The Kiss Before Christmas: A Christmas Romance Novella. Sophie Pembroke

you seem much better at telling him what to do,’ Lucas offered, making her grin. She had a nice smile, he realised. Wide and bright and friendly. Which wouldn’t get her anywhere with Patrick and Felicia Alexander.

      Then she scowled at Tyler. ‘I am. So get in the car, Alexander!’

      Grabbing her own case, Dory headed for the lift again, but Lucas stopped her. ‘I’ll take that for you.’

      He held out a hand and, after a moment’s pause, Dory let go of the handle and pushed the case towards him. ‘Nice to know one of you Alexander boys is a gentleman,’ she said, in a terrible impression of a Southern-belle drawl.

      Tyler’s laugh was louder than Lucas thought it really needed to be. ‘Oh trust me,’ he said, ‘Lucas opted out of gentleman status two years ago. Besides, I’ve got my own case to carry.’ He held it up, as if to prove the point.

      But Dory wasn’t looking at her boyfriend. She was looking at Lucas, and the curiosity on her face made him nervous.

      ‘And why was that, exactly?’ she asked. ‘Tyler never really talks about his family. Well, not as people, anyway.’

      ‘Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?’ Tyler asked, as Lucas headed for the lift, case in hand.

      He knew what Dory meant, even if Tyler didn’t. To Tyler, the family was the Alexander Family and all the restaurants, charity and money that went with it, not the individuals who were born into it. It was sort of inevitable, he supposed. The reputation of the family, their success, had always been the measuring stick of their parents’ happiness and pride.

      It had been Lucas’s, too, until two weeks in a hospital one fall taught him different.

      Dory didn’t answer Tyler’s question, which he figured gave him permission not to answer hers, either. But he had a feeling it was going to be a long car journey.

      ***

      Dory stared at the mud-smeared wheels and side of the four-wheel drive, looking utterly out of place parked in front of the Alexander Building offices.

      ‘I’m guessing you don’t live in the city, then?’ she said, as she followed Lucas and her suitcase around to the boot of the car. No, not boot. Trunk. One day, she’d get that right and someone would appear and announce her a true American, once and for all.

      Tyler laughed. ‘City life is one of the many things Lucas has scorned over the last couple of years.’ Leaving his case by the back of the car, he went to climb into the passenger seat. Dory pulled a face. Great. Two hours in the back of the car would do nothing for the butterflies in her stomach. Chances were, she’d arrive at Midfield House and immediately vomit all over a poor, defenceless servant. Or worse, Felicia Alexander herself.

      ‘Hey, Tyler? In the back.’ Dory looked over at Lucas as he spoke, but he slammed the boot and climbed into the driver’s seat. Weirdly, it seemed like her fake boyfriend’s brother was on her side.

      ‘I’ve got longer legs,’ Tyler argued. ‘I need the room.’

      ‘I get car sick,’ Dory told him, yanking open the passenger-side door. ‘Trust me, we’re all going to be happier with me in the front.’

      ‘Fine.’ Looking sulkier than a billionaire businessman and heir to one of the most profitable family businesses in the country had any right to, Tyler clambered back out of the front seat and into the back.

      ‘Thank you, darling,’ Dory said, as sweetly as she could. Lucas smirked as she clipped on her seatbelt, waiting until she was settled before he started the engine.

      Music blared out of the stereo, but Lucas made no move to turn down the volume. Dory ducked her head to hide her smile as Freddie Mercury belted out ‘Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy.’

      But Lucas obviously saw it anyway. ‘You’re a Queen fan?’

      ‘My father is. He sings this song to my mother when he’s doing the ironing on a Sunday.’

      ‘Your father irons?’ Tyler asked, sticking his head between the front seats.

      ‘Your parents are still in Britain?’ Lucas asked at the same time.

      Dory decided to answer the more sensible question. ‘Liverpool, yeah. I’m going back to see them over New Year.’ She couldn’t help the small glance back at Tyler as she spoke. He’d promised her the ticket as a present on Christmas morning at Midfield House. Until she had it in her hand, it still seemed impossible.

      ‘Liverpool,’ Lucas repeated. ‘The Beatles, yeah?’

      ‘Amongst other things.’

      ‘Like?’

      Dory looked up at him. ‘Sorry?’

      ‘Like what other things?’ Lucas’s gaze flicked away from the road as he smiled at her, then back again as he pulled out into the busy traffic.

      ‘Um, the docks. Liverpool FC. The Liver building.’

      ‘The accent.’ Tyler’s inflection made it clear that wasn’t a compliment.

      Dory glared at him between the seats. ‘You always said my accent was the first thing you fell for about me, darling.’

      The pointed endearment obviously reminded him of their arrangement and he recovered quickly. ‘Yours isn’t true Liverpudlian anymore, honey. It’s mellowed. And on you, any accent would be beautiful.’

      ‘Hmm. Better.’ Dory settled back into her seat.

      The stereo switched to ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and Tyler groaned.

      ‘Do we really have to listen to this?’ he asked. Dory and Lucas ignored him.

      ‘In about five miles he’s going to ask if we’re nearly there yet,’ Lucas told her. ‘And another five after that he’ll probably need a bathroom break.’

      ‘Trust me, I know,’ Dory said. ‘He’s dreadful in airports, too. Every time they call our flight he’s disappeared off to do something.’ Business trips with Tyler were a nightmare.

      ‘He’s even worse in cars,’ Lucas replied. ‘No in-flight entertainment.’

      ‘I’m sitting right here, you know,’ Tyler put in from the backseat. ‘Ears burning.’

      ‘I can’t imagine you taking a lot of family road trips as kids,’ Dory admitted. ‘I’d have imagined more private planes and first-class travel.’

      ‘Mostly, yeah,’ Lucas said. ‘But when we went away to school or came home for the holidays, our parents would send a car to get us. Tyler was always bored within the first twenty minutes.’

      ‘Not everyone can be entertained by staring out of a window at nothing,’ Tyler said. ‘And seriously. Can we put some talk radio on or something?’

      ‘Oh!’ Dory rummaged around in her handbag and pulled out her iPod. ‘I brought music!’

      Lucas nodded at the car stereo. ‘Then put it on.’

      Plugging the iPod into the adapter, Dory scrolled through to the right playlist then sat back and waited, trying not to smile too much. No point giving away the surprise too early.

      As Cliff Richard sang about seasonal plants and alcohol, Tyler buried his face in his hands.

      ‘What, exactly, did I do to deserve this?’ he asked.

      Lucas winced at the music. ‘Tyler, this is all your fault. Every last bit of it.’