. He’s passed away.”

  Chapter 3: Fay

  “Where the hell is the waiter?” Courtney asked. “Can’t he tell I’m going to die here if I don’t get my drink?”

  “I’m pretty sure what you need is a glass of water, by the look of you.”

  “And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  I laughed. “Are you really going to make me say it?”

  I took a sip of my coke and mentally thanked my lucky stars that I wasn’t suffering from the kind of hangover Courtney clearly was. I was well aware that most people thought I was a bit of a goody-goody, but that was something I was definitely okay with. Especially if it meant that I didn’t have to feel as shitty as Courtney did during one of her legendary hangovers.

  One of those hangovers had her so terribly cranky at the moment, cranky enough that she poked her lip out at me, like she used to do to her parents when we were little and she wasn’t getting her way.

  “Fine, go ahead and make fun, Fay. At least I know how to have fun.”

  “Do you really consider this fun, though? You don’t look like you’re having fun. You look like you feel terrible.”

  “You may be right,” Courtney answered with a sly little smile, something I was glad to see. It meant that any chance of us getting into a fight had most likely passed. “But I had a hell of a good time last night.”

  “Did you now?”

  “Yeah, I did!” Courtney practically shouted, taking a moment to nod appreciatively at the waiter who had finally brought her an impressively large glass of wine. “We were all at Rocco’s place. You’ve been there, right?”

  “You know I haven’t,” I smiled, totally used to Courtney’s attempts to draw me into her world. “But I’m glad you had fun.”

  “Things got really wild. You know they always ask about you, right?”

  “Sure,” I laughed, already completely sure of where this conversation was going. “I think you’ve told me that before. I find it hard to believe, seeing as he’s never spoken to me. Not even in high school. But you’ve told me.”

  “He hasn’t spoken to you because he thinks you’re hot!”

  “Shh! Come on, Courtney, keep it down, will you? You’re embarrassing me.”

  “It’s not like the five people in here need me to tell them that you’re hot. Everyone thinks you’re hot. Most of them also happen to believe you should stop being so uptight.”

  “Courtney, come on. You know I’m not going to change everything about the way I live my life because some guy named Rocco thinks I’m cute.”

  “Not cute. Hot. But okay, fine. I get it. All I’m saying is that you should at least think about letting your hair down a bit.”

  “I know,” I said, sighing. “You’ve told me. Believe me, if I ever decide to conduct a complete overhaul on the way I live my life, you’ll be the first one to know.”

  “Oh, I better be! Or else I’ll have to kill you.”

  The two of us lapsed into silence for a couple of minutes, each of us concentrating on our appetizers and thinking our own individual thoughts. It was something I was sure would have made plenty of people totally uncomfortable, but for me, it didn’t seem like any kind of issue whatsoever. Courtney was like a sister to me, had been since before I could even remember, according to my late mother. There was nobody in the world I knew better and nobody who knew me with that same kind of depth.

  There wasn’t a whole lot to our little town, and I knew that was something that really got to Courtney sometimes. For me, a town that not only had the beauty of Alaska but also had a friendship like the one I had with Courtney was a pretty great place. This was what I was busy thinking about when Courtney spoke again and totally derailed all of my thoughts for the rest of the night.

  “You know, there was another pretty interesting topic of conversation last night.”

  “I’m sure there always is,” I said, trying not to take the bait.

  “Right, but I think this was one you might find of particular interest.”

  “Okay, I’ll play along. What was the topic of conversation?”

  “Neil Driscoll.”

  It was pretty clear to me that Courtney had been going for a dramatic effect with the way she delivered her news. If that was the case, it totally worked. She delivered the news right as I took a bite of my salad, and I almost choked on a leaf of lettuce. It was so noticeable that our waiter actually approached our table, apparently prepared to thump me on the back until I stopped choking.

  “No!” I managed to get out, completely mortified at the thought of him drawing even more attention to the scene I was making, “No, I’m fine, really. I’m sorry, it just went down the wrong way, I guess.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked uncertainly, looking from me to Courtney and then back to me again. “You were turning pretty red.”

  “She’s good,” Courtney interjected, taking mercy on me and doing the talking for me. “I just said something at the wrong time. You know how it goes.”

  “Sure, sure, I know. Still, just wave if you need anything ladies, all right? Seriously, anything.”

