A Billionaire for Christmas

Reverently, he pulls the album out of the box, then flips a few pages before looking at the girls. “Did you two make this?”

They nod. “Mommy too,” Lara says.

“Well, thank you both. And thank you, Mommy,” he adds, looking up at me. “I think this is the best present ever,” he adds, and I can tell from the tone of his voice that he means it.

He flips a few more pages, but the girls are too impatient, and soon we’re diving headfirst into the ritual of passing out and unwrapping presents. Lots of presents, each one received with squeals of joy.

Even Frank brought presents for the girls. Apparently he’d ordered them from his phone once he and Damien landed, and then he’d called the house to ask Gregory to make sure that the couriered deliveries were wrapped and ready.

Once our exhausted girls are snuggled with their grandfather on the couch, Damien and I head into the kitchen for much-needed coffee. I’m wearing my new necklace, an emerald pendant Damien had designed to match the emerald anklet I wear almost every day.

“I think the girls like their presents,” I whisper as we’re returning with a tray of coffee, pastries, and orange juice to share.

A huge stone fireplace dominates the center of this room, a focal point at the top of the stairs. As we reach it, Damien pauses, then takes the tray from me and sets it on a nearby table.

“What?” I whisper, and he nods toward the Christmas tree, gently pressing a finger to my lips. I look that direction and smile at the scene—Frank and the girls have moved from the couch. Now they’re sitting on the floor, building what looks like a city out of the Legos that Santa brought.

On the coffee table nearby, the album we gave Damien sits. “I love it,” he says, nodding that direction. “I’ll cherish it forever.”

“Good. That was what we hoped.”

He brushes a finger over the emerald. “I’m sorry,” he says, and I frown, confused.

“What are you talking about? I love it.”

“I’m glad. But I’d planned to do more. The necklace is lovely, but I wanted to get you something personal and deeply memorable. I’d planned to spend the twenty-third figuring out what that would be, but then…” He trails off with a shrug. “At any rate, I’m sorry I didn’t get more for you for Christmas.”

I’m not sure if I want to laugh or cry. “Oh, Damien.” I point to Frank and the girls. Then I very softly kiss his cheek. “Don’t you know you did that? Damien, you got me the world.”Sweet Liar

Laurelin PaigeChapter OneDylan“What the fuck was that?!” Weston, my business partner, exclaimed from the front passenger seat of my service car as we pulled away from the curb.

Restraining myself from directing the driver—a habit of mine, surely not useful now when I’d been out of New York City for so long—I looked behind me out the rear window at the two figures we’d left behind. Donovan Kincaid, another one of my partners at Reach, Inc. along with Weston King, was chasing down a girl who worked in the office—Sabrina Lind.

I had only just met Sabrina this evening. The woman was pleasant, smart, straightforward. Had a good head on her shoulders. Weston and I had dined with her and her younger sister and had just been finishing up when Donovan had come in, all blustering and noble and knightly.

“Donovan called himself her boyfriend,” Weston said incredulously, recalling the scene we’d just left. “Was I the only one who heard that? I can’t be that drunk.”

It had been an out-of-character declaration for the usually tight-lipped and brooding Donovan, but I’d seen this side of him before, many years in the past. The last time he had given a woman his heart.

If anyone asked me, he was wasting his time with this one. Sabrina had said several things over dinner that suggested she was no longer entertained by the circus that surrounded romantic notions.

“I heard it,” the young woman sitting next to me answered.

Now this one—Audrey, the younger sister whom I’d volunteered to see home—a man would have a much easier time trying to woo her. She’d made that clear over dinner as well.

Too bad she was that kind of girl. The kind of girl who wanted a man to love her before she lifted her skirt. Otherwise...

I turned my head slightly, imperceptibly, and slid my eyes down her form, pausing on the sweet curve of her breasts, watching her chest rise and fall with her breath. My gaze had traveled this journey several times this evening, but now I was lucky enough to have the added view of her legs, which had been hidden under the table before. They were long and toned, a little curve in just the right place.