A Little Holiday Fling

by Farah Heron

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

There are two things that Ruby Dhanji loves with her whole entire heart: Christmas and anything to do with the UK. For Ruby the holiday season means joy, generosity, and warm memories with her late mother. And now she’s on the verge of realizing the dream she and her mom always had: moving to England and opening a cozy inn. The only problem, Ruby needs some hotel experience first. 
 
Rashid just doesn’t get all the holiday hype. But when he meets a woman dragging home a Christmas tree alone from the Winter Market, he has to offer to help—even if he soon finds Ruby adores all the things he dislikes. When Ruby discovers that Rashid’s family owns a luxury boutique hotel chain in Britain, she offers him a proposition: she’ll help him give his young nieces an amazing Christmas if he’ll facilitate an introduction to his family. 
 
As Ruby and Rashid get closer, she realizes that the great big grump loves his large, eccentric family fiercely. And when their friendship turns to something more, she’s afraid she’s falling for someone weeks before she moves across the Atlantic and she’ll soon have to decide which dream she wants to chase. 

Release date: October 21, 2025

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

RUBY DHANJI HAD NEVER seen herself as a particularly interesting or memorable person. Probably because she wasn’t all that good at anything. She had no advanced degrees—hell, no unadvanced degrees, either—she had no athletic skills, and she was downright horrendous at sewing and car maintenance, despite her parents being a seamstress and a mechanic. But what Ruby lacked in God-given talents, she more than made up for in enthusiasm and living in the moment. Her life was great, because Ruby carpe’d the fucking diem her way through it. Ruby didn’t just enjoy things; she relished in them.

Three passions had risen to the top of Ruby’s interests. First, she loved anything and everything coming out of the UK—except colonialism, of course. She was Indian, and British colonialism hadn’t been kind to her people. But she loved the architecture of old English manor houses, loved Jane Austen, loved the Beatles, and loved modern British exports, too, like Harry Styles and chicken tikka masala. Second, Ruby loved the finer things in life: designer clothes, imported skin care, even expensive handbags. This particular passion was probably the result of working in high-end retail for years, so she was surrounded by luxury goods every day. Ruby was practical, though—even with an employee discount she would have gone bankrupt several times over if she wasn’t willing to buy her luxury goods secondhand or on clearance.

And finally, despite her Muslim upbringing, Ruby Dhanji adored the Christmas season with her whole heart. She loved the winter aesthetic, Christmas carols, holiday movies, and watching happy families celebrating together. Secularly, of course—she ignored the religious roots of the holiday. As far as Ruby was concerned, if she could love most things British while still being critical of their nasty habit of randomly declaring places people already lived in as their own colony, then she could also pick and choose which aspects of a holiday to celebrate and love.

This year, the Christmas season was a little bittersweet, though, because it would be her last one in Toronto—likely her last in Canada. So, as a proper send-off to the city that hadn’t always been great to her, Ruby was throwing herself a thirty-third birthday and tree decorating party on the day after her birthday—since she had to work on her actual birthday.

On Friday evening, the night before her party, Ruby left Reid’s Holiday, the small pop-up store in the Distillery District where she was store manager. The district had just transformed into the annual Toronto Winter Market, modeled after European Christmas markets, and Ruby hadn’t seen all the new vendors and temporary stores yet. When she spotted a new sign advertising LIVE CHRISTMAS TREES, she knew it was fate. She’d planned to set up the hot-pink tree she’d thrifted last year for her party, but a real tree would be so much better.

After buying the perfect small one (because her apartment was beyond tiny), Ruby carried the tree out of the lot by holding it in front of her so it wouldn’t touch her vintage red coat. She quickly realized she should have stuck with her pink one, though, because navigating cobblestones in high-heeled shoes, a velvet miniskirt, sheer tights, and a whole-ass tree was tricky. She should have brought a wagon. Not that she had a wagon. She was only three feet away from the lot when she dropped the twine-wrapped bundle. The trunk bounced on the stone walkway before falling sideways, hitting a person walking near her on its way to the ground.

“Bloody hell,” said a voice. “Watch it!”

“Oh no! I’m so sorry!” The man her tree hit could have been the one to chop it down in the first place. He seriously looked like he’d just walked out of a forest, with his worn blue jeans, a shearling-lined denim jacket unbuttoned to reveal a red flannel shirt, plus a blue beanie pulled down almost to his eyelids. He was Brown, like Ruby, and maybe in his mid-twenties.

“Careful with that…” He scowled, causing his hat to lower even more. “Is that a tree?”

