The Billionaire Athlete’s Christmas Fling: Elkin Brothers Christmas Book One

by North, Leslie

  Nothing he did ever measured up, no matter how much his accomplishments impressed the rest of the world. And he doubted his family had changed their opinion of him. But what did it matter if this was Grandmother’s last Christmas? At least he would be there, even if it was as the family disappointment.

  “Thanks, Jonas,” he said finally. “I’ll text you when I have the flight number.”

  They ended the call, and Gabe stared down at the screen as he tried to gather himself. It felt like falling, news like this. He’d always assumed his grandmother would be indestructible, even in the face of lung cancer. He’d wanted her respect all his life, and now it sounded like there wasn’t much time left to get it. To prove to her that he had his life together and would be happy. There wasn’t much he could do in the business world that he hadn’t already done—his successes international. But what if he could at least prove to his grandmother he’d settled down and found someone to love? Maybe then she’d forgive him for leaving and see that he had his life together. Except there was a little problem with his plan—he wasn’t dating anyone, and time was limited.

  An engagement would fix everything.

  The idea popped into his head the same way a new idea for an app would—the outlines already there, waiting for the details to be filled in. If an engagement would make Grandmother happy, then all he had to do was get engaged. Never mind that there was no time to actually fall in love and have a romance. The romance wasn’t the point—the engagement was.

  He put his phone back into his pocket and headed back to the table, where Anna sat watching over the lights of the Las Vegas Strip with her hands tucked under her chin. Gorgeous. Her little black dress hugged her in all the right places. Her hair spilled over her shoulders, gently curled at the ends, and he wanted to run his fingers through it more than he wanted to finish his dinner. More than he wanted to do anything else in this moment. Her huge brown eyes met his as he slid back into his seat.

  “Something happened,” she said definitively. “Tell me what it was.”

  Gabe wasn’t the type to get into personal discussions with colleagues, but her voice was so forthright that something broke free in him. She was so intuitive. It was what had drawn him to her as a liaison in the first place. “My grandmother was diagnosed with lung cancer a while back, and it’s progressed.”

  “Oh, Gabe, I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  He suddenly had no appetite. “It’s all right. I mean—it’s not all right.” The one thing he had a craving for was Anna’s voice. “My family wants me home for the holidays. I’m leaving tomorrow. But the thing is—” He pursed, sensing the edge of a precipice under his feet. If he admitted this to her, then...then they’d be closer than he’d bargained for when he originally planned the night. “The thing is, I’ve never brought home anyone who passed muster with my grandmother.” An old ache to please her reared up. “I want to make her happy, especially if this is her last Christmas.”

  “Make her happy?” Anna cocked her head to the side. “You mean, give her some good news? Maybe that you’re seeing someone?”

  Not good enough. “I mean, I want to bring someone home with me.” The restaurant rotated a bit further, the smooth motion bringing different lights into focus on Anna’s face. Sure, she wasn’t an actress or a business magnate, but he’d tried bringing home women like that, and it hadn’t panned out. “I want her to know that everything’s going to be all right with me and that I’m settled and happy with my life choices.”

  “Even if it’s an act?” There was no judgment in her tone or her eyes.

  “Yeah. Even then.” Nothing was more important than giving his grandmother peace of mind. And no one would be better at it than Anna. She was perceptive and skilled at making connections, and she would fit in at the Elk Lodge just as well as she’d fit in here. “This could be my only chance to paint the picture for her.” Another ache rose in his throat and he swallowed it back. “So, I have to ask you a question.”

  Anna straightened up. “Are you proposing to me, Mr. Elkin?”

  He let out a laugh, the tension that cut across his shoulders loosening. “I’m making an insane proposal. And I realize how bonkers it sounds, but—what do you think about marrying me?”

  “I do,” said Anna seriously. “Think it’s bonkers, that is.” She was joking, but he wasn’t. It was the perfect plan. His grandmother would see him happy and fulfilled. His last and best Christmas present to her.

  “No, really. Would you pose as my fiancée and go home with me for the holidays?”

  Grab your copy of The Billionaire’s Fake Christmas Engagement

  Available December 10th, 2020

  www.LeslieNorthBooks.com

  BLURB

  All his life, billionaire hotelier Josh Denton loved only one woman—his mother, who died a few years back. So when the Cedar Grove Resort and Spa, a place where he’d spent the last Christmas with her, comes on the market, he allows a bit of sentimentality into his heart and sets out to purchase it. Sure, the place is a bit shabby, but he wants it. Problem is, the current owner is a family man, who won’t take kindly to his hotel being sold to a slick, single New York billionaire. When Amelia MacTaggart, his efficient and effervescent assistant, who just so happens to come from Cedar Grove, walks into his office, a plan starts forming. Amelia can act the part of his fake fiancée over the Christmas weekend at the hotel, and in return, she’ll get that promotion she’s been angling for. Seems like a win-win. And it is, until the ‘fake’ relationship between them starts getting a little too real, too fast. What’s a hot hotelier to do?

