A swoonworthy and suspenseful holiday rom-com that will make fans of B.K. Borison and Becca Freeman laugh out loud and fall completely in love this Christmas season.
It’s the hap-happiest con of the year…
Scarlett Payne and Nathan Lambros agree on exactly one thing: they both despise Christmas. But when Scarlett receives a cryptic letter—from someone claiming to be Santa and threatening to sabotage New York’s Santa Claus Con—they’re the only two FBI agents who can stop the holiday spectacle from turning into a national disaster.
Unfortunately, the last time Scarlett saw her former rival, he was breaking her heart. So she’s not exactly eager to ask the grumpiest agent she knows for help, but he’s sadly great at going undercover.
After years of deep cover, Nathan was ready to hand over his badge... until Scarlett pulls him into one last operation. He’s not sure which is worse—pretending to be Santa or working with the woman he loves but had to push away.
Beneath fake beards and forced cheer, old feelings refuse to stay buried. With one day, one Con, and one mysterious enemy closing in, these two self-proclaimed Grinches are about to find out what’s more difficult: saving Christmas… or risking their hearts all over again.
Release date:
October 27, 2026
Publisher:
Grand Central Publishing
Print pages:
368
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Why are you dressed like Mrs. Claus? You hate Christmas.”
On my phone screen, my oldest sister, Cleo, looks half confused, half entertained as she asks this.
“I’m Miss Claus. Still very much single,” I say as I jog up Sixth Avenue and through Midtown Manhattan’s near-empty streets in a long, maroon, ruffled, button-down dress I found online and had overnighted. “What I hate are bad guys and unnecessary violence. And people who hurt animals and that shrimp casserole Auntie Nat used to make on the Fourth of July that we pretended to like. Christmas, I’m lukewarm to.”
“There’s no in-between, Scarlett,” my middle sister, Kate, says. “You either love Christmas or you hate it.”
“I’m trying it on,” I say. “And if I don’t like it, I can return it.”
“Christmas isn’t a hat,” Cleo says as she stirs a pot of oatmeal. She’s in Nashville and is an hour behind me and Kate, who’s in Boston.
“No, it’s a sweater, and as of last week, I’ve got one with a light-up reindeer on it,” I retort, my smiling face filling the small rectangle at the bottom of our three-way video call. “Ooh! And one with Frosty the Snowman eating ice cream. It’s adorable and hand-knit and extremely cozy. I may or may not be getting you both one this year.”
Kate smirks and leans back against her couch. “You thought liking Christmas was cultish behavior.”
I mean, it’s not not cultish behavior. “Christmas has always been… too eventful.” It’s the best word I’ve got for it, and instead of trying to find a better one, I turn my camera around to show them Radio City Music Hall decked out for the season. “Look! There’s a tree. On a building! That could change anyone’s mind.” And right now, oversize ornaments and seasonal decorations are helping take my mind off desk duty, which has been the bane of my existence for the past six months. I can add trees on buildings to the plus column on my Christmas Pro and Con List.
“I see,” Cleo says. “Christmas is your distraction.”
I cut a right down Forty-Ninth Street. “A very bright and shiny one,” I confirm. “With lots of bells!” The ones on my bonnet cap jingle as I pick up my pace.
“Where are you headed dressed like that at seven in the morning? Is this a work thing?” Cleo asks. She shakes cinnamon into the pot.
“That’s classified,” I say, trying to make it sound like a joke. To pile on to the believability, I add, “I’m testing out a Christmas running group.”
Kate’s eyes widen in amusement. “How oddly specific.”
The ice-skating rink at Rockefeller Center comes into view. “What’s odd is that Mrs. Claus doesn’t officially have a name,” I mumble, distracted. “Yet Santa is Kris, Nicholas… the man’s got names. Plural!”
“Is it a running group or an overthinking group?” Cleo asks. “You seem really into this.”
“It’s just—Mrs. Claus is important,” I say, “and she doesn’t have a knowable name. Apparently, she manages the household and oversees toy production. She organizes the elves and bakes cookies and has input on the toy designs. Oh! And some people think she’s responsible for the Naughty or Nice List.”
