by Alix Nichols
Table of Contents
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part II
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part II
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Part I
Part II
Epilogue
Christmas in Paris
3 Sweetly Sexy Christmas Romances
Alix Nichols
Contents
Foreword
Books by Alix Nichols
RAPHAEL’S FLING
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part II
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
WINTER’S GIFT
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part II
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
PLAYING DIRTY
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Part I
1. Julien
2. Noemi
3. Julien
4. Noemi
5. Julien
6. Noemi
7. Julien
8. Noemi
Part II
9. Julien
10. Noemi
11. Julien
12. Noemi
13. Julien
14. Noemi
15. Julien
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Books by Alix Nichols
About the Author
Foreword
Thank you for picking up the CHRISTMAS IN PARIS box set!
It includes three heartwarming and sexy holiday romances that you won’t want to put down! Each story is complete and follows a different couple.
RAPHAEL’S FLING — A secretive nerdette gets a bad boy for Christmas.
WINTER’S GIFT — What happens when an elite call girl falls in love with a client but refuses to quit her job?
PLAYING DIRTY — Former mean girl Noemi and sports star Julien embark on a passionate course that could destroy them both…
**Save 50% — or 2 borrows if you have Kindle Unlimited — over downloading each book in this bundle individually!**
Books by Alix Nichols
The Darcy Brothers
Find You in Paris
Raphael’s Fling
The Perfect Catch
Clarissa and the Cowboy
Playing to Win
Playing with Fire
Playing for Keeps
Playing Dirty
La Bohème
Winter’s Gift
What If It’s Love?
Falling for Emma
Under My Skin
Amanda’s Guide to Love
Copyright © 2017 Alix Nichols
All Rights Reserved.
Details can be found at the end of the book.
RAPHAEL’S FLING
The Darcy Brothers Series
BOOK DESCRIPTION
A secretive nerdette gets a bad boy for Christmas...
I'm Mia, a grad student and part-time assistant at D'Arcy Consulting and Audit.
My company's CEO, Raphael d'Arcy, is young, funny, smart, and uber-rich.
He's also smoking hot.
That alone should have scared me away, were I not such a fool, my academic achievements notwithstanding.
But there's more.
Raphael is France's most notorious playboy who doesn't do relationships. He does one-night stands. If sufficiently intrigued, he might do a fling, which is the most we could ever have together -- a short-lived fling.
So what, right?
Worse things happen at sea...
They do, indeed.
As a matter of fact, getting my heart broken by Raphael d'Arcy is the least of my worries.
Some very serious merde has been piling up in my life lately.
And it's about to hit the fan.
RAPHAEL'S FLING is a standalone lust-to-love romance within the Darcy Brothers series.
Part I
Chapter 1
How did I come to this?
I sigh, smooth my clothes one last time, and head for the cream, leather-padded door.
“Mia, wait!” Raphael calls after me.
I halt and turn around.
He opens his chiseled mouth as if to say something, then shuts it, and gives me a tight smile. The smile of a person having second thoughts on the advisability of what he was going to say.
Well, I’m not waiting around for the result of his inner deliberation. There are two bulky reports on my desk and a few dozen emails I need to go through before I can leave tonight.
Ergo, time is of the essence.
I resume my hike across Raphael’s vast office until I reach the door. It unlocks smoothly and without a sound, bless its high-tech heart. After a sneak peek in the hall to check if the coast is clear, I slip away without saying good-bye to Raphael or Anne-Marie, his faithful PA.
Just like a lawbreaker.
Well, maybe not a lawbreaker, but definitely a reoffending violator of the Workplace Code of Honor. In particular, of Rule #1, which says: “Workers shall not have sexual intercourse with their hierarchical superiors, inferiors, or posteriors.”
>
While there’s some controversy over the exact meaning of “inferiors” and “posteriors,” everyone knows that a “superior” is more than just your immediate boss. The concept also covers your boss’s boss, your boss’s boss’s boss’s boss, and the Boss of Them All—the CEO.
It’s a very sensible provision, by the way, and one I totally approve of and adhere to.
As I rush down the hallway, my heels clicking on the marble floor, I realize I should’ve put my observation in the past tense. As in, “I used to adhere to.”
Having repeatedly broken the Code’s first rule since March makes me a rogue and a hypocrite of the worst kind.
How did I fall so low?
Here’s a clue: it’s Rudolph the Reindeer’s fault.
God knows I hadn’t planned on this when I landed the world’s most unexceptional job as assistant to the daily bulletin editor at DCA Paris. DCA stands for “D’Arcy Consulting and Audit.” Yup, the same “d’Arcy” that’s sandwiched between “Raphael” and the rest of his fancy name on my lover’s official letterhead.
Having sexual intercourse with Raphael d’Arcy du Grand-Thouars de Saint-Maurice, a gentleman and a libertine, was the last thing on my mind when I started at DCA. In fact, it was nowhere near my mind.
Despite my murky past, that’s not who I am. Nor does my life need more complications right now.
Trust me.
Pauline Cordier’s familiar silhouette takes shape at the end of the hallway just as I reach the elevator and push the button. My heart skips a beat. If my direct supervisor sees me on this floor, she’ll assume one of the following two things: (a) my presence here is work-related, meaning I’m going over her head; or (b) my presence here has nothing to do with work, meaning I’m sleeping with one of the senior managers.
Needless to say, both alternatives are equally conducive to me getting sidelined, ostracized, and ultimately fired.
I take a deep breath and give the approaching figure a furtive glance.
