The Billionaire's Christmas Gift. Carole Mortimer

pulled over dark auburn hair that lay in wet tangles about a pale face dominated by huge blue eyes and freckles and all her clothing was absolutely soaked through—including the sodden black boots on her feet.

      ‘Will you just get inside?’ he asked impatiently as the woman still hung back once he had wrenched the passenger door open. ‘It may have escaped your notice but we’re causing a traffic jam!’ he added, with a pointed glance at the row of cars lining up behind his.

      This man might be handsome as sin, Beth acknowledged as she reluctantly slid onto the passenger seat, but—that brief concern for having knocked her over aside—his manners certainly left a lot to be desired.

      It was a deliciously warm and dry car, she realised within seconds of having the door slammed closed behind her. Warm, dry, and spaciously decadent, with pale blue leather upholstery and walnut veneer.

      Although it seemed slightly less so once the darkly frowning driver had climbed in behind the wheel!

      ‘There really is no need—What are you doing?’ Beth voiced her alarm as he restarted the engine.

      ‘I’m getting us off the road and out of everyone else’s way, of course!’ An icy grey gaze raked over her scathingly before he turned the car round in the driveway and pulled over to the other side of the road, parking, and allowing the row of cars behind them to move out into the crawling traffic.

      Of course. Obvious, once she thought about it. If she’d thought about it. Which Beth hadn’t.

      She was surprised she could still function at all when she felt so numbed from walking to work in the icy rain and sleet for the past fifteen minutes!

      Beth repressed a shiver as she pushed the wet hood of her coat back off her hair. ‘I really am okay, you know. Wet and cold, obviously, and my dignity is certainly bruised. But otherwise I’m unharmed.’

      ‘I doubt it’s only your dignity that’s bruised …’ her reluctant rescuer drawled wryly.

      Beth turned to give him a frown; was this man—now that he was assured of her well-being—actually laughing at her?

      Nick could see exactly how wet and cold the woman beside him was now that the hood of her coat no longer hid her face; her teeth were chattering and her cheeks had taken on a slightly blue tinge. ‘I’ll drive you home so that you can take a hot shower and change into some dry clothes,’ he offered briskly.

      ‘That won’t be necessary, thank you,’ the woman refused primly. ‘I’m going to be late for work as it is—’

      ‘Aren’t we all?’ Nick muttered, knowing there was no way that he was going to make his nine-thirty appointment now. ‘But you can’t possibly go into work like that—’

      ‘Of course I can,’ she dismissed as she pulled the hood back over her hair—only to give a grimace at its uncomfortable dampness. ‘I have some dry things I can change into once I get into school.’

      ‘You work at St James’s …?’ Nick eyed her sharply as he reassessed her appearance.

      She was young, probably in her early to mid-twenties, and wore little or no make-up. Small gold studs in pierced earlobes. The clothes he could see—blue duffle coat, black trousers, black boots—looked serviceable rather than fashionable or designer label. Her gloveless hands were long and slender, the nails kept short, the fingers completely bare of rings.

      Probably one of the catering staff. Or perhaps she helped out in the classroom, Nick decided. If it was the former she no doubt had a kitchen uniform she could change into while her own clothes were drying on a radiator somewhere.

      ‘It’s your call.’ He nodded abruptly, checking there was no traffic behind him before pulling out to drive back down to the entrance to the main school building.

      This whole incident could have been so much worse, Nick acknowledged gratefully. He had been too distracted by the memory of that earlier unsatisfactory conversation with Bekka to even notice this woman stepping off the pavement in front of his car. Until he’d heard that telling thump, that was.

      He glanced at the woman beside him briefly. ‘I’ll give you my business card—just in case you suffer any ill-effects from the accident later on today and need to contact me.’

      Beth eyed the man beside her uncertainly, eyeing the expensive cut of his suit and the gold watch on his wrist bearing a discreet but very distinctive crest. The air of wealth made her wonder if he was a parent of one of the pupils at the school. She liked her job at St James’s. Enjoyed working at the private school for girls more than she would ever have believed possible when she had reluctantly accepted the position almost a year ago.

      Having grown up as an only child of loving parents in a small village in the east of England, and having been educated at that same village school, Beth’s experience of private schools had been nil when she’d decided to make this move to London just over a year ago.

      At the time Beth had thought she needed to get away—that after all that had happened a complete change of scenery was called for. She just hadn’t realised how completely different London was going to be from the village life she had known.

      Her previous job had been at a large mixed middle school in the town nearest to her village home. It was attended by almost one thousand pupils, and she had been pleasantly surprised to find that she enjoyed the intimacy of working in a school with only three hundred girls.

      The only drawback Beth had found was that parents tended to be more involved in a fee-paying school, and that the school and its staff were answerable directly to the governors, who were in turn answerable to those parents.

      If the man sitting beside her, in his top-of-the-range Mercedes, really was the wealthy parent of one of the girls attending St James’s, then Beth knew she was going to have to tread carefully. ‘I really am completely unharmed, you know,’ she reassured him lightly. ‘If anything was to blame for the accident then it was my own carelessness in stepping out into the road in that way without looking!’

      This woman really was quite beautiful now that she was drying out a little, Nick realised abstractedly. The blue of her eyes was a deep clear periwinkle, and she had a light dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose, along with a slight flush in her creamy cheeks.

      What colour would that dark auburn hair be once it was dry? he wondered. Red, of course. But would it be a bright carrot-red or—?

      He was finally going quietly out of his mind …!

      Ten months of trying to be both father and mother to Bekka, as well as juggling the demands of his extensive business interests to fit in with that dual role, must finally be taking their toll on him if he was starting to think the dripping wet waif and stray now sitting in his car—probably ruining his upholstery in the process—was in the least attractive!

      He straightened abruptly to take his wallet out of the breast pocket of his damp jacket; unlike the woman beside him, Nick would have to go home and change into some dry clothes before going to his office. ‘Here.’ He pushed his business card into the woman’s hand. ‘I expect you to call me if you have any repercussions from your fall,’ he explained impatiently, as, instead of taking the card, the woman looked at him, questioning.

      Beth gave the man at her side one last inquisitive look before glancing down at the card he had thrust into her hand, frowning as she read the words embossed in gold in the centre of that card: ‘Nicholas Steele, Steele Industries’, and both a landline and mobile number printed beneath.

      Nicholas Steele.

      CHAPTER TWO

      BETH knew the name Nicholas Steele, of course. Didn’t everyone? The man probably owned or had developed half of London, and he had even merited special mention by Miss Sheffield when Beth attended her initial interview. The headmistress at St James’s explained that the daughter of Nicholas Steele was a pupil at the school, and that, ‘Mr Steele is on the board of governors and also our most