“So… she’s Santa,” Kate says.
I nod. “Pretty much.”
Cleo scoffs. “I thought that was the point of Santa. What does he do, then?”
“He gets the credit?” I offer.
Kate grunts. “He’s the face, she’s the brains. Sounds about right.”
I step up to the railing and survey the rink, where the ice is being resurfaced for the day ahead. Eager tourists drinking coffee and eating artisan doughnuts have already claimed benches and are enjoying the holiday decorations and photographing the scene.
Where the halls get decked,
This is a spot where lists get checked.
I repeat the lines from the tip that came in yesterday like it’s a Christmas song gone wrong, and one that I can’t get out of my head. Why can’t vague, threatening riddles sound more like Mariah Carey’s holiday music?
“I guess the public can’t handle the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Claus are business partners, you know?” I say, slowly making my way around the plaza. “I guess I just liked the idea of them being in love. Is it weird to think about fictional characters like that?”
Cleo scoops oatmeal into a bowl. “You were always one to make fiction a reality. I mean, look at you now. You work for the government. I guess it’s not quite like the special agents you idolized in the movies you watched growing up, but still.”
If only she knew.
I shift my attention from the holiday lights wrapped around buildings… to wreaths hanging on railings… to the iconic seventy-five-foot Christmas tree lit up in every color of the rainbow with a bright star on top. A tree that 125 million people visit every year. This morning, though, that number is in the few dozens.
“Who knows,” Kate says, laughing. “Dressed like that, maybe she’s chasing down a bad guy as we speak.”
Too soon to tell, but I was desperate for this morning excursion to get me off the desk doing administrative work, making calls, and cross-referencing tips. It’s not the stuff I dreamed of when I was a kid, or when I graduated from Quantico, and especially not when I completed an extra few weeks of undercover school.
The thrill, the chase… I need it the way gingerbread houses need candy decorations. Without them, they’re incomplete. Being assigned—more accurately, punished—with paperwork has been torture by boredom.
“That’s classified,” I say, this time realizing I’ve sounded way more serious. Maybe because it’s true. “Anyway, today I’m Miss Claus.” And I can’t pretend to be someone else without knowing their backstory. “I exude warmth and joy and bake daily batches of peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-walnut cookies.”
Cleo makes a face. “Aren’t those your favorite cookies?”
Sure are, because when building a cover, the fewer lies to remember, the better.
As my sisters debate whether nuts or chocolate chips belong in cookies, I walk to the other side of the rink for a different perspective, memorizing the faces of every person I pass. It’s a beautiful morning with overcast skies. Just add snow, and it might be a tick in the Pro Christmas column.
“Is that a store? Are you shopping?” Cleo asks, holding the phone closer to her face. “It’s nice to see you out doing something on your day off for a change.”
I scan the rooftops of the lowest buildings surrounding the area. “Technically, I’m supposed to be sick.”
“Glad to be funding your sick day,” Kate quips.
Her tone is teasing, but I know she’s prying. All my family knows is that I work for the government. They can’t be privy to more specifics than that.
“We also have a 401k and health insurance. Have I blown your mind yet?” I ask. On the southside of the rink are camera cranes, storage units, and folded-up chairs, like they might be filming some kind of event here.
“Ha, ha,” Cleo says. “If they don’t give you time off for our family trip to Taiwan in a couple weeks, tell your boss I’m coming for him personally.”
“I’ll be your accomplice!” Kate tacks on.
Cleo is eighteen months older than Kate, but I’m eight years younger than Kate. As soon as I was born, my sisters were immediately overprotective of me. I was always at such different stages of life than them, but they didn’t care. Even when they were off at college and I was finishing up elementary school, they called every week to check in.
“I requested the time off in July,” I say, even though having approved PTO has never stopped me from canceling before. I’ve had to bail on every family vacation ever since I joined the FBI five years ago. Sometimes timelines expand on undercover missions. You can’t go MIA from a criminal organization and then come back bronzed after a weeklong nap on a Hawaiian beach. Oops, sorry, boss. I wasn’t earning you money last week because I was taking some much-needed me time. It takes as long as it takes to nail the bad guys. “I really need this vacation, too.”