  While Amelia readily agrees to participate in the farce, she feels guilty lying not only to the hotel’s grandfatherly owner, but also to her own family. Still, it’s not such a difficult task pretending to be in love with her sexy boss. If only she’d known that one kiss would turn their platonic ruse into the real deal. If only Josh weren’t being so nice, so fiancé-like. Sexy bed time aside, Amelia finally reminds herself of the brutal truth: This is all about business, about Josh’s obsessive need to win at any cost. She knows that. But as Christmas approaches and their hot romance turns decidedly frosty, Amelia begins to wonder if the only Christmas gift she is going to receive is a broken heart.

  Grab your copy of The Billionaire’s Christmas Fiancée (Christmas with the Denton Billionaires Book One) from

  www.LeslieNorthBooks.com

  * * *

  EXCERPT

  Chapter One

  “Amelia, you got a minute?”

  Joshua Denton ran his thumb along the curve of his chin as he awaited the throaty voice of his assistant, Amelia, over the speaker phone.

  “Yeah, boss, what’s up?”

  He smiled without meaning to—the natural side effect of hearing her happy-go-lucky rasp—and leaned forward to sit closer to the speakerphone. She was his right-hand woman and had been for the past two years.

  “I need you to help me plan an upcoming trip.”

  “Sure thing.” He could hear papers rustling, and then what sounded like a pull on a straw. She always had an iced tea from her favorite burger joint on her desk. The line went dead, and Josh leaned back in his chair. He and Amelia spoke probably fifty times a day, five days a week. It was the other two days per week that always left him curious about her—what she did, who she saw, whether she was still sucking on that iced tea in the comfort of her own home.

  But Amelia was any Chief Development Officer’s dream, and he knew better than to mess things up by probing too far into her personal life.

  Still, when she breezed into his office, strawberry blonde hair pulled back into a loose braid hanging to the top of her shoulders, her blouse the perfect shade of sky blue to complement her eyes, he heard that familiar whisper in his head.

  God damn, she’s beautiful.

  But he knew better than to let that whisper turn into a roar.

  “That was fast,” he remarked, turning toward his computer. If there was anything he ex
celled at, it was focus. And the quickest way to ignore how attractive his extremely effective assistant was came through hyper-focus on the task at hand.

  “You act like you forget that my desk is right outside your door.”

  He smirked as she settled into the chair facing his desk, notebook at the ready.

  “So what’s on deck?” She set her iced tea down, clicking at the top of her pen. “Hit me.”

  “Cedar Grove Hotel and Spa,” he said, pulling up the open tab on his browser with the realty listing. He stalked these things daily, sometimes hourly. It was the only way to get the jump on exciting new business properties to help expand his family’s empire. And this one was particularly exciting. “Upstate New York. One of the oldest luxury hotels in the state. My personal favorite Christmas destination as a child. And currently on the market.”

  She blinked and cocked her head. “I know that place. I grew up down the street.”

  This tidbit forced Josh to turn her way again. “What?”

  “Yeah.” She shrugged, reaching for her iced tea again. “It’s so beautiful, especially in the winter.”

  “You’re from Cedar Grove?”

  She nodded, giving him a duh look. Josh frowned, turning back to his computer. This little tidbit would have been nice to know weeks ago when he’d started his research and plan of attack. Because all along, he’d had one crucial piece of his arsenal missing. His in to Cedar Grove.

  Because Cedar Grove Hotel and Spa wasn’t just any regular hotel property going up for grabs. No, this place was family-owned and operated. It had generations worth of history, and the owners—a married couple set to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary this Christmas season—were very clearly searching for the right buyer. Which meant price, or the thickness of the wad of money Josh was prepared to offer, didn’t matter. At all.

  They wanted a family-oriented buyer, and Josh was the farthest thing from it.

  He must have spent too much time staring at his computer screen in thought, because Amelia finally said, “Uh, Josh?”

  “Hm?” He clicked through a few screens as a new idea occurred to him. He went into the search engine to type in “wives for hire.” This seemed like one of those searches that could only end poorly, but he had to try.

  “Are we going to plan your trip?” Amelia asked.

  “Right.” He sighed as the results showed exactly what he feared, all sorts of barely-legal international stuff. The IT department would get a kick out of this if they ever searched his browser history. “Dammit.”

  “Sooo…” Amelia clicked the top of her pen. “Are we trip planning or not?”