  I gave him what small smile I could manage. Courtney thanked him before the two of us fell silent while we waited for him to be totally out of earshot. Once I was reasonably confident that he wasn’t paying attention to us anymore, I looked at Courtney closely, trying to figure out if this was some kind of a weird joke, or if what she was telling me was the truth. When she didn’t crack at all, didn’t even blink, I knew she was telling the truth. For whatever reason, the conversation at her party last night had turned to Neil, the only boy I had ever said “I love you” to.

  “Sorry, Fay. I honest to God wasn’t trying to mess with you. I just thought you would want to know.”

  “But why were people talking about him? He hasn’t been back here in almost ten years, Courtney.”

  “He came up bec
ause of his dad.”

  “What about him?” I asked, trying to ignore the little shiver that went up my spine at the mention of Neil’s father. Neil and I had dated for most of high school, and by the time he left, we were pretty hot and heavy. His father had never been anything but cold when it came to our interactions.

  The Driscoll family was beyond wealthy, and my mother had always told me that it was their wealth and our lack thereof that made him that way. But that didn’t make his chilly treatment of me any easier to take. I never had trouble getting along with people and getting them to like me. Neil’s father was the exception. Even after Neil was gone, the weight of his father’s dislike had been heavy on my shoulders.

  “What about his dad?” I asked again. “I’m surprised that anyone at Rocco’s place would have much to say about Mr. Driscoll. I don’t think he ever had much to say about many of us.”

  “He definitely won’t now. They were talking about him because he’s dead.”

  “Dead? What the hell? How, Courtney?”

  “I guess he had a heart attack. I’m not really too sure, but I know he’s gone. Neil just kind of came up because of that.”

  “Is he okay? Where’s the funeral going to be held?”

  “In Texas, I think,” Courtney said. “At least that’s what I heard.”

  “That would make sense. That’s where most of Neil’s family lived while we were together. I would be surprised if they’d left. Jesus.”

  “You all right?”

  Courtney looked genuinely concerned now, and I assured her that I was just fine. In my heart, I wasn’t too sure. In my heart, I felt like I was being torn in half. I tried hard not to think about Neil too often, especially since I was sure that he wouldn’t even know me now if he saw me. Hearing him brought up this way made it so that he was the only thing on the planet I felt capable of thinking about at all.

  Part of me was sure that I should just pick up and make my way to Texas. I should figure out where the funeral was and go there to be his support. His mom had died when he was a baby, and even though he hadn’t come back to visit his dad, I knew he was the only family Neil felt he had left. Now he would be alone in the world, with nobody to stand by his side and grieve with him.

  On the other hand, it was entirely possible that I was the biggest idiot in the world for even thinking something like that. It had been eight years since Neil and I had seen each other. He was both incredibly good looking and unbelievably rich. The idea that he wouldn’t have found a girl to stand by his side was stupid and naïve. I knew it full well. There was nothing to be done by me, nothing but lie awake that night and think about Neil and the life the two of us might have had if the world had been a different place when the two of us had still been young.

  Chapter 4: Neil

  Texas always had a confused and mixed place in my heart, and I suspected it always would. It was the place of my father’s birth, the place he called home for the whole of his life, regardless of where he was actually living. I had grown up in Ashville, Alaska for my entire life. That whole time, my dad referred to Texas as his home anytime somebody asked. Hell, he would make sure to let people know he hailed from Texas whether they asked or not as if it gave him some kind of leg up on everyone around him.

  There had been times when I was younger when I found myself actually jealous of the state, wishing my dad would talk about me with the same reverence he used for his home state. At the same time, the family ranch had always been one of my favorite places in the world to go to. I had many childhood memories of family vacations at that ranch, and they were things I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have traded for all of the world.

  Because of those fond memories, being back at the ranch for the first time in almost a decade for a funeral made it feel even more like hell. I was here for my father’s funeral.

  I stood beneath the endless Texas sky and listened to my father’s funeral service. The whole scene felt surreal. I was twenty-six years old, but until I had actually seen the jar of ashes my dad had been reduced to, a big part of me still believed he would live forever, just like a little kid would.

  It was stupid, and I knew it, but stupid rarely stopped people. It sure as shit hadn’t stopped me. Even while spreading his ashes into the strong Texas wind, I’d hardly been able to believe that what I was doing was real. I had hardly been able to believe that my dad was actually dead.