More than my sisters know.
“Why are you actually calling so early?” I ask, because I don’t need to be highly trained in reading body language to know they have something to say. “Other than to threaten me into a family vacation I’m already going on?”
“We just… we really want you to be there,” Kate says gently. “You’re always too busy for family trips and—”
“Pó Po and Gong Gong aren’t getting younger,” Cleo says, getting to the point. “Know what I mean?”
Kate balks. “Cleo!”
Our older sister lifts an eyebrow toward the screen. “Where’s the lie? The man’s eighty-nine,” she says around her bite. “So if anything comes up at work… It would just be nice if you were there with us.”
I release a sharp breath, the air forming a small cloud in front of me. “Thank you for the guilt trip. You know those work so well.”
Cleo makes a sympathetic face. “I know the vacation was supposed to be fun, and now this might, I don’t know, remind you of the Coopers maybe—”
“Especially at this time of year,” Kate adds.
Cleo nods. “You never got to say goodbye to them, and we don’t want that to happen with Pó Po and Gong Gong—”
“Guys, it’s okay,” I cut in. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m good, and I hear you. Let’s have a great holiday. Together.”
I’m about to loop back to the rink and get a closer look at the cast bronze sculpture of Prometheus when something stops me. I don’t know why I hesitate, exactly. Maybe I’m on edge from what I’ve just heard and the memories it risks surfacing. Maybe because the whole scene in front of me is a little too picture-perfect that I take an extra second and hang back.
I look like gold, have a little shimmer,
I shine brightest in the winter.
I pause next to the water feature lined with wire-sculpture angels playing trumpets. I drag my gaze from the closest angel’s fingers to the end of the instrument up toward the sky… to the tree… to the…
Oh no.
I hold up the hem of my dress and sprint toward the rink.
“Scarlett?” Kate says, but I barely hear her.
“I’ll be there,” I say into the phone before hanging up and yelling to bystanders, “Move! Get back!”
People look at me and then back at each other like, Only in New York! It’s when I shout a second and third time and wave my arms, motioning for everyone to clear out, that they finally listen and jump off the benches and hurry away from the railings.
That’s when the star on top of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree explodes.
Payne, aren’t you supposed to be sick?” my boss, Supervisory Special Agent Frank Bowman, asks when he finds me sitting in the back of an ambulance holding gauze to my temple. Police, FBI, and ambulances were quick to arrive on the scene. Several people have been rushed to the hospital for minor injuries.
“Yes, sir,” I say, and make a show of coughing into my fist. I wince at the effort. I’m already sore and bruised, and the high pitch in my ears sounds like a bell stuck in one high, annoying note.
“Paramedics can’t clear you until you’ve gone to the hospital. Looks like you had a pretty bad fall,” he says.
“All superficial injuries. I’ll live.”
“Looks like real blood to me.”
Bowman is known in the Bureau as Barrel for being a combination of forceful and forthright. He’s great at clearing obstacles for his team, but his bluntness can take some getting used to.
I remove the gauze and find a spot of blood. Exploding Christmas star—that’s definitely a tick in the Con column.
“It’s just a scratch, I’m fine,” I say, tilting my throbbing head. There may be a ringing sound still there, but the jingling is gone. “My bonnet!” I scan the area covered in debris, but it’s pointless. There goes my undercover disguise.
Barrel doesn’t care about my accessories. “Why are you here?”
“I like watching them Zamboni the rink,” I say. “Healing powers of ice… or something.” I attempt another fake cough.
He raises an eyebrow. “Dressed like that? What the hell are you wearing?”
I brush the dirt off my dress. “I was… running.”
Barrel frowns. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Payne.”
“Okay, but you asked…” I hesitate before pulling out a scrap of paper from the pocket of my dress and handing it to him. He reads it out loud, and I mouth the words along with him.
He shakes his head and gives me back the paper. “You experimenting with poetry, Payne? Sorry to say, it’s not very good.”
“Sir, believe me when I tell you I would never say something as trivial as I am sharp, but I’m not a knife,” I say, kind of insulted by that. “It’s a riddle.”