  Josh worked his jaw back and forth, swinging to face Amelia. He studied the top of his desk, lost in thought.

  “You look like a mad genius right now,” Amelia said.

  “Do you know the owners of the Cedar Grove Hotel?” he blurted.

  She knit her brows together. She’d recently begun filling in her eyebrows, per the recent makeup trends. She was the only woman he thought could pull it off with flair. “Not personally, no…But I think their youngest might have been a few grades above me in high school.”

  Prickles spread through his gut. He was on to something here.

  “And you’re, uh, single, right?” He hated that the words hadn’t flowed easily for him. When she’d started at Denton Hotels, she’d had a boyfriend, but along the way he’d caught wind that situation had dissolved. He made it a point to not inquire into her love life. Deep down, a part of him worried he’d get jealous.

  Her brows formed a ridge. “Yes…”

  He drew a fortifying breath as the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place. The plans he’d wanted Amelia to make were for him to visit Cedar Grove and woo the owners himself. But what if he included her in the mix, and they just happened to think she was his doting fiancée?

  “I need you to hear me out,” he began.

  “I really hate it when you start sentences like that,” she said.

  “When have I ever started a sentence like that?”

  She lifted her hand, counting off each finger as she spoke. “First, there was the prank you wanted me to pull on your brother when I first started. Next, you had me rearrange the seats for the annual gala, which almost caused the accounting department to withhold my paycheck. Then, there was the—”

  “Okay.” He raised a palm. “I get it.”

  “Harebrained schemes, I think they’re called,” she added.

  He fought a smile. “I’ve got one more scheme.”

  She sighed exaggeratedly, cocking her head. As she shifted in the chair, the front slit of her blouse opened, and he caught a glimpse of the fascinating landscape beneath, pure cleavage and creamy skin. His gut tightened.

  “I wanted you to come in here and help me plan a business trip to go woo the owners.” He paused, wetting his bottom lip as he raked his gaze over her. She had to agree to the plan. He’d make sure she couldn’t say no. “Now I want you to come with me and pretend to be my fiancée.”

  Amelia’s eyes went saucer-wide. “What?”

  “Do I need to repeat myself?”

  She scoffed. “Josh. I can’t do that. That’s my hometown, everyone there knows me.”

  “Except the Cedar Grove owners.”

  She paused.

  “It’s not like I’m going to ask you to do this without compensation,” he went on. “What do you think—time and a half for the duration of the trip?”

  She blinked. “Like…for every hour we’re gone?”

  He nodded.

  “How long will the trip be?”

  “Probably a week,” Josh said, his heart rate picking up. Just say yes. “I promise, it won’t eat into your Christmas vacation time. We’ll finish up right before you’d be heading home for the holidays anyway.”

  Her crystal blue eyes went wider, cheeks stained pink. “You’re kidding me.”

  “I’m not. I need you to do this.”

  She deflated slightly. “But, Josh, you want me to lie. It’s true I don’t know the owners, but I know everybody else. The people in my hometown have known me since I was a baby.”

  “If money won’t convince you, then what will?”

  Amelia nibbled at her bottom lip, the lip that he had imagined kissing only in his weakest moments. He looked away. He knew better than to mix business and pleasure, which was why this idea felt safe to him. Amelia posing as his fiancée was pure business. And he’d make sure to keep it that way.

  “Honestly? A promotion.”

  Her words fell with a thud. He frowned, letting the idea percolate through him.

  “You’re sick of being my assistant?” He tried to joke it off, but the fear was real.

  “No, not sick of it. I just want to move up the ladder.” She softened a moment later, like maybe she’d noticed that he was worried. “Trust me, I love working with you. But I want to be a location scout. I want to take the trips to find the new properties…and then I want to move up from there. Maybe so high that I’ll be sitting on the same tree limb as you someday.”

  He couldn’t fight the grin. “Yeah, well, it’s not as great up here as it might seem.”

  “You’ve got power and prestige.”

  “And no time for a personal life.”

  She shrugged, not even flinching. “I already don’t have one of those, so no big deal.”

  He hesitated. “I really hate the thought of losing you as my assistant. But…” He shook his head, allowing the truth to settle into him. “I knew this day would have to come.”

  She batted her eyelashes at him, an infectious grin overtaking her face. “So? You’ll do it?”

  “If you’ll come on this trip with me and help me secure the hotel,” he said, the words coming out heavy, “then yes. You’ll get your promotion.”

  Amelia squealed and leapt out of the chair, pumping her fist in the air. “Then you have a deal!”

  Grab your copy of The Billionaire’s Christmas
Fiancée (Christmas with the Denton Billionaires Book One) from

  www.LeslieNorthBooks.com