by Teri Wilson
But new floors cost thousands of dollars, and apparently money was more scarce around here than Chloe had realized. She wished she could do more to help.
She also wished she could stop thinking about Lolly Kent’s handsome uncle. He’d been undeniably swoony at the animal shelter, holding the tiny puppy in his large, masculine hands. But seeing him with that precious little girl in his arms was almost more than Chloe could handle. It should be illegal for hot bachelors to walk around holding adorable children or tiny animals. Honestly.
His niece was a good dancer, too. She had great turnout for her age, but more important, she had charisma. Unlike technique, stage presence was something that couldn’t be taught, and Lolly had it in spades. Chloe couldn’t take her eyes off her, and it had nothing to do with Anders.
Not much, anyway.
It was only natural to be curious, though, wasn’t it? And that was all she was experiencing—simple curiosity. Because it certainly wasn’t attraction. She had far more important things to worry about at the moment than her nonexistent love life. Things like keeping track of all the lies she’d been telling lately. It was getting out of hand. If she didn’t start telling the truth, she was going to need a spreadsheet to keep track of what came out of her mouth.
She had enough on her plate right now simply dealing with reviving her career, while at the same time doing something to alleviate all the guilt she felt about being the prodigal daughter. Also, as much as she hated to admit it, the breakup with Steven had gotten to her.
How could it not? Now that she was no longer performing, he thought she wasn’t good enough. Deep down, she was starting to believe it, too. She’d devoted her whole life to dance. Without it, she wasn’t sure who she was anymore.
Which was precisely why she had no interest in dating—or marrying—Anders Kent. Not that he’d asked...again.
Still, when a nanny showed up to collect Lolly after class, Chloe’s heart practically sank to her ballet slippers. The undeniable stab of disappointment she felt at the prospect of not seeing him again was confirmation enough to stay away from the man. Steven had been safe. They’d been good together, but not too good. She’d enjoyed spending time with him, but there’d been no goose bumps when he kissed her good-night. No butterflies swarming in her belly when she saw him across a crowded room. If her father’s sudden heart attack had taught her anything, it was that life had a way of yanking the rug out from under you when you least expected it. She didn’t want to fall madly in love with anyone. Falling in like was just fine. Safe. Which meant her relationship with Steven had been perfect, except now it was over. And now she also got the definite impression that Anders Kent was anything but safe.
There was something quite dangerous about his cool blue eyes and his perfect bone structure. His odd habit of doing or saying something nice when she least expected it was definitely alarming. When he’d handed her the puppy at the animal shelter and then walked out the door empty-handed, there’d been butterflies aplenty fluttering around her insides.
So really, it was best if she never set eyes on him again. And she probably wouldn’t. Uncles didn’t typically tote their nieces to and from ballet class.
Maybe she should ask, though, just to be sure. If he was going to be coming to the studio on a regular basis, she needed to be prepared.
Purely so she could avoid him.
Obviously.
“Class went well, don’t you think?” Chloe aimed a Windex bottle at the walled mirror, where sticky little handprints decorated the glass from barre-level down.
Allegra handed her a roll of paper towels. “It did. I knew you’d be great, but it never hurts to have reinforcements when so many small children are involved.”
Chloe laughed. “You can say that again. At one point, I saw a little boy hanging upside down from the barre like a monkey.”
“He sounds like a great candidate for the part of the mouse king. You can throw in some cute tumbling choreography. The parents will eat it up on performance night.”
“So it’s mostly family that comes to the performance? Moms and dads, sisters and brothers...” She scrubbed hard at an invisible spot on the mirror. “Uncles.”
Allegra met her gaze in the reflection and lifted a brow. “Any particular uncle you have in mind?”
Was she that obvious?
Yes, apparently she was. “No.”
Allegra snorted.
“Fine. Maybe.” Chloe wadded up her paper towel and lobbed it at Allegra’s head.
She caught it midair. “That’s what I thought. Tell me the truth—did Anders Kent really ask you to marry him?”
Why, oh why, had she felt the need to share that awkward moment? “It was just a joke.”
Wasn’t it?
Allegra frowned. “He’s awfully intense. I don’t get the impression he jokes around much, but I don’t know him very well. Before the accident, we only saw him at recitals.”
Before the accident?
Chloe swallowed. She wanted to press for more information, but at the same time, she was afraid to know more.
“It’s so sad what happened, isn’t it?” Allegra’s voice went quiet, and the fear in the pit of Chloe’s stomach crystallized into an overwhelming sense of dread. “To think that just a week ago, Lolly’s mom was dropping her off at class. And now that sweet little girl is an orphan.”
The Windex bottle nearly slipped through Chloe’s fingers. “An orphan,” she repeated woodenly.
“All because of a car accident. It’s tragic. I suppose Anders will be appointed as her guardian since Grant was his brother, but you probably know all about that since the two of you are clearly acquainted.” Allegra took the bottle of cleaner from Chloe’s hands and put it back in the tiny storage cabinet in the corner of the classroom, oblivious to the fact that she’d suddenly become paralyzed.