Ruby smiled warmly as she bent to pick up her fallen tree, being careful to lift with her knees and not her back. She couldn’t get laid up with a back injury now. “I’m so sorry. It’s just… it’s so much bigger than I thought it’d be!”

The man stared at her, his dark eyes blinking in slow motion. And… Ruby realized what she’d just said. Classic Ruby. She giggled at herself. “That wasn’t innuendo,” she said.

Although, maybe it should be? Because despite this man’s stereotypical Canadian attire (which honestly wasn’t Ruby’s vibe), he was cute. Actually, more like… classically handsome. That jawline. The smooth skin. Ruby had over a month left in Toronto—there was certainly time for a final fling with a young Canadian before she moved overseas.

But the guy wasn’t laughing with her at her suggestive gaffe. Or at her. Okay, so the lumberjack didn’t have a sense of humor. No worries; a fling was probably a bad idea anyway. Ruby held her tree in front of herself with outstretched arms again and started walking.

The guy sped to walk next to her. “Why are you carrying a tree like that?” he asked.

“This is a vintage Max Mara coat. I’d rather not get poked right now.” She laughed again. Clearly her subconscious had ideas about this guy and his cute frown. Although it wasn’t mutual. He still looked annoyed at her. In fact, he might be the surliest person in the Winter Market. Which was fair—she’d just dropped a tree on him.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” she asked. “It’s so fragrant. Here smell it.” She turned so the tree was inches from the guy’s face.

“I can’t smell anything,” he said, nose wrinkled.

“Weird. It’s so strong! This is a Colorado blue spruce. I picked it because of the strong scent, and apparently, it’s a long-lasting tree—not that I need it past December thirty-first. I hope it lasts that long. Oh!” Ruby felt the branches in her hands start to buckle. In what felt like comical slow motion, she scrambled to prevent the tree from hitting the surly guy again, ending up hugging it close to her while the trunk hit the ground.

“Oh my god,” Ruby said. “I’m such a klutz.” She stepped away from the tree, holding the branches with her hands, and checked her coat. She winced when she saw spruce needles stuck to the wool. This was definitely a mistake. How was she going to get this thing home?

Suddenly, the guy took the tree from her hands.

“Oh, um, thank you! But I’m fine.” Ruby reached out to take it back, but he’d already hoisted the thing onto his shoulder with what looked like no exertion at all. He was strong. She looked at his broad body carrying her tree on his denim-clad shoulder. It was… hot. He should be a lumberjack. Although, she noticed for the first time that there were dusty white splotches all over his jeans.

“I got it,” he said. Or rather, he grunted.

Ruby exhaled. “It’s okay! I can carry it!”

“You’ve already dropped it twice, so no, you clearly can’t carry it. Where’s your car?” he asked.

Ruby raised a brow. “A car? In this economy? Who can afford that?”

The guy blinked at her again. She could almost see his eye twitch with irritation. Ruby should shut up and take her tree home. But this guy didn’t look like he was going to give it to her.

“I could call an Uber?” Her condo was only a few minutes’ walk from the Distillery District, and she doubted an Uber would show up for such a short ride.

“They’re not going to let you take a tree in their car,” the guy said, exasperated. “Why did you buy a tree without a way to get it home?”

Ruby smiled. “Because it was pretty? I’m having a tree-decorating birthday party tomorrow. Today’s my birthday.”

He stared at her for several seconds. “You really should have thought this through.”

Ruby bit her lip. He was right. There was no way she could walk the five minutes to her apartment without dropping the tree again or seriously hurting herself. Or ruining her coat. She could call a friend, but her cousin Marley wasn’t able to lift heavy things yet after her surgery, and her friend Shayne had a photo shoot today.

“It’s fine. I can take it,” Ruby said, slipping off her coat and hanging it off her arm. “It’s only a five-minute walk home. I can—”

“Which way?” the guy said, the tree still on his shoulder.

“Which way what?”

“Which way is home? I need to head back to work, so let’s get going.”

Ruby shook her head quickly. “Is this a pick-up, because I’m not looking for chivalry here.”

The guy actually huffed a laugh at that, which completely changed his face. This grump was very cute. His gaze swept from her heels to her white mohair scarf. “You’re not my type. Where am I taking this tree?”

Ouch. Ruby bit her lip. It was fine—based on how he was dressed, women in vintage red coats, Michael Kors shoes, and the perfect red lipstick for their skin tone weren’t his type. But to hear an exceedingly attractive man with the most amazing skin she’d ever seen say he wasn’t interested based on how she looked didn’t feel nice. Maybe he was one of those guys who thought girls with makeup and nice hair were “high maintenance” (cars were high maintenance… people were worth it). Or more likely, it was Ruby perpetually sticking her foot in her mouth that had turned him off.

