The Billionaire Who Bought Christmas

She looked at the floor. There was nothing he could do.

Her mother would be thrilled,thrilled to hear that Kristy had fallen in love. Her father would hold off until he met Jack—which would be as soon as humanly possible. Then there’d be talk of grandchildren. Her parents would emotionally engage in some big, complicated fantasy of the future. Then their hopes would be dashed when the divorce was announced.

Kristy groaned.

Jack slipped an arm around her. “It’s going to be okay,” he muttered. “We’ll make it okay.”

She shook her head in denial. It wasn’t going to be okay. It was going to be horrible. “They’ll want to get on a plane. They’ll want to meet you in person.”

“I’ll send the jet.”

“They can’t comehere. ”

Jack nodded. “Oh, right. That would be way too complicated.” He gripped the back of his neck. “What about London?”

“London?”

“Ask them to meet us in London.”

“You’re not coming to London.”

He paused. “Good point. Okay. How about this. Tell them you’vemet a nice man. And you’re spending Christmas with him, and you’ll keep them posted. That way, if they find out about the marriage, you can say we were planning to surprise them together in person. And if they don’t find out, we divorce, life goes on and everybody’s happy.”

Kristy considered the idea.

It was a long shot. But it might work. At least it gave them a fighting chance.

Jack handed her his cell phone.

Nine

Aweek later, Kristy’s double fashion collection mirrored double life.

On the one hand, she was plain old single, struggling Kristy Mahoney. On the other, she was Mrs. Jack Osland. Her husband was flying in fabrics and accessories from Paris and Milan, while wedding gifts arrived almost hourly from pricey boutiques around the globe. She was careful not to let herself get attached to any of the expensive silver and china, and she was leaving Jack to worry about returning it when all was said and done.

Out in the workshop, she was working on two sets of sketches and two clothing collections. One was the revamped collection developed with the help of Irene and the Sierra Sanchez team. The other was the wild fantasy clothing she’d created around her Vegas trip with Jack.

Two assistants had arrived the first morning after she’d shown up at the mansion. Local women, Isabella and Megan were both competent seamstresses and cheerful companions. Kristy was making steady progress on the real collection during the day. In the evening though, she couldn’t resist using the expensive laces and fabrics to mock up some of the fantasy pieces.

“More lace,” Isabella called above the hum from Megan’s sewing machine. She balanced a huge white box in her arms as she closed the door behind another delivery man.

“Look at that,” Megan whistled as they opened the box.

Kristy crossed the room. The box held beaded, corded, Chantilly, metallic and colored laces.

Isabella tsk-tsked. “I sure wish we were making something with lace.”

What Kristy wished was that they wereshowing something with lace. The Irene collection—as she’d begun calling it in her head—was sleek and sophisticated, where the fantasy collection was flirty and fun.

Kristy would be able to use all kinds of different lace on the fantasy collection. It was just too bad nobody but her would ever see it.

She was halfway through sewing the sexy, short desert dress. For that one, the lace would be key. It had to be stiff to fill out the skirt, and the edging needed to be dramatic to draw the eye, but the detail had to mimic the frothing waterfall. Kristy smiled at the memory.

“What?” asked Isabella.

Kristy immediately erased the smile. “We’d better get back to work.”

They closed the box, but Kristy didn’t take her own advice. Instead of settling on a fabric for the Irene collection slacks, she gazed out the window at the delicate snowflakes catching the bare branches of maple trees.

She saw the hot-air balloon again. It morphed into striped pants made of thin nylon in the same primary colors. She’d pair that with a cropped top of blue or red or…the lace! That was it. Thin out the stripes, make the top out of lace—flat cotton eyelet perhaps. She could even use a color, or maybe colored buttons down the front of the top.

Kristy surreptitiously flipped to a blank page in her sketch book. Multicolored buttons would match the colors in the pants. The lace would tie in with the frothy skirt. She put a few bold strokes across the pages, and she was off and running.

“Kristy?” Megan’s voice seemed a long way off, and Kristy realized a couple of hours had gone by. Her shoulders and hand were starting to cramp.