Christmas Ever After (Puffin Island 3)

He lifted his hand and smoothed her hair back, taking a closer look at her head. The brush of his fingers sent a rush of tingly heat across her skin.

“My family doesn’t do photos. Christmas is a very formal affair. Everything is scripted and planned.” The thought of Christmas made her want to curl up under the bedcovers and never come out.

He took the glass from her hand. “I need to call my mother and warn her that we’ll be one extra so she can make up the spare room. Then I’m going to find you some clothes. I have a pair of track pants that might do until we can fetch your things. You can roll up the legs and belt the waist.”

She was grateful to him for not pursuing the topic of Christmas.

“Great. If my unique seduction tricks of bleeding on you and throwing up on you haven’t worked, hopefully wearing baggy clothes will nail the deal.”

There was a brief pause and she saw a faint flicker of a smile touch his mouth.

“You’d look good in anything.” With that surprising comment, he walked to the phone by the bed. “I need breakfast before we hit the road.”

She stared at him, the air trapped in her lungs and her tummy doing acrobatics.

He didn’t pay her compliments. Ever. If anything, he went out of his way to make sure she knew she wasn’t his type.

True, there had been the moment in the bathroom, but he was a guy, wasn’t he? It hadn’t meant anything. Healthy, virile, sexually active hot guy meets half-naked girl in the bathroom. It was a moment she’d already forgotten—well, maybe not forgotten exactly, but she certainly wasn’t reading anything into it.

Half an hour later a tray arrived, heaped with fresh fruit, organic yogurt, pastries and scalding-hot coffee.

They ate while watching the sun rise over a frozen winter morning.

She noticed a stack of notes and his laptop on the desk. “Did you work last night?”

“For a while. I wanted to keep an eye on you.”

He’d stayed awake for her? She pulled the corner off a croissant. It flaked in her fingers, buttery and warm. “This is only my second trip to London. I was hoping to see some of the sights before I left.”

“When is your flight? You might still have time for that.”

“A week on Sunday. Then I’ll be back in New York for a couple of weeks before Christmas.”

The croissant was too rich for her stomach so she left the rest and picked at a few berries.

Alec, she noticed, drank lots of coffee.

It felt strange having breakfast with him in his hotel suite, wearing his shirt under a hotel robe. It felt—intimate. If housekeeping had walked in, they would have assumed they were lovers.

“How are we getting to your parents’ house? You have a car here?”

“I hire a car when I’m in London.”

“How long will it take us to get to your home?”

“Around two hours, depending on the weather.”

“You British are obsessed with your weather.”

“When you’ve seen the roads around Honeysuckle Cottage, you’ll understand why.”

He packed up his laptop while she dressed, then picked up the bags of gifts and the rest of his luggage and opened the door to their room.

“Honeysuckle Cottage? Such a cute name.” She walked past him, careful not to brush against him. “By the way, I’m not a drama queen.”

His eyes gleamed. “Fairy princess crossed with drama queen.”

“So what does that make me? A fairy queen or a drama princess?”