Ruby pointed to the grouping of condos in the distance. “I’m in there. Thank you.”

“Okay, let’s go,” he said, walking past her with a whole entire tree on his shoulder like he was a chimney sweep carrying a broom or something.

Ruby took a few quick steps to catch up to him while putting her coat back on. “I appreciate this a lot,” she said. “Did you say you need to get to work? Which is weird because you’re all dusty, so I assume you came from work? That’s dust, right? Or maybe it’s flour! I know a baker; she’s always covered in white when she’s working. She’s on maternity leave right now, which sucks because her bread is the best. Well, it doesn’t suck for her, because her baby is gorgeous.”

Ruby was rambling. Which she did when she was uncomfortable. Seriously, with her nervous motormouth, and her permanent foot-in-mouth, someone should really remove Ruby’s mouth. But then she wouldn’t be able to wear MAC’s Ruby Woo—a red lipstick so perfect for her skin tone that she was convinced it was named after her.

The man kept walking, focused on the sidewalk in front of him. It was hard to keep up and incredibly awkward to walk with someone holding your Christmas tree without saying anything at all.

“So… do you work around here, too?” she asked. He didn’t respond. This mystery lumberjack was a man of few words. “I mean, I assume you must. Oh! Do you work at the pet store! All that dust could be cat litter! I don’t have a cat—I move too often. But I want to get one. Maybe after I move to England. British shorthairs are so cute! Why do they look so different from North American cats? Like—”

“It’s not cat litter,” he said. “It’s drywall dust.”

“Oh. So, you’re in, like, construction? Cool! I work in the Distillery District. It’s gorgeous this time of year, right? I love the Winter Market so much. It used to be called the Distillery Christmas Market, but they changed the name to be more inclusive, which is great. Not that I have anything against Christmas, but I mean, I’m all for inclusivity. I’m the manager at the Reid’s Holiday pop-up store. You know Reid’s, right? The department store in Yorkville? They have a mini store in the Winter Market only for the season. We have lots of gift-giving options, like designer ornaments, fragrances, and skin care. And services, too, like bespoke wrapping, custom gift baskets, and private shopping services for corporate clients. You should come by! I’d be happy to wrap some of your gifts for you, free of charge. As a thank-you for carrying my tree! You don’t have to shop at the store for wrapping…” Ruby’s voice trailed off. She hoped he didn’t think she was implying that he couldn’t afford to shop at Reid’s. Because she didn’t mean that at all. The store was expensive, but she knew people in construction could make good money, especially if he was a skilled tradesman.

“You work in a Christmas store?” he asked.

Ruby nodded. “Reid’s Holiday. I know it’s not the most original name. But… seriously, you should come by with gifts you need wrapped so I can repay your kindness.”

He shook his head, making his blue beanie drag against the needles of the tree on his shoulder. “I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

Ruby laughed awkwardly. “Oh, I don’t either. I mean, not religiously. But I love this season! We have non-denominational wrap, too. And some Hanukkah paper, and Eid—”

“I don’t do any holidays.”

Ugh. She’d offended the lumberjack. But as usual, her mouth didn’t know when to shut up. “But gifts don’t have to just be for holidays, do they? You must have someone in your life that deserves a ‘just because’ gift! I love giving people little things for no reason, you know? To show you have their back. It’s like—”

He turned sharply to face her again. Thankfully there was no one behind them, or he would have hit them with the tree.

“Do you always talk this much?”

Ruby gave an awkward smile. “Yes. You’re taking my tree all the way home, and it would be rude if I said nothing, wouldn’t it?”

The guy stared at her for several long seconds again before turning back around and pointing to the building in front of them. “That yours?” he asked.

“Yeah. Um, you don’t have to bring it upstairs for me or anything. I mean, I can have the building concierge help.”

He didn’t respond. He climbed the two steps to the entry and rested her tree next to the door. “You can take it from here,” he said, already walking back down the stairs and away.

“Wait,” Ruby called out. The guy turned back to her. He was still frowning. Such a shame. The guy was breathtakingly gorgeous when he had laughed for half a second. “Thanks again for helping me. I really appreciate it,” She smiled. “I think… I think maybe that was fate. I mean, if you hadn’t found me, I’m sure I would have spent the rest of my birthday in the ER with a broken back. And I meant it—if you work nearby, come see me at Reid’s Holiday so I can repay your generosity. I’m Ruby, by the way.”

“My mother taught me to never leave a woman struggling. Happy birthday, Ruby,” he said, that small smile appearing on his face for a moment before he turned and walked away.

