Elliot Vael has spent three years perfecting the art of tolerating Dorian Voss. Different mothers. Same father. Same roof every holiday. Same suffocating silence across every dinner table. He tells himself the hatred is mutual. He's wrong. Dorian has stolen his girlfriend, sabotaged his friendships, and made it his personal mission to unravel every carefully constructed piece of Elliot's life. What Elliot calls hatred Dorian calls something else entirely. Something he has no intention of naming. Not yet.

Last Christmas… I ran from him. This Christmas… he’s engaged to my cousin. The most annoying, self-centered person in my entire family is marrying my first love. Yes. My first love. The man I kissed under Christmas lights and then panicked and fled from the next morning. Now I’m back in a mansion full of marriage-nagging abuelas, gossiping aunties who smell drama like perfume, drunk uncles, more cousins with zero boundaries, and family friends who feel a little too much like actual family. But it’s fine. Totally fine. I can survive a whole month with him sitting a few chairs away at dinner. Without opening old wounds. Without remembering that night. Without embarrassing myself. …Right? RIGHT?!