Her Surprise Christmas Noel: Four women, one pact: find a date for Christmas (Christmas Kisses Book 2)

by Kenna Shaw Reed

  Christmas Kisses

  Book 2: JoJo

  KENNA SHAW REED

  JoJo

  When I wanted love to knock me off my feet, I didn’t mean for it to crash into me. Literally.

  I’d wanted a fake Christmas romance. Someone to show off to my friends and family for the holidays. But I didn’t count on Noel Roberts.

  Destroying my car and taking my breath away. Before driving me to distraction—on a two-day trip home for Christmas.

  If only my brain could remind my heart that Noel Roberts is my fake boyfriend, and that the love I think we’ve found, isn’t real.

  Noel

  JoJo is the most infuriating woman I’ve ever met.

  Unfortunately, I’m too much of a gentleman to leave a woman stranded and unable to get home for Christmas. Especially when I’m the reason.

  By days we fight—a lot.

  By nights we make up—a lot.

  We are so good at selling our fake romance as real, I don’t think my heart got the message.

  ALSO BY KENNA SHAW REED

  Christmas Kisses

  Her Christmas Romance Surprise (Pia)

  Her Surprise Christmas Noel (JoJo)

  Unwrapping Her Christmas Gift (Abbie)

  Her Surprise Christmas Kiss (Zara)

  Aussie Military Romance:

  Avenge Her

  Protect Her

  Save Her

  Defend Her

  Passion without Rules:

  Who is Erebus

  Random Fantasies

  Dark Indulgences

  Romance with Passion:

  Trusting his Heart

  A Billion Reasons Why

  Never Second Best

  Shattered Hearts

  Choose Your Own Romance:

  The Bad Kitty

  The Uni Student

  The Intern

  The Question Is

  Choose Your Own Romance: Imperfect Marriage

  The Politician’s Wife

  The Unfaithful Wife

  The Unforgiving Wife

  The Perfect Wife

  All books can be read standalone or in any order. Only the Choose Your Own Romance series have cheating (although you can pick a path that doesn’t).

  If you love Her Surprise Christmas Noel, then please leave a review. Reviews are like hugs for authors and I can never get enough!

  Want all four Christmas Kisses and an exclusive Epilogue? Pre-order the Christmas Kisses Complete Series today.

  For Mr Shaw Reed.

  Because you’ve made every Christmas wish come true.

  Copyright © 2019 by Kenna Shaw-Reed

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover: Kenna Shaw-Reed

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously.

  Her Surprise Christmas Noel

  Prologue - 10 December

  Noel Roberts – Yes that’s my name

  I hate Christmas.

  Not the peace, love and joy. I wish there was a way to bottle that up and feast on it all year long.

  Or the hot Australian sun and surf. There’s something kinda crazy about hunting for a car park at Bondi Beach in the lead up to Christmas when the rest of the world is shovelling snow.

  Then there’s the hope of finding a tiny chocolate Santa still hidden around the office. Despite myself, I can’t hide the smile when I discover one after New Year. A Christmas gift that keeps on giving.

  So, I guess, it isn’t Christmas that I hate. But please, pretty please, with sugar on top—if you have a boy child born on Christmas day, there are probably two names he’ll thank you for not calling him.

  Happy birthday to me in two weeks, and already I’m counting down the days until the world snaps back to normal.

  Since the beginning of November, I crammed my calendar full of fake-important travel and meetings. Anything to avoid the obligatory Christmas parties and lunches. Another year and the jokes are as old as they were the first time someone decided to pronounce Noel as if singing the first Noel, the angels did say.

  Since my parents haven’t remembered my existence for longer than their libidos craved different partners, Christmas has become a day to be avoided. At all costs.

  “About Christmas, Mr. Roberts.” Julie, my long-suffering assistant hung around long enough for me to answer her question emailed and reinforced with post-it notes on my keyboard. Like most of my staff, she requested the week leading up to Christmas as annual leave so she could wrap presents, prepare her home and back for her grandchildren.

  I answered before she could once again remind me of why most people loved and counted down the days to Christmas.

  “Consider it my Merry Christmas gift; as long as I don’t have to hear any carols or vote on the most Christmassy cubicle.” Julie had already delegated most of my managing partner responsibilities to other senior executives. I hoped the sizable Christmas bonuses were enough Christmas joy and good will without me having to fake my enthusiasm and embrace the whole season.

  Insanely successful and rich, I was the perfect combination of my smart asshole father and his sexy first wife. Probably the only one he married for love. Not that I could afford my mother the same compliment. Getting access to my trust fund at twenty-five, it only took five years to match my mother’s wealth and another three to reach my father’s.

  Right place, right time with the right connections and a little dumb luck. Or at least that’s how I answered the journalists who managed to con their way past my PR team to get direct access. The truth; I worked the hours other people spent with their families and loved ones. Living in Australia, while others slept I was still working on US time and getting ready for South Africa to awaken.