He crosses his arms and glares. I’ve been trained not to fold so easily—in real-life situations, I’ve endured more and said nothing—yet this silent intimidation is what breaks me.
“Fine, it’s a tip, sir,” I blurt, jumping out of the ambulance to follow him as he surveys the damage, walking around the glass and shattered ornaments that flew off the tree in the explosion.
“A tip?” he asks. “What tip?”
“It came in yesterday morning.”
“Was it reviewed?”
I nod quickly.
“Credible?”
I stick by my boss’s side as he strides toward the tree’s star. Or what’s left of it anyway. What was once nine feet is now little glass shards scattered all around.
“It was ranked low,” I answer.
He nods so slowly it scares me, just a little. “Did it warrant immediate investigation?” he asks.
“Sir, it says tomorrow in the threat, which is today,” I rush out. “The tip was documented but no one took it seriously.”
“And you did.”
“Right.”
“Why?”
I swallow. “I had a feeling.”
I know how this sounds, and I know how he’s going to take it. Last time I had a hunch, it cost us a case. I’m no longer allowed to have feelings.
Barrel stops in front of the railing overlooking the ice rink. “So let me get this straight. You called out sick and followed up on a low-credible threat while off duty without letting anyone know where you were because of a feeling,” he recaps, blinking sharply. Even his blinks are intense.
“It was clearly credible,” I say, gesturing toward the wreckage.
“You’re supposed to be on desk duty. You’re not supposed to be out in the field. When you pull stunts like this, when you open investigations without approval, it’s my neck on the line.”
“I know, and I’m sorry for going rogue, but I couldn’t sit by and do nothing,” I say a little too forcefully. “Sir.”
“You’re treading a very fine line here, Payne.”
This time, I keep my mouth shut.
After a long moment and an irritated sigh, Barrel says, “Walk me through it. How you figured out this was the place.”
I don’t wait for him to ask twice. I smooth the riddle against the railing and point to the third line. “The halls I took to mean Radio City Music Hall. When I saw gold, I thought of the Prometheus statue. The Mrs. Claus thing is weird… and he refers to her as Santa’s wife. Like, she’s more than that, and she has a name. Probably. Don’t ask me what it is.”
“Payne.”
“Sorry, right,” I continue. “The clock was a tricky one. At first, I thought about the Atlas statue holding the heavens but turns out it was the star. Stars have been used to tell time, which makes sense now that it’s what exploded. Ooh! Like a supernova, but I don’t know if whoever wrote this meant it that way. This tip had a few clear clues, but it took me all night because riddles aren’t my strong suit—”
“Payne!”
“Yes?”
“Stop talking for a second.” Barrel closes his eyes. “We need to check all the cameras, see who might’ve done this.”
“I’ve already spoken to Agent Murphy,” I inform him.
“We have to talk to eyewitnesses—”
“I’ve also checked in with Rock Center’s guards.” It was nice that they came over to check on me after the incident. It was the perfect time to find out if they saw anything suspicious. “I also got the names of the crew that put up the tree and the team that handled the lighting ceremony. They should be calling me back. It’s possible whoever rigged the star had access to it before the tree even got here.”
I don’t know if I should be insulted when Barrel looks at me like he’s surprised. I’m one of the best agents at FBI New York. Every undercover operation that I’ve worked has been a success. Well, except for one. I get the bad guys and enough evidence to put them away for a very long time. My reports are thorough, polished, and timely. I’m dedicated to my job. I do what I must to make this world safer, but it’s not lost on me that as a woman, and as one of the few mixed-race Chinese American special agents, I have to work twice as hard to get noticed. To work triple that to make up for one mistake.
“How’d that tip come in?” he asks.
“By phone,” I recall. “We couldn’t locate the source.”
“And how did it get to you?” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Tell me you’re not monitoring the tip line.”
“Okay, I’m not monitoring the tip line.”
This earns me another glare.
“Fine. Yes. I was monitoring the tip line,” I admit. “It was the most credible tip that’s come through in months.”
“You used this tip as an excuse to get off desk duty,” Barrel says, seeing right through me.
