There’s a spill-out bar and seating area on the roof of the building for anyone who wants some fresh air. Well, as fresh as it gets in New York City. The space is strung with fairy lights, and there are warm blankets heaped up in baskets for anyone who wants to stay up here a while and get cozy on the plump sofas.
It’s how these people live. They take all this stuff for granted. Champagne? No problem, here’s a bottle of Moet, vintage don’t you know.
I find a quiet corner and peer over the railings around the edge of the wall at the city skyline. The Empire State Building. Rockefeller Plaza where the people who are ice skating look like ants from up here. The Chrysler building.
I smile to myself. I took my surname from the Chrysler building when I first arrived in New York. Before that, I was plain old Mary Scanlan. Mary Chrysler sounded way more exciting, and it meant that no one would be able to find me, not that anyone was looking.
From the party downstairs, I can hear Bruce Springsteen belting out ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’. It’s one of my favorites. Who doesn’t love a Christmas tune, especially the old bangers; they just don’t make them like that anymore.
I haven’t really thought much about Christmas. I mean, you can’t avoid it with the tree in the Plaza, and the stores all wrapped up in tinsel and fairy lights and giant red ribbons, but I mean, I haven’t thought about my Christmas. I’ll spend it alone in my crappy little apartment, watching cheesy movies—God I hope there’s a new Lindsay Lohan Christmas movie this year—drinking cheap wine, and snacking on even cheesier crisps.
Potato chips. Eight years in the States, and I still can’t get used to calling them potato chips.
Favorite Christmas movie? Home Alone. Miracle on 34th Street. The Santa Clause. There are too many to choose just one, but I always start the holidays binge-watching every Christmas movie featuring Melissa Joan Hart. I mean, Holiday in Handcuffs is an absolute classic, and I defy anyone to tell me otherwise.
I have a stack of romance novels to read, too. Merry Christmas to me.
Someone yells. A guy. My hackles are up—this isn’t the kind of yell that belongs at a Christmas party.
I glance sideways along the roof as a beefy man in a black suit rugby-tackles another guy, thick arms wrapping around his legs, and hurls him over the edge.
What the actual fuck?
That didn’t just happen. I blink. My blood is pumping around my veins and making me hot despite the sub-zero temperatures and the frost clinging to the walls.
What the actual fuck?
Someone just went over the side of the roof, and no one has moved, no one has screamed, no one has called the fucking police, which is what should be happening right about now.
Move, Mary. Fucking move, would you?
But my body isn’t cooperating with my brain, which is screaming at me to take a breath, look over the side, yell at someone to stop the crazy fucking psycho who just killed a man.
I open my mouth to let out the scream that’s building up inside me, when a hand clamps over my face, and I’m dragged backwards behind a potted palm tree all lit up for Christmas in its twinkling fairy lights.
“Help!” That’s what I try to scream. I don’t want to die on Christmas, and I sure as shit don’t want to die by being thrown off a roof. But my lips stick to the hand covering my mouth, scraping away from my gums, the cry for help swallowed by someone else’s sweaty palm.
“Shut up,” my captor hisses in my ear. “Keep still.”
But I’m not sticking around to prove to a thug wearing a black suit that I can’t fly. I swallow. Stretch my lips into what is probably not my most attractive smile and bite his hand.
He yelps.
Now’s my chance to escape and alert every fucker in the building that there’s a bunch of psychos loose on the roof.
I try to scream a second time, but he’s in front of me and his mouth is smothering mine. I squirm as his tongue fills my mouth. My upper arms are being squeezed in a vice-like grip, and the back of my skull bounces off the wall as I try to get away from him.
His tongue stops wriggling around inside my mouth like a fat slug long enough for him to whisper, “Kiss me.”
“Like fucking fuck.” It comes out as “Ngg, nung, ngg,” because it’s impossible to talk when someone’s tongue is attacking yours.
I finally remember to open my eyes and see what I’m dealing with, and recognize the gelled back coppery hair, the cool blue eyes, and ultra-expensive cologne of the boss of O’Hara Developers. Emmett O’Hara. The man himself.
I feel myself going slack. It’s instinct kicking in. Avoid the boss at all costs because no one ever fired a nobody.
I’ve never been this close to him before. I mean, it would be pretty unbelievable to kiss the boss at a crime scene on the roof of the building he owns. Twice. I’ve seen him in the lobby, and the elevator, and from a distance climbing out of his chauffeur-driven Bentley, but I make a habit of walking in the opposite direction and keeping my head down. It suits me just fine being known as the girl from IT.
“Everything okay here, Mr. O’Hara?”