It isn’t Pauline.
The woman doesn’t even look like her, now that she’s closer.
Phew.
You may not believe me, but I wasn’t sure what Raphael d’Arcy looked like when DCA hired me. Having scanned his official bio in preparation for my job interview, I had formed a vague image that boiled down to “young, well-born, and well-dressed.” The specifics of the founding CEO’s background and appearance hadn’t lingered in my mind. I doubt they’d even entered it.
Because they were not important.
All I wanted from Monsieur d’Arcy was a job at his firm that gave me a monthly paycheck to complement the pittance my school calls a scholarship. That way, I could finish my doctoral program without having to sleep under bridges or borrow money.
Parisian bridges can be drafty, you see. And damp. As for the stench, courtesy of well-groomed dogs and ill-groomed humans, don’t even get me started! On top of all that, bridges offer no suitable storage space for research notes, photocopies, and books.
In short, they suck as accommodations.
As for the borrowing, my parents taught Eva and me that debt must be avoided at all costs. Their “debt is bad” precept proved stronger than the knowledge that everyone lives on credit in Western societies today.
Except my parents, that is.
Then again, they live in rural Alsace. Life’s a lot cheaper there than in la capitale, so they were able to make it into their fifties without a single loan to cloud their horizon.
I step off the elevator on the second floor, relieved that no one saw me in Top Management’s Heavenly Quarters, and my phone rings. Considering that I’ve been sneaking out like this for two months already, the probability that someone will see me and that it’ll reach Pauline’s ears is growing by the day.
It freaks me out more than I care to admit.
As I answer the phone, Raphael’s deep, sexy timbre breaks me from my worries.
“You left your panties here,” he says, sounding amused and smug at the same time. In short, his usual self.
“No, I didn’t—”
Oh crap. I did.
“I’ve got five minutes before the managerial,” he says, “so if you want to come back and collect—”
“No!” I look around and lower my voice. “It’s OK. I’m sure I can make it through the afternoon without them.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that. The question is whether I can make it through the afternoon with the knowledge you’re without them.” He pauses, as if pondering the question, and then adds, “And with them in my pocket.”
My stomach flips.
Something achingly—yet delightfully—heavy gathers low in my abdomen, reminding me of what Raphael and I had been up to a mere half hour ago. Suddenly, every step I take makes me aware of my pantyless condition. The friction of my skirt’s silky lining against my bare skin makes it prickle. My breathing becomes strained, and my heart thumps in my chest.
As I struggle to calm myself before entering the office I share with two other assistants, I picture myself in Strasbourg in our family physician’s immaculate office.
“What’s my diagnosis, doctor?” I’d ask after he’s examined me.
“Not to worry, mon enfant! You’ll live.” He’d push his regular glasses to his forehead and put on his reading glasses. “You have a textbook case of lustium irresistiblum.”
“Please, can you make it go away?”
He’d smile and shake his head, updating my file on his computer. “It’s like a viral cold. It’ll clear up on its own, eventually.”
And that, my friends, is the second clue to the mystery of how I got here.
It appears I’ve caught a virulent strain of lustium irresistiblum for lady-killer Raphael d’Arcy. And with my luck, we’ll likely get caught before it clears.
“Got to go,” I whisper into the phone and hang up.
I take a few long breaths to chase my arousal away before I enter the office.
Easier said than done.
The things Raphael says, the things he does to me… They don’t just excite—they break into my brain and muddle it up on a deep, molecular level. Throwing ethical norms against that kind of invasion has been as effective as attempting to shoot down the Death Star with foam darts.
But I’ll keep on trying.
Till the bitter end.
Chapter 2
I spent the first month at DCA Paris without a single sighting of Le Big Boss, as the assistants in my department call him. This is not surprising, considering the six floors and about as many layers of hierarchy that separate us. If we had ever bumped into each other in a hallway, he wouldn’t have known me from a bar of soap and I wouldn’t have recognized him.
Then the traditional Christmas party arrived. The organizing committee decreed it would be a costume event, and anyone who dared to turn up without a proper disguise would be sent home.
By a stroke of luck or misfortune, I happened to own an old costume just perfect for a Christmas party—Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It was a fluffy onesie that came with a set of antlers adorning its roomy hood that covered the top half of my face and an elastic-band red nose. The costume had been in my parents’ attic since I’d graduated high school. It begged to be worn again.
I shouldn’t have listened to its pleas!
Had I known where that brown faux-fur onesie would land me, I would’ve never worn it to the office Christmas party. Heck, I would’ve never gone to that party to start with! But in the absence of a crystal ball to foresee the future, Rudolph had seemed like a great idea.
When I entered the meeting room, which had been transformed into a dance floor complete with a disco ball, it looked anything but Christmassy. Scantily clad Santa babes, provocative elves, and seductive angels—to say nothing of Playboy Bunnies—were gulping down champagne and undulating their lithe bodies to the beat of “I Know You Want Me.” Many of them were also singing along and winking at their dance partners, I know you want me, You know
I want cha.
Their male coworkers weren’t far behind. They sported costumes representing an assortment of shoulder-padded Marvel superheroes with an occasional bare-chested Santa thrown in. Nearly every one of them drank, danced, and flirted with the ferocity of someone determined to get lucky.
In other words, much fun was being had.
“The name of the game is Locate Le Big Boss,” my office mate Delphine said, handing me a glass of bubbly.
A champagne cork shot through the air, a little too close for comfort to my face. I ducked, spilling the contents of my flute and making Delphine chuckle.