  “Jesus, Neil,” Brent said. “I don’t know what to say. I’m really sorry to hear about your dad.”

  With a great deal of effort, I focused my eyes on Brent Faulkner, the man who had been my dad’s go-to person for as long as I could remember. He had always been my dad’s number two, essentially the next in line when it came to the business and the company.

  For that reason, some people probably thought I had it out for him. That I considered him a rival or something. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. I liked Brent, and I’d always liked him. Even during the years when I thought everyone else around my dad and me was a complete asshole.

  Brent had always been nice to me, and I hadn’t ever gotten the vibe that he was trying to do anything shady. I was glad to have him there with me at the funeral, especially because he was the only one there that I could stand at all. That was a pretty fucked up thing to think, considering that most of the other people standing around beside me were technically family. But it had been a long time since I’d considered them to be anything of the sort.

  When I looked at them, I was reminded of that scene towards the beginning of the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Everyone milling around the casino lobby was a giant reptile dinosaur thing, and nobody could see it but the totally fucked up Johnny Depp character.

  I hadn’t seen any of them in a hell of a long time, years probably, but I would have been happy never to see them again. I didn’t even have to talk to them to know they weren’t really at my dad’s funeral to pay their respects. They were there to grovel. They were there to offer fake condolences, and then see what kind of piece of the pie they could get their hands on. Even thinking about it made me want to kick somebody’s ass, which made focusing in on Brent all the more important.

  “Hey, man, thank you for coming.”

  “Of course, Neil! As I said, I’m very, very sorry. Last time I checked, everything was fine with your dad. This heart attack came as a surprise to everyone, I think. I know I always thought your dad was going to outlive us all, and my guess is that everyone else did, too.”

  “I think you may be right about that,” I mumbled, looking around at the people who were family, according to blood. They felt a lot more like enemies.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Brent said in a low, mistrustful voice. It made me feel better, just because it seemed to so closely mirror my feelings for the vultures circling my dad’s grave. “I already had nice chats with a couple of them.”

  “Oh yeah?” I answered as nonchalantly as I could manage, feeling a wave of hatred run through me so strong it made me shiver. “Want to tell me a little bit about that?”

  “Let’s just say there were a few people with a little more interest in your dad’s financial situation than they had any right to have. They had some questions for you, and I decided to step in and answer them instead. I hope that’s all right. Please tell me if I overstepped.”

  “Jesus, no. Thank you, Brent. I’m going to wind up in jail if they try to milk me for money now. Do you know how long it’s been since any of them have seen my dad? I don’t think they’ve even spoken with him, for Christ’s sake.”

  “No,” Brent said slowly, the tendons in his neck popping out a little as he spoke and simultaneously surveyed the little clumps of my family members standing around and eyeing us. “Unfortunately, that’s not true. I happen to know that first hand.”

  “Tell me.”

  My jaw clenched before he even started talking. By the time he was done, I was ready to set the whole worthless group of my dad’s remaining famil
y on fire and take whatever consequences might come to me.

  There was no doubt in my mind that if we were still living in the kind of society where justice was primal and in our own hands, I would be able to do whatever the hell I wanted to those assholes without having anything happen to me at all. Brent had several examples to give me of my dad’s charming family, but they all amounted to the same exact thing.

  Over the years they had made as many attempts as they could get away with to take as much from my dad as they could get. Sometimes, Brent had been able to talk him out of it, and sometimes, he hadn’t been, but the requests had been there consistently. Those requests were the only times dad’s family had ever bothered to keep in touch with him, which solidified their spot as complete assholes in my book.

  It did one other thing for me as well, something I had been kind of uneasy about in my own mind before coming to Texas to lay my father to rest. There was no question that I was going to have to go back to Alaska, at least for a little while, and that was a truth I was just going to have to find a way to live with. When it came to my dad’s company, though, my mind was well on the way to being made up. It would be my company, because that was what my dad wanted, and I knew it. But Brent would be the one to run it, and that was a good thing to have figured out.

  It meant I could get the hell out of Ashville sooner, rather than later, and there was nothing I could think of that I would want more. The only thing that came close to competing was getting out of Texas and never coming back. That was something I was going to achieve the moment I left the ranch and drove my shitty rental car to the nearest airport. I was going to get on a plane, do my duties in Ashville, and then I was never going to fucking look back.