Christmas Secrets Collection. Laura Iding

at the office. The subject is getting seriously old.”

      “I’m sorry, but it’s an issue. You don’t have to take my word for it. Just wait. You’ll see. He loves women. Women love him. They can’t seem to help it. He can’t seem to say no.”

      Zoe sipped her iced tea. “What about you? You were his assistant once. Did you fall in love with him?”

      “Uh-uh. I had my secret weapon.” Lin held up her left hand. She wore a thick platinum wedding band.

      “A husband.”

      Lin beamed. “Roger.” She sighed in a dreamy way. “He’s an aerospace engineer.” She pulled her wallet from her giant black tote and took out a picture. Roger had blond hair, an angular face and thick-rimmed black glasses. “Hot, huh?”

      “Very handsome.”

      “He’s the only man for me.” Lin pressed the picture to her heart before tucking it away in her wallet again. “So I’m immune.”

      “But what about every other woman in the office? I haven’t heard any predictions that they’re doomed to fall for Dax. What makes me so special?”

      Lin shrugged. “It’s the constant proximity, I think.

      The daily close exposure to him when you work directly for him. I don’t know what it is about him. He must have some genetic anomaly. An excess of sex pheromones maybe.”

      “Oh, come on. You’re not serious.”

      “Oh, but I am.” Lin tipped her head, studying Zoe. “And you’re exactly his type.” The blue streak in her hair caught the light, gleaming. “It’s sad, really. I tend to think of it as Dax’s fatal flaw. He hires the pretty ones with personality. And then they fall head-over-heels for him.”

      “Not me. Can we be done talking about this?”

      Lin picked up her fork and stuck it in her Cobb salad. “Too bad you’re not already in love with someone else.”

       … in love with someone else….

      The words bounced around in Zoe’s brain.

      Lin was right. Zoe needed a man. Her man. A man she adored, who adored her in return. Such a man would be the perfect way to get everyone at Great Escapes to stop predicting her inevitable, job-destroying, hopeless passion for the boss.

      Too bad her man didn’t exist—or if he did, Zoe had failed, so far, to meet him.

      She pushed her coleslaw around on her plate, considering. Not that she was in any way ready for her own personal hero, not yet. She had things to prove, a success to make in the business world, before she found the man for her and settled down.

      Besides, right now she didn’t need an actual guy. No way. She didn’t have the time for a flesh-and-blood Mr. Wonderful who would drag along love and commitment and a shared mortgage. Uh-uh. It was the idea of the guy that mattered. It was that everyone believed she had a guy who was the only guy for her.

      She slanted Lin a glance. “Maybe I am in love already.”

      Sharp black eyes widening, Lin looked up from her plate. “There is someone special, then?”

      “I … don’t want to say anything right now. It’s, um, well, it’s complicated.”

      “Complicated is fine. Whatever. As long as there’s someone and you’re in love with him.”

      “You really think so?”

      “I know so. If you’re serious about getting a start at Great Escapes, a special guy would be the best thing for you. And for Dax. And for the poor, overworked ladies down in HR.”

       Chapter Two

      Zoe took that whole week to make up her mind.

      Really, it was a wild idea. Not to mention a total lie. She didn’t want to get involved in an elaborate fiction if she could avoid it. It could be dangerous. There was always the possibility she would get caught, and not only by tripping herself up. What if Dax ran into her mother or father or someone in the family and happened to mention that Zoe had a fiancé?

      That could be embarrassing.

      But, then, as far as tripping up, she could make notes, create her own personal hero from the ground up, so that he became the next thing to real for her. Then she would be unlikely to contradict herself when she spoke of him.

      And as far as her family, well, how much chance was there that they would blow the whistle on her? It wasn’t as though Dax knew her family well, or hung around with them or anything. Even if he ran into her mother somewhere, it would only be Hello, how are you? And have a nice day.

      True, her mom might ask how Zoe was doing on the job. He would say how great she was—well, he’d better say how great she was, because she intended to be even better at the job than Lin had been—and that would be that.

      No reason a fiancé even had to come up.

      And she wouldn’t have to tell the lie forever. Eventually, when she was certain that Dax had stopped worrying she might try to seduce him, when everyone in the office quit waiting for her to drag him into the supply closet and ravish him, she could end it with her imaginary groom-to-be. Because, well, sadly, sometimes even the most perfect relationships don’t last.

      Yeah. It was workable. Totally workable.

      Still, she hesitated. Maybe if she just held tight, the issue would resolve itself. Dax and everyone else at the office would see she wasn’t the least interested in him and that would be that.

      She wished.

      Unfortunately, as that first week went by, it was becoming painfully clear that the issue was not resolving itself, that she had to do something.

      Because Dax really was very attractive. He was so smart and funny. So yummy to look at. And he always smelled wonderful—fresh and clean, a little minty. And way too manly.

      And now and then, she’d catch him watching her in a speculative way. As though he was attracted to her, too. As if he saw the inevitable approaching and wasn’t dreading it all that much, that she was bound to make a pass at him and he was bound to take her up on it.

      And then he would have to tell her that she wasn’t working out. She’d be out of a job and her father would give her a hard time about it, once more making Sunday dinner at the ranch an experience she only wanted to avoid.

      Thursday, as she was trying to make some headway organizing Dax’s bottomless pile of slush submissions, the elevator doors rolled wide and a tall brunette in four-inch cage heels and satin cargoes stepped off. She smoothed her Grecian-style chiffon top, which had a plunging neckline that lovingly revealed a lot of ripe, tanned cleavage.

      “Dax, please.” She ordered him up like a cocktail, in a husky voice, batting her big Bambi eyes.

      “Have a seat. I’ll just buzz him and see if he’s—”

      “Oh, he’ll see me.” The woman breezed right on by.

      “Wait. You can’t …”

      But apparently, she could. She already had his door open and was lounging seductively against the door frame. “Dax.”

      “Faye,” he said from within. “What a surprise.”

      Zoe jumped up. “Uh, Faye, if you’ll only wait a minute, I’ll just—”

      Dax cut her off. “It’s all right, Zoe.” Did he sound annoyed—with her, for not stopping the woman in time? Or with Faye, for popping up out of nowhere to lounge against his office door? Zoe couldn’t tell. And she couldn’t read