  As a general rule, I avoided noisy journalists as much as I despised stupid questions from flirty females. No, I don’t have a Mrs. Santa Clause to cuddle up to—and not taking applications. No, I don’t know why a guy as rich and good looking as me is still single, maybe because I’m not looking—see answer to question number one. No, I’m not looking for a one-night stand, or a weekend fling or anything else that might give you ideas of a relationship.

  My natural flavour wasn’t being an asshole, but the onset of Christmas bought out the unsexy needy in women. Looking for a shiny bauble to hang onto. Some men preyed on the vulnerable, I preferred to avoid all single females with desperation in their eyes until after Valentine’s Day.

  “Julie,” I stopped her before she left, “Thanks for everything this year. This place wouldn’t run the same without you, and I couldn’t do my job without you.”

  She’d been with me long enough to see through my Christmas black cloud, but her blush was a bonus I didn’t expect. “Thank you Mr. Roberts, do you want me to make your usual booking?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve got it handled.” Julie could have been my grandmother the way she fussed and cared, but I couldn’t ask her to organize my Christmas. My demons required no explanation, just a credit card and yet another week of forgetting.

  Not that I needed planning, each year was the same. A sports bag packed with a couple of changes of underwear and a clean shirt. No shaving kit—not needed after the first of December. My emerging b
eard already pleasantly scratchy in a don’t give a fig kind of way. By the time I come back from my annual drunken pilgrimage, the smattering of greys will be more pronounced against my natural black. I’d like to think I’ll also be returning with a suntan and stories of an amazing holiday. But I gave up making myself false promises years ago.

  By this time in two weeks, I’ll have engraved my name on a bar stool and my only intimate relationship will have been with several bottles of something to dull my head and blur the days.

  I don’t hate Christmas, but in all my thirty-three years, I haven’t found one to love.

  JoJo – No, that’s not my real name

  I couldn’t think of a single, logical reason for having agreed to such a crazy idea. I mean, there’d been no alcohol or drugging. No blackmail or coercion and I couldn’t even plead ignorance.

  My only excuse for agreeing to this pact with my friends, was love. Pure and simple love for my father and mother. My love for them and need to see them this Christmas made me agree to Pia’s insane idea.

  That she, Abbie, Zara and I would suck up our pride and either beg, borrow or buy a man to take home for Christmas.

  A simple pact to stop the inevitable questioning about our single status and whether we had even tried to find an eligible man in Sydney to make our lives complete. Sydney was a fantastic place to live, and I met men every day. Just not one I could see myself growing old with.

  The elusive man who could give me intelligent banter and had a sense of humour bigger than his ego. Someone who would love a menagerie of pets and accept me as an equal. In life, in love and in bed.

  Never raised to compromise—on my gender, career or dreams—I couldn’t accept less from a partner. Despite the pleas of my parents who wanted to see me happily married with a basketball team of kids. And were willing to remind me of my biological clock at every visit.

  I had no intention of going home for Christmas. Because under their questioning, I started to doubt my own existence. Maybe I should dumb-down to the level of the Neanderthals I seemed to attract. They saw a bubbly Kate Hudson and thought my blonde curls came with a brain as small as my body. After my last visit home, I’d come back to Sydney and hooked up with a guy whose only claim to fame was being great in bed, wanting a family, and who had decided by the end of our first month together that I should give up my career to make sure dinner was waiting for him on the table.

  We lasted six months. I tried. Until he found out that if given an ultimatum, I walked away. Preferring to live alone than live a lie.

  If a man couldn’t accept and support me, if we couldn’t wake up laughing and go to bed loving, then I’d rather be single.

  Except, by mid-November, my mother’s text messages ramped up from soft invitations to a plea no daughter could refuse.

  Mum: Dad had another turn yesterday. He doesn’t want you to worry, but it would mean a lot if you could come home this year for Christmas.

  JoJo: Is he okay? I thought the chemo was working.

  Mum: We’d just love to see you, unless you are going to your boyfriend’s place???

  JoJo: I’m trying to get the time off work. Will let you know.

  Unwilling to fall into my mother’s trap.

  Poor mum thought because I worked in a predominantly male engineering firm, men were a platter waiting for me to have a meal. I loved my job but it came with unsociable hours, responsibilities and I preferred both to be uncomplicated by messy relationships.

  Mum: If it’s about the money?

  JoJo: No, just the time. I can’t drive from Sydney to Adelaide in a day.

  Mum: I’m happy to buy the plane tickets.

  JoJo: Thank you but that’s unnecessary. Like I said, I’m trying to get the time off work.

  Mum: Just let me know whether to get enough food for one or two.

  Mum: Your brothers are coming home. Don’t you want to see your niece and nephews?

  Great. Not.

  After moving away for university, I stayed in Sydney despite the homesickness and guilt. My brothers had moved overseas for work and were now in established careers with wives and children to match. My sisters-in-law were always full of advice on how to catch a husband so my life could be as complete as theirs.

