CHAPTER ONE
‘I CAN’T...’ HOLLIE’S words came out as a strangled squeak as she held the dress up.
It was very Christmassy. In fact, it screamed Christmas—and not in a good way. Short, bright and very green, it gleamed beneath the garish lights of the hotel where the party was being held. She tried again. ‘I can’t possibly wear this, Janette.’
Her boss’s perfectly plucked brows were elevated. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s...’ Hollie hesitated. Normally, she was the most accommodating of employees. She was a peacemaker. A facilitator. She worked very hard and did what was asked of her, but surely there was a limit. ‘A little on the small side...’
But her boss wasn’t interested in her objections. In fact, she was even more self-absorbed than usual and had been in a particularly vile mood since her fingernail had chipped that morning and subsequently snagged one of her super-fine stockings.
‘Someone of your age can get away with wearing something as daring as that,’ Janette clipped out as she adjusted a low-hanging bunch of mistletoe. ‘You might find it suits you, Hollie—it’ll certainly make a change from your usual wardrobe choices.’
‘But—’
‘No buts,’ continued her boss smoothly. ‘We’re sponsoring this party, just in case you’d forgotten. And since one of the waitresses is a no-show and with so many VIPs coming, we can’t possibly be short-staffed. All you have to do is to turn up dressed as an elf for a couple of hours and hand out a few canapés. Why, if I were a few years younger I would have worn the outfit myself! Especially as Maximo Diaz has agreed to come.’ She flashed a veneer-capped smile. ‘Potentially the most valuable client we’ve ever had. Mr Big. Mr Limitless Bank Account. And if his hotel purchase goes through before Christmas, you’re looking at a big fat bonus. Surely you haven’t forgotten that, have you?’
Hollie shook her head. No, of course she hadn’t. How could she have forgotten Maximo Diaz and all the fuss which surrounded him whenever he made an appearance in the small Devon town where she’d moved after her life’s savings had become someone else’s pocket money? How could anyone ever forget a man who resembled a dark, avenging angel who had tumbled to earth in a custom-made suit? A man who made her heart race with uncomfortable excitement whenever he caught her in the hard, black spotlight of his gaze so that she felt like a butterfly pinned to a piece of card.
She swallowed. She guessed every woman felt that way about him. She’d seen the way he was watched by every female who happened to be in the vicinity, whenever he walked into the estate agency where Hollie worked. She’d noticed the way their eyes were drawn—reluctantly or otherwise—to the powerful muscularity of his body and the glow of his olive-dark skin. He was a man who seemed to have taken up stubborn residence in her imagination. A man who symbolised a simmering sexuality and virility which scared her and excited her in equal measure—and no matter how hard she tried, she found it impossible to remain neutral to him.
Not that she would have made very much of a mark on his radar. Powerful Spanish billionaires tended not to take much notice of nondescript women who beavered away quietly in the background of large offices. Occasionally she’d made him a cup of coffee, accompanied by one of the home-made biscuits she sometimes brought to the office, if her boss wasn’t on one of her rigid diets. She remembered him absently taking a bite from a piece of featherlight shortbread and then looking at it in surprise, as if the taste of something sweet was something he wasn’t used to. He probably wasn’t. Because ‘sweet’ wasn’t really a word you associated with the rugged tycoon. Hard and dark were words which sprang more readily to mind.
But she shouldn’t be thinking about Maximo Diaz—not when Janette was still fixing her with that expectant stare, and automatically Hollie smiled back.
‘Of course I haven’t forgotten Señor Diaz,’ she said. ‘He’s a very important client.’
‘Yes, he is. Which is why all the local bigwigs and politicians are so eager to meet him,’ Janette said eagerly. ‘He’s going to have a big impact on this area, Hollie. Especially if he turns the old castle into a hotel like it was before, back in the day. It means we won’t have to use this eyesore of a place any more for our official functions—and not before time.’
‘Yes, I do realise that.’
‘So you’ll do it?’
Hollie nodded. It seemed she didn’t have a choice and therefore she would accept the situation gracefully. Wasn’t that one of life’s most important lessons? ‘Yes, Janette, I’ll do it.’
‘Excellent. Run along and get changed. I’ve popped in a pair of my own shoes—I think we’re the same size. You’ll never fit into the other ones. Oh, and wear your hair down for once, will you? I don’t know why you always insist on hiding away your best feature!’
Tucking the outfit under her arm, Hollie slipped from the room, dodging gaudy streamers along the way, trying to concentrate on the evening ahead rather than her boss’s rather overbearing manner. Despite being a whole two months until the holidays, the hotel was decked out with yuletide sparkle, which didn’t quite manage to disguise the ugly fittings which had seen better days. Yet she wasn’t going to complain about the fact that the festival seemed to come earlier every year, because Christmas was a welcome break in the normal routine. A time for candles and carols and twinkling lights. For pine-scented trees and bells and snow. She might not have any family of her own to celebrate with but somehow that didn’t matter. It was a time when strangers talked to one another and it brought with it the indefinable sense of hope that, somehow, things were going to get better—and Hollie loved that feeling.
Fluorescent lights lit the way to a gloomy subterranean cloakroom, which was a bit like descending into hell, but Hollie remained determinedly positive as she shook out the fur-trimmed green dress, the red and white striped tights and Janette’s scarlet stilettos, which were scarily high.
Peeling off her shirt dress, flesh-coloured tights and sensible court shoes, she stood shivering in her underwear as she struggled into her elf costume. But by the time she had managed to zip it up, she realised her reservations had been well founded because the person who stared back at her from the mirror was...
Unrecognisable.
She blinked, finding it hard to reconcile this new image of herself—and not just because she was wearing what amounted to fancy dress. The no-show waitress must have been much shorter, because the hem of fake white fur swung to barely mid-thigh—a super-short length, which was exaggerated by Janette’s skyscraper heels. The other waitress must have been slimmer too, because the green velvet was clinging to every pore of Hollie’s body, like honey on the back of a teaspoon. The rich material moulded itself to her breasts and hugged her waist in a style which was as far from her usual choice of outfit as it was possible to imagine.