Cinderella's Billion-Dollar Christmas. SUSAN MEIER

eviction tonight with a bottle of scotch and four hours of work. Danny and Jace weren’t the only ones with commitments.

      Danny sighed. “Look, get her settled in the hotel and take her for a nice dinner.”

      Nick blew his breath out in exasperation. “I’m serious about this costing you one big, fat favor.”

      Danny laughed. “Why? Does she look like Mark?”

      “No, I’m guessing she got the cocktail waitress’s genes.”

      Danny guffawed. “That good, huh?”

      Nick gazed longingly at Leni again. “Better.”

      “Okay. I’ve got to go. The judge is back from recess. And I swear I will end this trial as quickly as possible.”

      As Danny hung up, Nick took a long, slow breath. He didn’t want to spend any more time with a woman he was already attracted to. Work was his life now. Besides, she was way too nice for him. Innocent. Sweet. He wasn’t any of those. Still, he was helping Danny because Mark had been his friend. He resisted women all the time. This one would be no different.

      He walked into Danny’s office and straight to the private elevator. “Let’s go.”

      Leni scrambled after him. “Where?”

      “The lawyer is stuck in a trial. I’m taking you to your hotel and then to dinner.”

      They stepped into the elevator. “I can’t go to dinner with you.”

      He peered at her. “You’re ditching me?”

      “No. I’m just not going out with someone dressed like you,” she said, pointing at his black suit and charcoal-gray overcoat. “When I look like this.” She motioned down the front of her jacket.

      “We can buy you a dress before we go to the hotel. In fact, we can get you anything you want. There’s a slush fund for vetting potential heirs. It’s there to get you anything you need while you’re in the city.”

      She gaped at him. “I’m not letting you buy me clothes.” Though she almost wished she could. Her old jeans and jacket firmly announced her as someone not from Manhattan. Which made her stick out in the crowd milling about in the building lobby. The people who’d seen her walking out of the private elevator for a lawyer’s office probably thought she was a petty thief.

      “I can’t pay you back if I’m not an heir.”

      “I told you, there’s a slush fund. You’re in New York at the estate’s request. While you’re here it’s our responsibility to get you anything and everything you need. No paybacks. It’s part of the process. We’ll be putting the exact same amount of money into slush accounts for all potential heirs.”

      “You might have to pay for the hotel and the limo, but you’re not buying me clothes.”

      A muscle in his jaw jumped as he motioned to the revolving door. “Fine.”

      She could see she’d aggravated him, but she didn’t care. She walked through the door, out into the snow and into the limo again. They took a short ride and exited the limo onto the busiest street Leni had ever seen. The jumbotron, lights and videos were the familiar backdrop of an early morning news show.

      She reverently whispered. “Times Square.”

      Nick pointed to the right. “Your hotel is this way.”

      The only hotel she saw to the right was way down the street. She glanced back at the limo. “We’re walking?”

      “Traffic was backed up at the hotel entry. It’s not far.”

      “Oh. Okay.”

      “You want to get back into the limo and wait out the line?”

      Not really. Cool air massaged her warm face. The noise of Times Square and the crowded street took her attention away from Mark Hinton and money and the handsome guy walking with her who seemed to have gone from annoyed to angry. No sense poking the bear.

      “Yeah. Walking’s good.” Shoving her hands into her jacket pockets, she peered around again. “I like seeing everything.”

      He pointed across the street. “My office is in that building there.”

      Gray brick with black slate accents. Long, thin windows. A doorman.

      “Wow.” She fought the question that automatically rose as she shuffled along beside him, but it bubbled out anyway. “What’s it like to work here?” She gestured around her. “In all of this noise and people?”

      “Our windows are soundproof.”

      She laughed. “Seriously? You know what I mean. You saw where I live. There are about fifteen hundred people in our entire town, and I’ll bet there are three thousand on this street with us now. You can’t know everybody. How do you decide who to trust?”

      He peeked at her. “Reputation.”

      She skipped twice to catch up with his long strides. “Reputation? If you don’t know someone, how do you know their reputation?”

      He shrugged. “I always know somebody who knows somebody who knows them. And, if they are high enough in a corporate structure, there will be things written about them.”

      “Written about them?”

      “In professional journals, but I do search the internet sometimes to find out things about them.”

      “Did you research me?”

      He gave her the side-eye. “That was Danny’s job.”

      “This Danny—the lawyer—is pretty important?”

      “His firm is handling the Hinton estate. He’s the boss. Any mistakes are on him.”

      Things began to fall in to place for Leni. Nick never lied to her, but she was beginning to understand why getting a complete answer out of him was close to impossible. She was the problem.

      “Like mistakes you make with me?”

      He stopped walking and studied her for a few seconds before he said, “Yes.”

      That ill-timed thrill ran through her again, and she knew why he’d stopped walking, why he was still looking at her. Their initial conversation at the diner had been flirty and fun and she wasn’t a thirteen-year-old girl wondering in the boy next door liked her. She knew the signs. But he’d had to squelch those feelings. Because of the estate? Because of not wanting to make mistakes?

      “You aren’t allowed to get too chummy with me, are you?”

      “No.”

      “And the reason you keep acting all stuffy is because we sort of already did make friends in the diner?”

      “Yes. And that’s wrong.” He shook his head. “You’re funny and you have a warmth about you that’s very appealing. But there are things in my life that prevent me from even considering a relationship, and you could potentially be inheriting tons of money which will completely change your life. You shouldn’t want to get involved with me any more than I want to get involved with you. Which means we shouldn’t even try to get to know each other.”

      She’d thought the same thing herself. Except her thinking had run along the lines of not being able to trust him. And hadn’t she already figured out he had secrets? Though, it did intrigue her that he’d admit there were things in his life that prevented him from even considering a relationship. That had to mean there was more to his backing off than keeping his professional distance. Which was good to know. A woman who had been a little girl in foster care, wishing her next set of parents would love her enough to adopt her, didn’t need to be wondering why he ran hot and cold with her or why he sometimes downright ignored