All I Want For Christmas

All I Want for Christmas

Liliana Hart

Novels By Liliana Hart

Whiskey Rebellion

Dirty Little Secrets

Paradise Disguised

All About Eve

Catch Me if You Can

Coming in February 2012-Cade

Novellas

Dane

Thomas

Riley

Cooper

The Madam Duchess

Who’s Riding Red?

The Adventures of Goldilocks & The Three Behrs

Dominating Gracie

Double Jeopardy

Naughty or Nice

Chapter One

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kate Carson said. She gripped the phone the bartender had given her a little tighter, so her knuckles turned white and her nails bit into the palm of her hand. “You can’t ground all the flights out of Chicago. It’s Christmas Eve. How am I supposed to get home?”

Kate listened to the apologies and explanations about the incoming blizzard with half an ear while trying to think of another way she could make it back to New York by eight o’clock that evening. She had plans, dammit.

“Yeah, I understand. Thanks, anyway.” Kate hung up the phone and put her head in her hands, massaging the headache that pounded at her temples. Reality was sometimes a bitter pill to swallow. She was just going to have to face the fact that she wasn’t getting home for Christmas.

“Can I get you a drink?” the bartender asked.

“Just a white wine, please,” she said, looking up in time to see her reflection in the long mirror behind the bar.

What she saw wasn’t reassuring. She looked as immaculate as always. Her sleek black hair was chin length, and the expensive cut guaranteed that it always swung back to the position it was supposed to be in. Clients didn’t have confidence in an attorney who looked harried or had their hair mussed. She’d chewed off her lipstick again, but that was easily remedied. Long, thick lashes framed a pair of wide gray eyes filled with intelligence, annoyance and exhaustion. Worse than that, they looked like the kind of eyes that never had any fun—too serious—too cynical.

Where had the spark gone? The fire that had once driven her to make partner at her firm at the age of thirty? She needed a vacation. A long one. She needed to be reckless and learn to take chances again. It was the risks she’d once taken that had moved her up the ladder and into a corner office so quickly.

She’d checked into the Worth Hotel at the beginning of the week, and if all had gone as planned, she’d have been back in New York two days ago. Now she was going to be stuck in Chicago for God knows how long because of a stupid blizzard and her stupid client.

The last thing she’d wanted to do was take a business trip the week before Christmas, but one of her more high profile clients had insisted on a Christmas Day wedding and had decided to spring a prenuptial agreement on his bride less than two weeks before the big day, which was smart because she was giving his new marriage six months tops.

Kate could have had her assistant make the trip to avoid the hassle, but she hadn’t had the heart to take Justin away from his wife, who was due to deliver their first child at any time. So she’d drawn up the papers and flown them to Chicago for her client and his fiancée to look over and sign, but the fiancée hadn’t been happy about the prenup, and a lot of tears and screams had followed their initial meeting. So she’d twiddled her thumbs for two days while they’d fought about money and their relationship. Seeing this side of so-called love was exactly the reason she’d decided never to get married.

In her experience—which included an ex-fiancée of her own—money always trumped love. Her clients proved it on a daily basis, and the loser she’d been engaged to had proved it when he’d walked away after they’d found out her father had been too creative with the money from his hedge fund company. He’d stuck by her through the FBI investigation and her father’s arraignment, but he’d split the moment he’d found out all of her father’s assets were being frozen and she wouldn’t inherit the vast fortune he’d bilked people out of the last thirty years.

She’d only had one serious boyfriend in the ten years since. As soon as anyone found out who her father was, they ran in the opposite direction. And good riddance to them. It’s why she’d worked so hard to get where she’d gotten in her career.
Halston, Grant and Ives
had hired her knowing who her father was, and she’d spent the first few years knowing they were watching her every move. But she’d proved to all of them that she wasn’t her father, and that she could work hard and be trusted. Now the nameplate on their building said
Halston, Grant, Ives and Carson.

In her opinion, her client’s fiancée should have ripped up that prenup, shoved it down her client’s throat and slammed the door behind her. She should have gone back to school (the girl was barely twenty-one years old) or gotten a job somewhere instead of making it her life’s goal to be a starter trophy wife, only to be recycled for something better later on. But her client had smoothed over his fiancées hurt feelings with a new diamond bracelet and an added hundred thousand dollars a year of spousal support if they ever separated. That had been enough for her, and by tomorrow afternoon, they’d be husband and wife. God help them both.

Kate tipped the bartender generously and drank her second glass of wine, enjoying the warmth that filled her body and the way her tense muscles relaxed one by one. Now all she had to do was let the hotel know she’d be extending her stay and she could slip back up to her room and take a nice long bath and get some more work done. She’d have to make the dreaded phone call to her family as well and let them know she wouldn’t be home for Christmas. Her mother was going to have an apoplexy. No one missed Christmas dinner at the Carson’s.