I look up at the sky. “Fresh air has been known to do people good. If I have to call another reference or hear one more tip called in by a disgruntled neighbor mad at someone for parking in front of their house, I’ll lose it. Put me in, Coach—sir!”
“You should’ve thought about that six months ago before you went rogue,” Barrel says, looking around, “the first time!”
I’m tired, that has to be it. The fluorescent office lights have gotten to me. I need that vacation now more than ever. For a whole week, I won’t have to think about paperwork or check references on government employment applications or transcribe interviews. I’ll spend time with family, eat beef noodle soup for lunch, dinner, and, screw it, breakfast, too. And I won’t risk my life tracking down a Christmas-tree-star bomb or get scolded for following my instincts. Yeah, this is going to be a really nice trip.
“Look, Payne, what you did this morning, you were clearly on to something,” Barrel says.
I perk up. This is it. Finally—finally!—he’s going to take me off desk duty. I’ve proved myself this morning. I can get back undercover—
“But this was out of line. You’re on desk duty for another three months, minimum,” he says, holding up a hand to my open mouth ready to protest. He goes quiet when Special Agent Burns taps him on the shoulder.
“Sir, you need to see this,” Burns says quietly.
I have a dozen rebuttals ready for when Barrel’s done with whatever Burns has to show him. Another three months? I’m useless on the desk. Every part of me needs to be out in the world pretending to be someone else while saving very real lives.
The two of them review something on a tablet. I pretend to stretch out my neck and peer over to try to catch a glimpse. They speak in hushed tones, and already I can sense that our conversation’s over. On to the next case. More people need saving, and right now, that’s more important than whether I’m out in the field.
Barrel’s jaw tightens, his eyes going cold as he reads what’s on the screen. “This was delivered to the office twenty minutes ago?” he asks Burns, who nods.
It sounds serious.
I step away. “Okay, I can finish up here, sir. I’ll be in soon to write up my report.”
“Payne, don’t go anywhere.”
I shuffle back. “Of course, staying right here, sir.”
Barrel narrows his eyes at me and looks like he’s working through something in his head. Then he lifts the tablet and says, “There’s an invitation.”
“To?” I ask.
“Hell if I know. It’s another riddle,” he says, exchanging a glance with Burns before they both look back at me. “And it’s addressed to you.”
After evaluations, CT scans, and X-rays at the hospital, I learn I have a fractured rib. Given the circumstances, that’s not so bad.
I carefully change out of my Mrs. Claus outfit and head back to the office in downtown Manhattan, which means Barrel and I don’t get to talk about the invitation again for another two hours, as though that wasn’t the most chilling piece of news of, I don’t know, my entire existence?
I bypass the quadrants of desks in the bullpen, our open floorplan workspace where my squadmates and I make calls, follow clues, and try to stop bad things from happening to good people. I beeline straight to my desk, where Barrel’s waiting with the invite. An ominous invitation-that-hopefully-isn’t-a-threat addressed to me? What am I supposed to do with that? This sounds way more up the intelligence analysts’ alley.
But then I read it.
On the back of the cherry-red—or blood, if this morning is any indication—envelope is my name, Scarlett Payne, written in white calligraphy, with the address of the office underneath. My name looks really pretty written out like this.
Everyone’s quiet in the bullpen as I remove the invitation, analyzing the weighted cardstock in my gloved hands.
“Feels expensive,” I say, holding it up to the light. The forest-green letters on the cream invitation are loopy and surrounded by an excess of swirls. Someone had fun.
“What’s that? An invitation to a Christmas party?” one of my squadmates, Special Agent Flores, jokes. “Did the jingle bells go missing?”
“Did the tinsel get tangled?” another agent teases over the short divider between our desks.
“It’s to your ex’s wedding,” I shoot back. To Barrel, I ask, “This has already been scanned for fingerprints?”
Barrel nods. “No matches in the system.”
“Makes sense. Santa wears gloves.” A disturbing thought pops into my mind. “Come to think of it, what do Santa’s hands look like? Can you recall ever seeing Santa’s hands?” For a moment, this mystery feels more pressing. My squadmates indulge me and take a second to consider this before shaking their heads. “I’m sure Santa worked clean, but you never know. He’s human”—no, that doesn’t feel right, either—“and people, fictional or otherwise, slip up.”