Ruby watched the mystery man head back toward the Winter Market. She exhaled. She knew that she could be annoying. She hyperfixated on the things she loved, and she wasn’t always great at noticing when she needed to chill about her passions. Or needed to stop talking.

Ah, but it didn’t matter. So, what if this bah-humbug guy was immune to holiday cheer. He’d helped her a lot by bringing her tree home. And he even said happy birthday—the first in-person “happy birthday” she’d had this year.

Ruby wasn’t going to let a run-in with a surly grump get in the way of enjoying every single moment of this season.

“DO YOU THINK I’M annoying?” Ruby asked while laying out neat rows of shortbread on a holly-printed plate. She hadn’t been able to get that run-in with the tree-carrying guy out of her mind since he’d said happy birthday to her yesterday. “Like, do I take this Christmas stuff too far?”

“There is no such thing as too far,” her friend Shayne said. He was hanging clear glass ornaments on the Colorado spruce. “The only people annoyed about Christmas are stick-in-the-muds, and we do not concern ourselves with their opinions. Holidays exist to be celebrated.”

Exactly. Ruby was not taking the festivities too far—the shortbread wasn’t even homemade. True, she’d made the gingerbread men and the individual Christmas puddings herself—but that was because she wanted her tiny apartment to be filled with her favorite scents for her birthday celebration: honey, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg, all mingling with the scent of her spruce Christmas tree.

“Who said you’re annoying?” asked Ruby’s cousin Marley, who was helping Shayne with the tree. Marley was a personal stylist and Shayne was a photographer, and they had a better eye for space and design than Ruby, so she’d assigned them to tree duty when they’d arrived at her party.

“No one said I was annoying,” Ruby said. Which was technically true—the lumberjack dude hadn’t actually called her annoying. He’d certainly implied it, though. “This guy helped me carry my tree yesterday, and he was obviously irritated about how enthusiastic I was about the season.”

“Ridiculous,” Shayne said, shaking his head. “Openly liking anything is considered selling out these days. We are surrounded by capitalism and consumerism, but people look down at anyone who deigns to enjoy any of it. Not everyone singing ‘Last Christmas’ is buying in to the capitalist Kool-Aid—you bought these ornaments from a thrift store, and this sweater is from Poshmark.” Shayne’s sweater had a vintage-style image of Santa drinking a whisky by the fire on it. As always, he looked fabulous.

“So’s this dress,” Ruby added. It was a vintage Badgley Mischka, and she’d squealed when she saw it on the designer resale site last month. The impeccably fitting red dress was going to be her signature look for the holidays this year.

“Why do you think this guy got under your skin? That’s not like you,” asked Shayne’s partner, Anderson, who was helping Ruby plate food at the coffee table. He was one of the most perceptive people Ruby had ever met—probably because of his job. He was also the quietest person in the friend group, which was ironic because he was one of four hosts on a daytime talk show—one of those shows where the hosts all talk over each other to get a word in. He had the nickname Oprah in their friend chat group, despite being a small Taiwanese Canadian man.

Ruby popped a small slice of fruitcake with marzipan into her mouth before answering. The sweet and spicy flavor punctuated with the creamy nuttiness of the marzipan reminded her that there was nothing wrong with loving this season. “I know. I shouldn’t care what the guy thinks of me.”

Maybe it was because he was Brown and said he didn’t celebrate Christmas… so it unearthed some cultural guilt that Ruby shouldn’t obsess over a Western holiday, either. But that was nonsense. Ruby’s mother had been quite a devout Muslim, but she’d loved Christmas, too. Mom had loved the focus on family and giving, and said that if they were going to make Canada their home, they may as well love the things that Canadians loved. Of course, Mom had gone all out for Eid and other Muslim holidays, too. Mom would have been delighted that her only daughter still loved the Christmas season.

“Was the guy cute?” Shayne asked.

Ruby nodded. “Very. Too young for me, though.”

At that, Shayne beamed at Anderson, who was about five years younger than him. “Nothing wrong with a younger man. So, you were into the guy, but he didn’t feel the same, so your ego took a tiny hit. No shame in that. Put the Scrooge out of your mind. This is a birthday party! Where’s Reena… I can’t wait until you see your present!”

Reena, her husband Nadim, and their baby Aleem were the only ones missing from this party. Marley picked up her phone, presumably to text Reena. “They’re at Nadim’s friend’s place,” she said a few seconds later. “They’re on their way—it’s only five minutes from here.”

Shayne laughed. “They have friends other than us?”

“Shocking, I know,” Marley said. “Apparently she’s one of Nadim’s London friends. Reena said she’s been going through a rough time, so they took the baby to meet her. Babies always cheer people up.”

