Holiday Affair by Lisa Plumley Page A

mean. Not like this. Somehow, his derision now hurt her more than everything else.
    “Yes, I am. I’m competent.” Sometimes she procrastinated a bit. But everyone did that. “What are you talking about?”
    “Yeah!” Chelsea elbowed Eric. “That’s not nice!”
    “I’m talking about your tendency to take on too much.” Eric stretched out the word talking, making it sound especially obnoxious. “I’m talking about the way you can never say no to anyone. I’m talking about the fact that no matter how bad you might feel about having failed with our marriage—”
    “ I failed?” Incensed, Karina stepped up. “ I didn’t fail!”
    “—you can’t make up for your shortcomings by bribing the kids this way.” Eric crossed his arms. “Taking a fancy Christmas vacation? Using your sister’s job as an excuse? It’s pathetic.”
    Dumbfounded, Karina stared at him. She couldn’t speak. But she also couldn’t help wondering…was Eric a tiny bit right?
    Lately, she had been feeling as though she were letting down Michael, Josh, and Olivia. It wasn’t easy being the one who said no to requests for new sneakers and expensive video games. She simply couldn’t afford everything they wanted. But that didn’t make seeing their disappointed faces any easier to bear.
    “Stephanie never liked me, and you know it,” Eric said. “The two of you probably cooked up this whole scheme together just to make me look bad. I’ll bet there isn’t any Edgware evaluation happening at all.”
    “Of course there is.” Karina couldn’t believe he was being so churlish. “It’s worth a lot of money to everyone involved too! Edgware is the biggest hospitality company in the world. They run thousands of hotels and resort properties in multiple international networks. If they decide The Christmas House concept is worth franchising, it’s going to mean—”
    “Oh, spare me,” her ex interrupted. For the billionth time. “I don’t need to hear the hard sell—the fake hard sell. What I don’t get is how you expect anyone to believe you’re capable of evaluating a property anyway. That really takes the cake.”
    Ouch. That hurt. Wounded, Karina glanced away.
    Then she regrouped. Damn it, Eric wasn’t going to stop her.
    “I’ve been listening to Stephanie talk about her job for all these years. That’s got to count for something, right?” She raised her head, fired up with a newfound urge to totally nail the B&B evaluation—and maybe prove Eric wrong about her in the process. “And I’ve already got Stephanie’s preevaluation research and her notes, so that will help too. Once I’m equipped with the official evaluation guidelines, it’ll be a simple matter of ticking off items on a checklist. I’m sure I’ll—”
    “You’ll crash and burn. If this thing is really real. Which I doubt. Admit it—you want to show me up at Christmastime. That’s what this is all about—your insecurities.”
    Wow. This felt unnervingly like being married to him.
    Why, exactly, had she missed any of this?
    In that moment, as far as Karina was concerned, all men everywhere could just leave her alone. For good. There was no reason she couldn’t handle everything on her own…with no heartache, dirty tighty-whities, or “collectible” NBA basketball jerseys to clutter up her life. And no regrets, either.
    No regrets. Now there was a motto she could get behind.
    Chelsea shook her head. “Oh, cut it out, Eric. You’re going too far, even for you.” She offered Karina an apologetic look. “You know Karina loves the kids too much to bribe them! And you can’t blame her for helping out her sister! She’s a giving person! What difference does it make if Karina and the kids are going away for the holidays? We won’t even be here.”
    “The details don’t matter,” Eric argued. Petulantly. Possibly with a special O-ring adorning his—“The point is—”
    “The point is,” Chelsea persisted, “that your ex-wife is