Page 1 of Make-Believe Match

ONE

lexi

My sweet,bird-boned little Gran added a teaspoon of sugar to her tea before yanking the rug out from under my life.

“I’m sorry, Alexandra. But the answer is no.”

“But Gran, you didn’t even let me finish!” I stared down at my notes, which I’d frantically scribbled last night after she’d announced she was leaning toward selling our beloved Snowberry Lodge to Black Diamond Resorts, a corporation that planned to tear it down. She was having lunch with the big bulldozing jerks on Tuesday to discuss their offer, so I only had two days to convince her to let me inherit early.

It was not going well.

“This place is too big for one woman to run on her own, darling. We’re facing a mountain of debt. I wouldn’t put that burden on you.” Gran took a tiny sip of her tea. “And while it saddens me to let it go, I’m afraid I don’t have a choice.”

“Please, Gran,” I said as panic rose in my chest. “Let’s not make any decisions yet.” Selling Snowberry would splinter my heart. My great-grandparents had built the charming little ski resort seventy-five years ago. My grandfather had been born here. My dad grew up here. My parents were married here.

All of my happiest memories of them were here.

Was it a bit outdated and unfashionable? Sure.

Had it steadily lost business to the mega-resorts that had sprung up nearby? No argument there.

Had my beloved late grandfather—who’d run Snowberry for the past three decades—been a visionary businessman? Definitely not. He’d loved the place just as it was and never saw fit to change anything.

We’d all known the resort was struggling, but we’d been shocked to learn how bad it really was after his death two years ago. Somehow we’d wobbled through a couple more seasons, kept the lights on and the lifts running, but the situation was dire.

We needed to renovate. We needed to rebrand. We needed money and marketing and modernization.

I understood why my frail eighty-five-year-old grandmother didn’t want to take it all on. But let it go just so some greedy suits could tear it down? See my childhood memories reduced to rubble? Watch a wrecking ball smash not just my home but my family’s legacy?

No fucking way.

Snowberry was everything to me. And I was determined to hang on to it, even if I had to chain myself to the chairlift.

Which I might.

“Your Uncle Roddy thinks I should sell,” said Gran, whose ever-present bubble-gum pink lipstick had left a mark on the edge of her teacup. I stared at it, thinking,Of course he does.

My dad’s brother Roddy had abandoned Snowberry Lodge two decades ago, right along with his wife and kid. Currently, he lived in Miami Beach and was engaged to a woman young enough to be his daughter (my cousin Tabitha, who couldn’t stand either one of them . . . not that I blamed her).

While he wouldn’t make any money on the sale of Snowberry in the short term, he saw dollar signs for himself down the road if Gran banked millions. He was her only living child.

But he didn’t give a shit about the place. He never had.

“Give it tome, Gran,” I begged. “I can turn it around. I’m young, I’ve got the energy, and I’ve got all kinds of ideas for this place.”

“Ideas cost money,” she pointed out.

“I’ll get investors.” I said it with confidence, but the truth was I’d already had a few meetings with banks that had not gone well. They wanted business plans and projections. Profit and loss sheets. Cost-benefit analysis. Market research. I didn’t know anything about that stuff—I’d tried studying business in college, but the classroom hadn’t been for me. For the last nine years, I’d run our ski school during the winter and worked the front desk during the summer. I knew every square inch of this place like my own body—it felt like an extension of me.

Gran shook her head. “There’s no time for that, I’m afraid. And the truth is, darling, I couldn’t give Snowberry to you even if I wanted to.”

I blinked. “What? Why not?”

“I’m sorry to break it to you like this, but it’s time you knew.” Gran took another agonizingly slow sip of tea. “The will and trust your great-grandparents set up make it clear that only a married couple can inherit Snowberry Lodge.”

“Wait a minute.” I cocked my head, certain I must have misheard. “It’s in yourwillthat whoever inherits Snowberry has to bemarried?”

“Yes.”