Note to Readers
WAS THERE ANYTHING worse than a wedding on Christmas Eve, with glittering lights sparkling against the snow, holly and ivy decking the halls and the scent of winter roses in the air?
If there was, Holly Marlowe couldn’t think of it.
“You may now kiss the bride,” the minister said, beaming between the newly married couple.
Heartbroken, Holly watched as Oliver—the boss she’d loved in devoted silence for three years—beamed back and lowered his head to kiss the bride.
Her younger sister, Nicole.
The guests in the pews looked enchanted at the couple’s passionate embrace, but Holly felt sick. Fidgeting in her tight red maid-of-honor dress, she looked up at the grand stained-glass windows, then back at the nave of the old New York City church, lavishly decorated with flickering white candles and red roses.
Finally, the newly married couple pulled apart from the kiss. Snatching her bouquet back from Holly’s numb fingers, the bride lifted her new husband’s hand triumphantly in the air.
“Best Christmas ever!” Nicole cried.
There was a wave of adoring laughter and applause. And though Holly had always loved Christmas, striving to make it magical and full of treats each year for her little sister since their parents had died, she thought she’d hate it for the rest of her life.
No. A lump rose in Holly’s throat. She couldn’t think that way. She couldn’t be selfish. Nicole and Oliver were in love. She should be happy for them. She forced herself to smile as the “Hallelujah” Chorus pounded from the organ in the alcove above.
Smiling, the bride and groom started back down the aisle. And Holly suddenly faced the best man. Oliver’s cousin, and his boss. Which made him her boss’s boss.
Stavros Minos.
Dark, tall and broad-shouldered, the powerful Greek billionaire seemed out of place in the old stone church. The very air seemed to vibrate back from him, moving to give him space. He hadn’t been forced to wear some ridiculous outfit that made him look like a deranged Christmas lounge singer. Of course not. She looked over his sleek suit enviously. She couldn’t imagine anyone forcing Stavros Minos to do anything.
Then Holly looked up, and the Greek’s black eyes cut through her soul.
He glanced with sardonic amusement between her and the happy couple, as they continued to walk down the aisle to the cheers of their guests. And his cruel, sensual lips curved up at the edges, as if he knew exactly how her heart had been broken.
Holly’s mouth went dry. No. No, he couldn’t. No one must ever know that she’d loved Oliver. Because he wasn’t just her boss now. He was her sister’s husband. She had to pretend it never happened.
The truth was nothing had happened. She’d never said a word about her feelings to anyone, especially Oliver. The man had no idea that while working as his secretary, Holly had been secretly consumed by pathetic, unrequited love. No one had any idea. No one, it seemed, except Stavros Minos.
But it shouldn’t surprise her the billionaire Greek playboy might see things no other person could. Nearly twenty years ago, as a teenager, he’d single-handedly started a tech company that now owned half the world. He was often in the news, both for his high-powered business dealings and conquests of the world’s most beautiful women. Now, as organ music thundered relentlessly around them, Stavros looked at Holly with a strange knowing in his eyes.
Wordlessly, he held out his arm.
Reluctantly, Holly took it, and tried not to notice how muscled his arm was beneath his sleek black jacket. His biceps had to be bigger than her thigh! It seemed ridiculously unfair that a man so rich and powerful could also be so good-looking. It was why she’d carefully avoided looking at him whenever she’d liaised with his executive assistants—he had three of them—at work.
Shivering, she avoided looking at him again now as they followed Oliver and Nicole. The faces of the guests slid by as Holly smiled blindly at everyone in the packed wooden pews until she thought her face might crack.
Outside the old stone church, on a charming, historical lane in the Financial District, more guests waited to cheer for the couple, tossing red and white rose petals that fell against the thin blanket of snow on the ground.
The afternoon sunlight was weak and gray against the lowering clouds when Holly reached the safety of the waiting limo. Dropping Stavros’s arm, she scrambled inside and turned to stare fiercely out the window, blinking fast so no one would see her tears.
She couldn’t be sad. Not today. Not ever. She was happy for her sister and Oliver, happy they’d be leaving her today to start new adventures together around the world. Happy.
“Whew.” Nicole flopped into the seat across from her in a wave of white tulle that took most of the space in the back of the limo. She grinned at her new husband beside her. “We did it! We’re
