Gift-Wrapped In Her Wedding Dress. Kandy Shepherd

to injuries sustained in something perhaps more visceral.

      ‘It’s a wonderful idea for a party,’ he said. ‘Perfect for this house. Kudos to you, Ms Party Queen.’

      ‘Thank you.’ She made a mock curtsy and was pleased when he smiled. How handsome he was without that scowl. ‘However, is that a “but” I hear coming on?’

      He pivoted on his heel so he faced out to the pool, gleaming blue and pristine in the afternoon sun of a late-spring day in mid-November. His back view was impressive, broad shoulders tapering to a tight, muscular rear end. Then he turned back to face her. ‘It’s more than one “but”,’ he said. ‘The party, the guest list, the—’

      ‘The pointlessness of it all?’ she ventured.

      He furrowed his brow. ‘What makes you say that?’

      She found herself twisting the turquoise beads on her necklace between her finger and thumb. Her business partners would be furious with her if she lost Party Queens this high-profile job because she said what she wanted to say rather than what she should say.

      ‘This party is all about improving your image, right? To make a statement that you’re not the...the Scrooge people think you are.’

      The fierce scowl was back. ‘I’d rather you didn’t use the word Scrooge.’

      ‘Okay,’ she said immediately. But she would find it difficult to stop thinking it. ‘I’ll try again: that you’re not a...a person lacking in the spirit of giving.’

      ‘That doesn’t sound much better.’ She couldn’t have imagined his scowl could have got any darker but it did. ‘The party is meant to be a public display of something I would rather be kept private.’

      ‘So...you give privately to charity?’

      ‘Of course I do but it’s not your or anyone else’s business.’

      Personally, she would be glad if he wasn’t as tight-fisted as his reputation decreed. But this was about more than what she felt. She could not back down. ‘If that’s how you feel, tell me again why you’re doing this.’

      He paused. ‘If I share with you the reason why I agreed to holding this party, it’s not to leave this room.’

      ‘Of course,’ she said. A party planner had to be discreet. It was astounding what family secrets got aired in the planning of a party. She leaned closer, close enough to notice that he must be a twice-a-day-shave guy. Lots of testosterone, all right.

      ‘I’ve got a big joint venture in the United States on the point of being signed. My potential business partner, Walter Burton, is the head of a family company and he is committed to public displays of philanthropy. It would go better with me if I was seen to be the same.’

      Andie made a motion with her fingers of zipping her lips shut. ‘I... I understand,’ she said. Disappointment shafted through her. So he really was a Scrooge.

      She’d found herself wanting Dominic to be someone better than he was reputed to be. But the party, while purporting to be a charity event, was simply a smart business ploy. More about greed than good-heartedness.

      ‘Now you can see why it’s so important,’ he said.

      Should she say what she thought? The scrapheap of discarded party planners beckoned again. She could imagine her silver-sandal-clad foot kicking feebly from the top of it and hoped it would be a soft landing.

      She took a deep steadying breath. ‘Cynical journalists might have a field-day with the hypocrisy of a Scrooge—sorry!—trying to turn over a new gilded leaf in such an obvious and staged way.’

      To her surprise, something like relief relaxed the tense lines of his face. ‘That’s what I thought too.’

      ‘You...you did?’

      ‘I could see the whole thing backfiring and me no better off in terms of reputation. Possibly worse.’

      If she didn’t stop twisting her necklace it would break and scatter her beads all over the marble floor. ‘So—help me out here. We’re back to you not wanting a party?’

      She’d talked him out of the big, glitzy event Party Queens really needed. Andie cringed at the prospect of the combined wrath of Gemma and Eliza when she went back to their headquarters with the contract that was sitting in her satchel waiting for his signature still unsigned.

      ‘You know I don’t.’ Thank heaven. ‘But maybe a different kind of event,’ he said.

      ‘Like...handing over a giant facsimile cheque to a charity?’ Which would be doing her right out of a job.

      ‘Where’s the good PR in that?’

      ‘In fact it could look even more cynical than the party.’

      ‘Correct.’

      He paced a few long strides away from her and then back. ‘I’m good at turning one dollar into lots of dollars. That’s my skill. Not planning parties. But surely I can get the kind of publicity my marketing department wants, impress my prospective business partner and actually help some less advantaged people along the way?’

      She resisted the urge to high-five him. ‘To tell you the truth, I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking that exact same thing.’ Was it wise to have admitted that?

      ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘I tossed and turned all night.’

      A sudden vision of him in a huge billionaire’s bed, all tangled in the sheets wearing nothing but...well nothing but a billionaire’s birthday suit, flashed through her mind and sizzled through her body. Not my type. Not my type. She had to repeat it like a mantra.

      She willed her heartbeat to slow and hoped he took the flush on her cheekbones for enthusiasm. ‘So we’re singing from the same hymn sheet. Did you have any thoughts on solving your dilemma?’

      ‘That’s where you come in; you’re the party expert.’

      She hesitated. ‘During my sleepless night, I did think of something. But you might not like it.’

      ‘Try me,’ he said, eyes narrowed.

      ‘It’s out of the ball park,’ she warned.

      ‘I’m all for that,’ he said.

      She flung up her hands in front of her face to act as a shield. ‘It...it involves Christmas.’

      He blanched under the smooth olive of his tan. ‘I told you—’

      His mouth set in a grim line, his hands balled into fists by his sides. Should she leave well enough alone? After all, he had said the festive season had difficult associations for him. ‘What is it that you hate so much about Christmas?’ she asked. She’d always been one to dive straight into the deep end.

      ‘I don’t hate Christmas.’ He cursed under his breath. ‘I’m misquoted once and the media repeat it over and over.’

      ‘But—’

      He put up his hand to halt her. ‘I don’t have to justify anything to you. But let me give you three good reasons why I don’t choose to celebrate Christmas and all the razzmatazz that goes with it.’

      ‘Fire away,’ she said, thinking it wasn’t appropriate for her to counter with three things she adored about the festive season. This wasn’t a debate. It was a business brainstorming.

      ‘First—the weather is all wrong,’ he said. ‘It’s hot when it should be cold. A proper Christmas is a northern hemisphere Christmas—snow, not sand.’

      Not true, she thought. For a born-and-bred Australian like her, Christmas was all about the long, hot sticky days of summer. Cicadas chirruping in the warm air as the family walked to a midnight church service. Lunch outdoors, preferably around a pool