Husband for the Holidays

Prologue

PROLOGUE

Seven years ago...

T HE DOOR CLOSED behind her brother and Eloise Martin was left alone with the enigmatic Konstantin Galanis.

Her seventeen-year-old heart began to pound. Not with fear. Not exactly. Ilias was only running to the corner for eggnog and would be back in five minutes, but she was still overcome by something between awe and dread, as though she’d been left alone with a tiger and the promise that he doesn’t bite .

Like heck. From what she’d read of his business acumen, Konstantin picked his teeth with the bones of his enemies every morning.

He was king of the jungle magnificent, too. He wore a stylish knitted pullover in ivory with brown suede patches on the elbows and the tops of his shoulders. His jeans were black, matching his short boots. His hair was cut short around his ears and was rakishly windswept on top. Given it was late afternoon, a hint of shadow was coming in on his jaw, framing his somber mouth and accentuating the hollows in his cheeks. His brows were strong thick lines over eyes that were cast down to ignore her in favor of his phone.

This crush of hers was silly. Childish. She knew it was, but she’d never been able to shake it. While her friends swooned over a cute actor or a boy band star, she secretly took screenshots of Konstantin from news releases and imagined a world where she was part of his life.

It was so immature! Especially when she was looking at him now and all she felt was intimidated and mesmerized.

He must have sensed her staring. His spiky lashes lifted and his dark brown gaze snared hers. Her pupils dilated in reaction. The lights on the tree suddenly seemed to paint the whole room in psychedelic reds and blues and golds and greens.

Quit gawking , she ordered herself and shakily turned back to the tree she was supposed to be decorating.

She didn’t allow herself to look over her shoulder. He’d probably gone back to reading his phone, but her acute awareness of him had her imagining she felt his gaze traveling down her back and bottom and legs. She grew clumsy as she took each ornament from its case and looped it onto a branch.

“Ilias said you came to New York to settle some business with him.” Nerves made her voice off-key and sharp.

Silence, except for the music switching to “Santa Baby.”

She looked over at him.

He was looking at her, which made her pulse hitch.

“Yes,” he replied.

“I don’t...” She cleared her throat, feeling extra awkward. “I know that Galanis is a freight and shipping enterprise, but I don’t know what you do there.” She had the impression it was more involved than managing an inherited fortune the way her brother did.

“I oversee it. We’re expanding into media and tech so it’s being rebranded as KGE.”

“You run it by yourself?” She hung the next ornament and glanced over.

“I have employees.”

He made her feel gauche, quirking his mouth in that ironic way.

“I meant that it sounds like a lot to shoulder for one person.” He was twenty-five, same as Ilias, even though he projected an air that was light-years ahead of everyone on the planet in maturity and life experience. “I only wondered if you have brothers or sisters who help?” Ilias had never mentioned any siblings and gossip sites were distressingly vague when it came to Konstantin’s personal life.

“No,” Konstantin replied.

“Other family?” His grandfather had died a few years ago.

“No.”

This was going well. “Pets?” she asked facetiously.

“No,” he pronounced dryly. “What do you really want to know? How I came to live with my grandfather? I don’t talk about it.”

Well, that was clear enough, wasn’t it?

“I wasn’t trying to be nosy.” She ignored the sting of his less than subtle rebuff and hung another ornament, this one shaped like an icicle. The heat in her cheeks should have caused it to melt into a puddle on the floor. “You and Ilias have been friends forever.” Since their boarding school days in England. “But he’s never told me much about you.”

Ilias had rarely brought his friend around. Aside from early glimpses over the tablet, Eloise had only seen Konstantin in person a handful of times. This was the first time in well over five years that she’d spoken to him in person, but she’d been idolizing him from the first time she heard his voice.

“Good.”

“What? I mean, pardon?” She had forgotten what they were talking about.

“I’m glad he doesn’t gossip about me. I’m a private person.”

Okay, then .

She stifled a sigh and looked toward the door. Was Ilias milking the cow and growing the nutmeg himself? What was taking him so long?

She moved to the dining table and started to carry one of the chairs toward the tree.

“What are you doing?” Konstantin was beside her in three long strides, sending a jolt of electricity through her blood.

“I’m a shortcake.” She was pointing out the obvious. It was the bane of her existence that she was barely five feet tall, especially at times like this when she found herself staring into the middle of a man’s chest, feeling at every disadvantage because of her size. “I can’t reach the top branches.”

“I’ll do it. Show me what you want.” He replaced the chair, body almost brushing hers, fritzing her brain cells.

He moved to the tree and waited with bored expectation.

“I’m not one of those people with a rigid set of rules around how the tree looks.” She made herself move closer even though she was walking right up to the tiger with his razor-sharp claws and giant teeth. “I just pick something from the box and stick it in a bare spot.”

It wasn’t rocket science, but he took the frosted globe from her hand, held it near a top branch, then looked at her again.

“Sure.” She shrugged.

A snowflake went next, then a snowman. Each time, he checked with her before he looped the string around the branch.

“Have you never decorated a tree before?” she asked with bemusement.

“No.”

“I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. Mom hasn’t hung her own decorations in years. If I hadn’t come to spend the holidays with Ilias, he probably wouldn’t bother, either. I like doing it, though. Put this one here.” She extended the reindeer as high as she could.

His fingers brushed hers as he took it.

They were standing really close. Close enough that she caught the faded scent of his aftershave and the traces of the rum he’d taken straight because they’d run out of eggnog.

The music switched to Mariah Carey crooning “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

As Eloise looked up at him, Konstantin looked down at her and their gazes tangled. The world tilted and Eloise fell into an abyss.

Oh. Something happened within her. She had always felt giddy and nervous around him. Awestruck. She thought he was beautiful and compelling and she had always longed for him to like her. To notice her.

She hadn’t realized it would be like this, though. She was old enough that she garnered sexual attention. Sometimes it was flattering, other times unwelcome.

It had never felt reciprocal. Not until now. The sensation was like an implosion that compressed heat into her, then expanded in an all-over blush of pleasure.

Konstantin looked at her the way a man looked at a woman and whatever cocoon she’d been occupying was suddenly too confining. She wanted to break out and step out and open herself. She felt fragile as a butterfly, but weighted, too. As though her blood were made of molasses.

That’s what his eyes were made of, she thought distantly: dark gold bittersweet molasses. And his mouth...

Her heart fluttered as she willed him to kiss her.

The keypad beeped and the lock hummed. Ilias called out, “They didn’t have the good kind. We’ll have to make do.”

Konstantin moved to the table where he’d left his phone and pocketed it, then met Ilias in the foyer.

“I have to get back to Athens.”

“What? Why?”

Ilias’s shock echoed hers. She moved closer to eavesdrop, hearing the rustle of Konstantin’s overcoat as he slipped it on. His voice lowered, but she heard his rumbled words.

“Your sister is cute, but I don’t want to encourage her.”

Oh, Gawd .

She covered her face, mortified that she’d misinterpreted that moment and made such a fool of herself that Konstantin couldn’t even stick around to face her.

“I’d hoped she’d grown out of that.” Ilias’s voice held humor. “Thanks for not making me call you out for pistols at dawn. We’ll talk soon.”

The door closed and she wanted to run into her room and hide. She made herself go back to the tree and pretend she hadn’t overheard anything.

“That looks good,” Ilias said behind her. At least he was kind enough not to tease her.

“I think so,” she lied, refusing to look at him. She hated this tree. The whole season was ruined. Based on how sick she felt, she doubted she would ever enjoy Christmas again.