It Must Be Christmas Read online

  Nate forced himself to appear impassive when what he really wanted was to reach out and touch. A woman like that could bring a man to his knees and Nate was more than up to showing her what he could do for her from that exact position. Rather than tuck tail at his forced stoicism, she squared her shoulders and stepped up to him. Ballsy. And not at all what Nate expected.

  “I’m sorry about your father,” she said without preamble. “But between you and me, he could be a real ornery bastard.”

  Nate canted his head to one side as he regarded her, careful to keep his expression stern and emotionless. “So, you knew him?” He appreciated someone being straight up with him for a change.

  “No,” she replied in that same guileless tone. “We spoke a couple of times on the phone. Then again, I did tell his secretary that I was pregnant with his baby in order to get past the gatekeepers. It might have had something to do with why we got off on the wrong foot.”

  A smile tugged at Nate’s lips but he didn’t give in to his amusement. “Probably.” In a sea of pretentious windbags and vapid, bottle blond daddy’s girls, this one was a breath of fresh air. Her dark auburn hair was piled atop her head in a haphazard mess that made Nate wonder if she’d rolled out of bed and into her car. Freckles dotted her nose and dusted her cheeks, accentuating the deep emerald green of her eyes. Her full lips were glossy, but not painted on like most of the women here. She wasn’t made up or overdone. It might have been the beer talking, but her fresh face and brash sincerity was exactly what Nate needed right now.

  “I’m Chloe by the way.” She held out her hand. “And you are the infamous Nathan Christensen.”

  His brow knitted. “Nate. I hadn’t realized that my infamy elevated me to no-introduction-needed status.”

  Chloe smiled. An open, friendly expression that tugged at the center of Nate’s chest. “Being a Christensen comes with its own brand of notoriety.”

  She had that pegged. Likewise, being a Christensen didn’t always attract the sort of woman that Nate was interested in spending time with. He didn’t have the time or the patience for Dallas high society. The women who fished that pond were as fake as their plastic surgery and wanted a man with a bulging wallet and one who wasn’t carrying a closet’s worth of emotional baggage.

  “How so?” Her voice was naturally sensual, almost a purr and Nate couldn’t help but wonder what it would sound like in the grips of passion. His heart raced just imagining it. He didn’t want their conversation to end. Chloe was quick on her feet and her honesty was a fresh breath in the stale air.

  She cocked her head to the side. “Oh, come on. Like you all don’t know that you’re the black sheep of this herd.”

  Nate smirked. “I’d say you’re in the right company then.”

  Her eyes widened with feigned innocence. “What could possibly prompt you to think such a thing?”

  Cheeky. Nate appreciated sarcasm. And in Chloe, it was goddamned attractive. His gaze swept her once again from head to toe with appreciation. Black heels, black pencil skirt that hugged her voluptuous curves in a way that was practically lewd. Crisp, pinstriped dress shirt with the top buttons left undone to tease him with the ample swell of her breasts. The heels brought her almost to his height and he liked that she wasn’t another waifish socialite. His plan up until now had been to drink and continue to drink until he was so shitfaced that his brothers would have to carry him out of here. Nate had been so on edge for the past week that it was a wonder he hadn’t gone off the deep end. He needed a release. Something to take the edge off. Maybe instead of using alcohol to numb the ache in his chest, he could fuck the emptiness out of his system.

  “Why did you tell my dad’s secretary you were pregnant with his baby?” It gave Nate a perverse sense of satisfaction to think of his dad’s chains being rattled.

  She gave him a sheepish grin that caused Nate’s gut to clench. “I’d been trying to get ahold of him for weeks. His secretary shot me down every time I called, so I switched up my tactics.” Her gaze turned devilish and a rush of liquid heat shot through Nate’s veins. “She put me through without asking a single question.”

  His dad’s reputation as a lecherous son of a bitch was pretty well-known. He liked his women young and tight. Arm candy he could drag all over town. That his secretary wouldn’t bat a lash at the notion his dad had a mistress on the side left a sour taste in Nate’s mouth. His dad had professed to Nate and his brothers that he’d been faithful to their mom until the day she died. In the back of his mind, however, Nate had always doubted the truth of it.

  “So you weren’t sleeping with him?”

  Her insulted glare caused Nate’s lips to twitch in an almost smile. “No way. I run a charity organization that provides sports programs for underprivileged and at-risk kids. A girl’s gotta pay the bills and Byron seemed to have the cash to spare.”

  Nate snorted. His dad was a tightfisted son of a bitch. He didn’t have to ask Chloe how the conversation went to know that he’d shot her down. “Somehow, I doubt you’re here to thank us for Dad’s generous donation.”

  Her mouth turned down in an almost pout that made her bottom lip deliciously full. “Not exactly.”

  Holy shit, did he want to bite that lip and then lick the sting away. “Maybe your tactics sucked.”

  Her mouth opened in shock but her eyes sparked with mischief. “Are you suggesting I rubbed your dad the wrong way?”

  “I’m suggesting you need to learn more about your targets. Don’t you know that the Christensens are notoriously disdainful of people looking for a handout?” Which was precisely why Nate was considering off-loading his inheritance. The last person he wanted a handout from was the one man who’d ruined his life.

  * * *

  Her first assessment of Nate had been pretty spot-on. He was a tough nut to crack. His gaze had warmed from a cold, emotionless death glare to something altogether hotter, though. It sparked a warm glow in Chloe’s stomach that steadily built to a slow burn. After talking to Nate, she realized that she was going to have to play this closer to the hip than she’d anticipated.

  Notoriously disdainful of people looking for a handout. She didn’t have much time to charm a sizeable donation from Nate, but it seemed she had no choice but to be patient. If she hit him up now, he might just tell her to fuck off—his earlier stare had certainly implied as much—and she couldn’t risk letting him slip through her fingers.

  “So you’re saying I would have gotten farther with him if I’d actually been pregnant with his baby?”

  Nate burst out into a round of cynical laughter. He motioned for a cocktail waitress and scooped a flute of champagne off her tray and handed it to Chloe. “Probably.” She took the glass from his outstretched hand and tried to keep her gaze from lingering on the muscles that flexed over his forearm. “Can you believe this spread?” He indicated the room at large with his bottle. “Any excuse for these people to get out and be seen.”

  Nate wasn’t at all what she’d expected. He was like the anti–Byron Christensen. There wasn’t a stuck-up bone in his body. “It’s a little swankier than the memorial services I’ve been to,” Chloe admitted. “I suppose his friends wanted to send him off in style.”

  “Hyenas.” Nate took a long swig from the mouth of the bottle and Chloe’s gaze wandered to his lips. Was it possible to be jealous of an inanimate object?

  “They can’t all be bad.”

  He cocked a brow. The expression faded into something akin to resignation. “Maybe.” His gaze raked over her once again and Chloe felt her cheeks flush. “I’m reserving judgment until I get to know you better.”

  Two hours passed in the blink of an eye. Chloe had had enough champagne to know that one more would push her past tipsy, and it was time to head home and form a new game plan for how to handle Nate before she said something she might regret. Like how much she wanted to bite the delicious curve of his ass cheek for starters. The man was perfection. Every hard angle of his body begging f