Millionaire Under the Mistletoe

by Stefanie London

  The estate would be sold, and that meant there was a possibility she’d be without a home since she lived in the old servants’ quarters along with a few of the other long time staff. Plus, she was nudging seventy. Retirement was on the horizon.

  In a way, he was grateful that pressing matters had distracted him. Because it wouldn’t have taken much convincing for him to haul Stella over his shoulder and throw her down onto his very plush bed.

  Caveman style. You’re all class, Foss.

  He got into the elevator and raked a hand through his hair. The more time he spent with her, the harder it was to resist. Perhaps it was because these days whatever he wanted he got. Whether it was a good deal on a teardown, planning permits for a renovation, fast turnaround on legal documents…he got it. Dogged determination had been his greatest skill in rising up to where he was now. Some people might have been ashamed to have come from nothing the way he did, but all it showed was that he had a tough outer shell. A level of resilience that people born into money never cultivated.

  Nicholas had told him once that his inability to accept “no” in the business world would be what got him to the top. But that he would need to learn how to get people to say “yes” if he wanted to stay there.

  The elevator door slid open and he made his way to his front door, surprised to hear music. Inside, Stella had hooked her phone up to his speakers and curled up on the couch with a book.

  “I’m starving,” she announced, setting the book down as she rose from the couch.

  Evan almost tripped over himself at the sight of a new dress clinging delectably to her curves. Dark navy fabric moved with her body as she walked toward him, catching and reflecting the glow of the lamp beside her. Sheer sleeves hinted at naked skin beneath, and the modest hemline was unable to hide her shapely legs. Like a cherry on top, her delicate ankles were showcased in a pair of sky-high heels, bringing her closer to him in height. Her eyes looked even more vibrant with her cheeks pink and her lashes curled and dark.

  She was a vision. A fantasy. Seductive in a way that he’d never seen her before. His mouth dried.

  “You like?” she asked, a coy tilt of her head telling him it was a rhetorical question. Of course he liked.

  “You look lovely,” he replied, his voice as sedate as he could make it. “I take it you found the shops.”

  “I did.” She reached for her coat, which hung over the back of the couch. “But I’ve worked up quite the appetite.”

  “Far be it from me to make you go hungry.” He offered his arm and she took it without hesitation. “I have the perfect spot picked out.”

  They made their way to an old wine bar that he had a feeling she would enjoy—an intimate, elegant place filled with history. As they walked through the front door a smile broke out on her face and a strange, happy feeling unfurled in his stomach. He should care that she liked the restaurant he’d chosen, since him winning the bet hung on her enjoyment. But it wasn’t satisfaction that gripped him. It wasn’t that tingle of excitement he usually experienced when success was in his grasp.

  It was something he hadn’t felt in a long time…contentment.

  Pressing the flat of his hand against her lower back, he steered her toward the dining area. The warm, exposed-rock interior was decorated with wine barrels and old photographs. Small candles created an ambient glow and the sound of intimate chatter filled the air. He had to duck his head to avoid the low ceiling as they found a table to sit at.

  “What a gorgeous place.” She turned to him, her golden hair shining like an angel’s halo in the warm lighting. In her heels she stood taller, her face closer to his, which meant those delectable lips of hers were in kissing distance.

  Evan motioned for her to slide into the booth that encircled their table, and he couldn’t help but notice the envious stares of the other men in the room. Not surprising, Stella sparkled like a diamond—even the waiter made eyes at her while she ordered.

  “I feel like I have something stuck in my teeth,” she said, checking her reflection in a compact mirror. “That waiter was looking at me strangely.”

  “You’re hot.” Evan chuckled. “And the fact that you’re completely oblivious to it makes you all the more charming.”

  She flushed, her cheeks reddening as she fussed with her purse. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “You’re supporting my argument.”

  “Unfortunately, the guys I’ve been with weren’t after my looks.” Her eyes clouded as she looked up, her golden brows furrowing. “I know that sounds crazy.”

  “What were they after?”

  “Money.” She let out a sharp laugh. “One even managed to fool me for so long that I got engaged to him, but he was no different. Just better at lying, I guess.”

  He watched her closely, his stomach churning at the way she held herself perfectly still, perfectly poised. This was the Stella he’d encountered on the flight and the first night at the Jackson Estate. The same guarded, measured version.

  Definitely not the same woman who’d melted under his kiss.

  She nodded, and took a sip of her water. “I was twenty-four and we hit it off right away. I thought it was fate that we bumped into one another at a party, although I found out later he’d planned the whole thing. He knew who I was and that I would be there. He even knew where I worked and that I prefer red wine over white.”

  “What a creep.” He shifted in his seat. Was it so far from what he’d been doing to her before she arrived?

  That’s different. You always research your business prospects.

  But they were blurring the lines here, smudging the black and white of a simple business transaction into something far messier.