  I could see it now, going home and hanging out with the kids. At least they accepted me as the cool Aunty JoJo. Builder of the best cubby houses, reader of books, and the adult who let them watch the movies their parents wouldn’t.

  Mum: We miss you. Come home. Please.

  In my momentary daughter-guilt weakness, my best friends agreed to the unthinkable.

  A day after my mother’s texts, I’d been innocently having brunch with Pia, Zara and Abbie. Teasing Pia about another online dating disaster when the conversation had turned to avoiding our families for Christmas. We’d all resisted the call. Zara for five years, Abbie for two and me for three.

  “How about we all go home for Christmas and then catch up with a New Year’s Eve party on Sydney Harbour.” Pia had thrown out the idea too casually. She was planning something, only I didn’t know it involved all of us.

  “We could make it interesting.” Pia added after we’d started with our reasons to stay in town. Of the four of us, Pia came up with the crazy, Abbie the sweet, and Zara the voice of cautious reason. I waited for Zara to do her thing, while she waited for more information.

  “Sounds serious.” Zara had looked to me. Yes, we’d keep it sane.

  “Whatever it takes, each of us will beg, borrow or buy a man for Christmas.” Pia leaned back, getting the explosive reaction she deserved.

  “What!”

  “No!”

  “Are you kidding? No. Never. Not gonna happen.”

  She outwaited our initial rage. Smiling and nodding as if our defeat was only a matter of time. Pia knew us too well.

  “Buy?” I’d asked. “You mean, get an escort?”

  “Only if you can’t get a man any other way. Buy is an acceptable last resort, but that’s not the point. Let’s make a game of it. We have a month. Surely, we can turn on the charm and find some gorgeous man to take home. Think about it, we’re not looking for love—just a way to shut up our families for at least a couple of years.”

  That was back in November. When it seemed we had all the time in the world.

  What were we thinking? Now, half-way through December and it was too late to back out. Change my mind.

  Family Christmas. Each of us had agreed to take home a date obtained by any means necessary.

  Hopefully, in years to come we’ll all look back and laugh.

  But I’m leaving Sydney in two weeks and since I can’t afford to rent a date, and my pride draws the line at going online, the chances of having a man by my side are somewhere between none and never.

  22 December – 3 Days until Christmas

  Noel Roberts

  Despite being able to curl my three-week growth around my fingers, I ignored the need to shave. It’d be a bitch to shave it off now and thanks to my clear calendar, I’ve no reason to do so until the New Year. I liked the random flecks of grey that weren’t visible last year, giving my full head of dark hair a tinge of rebellion and provided a fake sense of generational authority.

  My deep-set eyes were practiced at finding common ground between negotiating parties. On the rare occasion I needed or wanted company, I used them to attract women from across a crowded room. For eleven months of the year I was a man in control; of my life and career. The other month was called my Christmas hell. My beard grew, and the same eyes became as shabby as my clothes. Starting on 22 December or whenever the first Christmas carols extravaganza was televised, I replaced my tailored designer suits with low hanging jeans and the oldest t-shirt I owned. Clothes better suited to wearing while changing the oil on my Jeep or repainting my inner-city Sydney penthouse.

  I didn’t need designer or even clean clothes for the next week. In fact, they’d only attract conversations better held in my head.


  A personal Christmas tradition.

  Start drinking two or three days out, and don’t stop until either the Easter eggs appear in the grocery aisles or two days after Christmas. In a private ceremony attended by me and a bottle or several of bourbon, at the end of my penance, I’d burn the clothes as my gratitude for their five days of constant and unshowered service, before shaving and turning up for a post-Christmas facial, massage and hairstyle.

  An annual transformation in person and attitude from wild-haired homeless to city suave, as I prepared to kick ass on the New Year. Returning to my sixty- and seventy-hour working weeks.

  As traditions went, it wasn’t pretty—in fact, downright filthy to anyone who cared to watch—but that wasn’t the point. My Christmas tradition of hell had been carved into my soul years ago becoming not only the single outlet for my pain, but the only way I could ignore the crappy hand of cards called family.

  Being drunk and absent meant I could ignore my darling mother, currently enjoying toy boy husband number three or four, somewhere on the Gold Coast. Around August each year, she started with the gentle and then firm reminders that having an adult son turn up to her Christmas parties wouldn’t go down well with her new lifestyle. Yeah, being mistaken by her friends as her latest lover instead of son wasn’t a memory I treasured, either.

  Not that dear old dad was any better. At least the old man had stopped marrying his strumpets. These days, wads of cash were usually enough to remind any blonde bimbo to count her blessings in dollars instead of days.

  Parents and Christmas. Loathing was too strong a term for each and yet misunderstood by well-meaning friends and colleagues who continued to assure me that most families were loving, and my parents needed time to adjust.

  I called bullshit.

  Once upon a time, they must have loved each other—but after the mistake of my birth, the reality of adulting up to responsibility had taken hold. They could barely wait before abandoning me to private boarding schools and to the inevitable taunts.