Chapter One
Gianna was late. She’d debated not coming at all, but in the end, she decided she’d be better off spending this evening with her friends versus sitting in a too quiet, too empty apartment, alone with only her thoughts. Besides, there wasn’t a damn thing left in her place to clean.
She’d scrubbed every single solitary inch of it over the past three months. Ever since Sam Mannarino, her boyfriend for the past eleven—ELEVEN—years told her he thought their relationship had run its course and they should call it quits.
For the first couple of weeks after he’d packed up his stuff and moved out of the apartment they’d shared, she’d thought maybe he was just blowing off steam. After all, you don’t date someone for eleven years and not have a few fights or “we were on a break” moments that never lasted more than a week or two. But when he didn’t come back, didn’t respond to her occasional texts, and sent her one phone call straight to voicemail, she didn’t get depressed—she got fucking pissed off.
And that anger hadn’t abated until…
Until tonight.
“You late too?”
Gianna jumped slightly, so lost in her thoughts, she didn’t hear one of her best friends, Liza Moretti, walking up the porch steps behind her.
“Sorry,” Liza added, when she realized she’d scared her. “Thought you heard me.”
“I got held up. Last-minute shopping,” Gianna explained lamely, as Liza opened the front door to the house without knocking. Not that anyone would hear them if they did. The music emanating from the living room had hit a volume level that had the windows pulsating in time with the beat.
Gianna’s girlfriend, Keeley Gallo, had moved into this mansion with her boyfriends—plural—Gio and Rafe last fall, the three of them so over-the-top, sweetly in love, it gave Gianna a toothache.
Rafe had inherited the huge Gothic monstrosity—one they were all convinced was haunted by the ghosts of Rafe’s grandparents—and he and Gio were currently renovating it. They were living here while they did the work, but Keeley had eventually put her foot down, saying the mansion was too damn big to make their forever home.
So Gio and Rafe had formed a partnership and decided to go into business together. Their plan—a brilliant one, in Gianna’s mind—was to turn the mansion into an inn. Once it was ready to open for business, they were hoping to buy a reasonably sized house to settle down in.
Gianna had a degree in hotel management and, while she hadn’t brought up the subject yet, she was hoping to convince Gio and Rafe to let her run their haunted inn. She just needed to clean up her resume, practice her pitch, then pray they went for it…because her current job at a basic close-to-the airport hotel was mind-numbingly tedious and boring to the extreme, presenting her absolutely zero challenges.
She’d spent the better part of two hours this afternoon adding more twinkle lights to the foyer because there’d been nothing else to do. Too many more months there, and she would turn into a legit zombie.
A few weeks ago, Keeley had decided to throw a Christmas party, and it had been all her girlfriends had been able to talk about since she’d set the date for the bash. Keeley, a party girl from way back, loved nothing more than planning a menu, decorating, creating a guest list and a music playlist, then dancing the night away.
Gianna could get behind the lists part of the planning process because there was nothing she loved more than a good list. She currently had at least five different lists she was working off, at work and at home. But the rest…well…all she could see at the end of this event was a shit-ton of cleaning to do.
Which might not be a bad thing, now that she thought about it. Maybe she’d volunteer to come back tomorrow morning to help Keeley put the house back to rights.
“You made it!” Keeley yelled excitedly when she and Liza walked into the grand foyer. “Here,” she said, arms outstretched. “Give me your coats. I’ll stash them in the office.”
Gianna and Liza took off their coats and handed them over, both shaking a few flakes of snow from their hair. It was only flurrying, though weather forecasters were predicting a very snowy Christmas season.
Just the thought of the holidays made Gianna feel unnaturally tired. Maybe she was coming down with something. The idea of getting a cold felt more reassuring than admitting that what was really wrong with her was most likely depression.
This holiday was going to be a rough one, the first she’d ever had to spend alone. Growing up, she had always celebrated Christmas with Grandma Mary, who’d raised her. She and Sam had been seriously dating when her grandmother passed away, so since then, her holidays had been spent with his family, who’d always embraced her with welcome arms.
“Hey. I was starting to worry you two weren’t coming,” Penny Beaumont said as she ventured into the foyer.
“Oh my God. Don’t even get me started on why I’m late,” Liza said dramatically, flipping her chestnut-colored hair over her shoulder. “Matt Russo is a zit on the ass of humanity.”
They all might have laughed if Matt’s brother, Gage—and Penny’s fiancé—hadn’t chosen that moment to walk in.
Gage grinned. “I always figured he was a zit on the ball sac, but I like your version better. Allows both genders to feel the pain.”
Liza grimaced, her look only slightly apologetic.
Liza was a Moretti, Gage a Russo. Putting those names together was basically a recipe for disaster because the two families had hated each other since the beginning of time for some long-past slights. The current crop of Morettis and Russos were sort of hanging onto the grudge but only half-heartedly.
As evidenced by Gage’s presence here at the party.
Liza’s father, Cesare, and her nonno would flip their lids if they knew Gage was in attendance, which was why they hadn’t been informed. If there was one thing the Moretti kids were experts at, it was avoiding the wrath of the older generations.
For her part, Gianna didn’t give a crap what anyone’s last name was. She’d gotten to know Gage over the past few months since he and Penny became a couple, and she really liked him.
“So what did my dear big brother do?” Gage asked.
Liza scowled. “The Grinch insisted on a meeting with me. This evening. Like it couldn’t wait. FYI—it could have fucking waited. There was nothing he wanted to discuss that couldn’t have been said in January. Or in a stupid email. It’s the goddamn Saturday before Christmas. What’s wrong with that guy? Did he misplace his soul somewhere?”