A Champagne Christmas: The Christmas Love-Child / The Christmas Night Miracle / The Italian Billionaire's Christmas Miracle. Catherine Spencer
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and over again. With Cali-West Energy Corporation’s stock prices falling, the stockholders had begun to call for Alan’s replacement as CEO.
That was before Alan met Lady Francesca Danvers at a charity ball six weeks ago. Their whirlwind romance had gained him the support of her father, the Earl of Hainesworth, who was chair of Exemplary’s board of trustees. The deal had changed from a merger of British and Russian energy giants to a British-American one. For weeks now Alan had gleefully recounted to Grace how he’d finally beaten his rival.
Grace hadn’t particularly enjoyed his gloating, since it inevitably involved details of how Alan was luring the beautiful, feisty, redheaded Lady Francesca into his bed.
What if Alan was so furious about the ruined lingerie, he demanded Grace pay the bill? What if instead of giving her the advance she so desperately needed, he docked her pay?
She swore under her breath.
“Do not refuse my help, Miss Cannon,” Prince Maksim said evenly. “That would be stubborn and foolish.”
“Well, Stubborn and Foolish are my middle names!” Grace snapped, furious at herself.
She could have stayed in L.A. and made sure her mother’s mortgage was paid each month—but no. She’d been too stubbornly and foolishly infatuated with her boss. Pathetic, she thought in disgust. There surely had to be some kind of self-help program for women like her, pathetically in love with a boss who believed her to have no feelings—like an animatronic robot!
“Stubborn and Foolish, Miss Cannon?” Maksim’s lips curved. “Clearly American baby-name trends have changed over the years.”
“My middle name is actually Diana.” Narrowing her eyes, she looked up at Prince Maksim. “But you already know that, don’t you? How do you already know my last name?”
“You told me you work for Barrington.” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Don’t you think I know the name of his most trusted secretary?”
Prince Maksim Rostov knew her name.
The fact made her feel warm all over. Made her feel…important.
Until a new, chilling suspicion went down her spine.
He knew her name.
He knew she worked for Alan.
And she was supposed to believe they’d just randomly met on the street two blocks from her home?
Grace was distracted and was nearly knocked over by two heavy tourists decked in cameras, Harrods bags and Santa hats, but she steadied herself to glare at him. “So you’ll understand why, as his most trusted secretary, I can’t accept any favors from you.”
Prince Maksim gave her an easy smile.
“Barrington has nothing to do with this. Replacing the lingerie is repaying a personal debt to you.” His smile spread into a carelessly wicked grin that she felt down to her toes. “I can hardly remain indebted to my enemy.”
She swallowed, hardly able to collect her thoughts beneath the intensity of his gaze. “I wouldn’t say I’m exactly your enemy…”
“Then there is no problem.”
“But…”
He enfolded her hand back in his own. The warmth of his naked palm against hers was more erotic than she’d ever thought holding a hand could be.After so many years of useless pining over her boss, this was the most physically intimate she’d been with any man since…since…
Since that brief moment after the Halloween party when Alan had drunkenly taken her in his arms and given her a big wet kiss before he’d collapsed in a drunken stupor on the office couch.
That sad event had been her first—and only—kiss. In school she’d been too focused on her studies to date anyone. After her father had died and she’d dropped out of college, she’d been too grief-stricken. Then she’d been too busy as a temp in downtown L.A., working to take care of her heartbroken mother and younger brothers.
Grace had become a twenty-five-year-old virgin.
A freak of nature.
And a million miles away from Prince Maksim Rostov’s league!
But his car had splashed her, she argued with herself. He’d caused her to drop the lingerie. Wouldn’t it be fair to allow him to replace it, when the alternative could mean her ruin?
Tempted, she licked her lips nervously. The sensation of his hand against her own caused a swirling in the tender center of her palm that sent awareness prickling up to the flesh of her ear, tightening her nipples and making her breasts feel strangely heavy. She felt his gaze trace her lips. Her cheeks went hot and her mouth went dry. Every breath she took, every rise and fall of her lungs, became more shallow.
“It is cold,” he said. “My car is waiting.”
“But, but Leighton clothes are expensive,” she stammered, floundering. “They’re so expensive they make Hermès and Louis Vuitton look like a bargain-basement fire sale.”
He lifted his dark eyebrows.
“I think I can handle the expense,” he said dryly. Signaling with one hand, he put the other against the small of her back, guiding her gently toward the curb of a side street where she saw a black Rolls-Royce limousine.
She felt his hand on her back and shook all over. It was that touch which finally forced her surrender.
Looking back at him, she whispered, “Alan must never know.”
His lips trembled on the brink of a smile. “Agreed.”
The shock waves from his hand on her lower back continued to sizzle up her arms and down her legs as she breathed, “Thank you.”
“Thank you.” His eyes gleamed down at her. “I always enjoy the company of a beautiful woman.”
It broke the spell. She started to laugh, snorting through her nose before she covered it with a cough.
Her…beautiful? That was a good joke! She knew she wasn’t anything special. And at the moment, wearing no makeup, with a damp old coat over her second-hand skirt suit and her hair tucked back in a soaked blond ponytail, she looked like a half-drowned refugee from an office in a swamp!
So why had a handsome prince dropped out of the sky to help her? Just because his driver had splashed her with water from the street? Did he have that much honor and generosity of Christmas spirit?
Or was it something else?
The dark suspicion returned to her. When she was younger, she’d believed the best of people. But since she’d started working for Alan, she’d seen how devious people could be. Both in business and in love.
Was Prince Maksim hoping to use her against Alan to take back his merger and his marriage?
“I hope you know,” she said evenly, “that doing me this favor won’t make me discuss Alan or the merger.”
He just gave her a darkly assessing smile. “Do you think I need your assistance?”
“Don’t you?” she said uncertainly.
They reached the Rolls-Royce limousine purring next to the curb. With a dismissive shake of his head to the driver, the prince opened her door himself.
“Get in.”
Standing on the edge of the sidewalk, against the ebb and flow of Christmas shoppers, Grace looked at the open door of the car and hesitated. She wondered suddenly if she was doing a foolish thing, making a deal with the devil.
When she didn’t move, he said mockingly, “Surely you’re not afraid of me, Miss Cannon?”
Biting her lower lip, she glanced up at his handsome face. She was afraid of him. Afraid of his wealth, his power and well-known ruthlessness.
But