There have been too many unnerving Santa revelations today, and it’s not even 10:00 a.m.
“I don’t care about gloves, Payne. Read the words,” Barrel says.
I already have, and I’m trying to understand what they mean.
Santa requests the pleasure of your company,
Scarlett Payne
What’s it beginning to look like?
What’s in every store?
You found my little message,
How about one more?
I know a game that we can play,
Not one, or two, but five,
And if you make it to the end,
you just might stay alive.
At the Santa Claus Con, let’s have a blast,
It’ll be the most fun, more than all years past.
No RSVP required, I know what you will say,
For should it be a no, it’s bombs, bombs away.
The games begin on the 23 of December.
Reception to follow in the town square.
“Santa Claus Con?” Barrel asks. “The one where people dress up as Santa and drink beer?”
I plop down in my chair and rearrange the silver tinsel I’ve taped along the sides of my desk. Besides the glimmer of silver handcuffs, it’s the only other sparkle in this low-lit office.
“This is the competition one,” I clarify. “People still dress up as Santa.”
Barrel grunts. “Oh, right. The one NYPD has to monitor.”
“There’s a series of live-televised challenges,” Burns adds. “Someone gets named Santa of the Year and wins a shit-ton of money. It’s a fifty-thousand-dollar cash prize.”
“Normally, yeah, but this year’s their fiftieth anniversary, so the prize money is being doubled,” I recall from the articles. Not even if it was being tripled would that amount of money be tempting for me to want to compete. Fifty Santa Clauses running around? Sounds like the stuff of my nightmares.
I reread the invite, this time stopping on the date. The twenty-third of December? That’s when I’m supposed to be in Taiwan. No way I’m missing yet another family trip, not when it might be my grandparents’ last Christmas. Yet something tells me I won’t have a choice here.
“Why is this addressed to you, Payne?” Barrel asks.
“Because my company is pleasurable, sir?” I guess, smiling innocently. “You know, I’ve never gotten a letter from Santa before. To be fair, I’ve never written one to him.”
He gives me a look.
“You don’t do this job without making a few enemies,” I say. Even undercover, once we catch our bad guys and have enough evidence to put them away, sometimes they learn that we aren’t who we said we were.
“It’s probably because she followed the tip,” Flores unhelpfully adds. “Glad I wasn’t monitoring the tip line.”
Was it random, and I just happened to be the lucky one to take this person’s tip seriously enough to walk into their trap? Or am I truly the target? And if I am, how’d they know I’d be the one to hear the tip and pursue it?
“They must know how relentless you are,” Barrel says, like he’s been having the same thought trail. He doesn’t look like he’s kidding, but I am picking up an essence of a compliment somewhere in there.
“Thank you,” I say genuinely, because “relentless” is just a less nice word for “persistent,” which is actually a valuable quality in special agents.
“Can we get the analysts in here?” Barrel asks an agent across the room.
“Mind if I take a stab at it first?” I ask. “When my oldest sister got married, I taught myself calligraphy to do her wedding invitations. There were people so much more experienced than me in the running for the gig. I was decent enough, and her most cost-effective option. Three hundred invitations wouldn’t have been cheap. I got the pens and cardstock, took some classes, and I crushed every single one of those invites.” I raise an eyebrow at Barrel. “I know what you’re thinking—who even knows three hundred people?”
Barrel shifts on his feet. “What I’m thinking is, what’s your point?”
“My point, sir, is that I know something about calligraphy. Santa could’ve used a standard pen, a brush pen, a fountain pen, or even a straight dip pen.” I analyze the invite from an angle. “But my money’s on the oblique dip pen.”
“And why’s that?” Barrel asks, and I can’t tell if he’s interested or just humoring me.
“Fits the Santa brand better,” I respond, imagining this person seated next to a crackling fireplace penning threatening riddles to law enforcement. Cozy. “See how the ink is smeared, just slightly, over here?” I point out the curls and lo. . .
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