Christmas with the Billionaire ; A Tiara for Christmas

by Niobia Bryant

  “Christmas Chaos! Christmas Chaos!”

  The words made her recall something her uncle Stephen had said. He kept alluding to chaos with Dario. Did he know? It didn’t matter, she told herself with a shake of her head. A white firework above the car lit the inside. She spotted the red and white box Dominic had given her that morning. In the preparations for the day, she’d forgotten about it. She leaned over to grab it from the floorboards of the passenger’s side and tore off the paper. The bulky wrapping was totally Dario’s doing. She lifted the fold and took out a familiar box. There, set on a doll-sized pillow was a tiara. A custom-made one with coppery metal twisted into heart shapes and topaz jewels welded into the centers of them. Her fingers traced the fused spots where the metal met. A note slipped from the pillow. With a shaky breath she read the scrap of paper. “A prototype of a one of a kind tiara, for a one of a kind lady, who has my one of a kind love. Love, Dario.”

  Kimber scrambled to get out of the car. She kicked out of her heels, lifted her skirts and ran back inside the house. Lilly Stringer stopped her. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Move, Lilly. I need to see Dario.”

  “Didn’t you just have a chance?” Lilly cackled and looked behind her for support from her friends. “Dario’s done a good thing around here for us single folks, Kimber. Christmas Chaos is what we look forward to every year when we can’t be with our kids.”

  The titled events made sense now, Kimber thought. Everything was geared toward trashing Christmas. “Look,” she started to say, “I’m not here to stop anything. I just need to see Dario.”

  “You gotta play to see the champ,” said a burly woman with red and green frosting on her face.

  * * *

  Dario made his way to the ring with Darren rubbing his shoulders, hyping him up. His opponent was Philip Grieco. This night couldn’t have ended on a better note. The day had already been crappy enough. He thought he’d gotten rid of Philip and Vin when they’d exposed themselves as frauds, but somehow, he became the villain in this Christmas tale. His sister had hijacked his designs and had been selling them online. And then his lady, who he’d thought had ended things at the hospital, just caught him in his biggest lie yet.

  The boxing ring he climbed into stood at the back edge of the property. Benches placed around it were filled with onlookers who didn’t want to get dirty but made a charitable donation to watch tonight’s big event. The empty seats in the front two rows belonged to the winners of the other big events, including a spot for the winner of the obstacle course, which was about to take place.

  “Use your anger tonight,” Darren said, rubbing Dario’s shoulders. “Think about how that dude tried to take away everything you worked hard for.”

  What he’d worked hard for was for Kimber to see him as a mature guy worth dating. He’d ruined that with his lies. Maybe he’d let Philip get in a few good punches. He deserved them. Screaming brought Dario out of his funk. The crowd in the seats stood so they could see the field. Dario and Darren leaned against the ropes and watched.

  There, out on the track, he spotted a body in a green gown belly crawling under the row of Christmas lights in the bed of crumbled Christmas sugar cookies.

  “Is that Kimber?” Darren asked.

  Dario hopped out of the ring to the ground. He watched his woman army-crawl the course, out-run her opponent and then hop on the platform to battle one of the single mothers from Peachville in a candy cane joust. Kimber took the woman down in seconds and continued the obstacle course leading to the ring. The crowd cheered for her.

  Dario, though confused at what the hell she was doing, fist pumped the air when Kimber dodged the glitter bombs thrown at the competitors making their way down the long run. Kimber held the bottom of her dress in her hands. Her legs and feet were covered in an array of goo. But she was a full ten feet ahead of the other ladies when she hurtled across the silver-garland finish line, right into his arms.

  “Are you crazy?” Dario heard his voice. He didn’t realize he’d been screaming in a cheer for her that had left him hoarse. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going big,” Kimber panted. “Did I win?”

  “Yes, you won.” Dario dipped her back in his arms. He pulled the strands of tinsel from her hair. Mascara ran under her eyes. Cookie crumbs were smeared across her cheek like blush and her skin sparkled with glitter. He wasn’t sure she’d ever looked more beautiful.

  “But did I win you?” Kimber asked, her breathing beginning to straighten out.

  “You always had me, Kimber. Always.” Dario dipped his mouth to her sweet lips and kissed her. The surrounding crowd cheered for them. “I love you, Kimber.”

  “I love you too.”

  Epilogue

  A Christmas station played children’s holiday music on a loop at the crack of dawn Christmas morning. Wrapping paper flew everywhere. Coffee percolated in the kitchen. This was the scene of real Christmas chaos in the Reyes household. Amelia and Nate sat on the love seat in the sunken family room. Stephen sat in the chair while Lexi perched on the arm of it with her husband’s arm wrapped around her waist. The three smaller children squealed in delight at their gifts. And Philly, who’d decided she wasn’t too cool to get excited at the presents, squealed right along with the kids.

  Kimber sat on the couch and took in the view, not sure what next Christmas would bring. Beside her, Dario held her hand.

  “What time are you guys leaving today?” Amelia asked them.