  “That wasn’t the worst of it.” She shook her head. “He convinced me that we were soul mates, proposed to me within a year of us dating. The ring was fake, I later found out, like a lot of the stories he fed me.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Grandad had the ring tested. He was suspicious and he took it to a family friend who was a diamond buyer.” She shook her head, as if in disbelief that it’d really happened. “I was so mad that he’d invaded my relationship like that, but he’d been right all along. The ring was just the tip of the iceberg. Nothing he told me about his past was true. Turns out his father was in jail for fraud, and he didn’t work as a banker like he’d said. He made his money stealing people’s information online and selling it in some marketplace on the dark web.”

  Evan blinked. Well, that explained why nothing came up in his research about her—she’d probably done what she could to squash it.

  “It’s kind of laughable when you think about it. Though not so funny when I found out he’d been dipping into my bank account as well. He’d installed a virus on my computer that gave him all of my email and login details.” She blew out a long breath. “I caught him before he went in for the kill.”

  “I don’t even know what to say.”

  Instinctively, he wanted to comfort her. But it wasn’t his place. Would she think his sympathy was an attempt to manipulate her? To build trust so she would sell him the estate? Because that was the real reason he was spending this time with her…wasn’t it?

  Her story was the exact reason he avoided relationships—people couldn’t be trusted and letting someone get that close to you was as good as inviting trouble to your doorstep.

  “The whole thing was totally humiliating.” Stella nodded at the waiter as he delivered their wine and poured the dark liquid into two glasses. She paused, smiling to herself at the first sip. “After that, I considered my grandfather to be the only man in my life and swore off the rest.”

  “Smart move.” His eyes met hers over the flickering candle that lit their table.

  …

  Was there any sane, logical reason why she might have spilled her entire humiliating, failed-before-it-started engagement story with Evan? Nope. She couldn’t even claim to have her tongue loosened with alcohol since the wine
had only just arrived.

  There was something about him that made her want to come out with it all. To come clean about everything that’d turned her into the person she was today.

  The one bit she’d left out was that her ex-fiancé’s parting shot had stung worse than the rest of it. Worse than the fake diamond, the thieving, the criminal job history, and the lies. When the police had shown up at her house and arrested him—at the behest of her very protective grandfather—the bastard had the audacity to take one last swipe.

  You should have taken my offer, he’d said, because only someone after your money would be willing to marry an emotionally defective robot.

  Even now, almost a year later, the words cut as deep as they had that day. Sure, she was a bit introverted. Reserved. And she knew she had some trouble opening up to people—what person wouldn’t if their own mother acted like they didn’t exist? But she was hardly defective.

  Across the table, Evan interlocked his hands. His powerful shoulders were encased in a baby-blue shirt that made his eyes look bright and otherworldly. His collar sat open and she couldn’t help but stare at his Adam’s apple and the strong line of his throat. He exuded masculinity—poured it into the air like a pheromone. Desire overwhelmed her and forbidden thoughts flickered at the edge of her mind. How would his skin taste? What would it be like to run her tongue all the way from his jaw to his collarbone?

  She touched her wineglass to Evan’s and forced a smile. “So what about you? You must have some sordid story to tell.”

  “There’s not much to say,” he said, taking a hearty gulp of his wine and thanking the waiter as their meals were placed in front of them. “I’m focused on my work. I love the challenge of taking a property from being a disaster-zone to something that people want to live in. It keeps me engaged and incredibly busy.”

  “Which means no time for women?”

  “It’s not only that. Women are…”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Complicated.” He paused. “Relationships are overrated. Didn’t do my mother any good, didn’t do you any good. So why is that we feel compelled to lock ourselves into something that only leads to pain?”

  “Very true.” She nodded, spearing a piece of beef with her fork.

  “But that doesn’t mean I’m not up for a little fun…”

  He shouldn’t be looking at her like he wanted to tear her clothes off and take her right there in the middle of the restaurant. Awareness splintered out along her veins, making her whole body buzz with anticipation. Her ex had never looked at her like that, which in hindsight should have been a red flag. Deep down, despite the fear that people were only out to use her, she longed to have a man look at her like that. Like she was desirable and attractive and sexy.

  Like she was more than the zeros in her bank account.

  “We’re having fun now, aren’t we?” She sipped her wine, trying to figure out how to handle the situation.

  She had no idea how to play confident—how to flirt or entice or seduce. But oh, how she wanted to.

  You’re on thin ice right now. What are you going to do if you get back to his apartment and he puts the brakes on again?

  There was a big difference between now and four years ago—she had something he wanted: the estate. She had the upper hand.

  “I am.” He carved off a piece of his steak and chewed. “But that wasn’t exactly the type of fun I was talking about.”

  The way his lips moved as he ate was startlingly erotic. The man was talented with his lips, he’d given her a kiss hotter than the depths of hell—a kiss that’d been branded into her memory and continued to replay over and over in the back of her mind like a needle skipping at the end of a record.

  “And what kind of fun were you talking about?”

  “The primitive kind.”

