A Champagne Christmas. Кэрол Мортимер

the perfection of her creamy skin. Her eyelashes and eyebrows were so light as to be invisible, but that proved the glorious pale gold of her hair came from nature, not a salon. She wore no lipstick and her teeth hadn’t been bleached to blinding movie-star whiteness, and yet her tremulous smile was warmer and lovelier than any he’d seen. She wasn’t stick thin as the strange fashion for women dictated, but her ample curves only made her more lushly desirable.

      He suddenly realized the dowdy secretary was a beauty.

      A secret beauty, disguising herself away from the world. Beneath the unattractive clothing and the frumpy, frizzy hairstyle, her loveliness shone bright as the sun.

      She hid her beauty. Why?

      “What’s wrong?” She frowned up at him suddenly, furrowing her brow in alarm.

      Had she guessed his plan? “What, solnishka mayo?”

      “You’re staring at me.”

      “You’re beautiful,” he said simply. “Like sunshine in winter.”

      She blushed, biting her tender pink lip as she looked away. Clutching the luxurious cashmere like a security blanket against her wet, threadbare coat, she scooted further away from him on the car’s leather seat. With a swallowed sigh, she stared out through the window at the passing Christmas lights beneath the thickly falling sleet. “Don’t be ridiculous. I know I’m not pretty.”

      She didn’t know, he realized. She had no idea. She wasn’t purposefully hiding her beauty. She didn’t know.

      “You are beautiful, Grace,” he said quietly.

      At the use of her first name, she gave him a sudden fierce, sharp glance. “Don’t waste your flattery on me, Your Highness.”

      He gave her an easy smile. “Call me Maksim. What makes you think it’s flattery?”

      “You might be London’s most famous playboy, but I’m not that gullible. A few false compliments won’t make me blurt out details about the merger with Exemplary Oil. Alan has Lord Hainesworth’s support now. You won’t be able to win.”

      So she was intuitive, as well as lovely. He was growing more intrigued by the moment. “I wasn’t lying.”

      “I’m not a total fool. I know I’m not beautiful. There’s only one reason you’d say I am.”

      “And that is?”

      “You want me to betray Alan.” She lifted her chin. “I won’t. I’d die first.”

      “Loyalty,” he said, staring at her with even greater interest. The girl felt something for her boss beyond what he’d expected. Was it possible she was in love with Alan Barrington?

      A pity if the little secretary believed herself in love with him, Maksim thought. He’d just been starting to respect her.

      Would money be enough to convince Grace to turn on her lover? Or would Maksim have to seduce her away from him?

      Seducing a woman who was in love with another man would be an interesting challenge, he thought. And poetic justice.

      But Maksim’s interest in Grace was no longer just about revenge. It was no longer just about rivalry or honor.

      He suddenly wanted to peel away the deceptive layers of the little secretary’s plain clothing. To see her true beauty. To see her naked in his bed. To feel her lush curves against his body and see her bright, unadorned face breathless in the soft pink light of dawn.

      Beneath his gaze, her pale cheeks went slowly red, like the blood-colored sun burning through the thick morning mist on the wide snowy fields of his Dartmoor estate. He watched as she nervously licked her full, pink, heart-shaped lips. Her white, even teeth nibbled at her lower lip, followed by a small dart of her tongue to moisten each corner of her mouth.

      He felt himself go hard watching her.

      He prayed she’d refuse his honest offer of money. Then he could just take her. Without conscience. Without remorse.

      “The Leighton boutique is on Bond Street,” she stammered, caught in his gaze.

      He gave a predatory smile. “My driver knows the way.”

      “Of course he does. You date so many women, I bet you go there a lot.” She turned away, blinking fast as she stared out the window. Beneath her breath, she added wistfully, “It must be nice to never worry about money.”

      A sudden memory went through Maksim of the bone-chilling winter when he’d turned fourteen. There’d been no heat in their tiny apartment; his mother had been laid off from her temp job. Three-year-old Dariya had been shivering and crying, and their desperate mother had taken her to a shelter to get warm. Wanting to help, he’d cut school to sell newspapers on the street in Philadelphia. Freezing rain soaked through everything. It had taken three days afterward for Maksim’s coat to dry—three days of winter so cold it left his skin the color of ash. Three days of a wet, icy wind that seeped beneath his clothes and left him shaking till his teeth chattered.

      Three days of hiding the wet coat from his mother, knowing that she would insist on giving him her own, that she’d go without a coat herself as she trudged the distance between employment agencies, desperate to find a job, any job.

      Those three days had taught him the most valuable lesson of his life.

      Money made the difference between a good life and no life at all.

      Money fixed anything. Money fixed everything.

      And you didn’t get it by being nice.

      “What a fairy-tale life,” the girl whispered, staring out the window at all the well-dressed shoppers on Bond Street, the expensive cars, the festive decorations and lights of Christmas. “A perfect fairy-tale life.”

      Looking at her wistful beauty, Maksim suddenly had the strong desire to tell this naive girl the truth about his ruthless soul.

      But he didn’t. She’d learn it soon enough.

      She’d learn it the hard way.

      Grace Cannon would tell Maksim what he needed to know. He would try to buy the information. If that didn’t work, he’d seduce it from her.

      Or maybe, he thought suddenly as he looked down at her, he would seduce her anyway.

      He would show this little secretary a kind of romance she’d never seen before. Luxury on a grand scale. He would be lavish. He would kiss her senseless. And like every woman before her, she would fall.

      He would make her talk.

      He would take her body.

      Then…he would drop her.

      A man didn’t get rich—or win—by being nice.

CHAPTER THREE

      ELEGANT shops always made Grace uncomfortable, and the Leighton boutique was the snootiest shop on Bond Street.

      She could feel herself tensing up the moment she walked through the door, past grim-jawed security guards in suits like FBI agents. They gave her a hard stare, and she had the sudden feeling they were waiting for her to make one false step so they could take her down as a warning to other broke secretaries who might try to venture inside this rarefied, exclusive world.

      Grace swallowed, looking around the elegant primrose-colored boutique. Buying the lingerie the first time had just about killed her. Buying it on behalf of the man she loved, as a gift for another woman—in such a teensy, tiny size, to boot—was just another painful reminder of the fact that Alan had chosen Lady Francesca Danvers over her. The moment Alan had met the beautiful, wealthy aristocrat, he’d forgotten all about the drunken kiss he’d given Grace just the previous night.

      It had been Grace’s very first kiss.