That was true, but there was another nugget of information there that piqued Ruby’s interest. Nadim had grown up between England and Tanzania, and he still had a lovely British accent. Ruby hadn’t known he had any British friends in Toronto. “His friend from London lives near here?”

Marley laughed, plopping on the small green sofa in front of Ruby’s bed. This apartment was a bachelor—which meant it was pretty much one big room. Actually, big was probably overstating it. “Are you going to make the poor woman read Austen to you now?”

Ruby frowned. “No. But considering I’m moving to London in like, six weeks, maybe I should meet her? Get some tips or something?”

“Why don’t you get tips from Nadim?” Shayne asked. “He lived there, too.”

“I’ve tried,” Ruby said. “But he was useless. Apparently when he lived in London, Nadim only went to nightclubs or Michelin-starred restaurants. He was a super-rich trust-fund brat back then, remember?” Ruby loved to hear stories of Nadim’s UK debauchery, especially since he was such a goofy nerd and devoted family man now.

“If this woman is Nadim’s friend, she was probably a trust-fund brat, too,” Marley said. “Hey, do you have a star for the top of the tree? Didn’t you get a Swarovski one on clearance last year?”

“Yes!” Ruby had forgotten about that star. She knelt near her bed to get at the storage boxes down there. She’d been so excited when she found it on a clearance shelf—but it was bright red crystal and was all wrong for her pink tree. Maybe a part of her knew that she’d have a much better tree this year. She found it in a box of summer shoes and handed it to Marley.

“Maybe this woman can help you get a job there, though,” Anderson said. “Did you get any offers yet?”

“Sort of,” Ruby said. “Two boutiques on High Street said they’ll likely offer when I get there. And three more told me to call them for an interview the moment I land.” She’d known it wouldn’t be hard to get a job. Ruby moved a lot, and finding a new job was always the easiest part of moving. Her résumé was an impressive list of sales and management positions in the best luxury retail stores in Canada—and she had excellent references, too.

But none of the places where she really wanted to work in the UK had called her back.

“Nothing from hotels?” Marley asked.

“No. I’ve been completely ghosted by every hotel I’ve applied at.”

After years of planning, Ruby was finally moving to the UK for one main reason: to fulfill her and her mother’s lifelong dream to run their own business there—an inn or a bed and breakfast in the English countryside.

About three years ago, Ruby had learned that her mother had set up a trust with money from her personal savings account, payable to Ruby ten years after her mother’s passing. There was a letter enclosed, in which Ruby’s mother wrote that she was sorry she wouldn’t be there to carry out their dream together, but with this money, Ruby could do it on her own. The ten-year wait was so Ruby’s father wouldn’t find out about the money and try to claim it as his own, but it was also so Ruby wouldn’t get it until, as her mother put it, “you know who you are.”

Even with the money, Ruby knew achieving the dream now was a long shot, so she’d been approaching the plan rationally and practically. The first step had been getting a visa to live, work, and own a business in the UK. The next step had been to find a job in the hospitality industry there, so she could learn more about hotel management while looking for her own property. But it turned out that getting a job in a UK hotel as a Canadian with literally zero experience in the field and no contacts was next to impossible.

“So, are you going to work in a store, then?” Marley asked.

Ruby shook her head. “Nope. I have enough savings to last a bit—I’m going to hit the pavement the old-fashioned way when I get there. I’ll walk into every hotel in London until one of them hires me.”

There was a courtesy knock at the door then before Nadim and Reena noisily came in, holding baby Aleem. Everyone rushed to greet them and help get the baby and all the baby’s stuff inside. And then everyone wanted to see Aleem’s Santa outfit under the heavy snowsuit he was wearing. And wanted to squeeze his cheeks and then take pictures of him. Thankfully, Aleem tolerated his doting aunties and uncles well.

After the chaos the baby brought, they all sat around Ruby’s coffee table. Shayne was holding the baby in one arm and a mug of Ruby’s signature chai eggnog in the other.

“I’m sorry we’re late,” Reena said as she made herself a plate of cookies and fruitcake. “We were at Jasmine’s longer than expected. Poor thing’s going through a lot. She left her husband right after she started her own business.”

“Oh, that sucks,” Ruby said. “Right before the holidays, too.”

“It doesn’t suck,” Nadim said. “It’s good. I’ve only met the guy twice, but Derek is a stuck-up, arrogant douche. But it is hard for Jasmine and her kids right now.”

Reena nodded. “She’s got twin five-year-old girls. And no family of her own in Toronto. Jasmine is such a sweetheart.” Reena looked at her husband. “I have no idea how she ever fit in with your London friends.”

“We used to call her the Angelic O. . .