The bar was full, and the low buzz of conversation swirled around her as she got up to leave. She hadn’t noticed how many people had come in as she’d been dealing with her little crisis, but she had to weave around tables crammed with businessmen and women—who never managed to get their briefcases all the way under the table, so it was like walking through an obstacle course—to get back to the lobby. It looked like there were a lot of people going to be stuck in Chicago for the holidays.

Kate’s pencil thin heels clicked against the marble in the lobby as she made her way to the front desk. The Worth Hotel was one of the most exclusive in downtown Chicago. The rooms were decadent and had everything a person could ever want, and the staff…the staff was beyond compare. They were so incredible that she made it a point to stay in a Worth Hotel every time she travelled. Because she did so much business in Chicago, the staff knew her by name and made it a point to put her in the same room each time she came. They also stocked the room with her favorite wine, cold diet Cokes and the English toffee she often craved.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Carson.”

“Hello, Marco,” she said, greeting the hotel manager with a smile as she made her way to the front counter.

“Are you ready to check out?” he asked. He reached for the phone and said, “I’ll have a bellman collect your bags from your room.”

“That won’t be necessary. It looks like I’m going to be staying with you a while longer. My flight’s been cancelled because of the storm.”

Marco was always the epitome of discretion, and she knew something was wrong when he kept his face carefully blank and leaned forward slightly so his voice didn’t carry.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Carson, but you’ll need to check out of your room. We have another guest who already has reservations.”

Kate let out a breath and smiled reassuringly at Marco. He was obviously waiting for her to berate him for not having her room available. She understood things happened, and after all, none of this was Marco’s fault.

“That’s not a problem, Marco. Just put me in whatever you have available. And if you’d please call to have a bellman transfer my luggage, I’d be grateful.”

“No, Ms. Carson,” he said sheepishly. “You don’t understand. The storm has inconvenienced many of our guests and all of our rooms are taken. I’m afraid we’re fully booked. Though I would be happy to call another hotel for you and book another room. You are obviously a treasured guest of the Worth Hotel and we’d be happy to comp your stay.”

Kate turned and looked out the long bank of windows at the front of the hotel. Michigan Avenue was deserted, and only a couple of die hard taxis were running. The snow and ice were already so heavy she couldn’t see across to the other side of the street. The wind gusted in a confusion of swirls so the flakes seemed to come from all directions, and mounds of snow were beginning to form in front of the doors and windows. If she didn’t get transferred to another hotel soon, she’d be sleeping in the lobby.

Chapter Two

Kate turned and looked at the face of one the sexiest men she’d ever seen. He was tall. Tall enough to where she still had to look up to meet his eyes, even though the heels she wore made her just shy of six feet. His hair was dark and curled slightly around his ears and over his collar, giving him a somewhat boyish look, but the heat in his eyes was all man. They were dark, like chocolate sin, and they took every inch of her in slowly. His face was shadowed with stubble and he was dressed casually—a cream colored cable knit sweater, jeans and boots—though she could tell the quality was very expensive.

“Very good, Mr. Worth,” Marco said. “Thank you.”

Kate arched her brow as she took in the relaxed appearance of one of the wealthiest men in the world. No one knew very much about Derek Worth. He was considered somewhat of a recluse and a renegade. There were very few photographs of him in circulation, he liked to do all of his business behind closed doors, and all his charitable contributions were anonymous. The man was an enigma, and it was no wonder she hadn’t recognized him. She also very seriously doubted he would be able to handle her transfer to another hotel with as much efficiency as Marco could. Mr. Worth hardly looked like the kind of man to see to such trivial tasks.

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Worth, but I think it would be for the best if—”

Her words trailed off as he steered her away from the front desk and the ears that were only to happy to listen to their conversation.

“I very seriously doubt you want to get out in that storm when I have a perfectly reasonable solution to your problem,” he said, direct and to the point, like a man who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

He’d taken her to a secluded alcove away from the elevators and the other guests and backed her into the space so she had no choice but to be on the defensive.

“What I want is not an option, since I’m stuck here in Chicago instead of spending Christmas with my family. Your hotel is full, which I’d think from a financial standpoint would make you giddy with excitement.”

Kate pulled her arm from his grasp and took a step back, lifting her chin so he’d know she wasn’t intimidated by his high handed tactics. She worked with lawyers on a daily basis—some of them the very bottom of the feeding pool as far as humanity went—so she could certainly handle a reclusive playboy billionaire.

“I’m positively gleeful,” he said, quirking his lips so a hint of dimple showed in his cheek.

God, she loved dimples
. It seemed utterly unfair that he’d have them on top of everything else he had going for him. She sighed and tried to move away from the wall, but he stepped with her so her path was blocked.

“Mr. Worth, the longer I wait, the worse the storm is going to get. I’d prefer I didn’t have to sleep on one of your lovely lobby sofas.”

“Ms. Carson, are you always this quick to jump to conclusions without hearing all the options? Or are you just that distrusting of people in general? I told you I have another solution. Would you like to hear it?”