A car accident.
It explained so much. It might even explain the out-of-the-blue proposal, although there had to be more to the story there. It certainly explained why Anders had been at the animal shelter to adopt a fluffy little puppy.
He’d been trying to comfort his niece. The dog had probably been Lolly’s Christmas gift. He’d said so himself, hadn’t he? And Chloe had been so wrapped up in her own problems that she’d chastised him for giving a puppy away as a present. She’d actually lectured him about responsible pet ownership, and he hadn’t said a word. He’d just handed over the little dog and walked away.
“Anders is raising Lolly now, isn’t he?” Allegra asked.
“Yes,” Chloe said, as if she had intimate knowledge of the situation.
She didn’t need anyone to tell her the truth. Deep down, she knew. Anders had lost his brother, and now he was suddenly a single dad to a grieving five-year-old little girl—a little girl who might have gotten a tiny Yorkie puppy for Christmas, if not for Chloe.
Who’s the puppy thief now?
Chapter Five
“You wanted to see me?”
Anders closed his laptop and aimed his full attention at Penelope Reed hovering in the doorway of his office the following morning. “Yes. Please come in. Have a seat.”
A fly on the wall would never suspect the two of them had ever shared a bed, but that was by design. Anders and Penelope weren’t a couple, just two people who’d come to an understanding that suited them both. Which made him all the more convinced he was making the right choice.
Penelope would be the perfect wife, and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he’d become that no one at the office would even have to know. They could keep things private, and the marriage could simply be an extension of the unspoken agreement they already had. An addendum with mutually agreed upon terms and, most important, an expiration date.
She took a seat in one of the wingback chairs facing his desk, just as she’d done a thousand times befo
re to discuss a stock offering or a merger.
“You look well, Anders. I’m happy you’re back in the office.” She shifted her gaze to her hands, folded neatly in her lap. “Apologies for not making it to the funeral. We had the Remington IPO, and I couldn’t get away.”
“I understand.” Anders nodded.
In all honesty, her absence hadn’t registered. He’d barely been aware of his surroundings on the day he’d buried Grant and Olivia. But it was fine. Penelope had never been the touchy-feely type, and there was no reason for that to change now.
But as he pulled open the top drawer of his desk, he heard the singsong lilt in Chloe Wilde’s voice as she’d spoken to Lolly at the dance school the day before. He remembered the way Lolly had gazed up at her, eyes shining bright.
Are you a Christmas princess?
Penelope cleared her throat. “So what can I do for you?”
Anders’s jaw tensed, and he pushed the sentimental memory away. Focus.
He needed someone reliable on his side. Someone he trusted. And that someone was most definitely not his niece’s effusive dance teacher.
Besides, she’d already turned him down. And he was perfectly fine with her refusal. Relieved, actually.
“I have a proposal I wanted to discuss with you.” Best to get right down to it. He’d wasted enough time in the past few days. “A business proposal...of sorts.”
“I’m all ears.” Penelope tilted her head.
She was a beautiful woman. No doubt about it. If Anders remembered correctly, she’d been a model for a few years before she’d gone to business school—in Paris, maybe. Or Tokyo. He wasn’t quite sure.
But it was a flawless, cool kind of beauty, like one of Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic blondes. Strange how he’d never noticed that before.
“I’ve prepared a contract for your review.” He reached for the voluminous document that had been sitting in his drawer all morning like a bomb waiting to detonate, and his gaze snagged on the bold lettering printed across the margin of the top page.
Premarital Agreement.
His mouth went dry.
Why was this so difficult? He’d known Penelope for years. He’d proposed to Chloe within minutes of setting eyes on her, so asking Penelope to marry him should have been no trouble at all.
But he’d been shell-shocked from the meeting with the estate attorney when he’d hastily asked Chloe to be his wife. And it hadn’t been a genuine proposal. He’d given more thought to what he’d had for lunch that day.
“So...” Penelope shifted in her chair and glanced at the vintage Tiffany desk clock on his credenza.
Anders smoothed down his tie and slid the contract toward her across the glossy surface of his desk. “It’s all spelled out right here. The terms are negotiable, of course, other than the provisions spelled out in Section One.”
She reached for the contract, but her hand froze midair as her gaze moved over the top of the page.
Clearly, he should have done a better job of preparing her for what was coming, but he was tired of putting it off, tired of sleepless nights, tired of wondering if he’d run out of time and Lolly would be taken away before the Christmas windows on Fifth Avenue came down.
So very, very tired.
“Anders, I don’t understand.” Penelope shook her head. “What is this? You want to marry me?”
No, actually. I don’t.
He took a deep breath. “I need to get married. For Lolly.”
“Oh.” She gave him a thin-lipped smile. “So you’re looking for a mommy figure for your orphaned niece.”
“No. That’s not it at all.” He struggled to keep his tone even and businesslike.