Fuck! It’s the beef cake in the black suit. All the fight drains out of me and melts into a puddle on the floor. He’s going to throw us both off the roof. I’m going to die in the arms of one of New York’s most eligible bachelors, and everyone will say, “Mary who?”
Emmett O’Hara’s eyes widen. A warning. He wants me to remain silent, and much as I hate being told what to do by someone who stuck his tongue down my throat without my permission, I recognize a lifeline when I see one. They seem to know each other. Maybe I only thought I saw him toss a guy off the roof like he was an empty panini wrapper.
“Everything was fine ‘till you interrupted.” Emmett pulls his lips away from mine, leaning over me protectively with one hand against the wall for support. He hangs his head, glances at me from beneath lowered brows like he’s building up to a rant.
I don’t move. I still have no idea what’s going on here.
The thug’s been confused into silence too.
“You spoilt the moment.” Emmett only half straightens, swaying precariously towards me like he’s had a few too many glasses of Moet. He produces something gold and shiny from his pocket and holds it up to catch the light from the tiny twinkling bulbs decorating the potted palm tree. “You see this?”
I don’t think he requires a response, but the wide-necked thug nods anyway.
“I was about to pop the question. She won’t accept now, ye fecker, will she?”
He gestures towards me with his head. He doesn’t even make eye contact, and I stop myself from blurting out that the least he could’ve done was propose when he was sober. But he just cussed at psycho dude, and Emmett O’Hara’s balls have probably just sealed our fate. Why couldn’t he have hidden me inside the plant pot or, I don’t know, told me to lie down and thrown a blanket over me or something?
The suit eyes me up, and I can see it in his eyes. He’s thinking: seriously? This is who you’re proposing to?
Yeah, I don’t believe it either. In any other circumstances, I’d have yelled at him to keep his sexist fucking eye-rolls to himself. But if it means I get to walk out of this building with my limbs still attached to my body, I can rein my temper in. Temporarily anyway.
“Apologies, Mr. O’Hara.” He’s apologizing for ruining our special moment when he just killed a man. Could this evening get any more bizarre if it tried? “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Aye, you do that.” Emmett takes the words right out of my mouth.
And the guy walks away.
Just like that.
He walks back to the edge of the roof, lights a cigarette, and peers out over the city like he’s just enjoying some quiet time alone with his murderous fucking thoughts.
I’m so busy watching the smoke from the guy’s cigarette curling up and away and merging with the snowy clouds overhead, that I don’t even realize that Emmett has gone down on one knee, until he says, “Will you marry me?”
He’s holding the ring with both hands like he’s scared he’ll drop it and ruin our special moment a second time, peering up at me with those cool blue eyes. Jesus, I never noticed those eyes before.
But I need to get a grip. This isn’t real. A man just got killed, and there are sirens wailing through the city, spoiling the Christmas tunes going on downstairs, and this isn’t real.
I try to back away, but he has me cornered between the palm tree and the wall. “Game over. You can put the ring away.”
His eyes flicker sideways, and I can tell that he’s stone cold sober when he turns them back to me. “Be nice. They’re still watching.” He keeps his voice low.
“And you just happen to carry an engagement ring around in your pocket for special occasions?” I’m done reining it in already.
“Do you want to see Christmas or not?” Wow, he can flash those blue babies when he wants to.
“I… But I…”
I thought it was over. I thought when the suit walked away that I could go back inside, grab my coat from the office, and head home to Christmas with the Kranks and a glass of wine. In my head I was already in my pajamas eating a slice of leftover pizza and pretending this was all just a wild hallucination.
“What’s your name?” he hisses.
“Mary. Mary Chrysler.”
He blinks several times like he thinks I’m messing around. “Mary, will you marry me?” He shoves the engagement ring closer, daring me to reject him.
The diamond catches the glow of the fairy lights, and I find myself reaching out for it, like I’m having an out-of-body experience. This whole scenario is so surreal, it can’t be happening to me.
Emmett takes over, compensating for my lack of enthusiasm. He’s on his feet. His lips are on mine, and I’m staring into his eyes, while he slides the ring onto my finger. Keeping his back to the suit, he murmurs, “You’re going to walk back downstairs to the party with me and you’re going to make this look real. Got it?”
I nod.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe we’re getting married!” I squeal like I’m a sixteen-year-old who just got asked on a date by her first crush. I hold the ring in front of my face, turning it this way and that, forcing myself to smile. “I love you, Emmett O’Hara.”
Getting into character, I throw my arms around his neck, wrap my legs around his waist, and kiss him hard on the lips. No tongue. I mean, I don’t even know the guy.
“Nice,” he says. “Bit OTT, but it’ll do.”
