Millionaire Under The Mistletoe: The Playboy's Mistress / Christmas in the Billionaire's Bed / The Boss's Mistletoe Manoeuvres. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
trouble?’ Nick considered the idea. ‘Shouldn’t think so.’
Darcy was torn; she knew she ought to be more concerned about her sister’s welfare than the possibility that Clare might find the solution to her problems in the bed of her own lover. Jealousy was not a nice feeling.
‘Do you think you could give me a hand with this?’
Nick took the tree off her. ‘All you had to do was ask. There’s never a twin around when you want one,’ he added, hefting it into his arms.
‘And there’s always two around when you don’t want one,’ Darcy added with feeling.
They were halfway up the driveway when Nick planted the rootball on the ground. His expression as he turned to face her suggested he’d come to a decision about something.
‘I didn’t tell Clare all the things I learnt about Erskine.’
‘From a reliable source, no doubt.’
‘It’s all on file, Darce. Do you want to know?’
She shrugged her shoulders, affecting uninterest, while she was just bursting to shake the information out of him.
‘Well, in that case…’ he began, balancing the tree against his hip.
‘I’m interested!’ she snapped, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him back to her.
‘Apparently the guy married his childhood sweetheart. Five years ago this Christmas Day she was killed.’
Darcy closed her eyes. Now she had the answer to his distaste of all things Christmassy. How awful to have such a powerful reminder year after year of his personal tragedy. Her tender heart ached for him.
‘That’s not all. She was pregnant…’
Oh, God, there was more to come! She could hear it in Nick’s voice. Her eyes flickered open; she met her brother’s eyes—not only more but worse. Darcy didn’t see how that was possible but she waited tensely, her stomach tied in knots for him to deliver the clincher.
‘A motorbike mounted the pavement—it was crowded with people coming out of midnight mass. They were holding hands, but it didn’t touch him, just her.’
Darcy was seeing the horror of it; her chest felt so tight she could hardly breathe. ‘He saw her die.’ She blinked back the hot sting of tears; she ached with empathy. She turned away from her brother and fought to master her emotions. Losing a wife he loved and his unborn child—how did a person come back after a cruel blow like that?
‘She died instantly, but he tried to revive her. When the paramedics got there eye-witness reports said that it took five guys to eventually persuade him to let her go, and, Darcy…’ he touched her arm ‘…he made the biggest deal of his life on New Year’s Eve. Makes you think, doesn’t it…?’
‘What are you suggesting—?’ she began, hotly defensive.
‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just saying that a man like that needs handling with care…’
Darcy’s eyes slid from her brother’s. ‘Shouldn’t you be telling Clare that?’ she muttered evasively.
‘Clare thinks she’s a lot more irresistible than she is.’
‘You only think that because you’re her brother,’ Darcy retorted. Jealousy tightened its grip on her—Reece wasn’t Clare’s brother.
Darcy tucked her hair behind her ears and stood back to get the full effect of her decorative efforts. She heard the door open behind her.
‘Switch on the lights, will you?’ she called without turning around. She gave a satisfied sigh as the tree was illuminated. ‘It’s a bit lopsided.’
‘It’s got character,’ a very familiar deep voice replied.
Darcy gave a startled yelp and dropped the bauble in her hand as she swung around. ‘What are you doing here?’ Her body temperature seesawed wildly at the sight of the tall figure, as did her emotions.
‘Do you give all your lovers receptions this warm and welcoming?’
Lovers. A sensual shudder rippled down her spine. ‘Hush!’ she hissed, reaching up and pressing her hand to his lips. ‘Someone will hear.’
His disdainful expression was that of a man who didn’t care what other people thought. Darcy would have taken her hand away, but he caught hold of her wrist and held it there against his mouth. The giddiness that had begun to recede came rushing back with a vengeance as his lips moved along her flexed fingertips, then equally slowly returned to the starting point.
Reece couldn’t get over how incredibly fragile her bones were as he circled her wrist with his fingers. With the utmost reluctance he removed her hand from his lips, but not before he’d touched the tip of his tongue to the palm of her hand and felt her shiver with pleasure.
‘And that matters…?’ The shiver inclined him towards indulgence.
‘How did you get here?’
He got the impression from the way her eyes were darting wildly around the room that she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had announced he had materialised out of thin air. The truth was far more prosaic.
‘I knocked on the door and was kindly directed this way.’
‘Who by?’
‘A twin; which one, I wouldn’t like to say.’
‘Oh, I thought maybe Clare had brought you?’
‘I brought myself, and who might Clare be?’
‘She’s my sister.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Tall, blonde, persistent…?’
He’d missed out ‘beautiful’, which was tactful of him. ‘You’ve met.’ Of course they had—when Clare set her mind on something she didn’t hang around.
‘Not met precisely. I saw her through the window; she was knocking on the door.’
‘You don’t have a door.’
The bed to make love to her in, the door to keep out the world—he was a man who believed in prioritising.
‘I do now.’ A few phone calls had improved the conditions to bearable. ‘I also have electricity. If I’m staying around I see no reason to suffer unnecessarily.’
How big an ‘if’ are we talking about here, she wondered, and do I have any influence on it?
‘Why didn’t you answer the door?’ she puzzled abruptly. One sight of Clare would have most men tripping over themselves to let her in.
‘I came here to escape people.’
Darcy knew what he’d come to escape, and she also knew that memories were not so easy to shake as flesh and blood people. It wasn’t her place to share this with him—if he’d chosen to confide in her it might have been different, but he hadn’t.
‘I thought it was just Christmas,’ she reminded him as with a grin she draped a strand of tinsel around his neck.
‘Slip of the tongue.’
It could slip in her direction any time. ‘Freudian…?’
‘You tell me; you seem very well-versed.’ His expression didn’t suggest his opinion of psychoanalysis was high.
‘This is Christmas.’ Her gesture took in the room. ‘And I’m people,’ she reminded him.
He reached out and cupped her chin in his hand. ‘You’re a special person,’ he contradicted firmly.
The breath caught in her throat. It didn’t mean anything; there had only been one special person in Reece’s life and he had lost her.
Darcy