He didn’t care for her callous description of Lolly, but technically, it was true. And he’d botched enough marriage proposals in the past forty-eight hours to realize this one was off to a bad start. He needed a yes, whether he wanted one or not.
“In order to secure Lolly’s guardianship, I have to be married by the end of the year,” he said.
“The end of this year?” Penelope’s brows crept up higher on her forehead.
“Yes.” He nodded and took her stunned silence as the opportunity he needed to explain things. He laid out every detail of his proposed arrangement, from duration to compensation.
“Look,” he concluded. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I don’t have much time and I trust you, Penelope. We’ve successfully navigated a personal relationship for a while now, and I think we could make this transition rather seamlessly, in a way that could be beneficial to us both.”
He leaned back in his chair and tried not to think about what Grant would have had to say about such a proposal. A lot, probably. But he was doing what needed to be done, the only way he knew how. And to his great relief, Penelope nodded instead of renegotiating the terms. Now all they had to do was sign the paperwork and make an appointment at city hall.
But when he offered her the Mont Blanc pen from his suit pocket, she refused to take it.
“No,” she said quietly and pushed the contract away before removing her fingertips from the edge of the crisp white pages, as if they’d burned her skin.
Anders frowned. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no.” She stood. “I’m sorry, Anders. But I just can’t do it.”
“May I ask why not?” he asked calmly.
Too calmly.
He should be panicked right now. Christmas was in three short weeks, and he wasn’t any closer to being married than he was two days ago.
But inexplicably, the knot of emotion in his chest felt more like relief than alarm.
It shouldn’t be like this.
Even Anders knew this wasn’t the way to choose a bride. Marriage was supposed to be a sacred vow, a lifetime commitment.
“I’m not cut out to be anyone’s mommy, not even temporarily.” Penelope shrugged. “And call me crazy, but if and when I get married someday, I want it to be for love.”
Anders nodded. Maybe Penelope was more of a romantic than he’d realized.
Maybe you are, too.
He rubbed his eyes. Stress and exhaustion were messing with his head, not to mention the grief he was still doing his best to ignore. He’d grieve properly later, though. Once Lolly’s guardianship was secure, he could grieve all he wanted.
Doesn’t that sound like a joyous Christmas?
Christmas was the absolute last thing he had time for. If it were possible, Anders would snap his fingers and skip the rest of December altogether. No twinkling lights. No presents. No Christmas, period.
He sighed, opened his eyes and immediately wondered if the universe was playing some kind of joke on him. Or maybe he’d lost what little was left of his sanity, because he was suddenly seeing things.
Specifically, Chloe Wilde.
Standing in his office.
Dressed in her reindeer costume.
* * *
“Knock, knock,” Chloe said, deflating a little beneath the weight of Anders’s stare. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
She was definitely interrupting something. She had no idea what, but if the tense knot in Anders’s jaw was any indication, it was big.
“You know what—never mind.” She held Prancer’s dog carrier more tightly against her chest. A barrier. “I’ll come back later.”
Or never.
This had been a monumentally bad idea. She should have just gone straight to Times Square for her afternoon flyer shift and forgotten about Anders Kent and his sad story altogether. Clearly, he didn’t want her help.
“Wait.” The woman standing beside Anders’s desk held up an elegant hand. “Don’t go. Mr. Kent and I are finished.”
Chloe had no idea who the woman was, but she was gorgeous. Poised and classic, like a woman in a perfume commercial. Her polishe
d chignon and sleek pencil skirt made Chloe even more aware that she was clad in brown faux Rudolph fur, if such a thing was even possible.
Plus, when the woman cast a final glance at Anders on the way out of his office, there was a quiet intimacy in her gaze that made Chloe’s stomach churn.
She wasn’t jealous. She couldn’t be.
This impromptu visit had nothing to do with attraction. She was finished with dating after the Steven fiasco, and Anders Kent wasn’t even her type. He was arrogant. He was also too cranky, too rich and far too handsome.
Although he had every right to be cranky, she thought with a pang.
Anyway, she was here for one reason and one reason only—to make things right.
“Miss Wilde,” he said, once they were alone, and there was a weariness in his tone that made her heart ache.
She wished she could turn back the clock and go back to the afternoon at the animal shelter two days ago. If she’d known then what she knew now, she would have let him take the puppy. Only a monster would snatch a dog away from a child who’d just lost her parents.
Who’s the puppy thief now?
But that was impossible, obviously. She wasn’t George Bailey. She couldn’t go back in time and do things differently. All she could do was let Lolly have Prancer.
“Here.” She moved closer to Anders and set the pet carrier on his desk.
He looked at Prancer, and Chloe could hear the tiny dog’s tail beating happily against the inside of the bag. “Perhaps you’re mistaken, Miss Wilde. This is an investment banking firm, not a doggy day care.”
Honestly, did he have to make this so difficult?
“Very funny. Look, I’m sorry to barge in here like this, but I was afraid if I didn’t do it now, I’d chicken out and change my mind.”
