The Christmas Set-Up Read online

  Her jaw dropped. Her heart stopped, too, and she stared at Jason.

  He was still looking at her, something new in his eyes that she hadn’t seen before.

  Steele hit a button on the remote in his hand and the design came up on the large flat screen behind him, the design that had been created only thanks to Jason.

  It was Jason’s and hers, merged together, but he’d taken his name off the project. For her. That’s what was in his eyes. Before she could fully process this, she was surrounded by her coworkers. Someone popped a bottle of champagne, and everyone wanted to shake her hand. She scanned the crowd for Jason, but he was gone. She headed for Steele. “Can I have a moment?”

  “After what you’ve done, you can have five,” he quipped.

  “That project was both mine and Jason’s. Together.”

  Steele’s brows went up. “Is that right?”

  “That’s right. He deserves the credit, too.”

  “You want to share the spotlight?”

  “We’re a team,” she said, and meant that in every sense of the word.

  A few minutes later she finally found Jason outside on the balcony overlooking the lights of San Francisco far below. “What was that?” she asked.

  He turned and faced her, pulling her into him. His mouth sought hers, his tongue tracing her bottom lip, seeking entrance, which she gave. With a groan, his hand came up to cradle her head, tilting her face so he could deepen the kiss, apparently not caring who saw them. His tongue plundered her mouth, taking possession, demanding a response, which she freely gave. Finally, she tore free and smacked his chest. “You took your name off the design.”

  “We both know it was mostly your design. Your work. I wanted you to get the credit.”

  “So you just gave away your shot at the promotion?” she asked, afraid of what that meant for him. Would he resent her? Pull away? Pretend what they’d shared hadn’t happened? “Why?”

  “Why?”

  “Yes, why did you do it? To make sure I kept sleeping with you on the weekends? Because you should know, I plan to keep doing that anyway. I don’t need you to feel sorry for me, or humor me.”

  “First of all,” he said, eyes flashing, “this wasn’t about sympathy, or humoring you, or ensuring a booty call on the weekends. You’re good, Zoe. So damn good. Too good for Steele, to be honest.” A muscle jumped in his jaw and he reached for her. “I admire your work, I always have. You deserve this. You deserve a hell of a lot more. You deserve L.A. if you want to go.”

  Her breath caught. “You said first of all. What was the second of all?”

  He stared into her eyes. “Second of all, I want to be with you. And I don’t give a shit who knows it. This is far more than weekend fun. I love you.”

  “You…love me?”

  “Yes. And I’ll love you from six hundred miles away in L.A. if I have to—I just hope not to have to.”

  “I love you, too, Jason.”

  With a smile, he bent his head toward her, but she put her hand on his chest. “So…you got me the promotion to keep me here?” she asked.

  “No, you got the promotion.”

  She laughed. “I just spilled your beans to Steele.”

  He didn’t look all that surprised, which made her heart beat even harder for him. He knew her. He got her.

  “What now, Zoe?”

  “Do we need a new deal?” she asked, her throat tight with emotion. Good emotion. Heart-deep emotion.

  “Yes,” he said. “The terms are that there are no terms. No competition, no race. You give me all you can of yourself, always, and I will do the same.”

  “Always?”

  “Always,” he said firmly.

  “For how long?”

  “As long as you’ll have me.”

  Her breath caught. “That might be a damn long time.”

  “Counting on it,” he said, and pulled her in hard and kissed her to seal the deal.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt from

  New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis’s next Heartbreaker Bay novel,

  WRAPPED UP IN YOU!

  Available September 2019 from Avon Books.

  CHAPTER 1

  Dig deep

  “Stay down.”

  No, she would not stay down. Mostly because Ivy Snow didn’t know the meaning of the words. Not once in her hard-knock, scrappy life had she ever “stayed down.” So she popped back up, using a spin and a roundhouse kick to level her opponent.

  Her kickboxing partner and friend hit the mat and grinned from flat on her back. “That’s gotta be worth at least a donut. You’re buying.”

  “Can’t,” Ivy said, eyeing the time. “I’ve gotta get to work.”

  “Well damn.” Sadie sat up and yawned. “I’ve still got a whole hour and a half before I have to do the same, which means I’m going back to bed. And if I’m lucky, Caleb’ll still be in it.”

  Caleb was Sadie’s fiancé. Ignoring the little spurt of envy at the thought of having someone waiting in bed for her, Ivy hit the locker room to shower and change.

  Fifteen minutes later, suitably beaten up by their four-times-a-week kickboxing session, she left the gym. It was six a.m., her very least favorite time of the day, and she shivered unhappily. It was two weeks before Christmas, which for San Francisco meant it could be any weather at all. Today it was forty-five degrees and she’d forgotten her jacket. She was on a budget, a tight one, but it wasn’t worth freezing to death for a couple of bucks so she decided to forgo walking and hopped on a bus rather than turn into a human popsicle.

  A guy in a suit, sneakers, and holding a huge energy drink took the seat next to her, giving her a not-so-discreet onceover. “‘Morning,” he said with a charming smile.

  And yes, she’d just felt a little wistful about not having anyone waiting for her in her bed, but that was fantasy, and Ivy was nothing if not grounded in reality. These days she prided herself on her sharply honed survivor skills, but in the past, she’d definitely failed herself in the man department. This was in good part thanks to a wanderlust lifestyle and a weakness for sexy grins that promised—and usually delivered—trouble.

  Like this guy’s.

  But that was all behind her now. She’d promised herself. So she gave him a vague, not-interested smile and turned away to look out the window. Rude? Probably. But she was calloused, and—as every guy she’d ever let in too close had complained—a tough nut to crack. The words cold and scary had also been thrown around.

  She didn’t mind. She actually liked it, even if the image went completely against her Disney princess-like moniker, Ivy Snow. Maybe especially because it did. Her name had been a bone of contention for a long time, but it wasn’t like she’d named herself. Her mother had done that, reportedly on some good prescription meds at the time.

  At her stop, she exited the bus and walked the last two blocks to work, getting a little happier with each step because one, exercise was over for the day, and two, she loved her job.

  For as long as she could remember, her entire life had been transient. This was mostly thanks to a dad who’d taken off a long time ago and a lounge singer mom who changed bar gigs like other women changed nail polish. As a result, Ivy had gone to a bunch of different schools, managing to slip through a whole bunch of cracks while she was at it. Luckily, she had been insanely curious and loved reading, and had taught herself most of the time. As a result, she was a pro chameleon and excelled at temporary. Temporary friends, temporary jobs, temporary life. It had suited her for a long time.

  Until it hadn’t.

  She’d woken up one day about a year ago and had realized she’d changed. Moving around no longer suited her and she was over living out of a backpack. So at the dubiously mature age of twenty-eight, she was trying a new lane. She’d settled in the Cow Hollow District of San Francisco, running a thing called The Taco Truck and living in an apartment that had her name on the lease.

  Roots. A