  The close ceilings and dim lights of the restaurant gave a false sense of intimacy, but she had to remind herself that they weren’t alone. Not yet. There was still time to back away, before she started sliding into bad decisions.

  Would it be so bad? Sex is just sex, you can keep it separate.

  “The carnal kind,” he said. “The kind that’ll leave you aching tomorrow morning.”

  She was already aching from the low tone of his voice. The sound rubbed over her, creating sparks against her nerves and causing a tight bundle of heat at the apex of her thighs. At this rate, the fancy lace knickers she’d purchased today would be soaked through before they got done negotiating terms.

  “What’s changed?” she asked, stalling.

  “We’re adults now.” He leaned forward. “We’re free to make our own decisions.”

  Her stomach fluttered, and she couldn’t seem to tame the pulsing deep within her. Hearing the invitation in Evan’s voice was doing nothing to help her gain control of the situation.

  “And how do you know I’m attracted to you?”

  “It’s obvious.” He laughed, the low, gravelly sound made goose bumps break out along her skin. “I knew it the second you kissed me back.”

  Her face grew hot. Had she been that transparent? He had kissed her, not the other way around. “You’re overconfident.”

  “You’re bluffing.” The words came out as a growl. There was something about it that roused her primal side, the side that wanted to take control. “Tell me, I want to hear you say it.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “How much you enjoyed it.”

  “Do you want me to lie?” She tipped her chin up at him, desperate to put him off his game the way he’d done to her. But Evan was a master at upsetting her grip on solid ground—he had her slipping and sliding, her heart thudding in her chest. This game of cat and mouse pleased her far more than it should have.

  You can’t keep up. He’s better at this than you are, he has more experience.

  But she wanted to play. She wanted to best him…and then she wanted to be taken to bed.

  Chapter Nine

  Stella called to the part of him that loved a challenge. He wanted to see her come undone, to see that composure and restraint melt away from her. “You’re okay, but not my best.”

  Evan might have believed it, were it not for the fact that she’d barely taken a bite of her steak. The food lay mostly untouched, forgotten. Her mind was occupied with him and only him. And that knowledge made satisfaction surge through his body.

  “You’re lying,” he said, re-filling both their glasses.

  Clearly, she’d come to this dinner with a game plan. She was trying to show him who was in charge but he was going to get the upper hand, even if it meant pushing her limits. There was nothing he wanted more right now than to take her back to his flat and consume her. It wouldn’t be soft, slow sex. It wouldn’t be romantic. But he’d bet his last dollar that she’d be screaming out his name anyway.

  She’d thrown him yesterday by setting off an explosion of unfamiliar feelings. When their lips had touched, the rightness of it had drilled down to his very core. It should have created a barrier between them, but it didn’t. Normally, he chose women where it was obvious there would be no future—and he liked it that way. No commitment, no chance of being left alone and broken, like his mother. If he was going to be alone it would be on his terms. He would not be the victim.

  None of those flings had ever stirred anything in him the way Stella had. She was dangerous, but he couldn’t seem to back away.

  “Has it not occurred to you that perhaps I really have had better? You’re not all that and a bag of chips, you know.”

  He smirked. “Technically it would be all that and a bag of crisps, but vernacular aside…you’re a terrible liar.”

  “Is that so?”

  “No girl I’ve ever met could fake that kind of response.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “And what kind of response was that?”

  “I could feel your heart going crazy.” He leaned forward, taking in the smell of wine and her perfume. Letting it fuel the images in hi
s head. “I could feel you writhing against me.”

  She drew a slow breath. The action drove him wild and heat started to build low in his stomach, drawing his blood down south. His cock strained against his trousers.

  “I could feel your nipples through that poor excuse for a T-shirt you were wearing,” he said. Her vibrant eyes were almost eclipsed by the black of her pupils. His face was inches from hers, her full lips tantalizingly within reach. If only they were back at his place, alone. “I very much enjoyed that part.”

  “Delusional.” She shook her head.

  “I could hear that soft little whimper you made when I pushed my tongue into your mouth to taste you.”

  “You’re full of it.” She tried to dismiss him, but he’d won. Blatant arousal washed over her face and her lashes fluttered.

  “Poor comeback.”

  “What is there to say? I think recounting your physical reactions to the kiss would be rather pointless—acting like a horny teenage boy is not much to write home about.”

  “I have more restraint than a horny teenage boy,” he responded with a wink. “More stamina, too. You’ll see.”

  “I’ll see,” she scoffed. “You seem to think you have me eating out of the palm of your hand.”

  “I do.” He let his gaze smooth over her, taking his time to follow the curve of her dainty shoulders to the swell of her bust. Pink crept up her neck and her hand went to her throat. “If I touched you now, you’d go off like a rocket.”

  She arched one fine, precisely shaped brow and sipped her wine. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

  By now their meals would be stone cold, but he couldn’t give a fuck. Her lips were stained with the red of the pinot noir, making them look like ripe, juicy berries.