  “After we have breakfast with Dario’s family,” answered Kimber. “We’ll be in Atlanta for a week.”

  Amelia smiled in delight. “My colleague. I’m so proud of you. Best Christmas present ever.”

  “Speaking of,” Kimber said, chewing on her bottom lip. “I am sorry for the perfume, Lexi. I had no idea you knew about the tiaras.”

  “I wanted you to discover on your own,” said Lexi with a nod. “And I love the perfume.”

  “Actually,” said Dario, clearing his throat. “Kimber did get you something else.” He reached down into the duffel bag by his feet and handed Kimber a box. “Go ahead. You basically designed it.”

  Kimber wasn’t sure how much joy she could get in one day. She and Dario were spending the next week together in Atlanta. After the holidays he planned on taking a job with the Four Points Urban Planning board and last night he’d driven her to the new subdivision just outside of Southwood to the perfect house he wanted to buy for them.

  After lifting the lid of the box, Kimber covered her mouth and gasped. Dario had designed a tiara for Lexi. The metal was a blond color in homage to Lexi’s hair, and at the peak of each crest of the crown was a blue mother-of-pearl sphere.

  “The metal is Muntz,” Dario explained.

  Kimber rose to hand Lexi the tiara.

  “I’m glad to see you wised up,” Lexi said while hugging her. Kimber patted her back then turned around to face Dario.

  He’d moved off the couch and got to one knee while presenting a box to Kimber. Her heart raced. Out the corner of her eye she spied Philly filming them. Nate leaned forward in the love seat while Amelia bounced up and down excitedly, smacking Nate’s arm. Dario opened the box. A square-cut diamond greeted her. Dario took the ring out and held it between his large thumb and index finger.

  “Kimber, before we start this adventure in Atlanta, I want to make sure you know...”

  “Yes,” Kimber interrupted him.

  “He didn’t ask the question,” Stephen clarified for her.

  “How much I love you,” Dario continued. “You’ve been my best friend, held me to the highest standard and you’ve been the brightest spot in my life.”

  “Yes,” Kimber repeated.

  “Kimber,” Nate warned. “Let the man speak.”

  Every fiber of her body screamed with excitement. “I already know the answer.”
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  Dario offered her a lazy smile. The twinkle in his eyes drew a return grin. “I’m not stopping or leaving this house until you answer my question. No way I’m sitting quietly by, ever again.”

  “What’s your question?” Kimber asked, trying to keep a straight face. She wanted to cry, scream and hurry up and celebrate with a kiss.

  “Kimber Reyes, will you marry me?”

  “Dario Crowne, of course I will.”

  * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from His Christmas Gift by Janice Sims.

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  His Christmas Gift

  by Janice Sims

  Chapter 1

  October in New York City. The day was cold, gray and blustery, but in her Harlem loft, Alia Joie Youngblood-Braithwaite was warm and toasty. She lit a candle at the makeshift shrine to her husband, Adam, on the fireplace’s mantel. She hadn’t thought of it as a shrine in the beginning, only as a way to sort out her feelings about Adam’s kidnapping over two years ago. At that time, it had been a photo of him in a frame. A photo she’d talk to and sometimes scream at when her emotions got out of control. Now there were several framed photos of her and Adam at various stages of their relationship, fresh flowers and candles in decorative candleholders. The longer Adam was gone, the more it felt like a permanent shrine to his memory.

  Lots of things had changed after Adam had gone missing. She’d moved out of their old apartment and purchased the building she was living in now. She’d had it fully renovated, taken the top floor for herself and rented the other apartments on the remaining four floors, to artists mostly. There was an elderly couple on the fourth floor who were not in the artistic community but had needed an affordable, safe place to live in the neighborhood. Alia was able to provide that place because she was fortunate enough to come from an independently wealthy family. Her family owned Youngblood Media, a company with interests in television, publishing and the internet. Alia was the company’s marketing director. These days she worked her own hours, many of them away from the office, and devoted a large amount of time to her artistic endeavors. She was a talented painter and was working on a series of paintings that were scheduled to be shown at a Manhattan art gallery a month from now.

  Tonight her girlfriends were taking her out to celebrate her birthday, which had been a few days ago. Before she left to meet them, she wanted to get in one more therapy session with Adam’s shrine.

  Alia was a tall, attractive woman with warm dark-chocolate skin and golden-brown eyes. She wore jeans that fit her shapely body as if they’d been designed specifically for her and a red cashmere square-necked sweater. On her feet were black leather boots. Her natural dark brown hair was in glossy braids that fell to the middle of her back.

  She paced the hardwood floor as she poured her heart out to Adam’s photo. “Two years! You said you’d be back before I missed you! But where are you? Still missing! I know I shouldn’t be angry at you, but I am. I’m angry because you’re too trusting. You’re a big man with a big heart, and it never occurred to you to say no when the military came calling. Maybe you were flattered that they knew about your research, which was supposedly being kept secret. Did it ever occur to you that if the government wants to find out something, they have ways of finding it out? I’m so mad, I don’t know what to do!

