A Billionaire for Christmas

Dree squinted at it. “What, you don’t have an Apple Watch?”

“That’s a Patek Philippe Grand Complications, and it’s worth about ninety thousand dollars, American.”

Dree dropped it like it burned her fingers.

The watch clattered on the counter.

“Oh, my God. I didn’t break it. It’s fine. It’s fine!”

He laughed. “I would hope it could take a fall better than that.”

She gingerly poked at the watch, pushing it across the counter toward him. She finally grabbed a clean napkin and shoved it at him because she worried that her fingerprints would decrease its value. “No. Take it back. I don’t want it. I might hurt it.”

He laughed again, even leaning over. “It’s your insurance that I’ll pay you for services rendered.”

She did not touch that overpriced watch. “Well, then what’s your insurance that I won’t run off with it, and you’ll never get butt stuff?”

He picked up another croissant and buttered it. “Because I’ll pay you more than twice that amount if you stick around until Thursday.”

She considered it. “Okay, but you don’t have to give me your watch. I’m fine without it.”

“No,” he said. “You keep it until I pay up.”

She carefully buckled the leather strap around her wrist on the tightest hole, but it still slipped up her arm. “I’m afraid I’ll lose it.”

“If you do, I’ll still pay you.” He looked up at her and smiled. “You’re worth it.”

Dree didn’t want to argue because that kind of money would change her life and Mandi’s, too. She stuffed a croissant in her mouth so she wouldn’t say something stupid.

Augustine asked her, “Are we still lying to each other?”

She nodded and swallowed the hunk of pastry. “After these four days, we’re done. I have to go home or wherever and go on with my life. This is just an interlude, not real life.”

Real life was sewing up people in an ER and keeping them alive through the night.

Real life was working hard and putting money away in her savings account for a rainy day.

He said, “I seem to know quite a bit about you, despite the lying.”

“That was all lies,” Dree lied. “I’m really a person of ill repute who works for the IRS.”

Augustine chuckled again. “Fine. As you wish. After we’re done eating, pack your things. We’re going to my hotel.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said.

He fixed his dark eyes on her. “Yes, you will, because you’ll do everything I tell you, or else it’s ‘butt stuff’ tonight.”Christmas Shopping for a BillionaireWhen Shannon is called to the mall to work as a sexy Christmas elf, her billionaire boyfriend, Declan, gets roped into playing Santa. The mall mommies start tweeting pictures, and soon everyone is crashing the mall to have a seat on Santa's lap.

This short story continues the adventures of Shannon and Declan from the New York Times bestselling Shopping for a Billionaire series, as their relationship takes a deeper turn while Shannon earns a spot on his “naughty” list.Chapter 1The call today from my old boss, Greg, two days before Christmas at 2:12 p.m. should have tipped me off. I should have let it go to voicemail. I should have ignored it and not stopped decorating the Christmas tree in my boyfriend’s apartment. The tree that Declan had ordered from some place in Nova Scotia where all trees look like something out a movie set and the super-nice Canadians hire Tibetan refugee monks to rub the trunks down with virgin coconut oil and chant “Om Mani Padme Hun” for universal nirvana.

That is, before they chop the tree down to ship it by helicopter to a waterfront high rise on the Long Wharf in Boston, where it will look pretty for two weeks and then get the chipper treatment at a recycling center. That’s a form of reincarnation, right?

But I don’t ignore Greg’s call even though I might be a little intoxicated by the sight of my man wearing a Santa hat, tight jeans, and a snug green cashmere sweater that makes me want him to hurry up my chimney tonight.

(C’mon. You knew the pun was coming).

“Hey, Greg. What’s up?” I answer.

Declan is hanging one of the new ornaments I bought him, a candy cane made from glued cloves. Mom’s friend holds a Sustainable Free Trade Christmas Fair every year, and I’d been told a young African girl made the clove ornament to raise money to buy a three legged-goat for milk to feed her family, or something like that.

The details are fuzzy because I couldn’t listen through my sobs as I handed fistfuls of money to Mom, who just picked out a few items and patted me on the back, mumbling something about how I am just like my father. He had been banned from the fair two years ago when he bought all five hundred handmade Christmas cards from the Ivory Coast refugee who was promoting slave-free chocolate, sobbing with guilt and apologizing profusely for his KitKat addiction.