  “Now here I am, alone, getting ready to reveal my heart, my soul, to the world in the form of my paintings, and you’re not here to share it with me. I don’t care if I sound selfish to the universe. You should be here holding my hand. Holding me!”

  And with that, she burst into tears, grabbed one of Adam’s photos off the mantel and hugged it to her chest. Taking a deep breath, she held the frame away from her and peered at his face. When the photo had been taken, he’d had a full beard, dreadlocks down to his waist and a devastatingly beautiful smile. His milk-chocolate-brown eyes sparkled. He had a square-jawed face underneath that full beard. His skin was reddish brown with golden undertones. An island boy from the Bahamas, he loved the sun, and his skin tone changed from season to season. She could almost hear his voice, a mix of standard English with a proper British accent, to Bahamian English when he lapsed into the way he had spoken when he was growing up in Nassau. He was a big man, at six foot four, and through hard work had built up muscles that rivaled professional athletes’ toned bodies.

  But it was his vibrancy that had won her heart. He had a zest for living that spoke to her soul. Just being around him made her feel more alive.

  Did she miss him? With all her heart!

  Alia put Adam’s photo back on the mantel and sighed sadly. That was enough wallowing in misery for one day. The fact was, she didn’t know whether her husband was dead or alive. She’d paid a detective to try to find him, with no results except for the warning from the government to stay out of it. The official rationale was that the people who were holding Adam might do something drastic and violent if they found out civilians were trying to stick their noses in their business. The government assured her they were in negotiations with Adam’s captors. They would eventually get him set free. She had to be patient. What was more, she and her family had to make sure nothing about Adam’s situation was leaked to the media.

  In other words, for over two years, Alia had been helpless to do anything to alleviate her husband’s suffering. And she knew he had to be suffering. Knowing Adam, he was doing everything in his power to get back home to her. Her rants in front of his shrine were not an indication that she had lost faith in him. They were simply a way to get her frustrations out. She loved him, and would always love him.

  * * *

  Sylvia’s, the soul food restaurant that was a Harlem landmark, was alive with the sound of its patrons enjoying themselves: silverware on fine china, glasses clinking, voices buzzing like bees and tinkling laughter. Alia looked around the table at the lit-up faces of her dearest girlfriends: Macy Harris, her best friend, a security company owner; Diana Winters, a lawyer; and June Stratton, a surgeon. She’d known Macy since childhood and Diana and June since college.

  June, a redhead with light green eyes, raised her glass of white wine. “To Alia,” she said brightly. “Thirty-three today, but you look twenty-three. I don’t know how you do it, girl. But keep doing what you’re doing because it’s working for you!”

  The other women raised their glasses and laughed. Macy, a petite beauty with caramel-colored skin and dark brown eyes, clinked her glass’s rim with Alia’s. “Unless, of course, you’ve made a Dorian Gray–type pact with the devil and have a portrait of yourself in an attic somewhere that’s aging while you stay young. In which case, I say, repent at once so that your soul won’t burn in hell!”

  “Ignore the preacher’s daughter,” Diana advised Alia. She turned sober eyes on Alia. “Seriously, though, how are you holding up? No news about Adam?”

  Alia took a deep breath. She’d been wondering when the subject of Adam’s absence would come up. Her friends were well-meaning, but she’d grown tired of discussing it. All they knew was that he’d gone missing two years ago. A sad occurrence, but one that happened to many people every year. Her friends weren’t privy to what was really going on. Only her family was aware Adam and his colleagues had been kidnapped.

 
“Nothing at all,” she said softly, eyes downcast because she didn’t want her friends to see she was fighting back tears. Macy, who was sitting beside her, reached over and gently squeezed her hand. Emotions under control, Alia smiled and glanced up at her friends, who were looking at her with sympathetic expressions in their eyes.

  “I’d much rather talk about your upcoming wedding, June,” she said.

  June grinned. “Two doctors getting married is a logistics nightmare. We can’t decide when to get married, where to get married. Our schedules are booked up. I suggested we just elope and forget about an elaborate wedding. Maybe go to the courthouse and get it over with. But my guy says his Italian mother would kill him, literally!” She laughed. “I’ve met her. I don’t think he’s exaggerating.” Everyone laughed at that.

  “It’s the marriage that counts, not the party,” Macy said. “You and Tony love each other and have for a long time. Do what you two want to do and don’t worry about anyone else.”

  “I don’t agree,” Diana said. “You only get married once, hopefully, and it should be celebrated. Memories should be made. I don’t mean go broke getting married, but have a party for friends and family. They should be there on your special day.”

  “I didn’t know you were so sentimental,” Macy countered. “You treat men like playthings. You haven’t been in a committed relationship in years.”

  Diana rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t mean I don’t eventually want to get married and have children. It means I’m still not finished having fun.”

  “The trouble with people who think like you do is when you get married, you look at it as something boring. You’re having fun now. What will you have when you have a husband? Will he satisfy the fun girl in you? Or will you lose interest in a matter of months?” Macy asked.