Page 5 of Husband for the Holidays

“I don’t want to get fired.” She turned back and tried to yank the edge from his grip, but he closed his fist tighter.

“Why are you working at all? Atthis?” His disparaging tone told her exactly what he thought of her job, but it was honest work. It was better than the forced marriage her stepfather had tried to sell her into.

That was the real humiliation. That her life had descended to this. Not just working to support herself. There was no shame in that. It was the part where she had failed to protect her mother and they were both victims of a con artist. It was the fact that she had allowed herself to live like a spoiled princess, never questioning where the money came from, so she’d been completely unequipped when the vault was slammed closed against her.

It was the fact that the one man her brother had looked up to was looking down on her.

Frustrated by all of that, she stepped around the sack so she was right beside him. She grabbed the velvet near where he held it and yanked it free of his grip, then turned to lurch across the street. But now the sack was in front of her, causing her to trip forward onto it.

In the same millisecond, the light changed. A car accelerated to take the corner before the oncoming traffic crossed the intersection.

There was a honk and a flash of a headlight, a shout and a sensation of being snatched out of the air like a sparrow into the claws of a hawk. There was a horrible crunching noise that made her cringe into the wall of wool as she waited for whatever injury she’d sustained to explode with pain.

“Look before you cross the street!” Konstantin’s harsh voice blasted against her ear. His arms were banded around her, squeezing the breath out of her. One hand was splayed on the back of her head, tucking her face into his overcoat.

She hadn’t been hit. She had fistfuls of his sleeves in her hands while her feet pedaled to find the sidewalk. Her heart was rattled and thumping, her ears ringing. The fragrance of aftershave filled her nostrils, going straight into her brain like a drug.

A wave of helplessness tried to engulf her, one that urged her to melt into his tempered strength and cry. She was cold and tired and hungry and scared. And there was also that older, ingrained and immature longing for exactly this: to be rescued and coddled and held by him.

She refused to buckle to any of that.

“Let me go,” she muttered, struggling even as he loosened his hold and let her slide to the ground.

He had to steady her as her foot slid in the slush, then she was free of his touch and felt utterly bereft.

“I have to—oh, no!” The sack had spilled off the curb. Two gifts were half crushed by tire tracks while the limp velvet sat in an icy puddle, collecting a dusting of wet snow. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“That could have been you. Do you realize that?” He sounded livid, which stung because she had only ever wanted his approval.

She started to bend, wanting to see if there was anything to be salvaged.

“You’re not crawling in the gutter after useless parcels.” He caught her back, his clasp on her arm keeping her standing beside him. “The sanitation people will clean it up when they do their rounds.”

“I have to deliver these toys. I’ll lose my job if I don’t.” She waved her free hand at the disaster.

“What sort of foolish job is it?”

“It’s called Twelve Days of Christmas. Parents sign up for twelve days of personal deliveries for their children. They’reexpectingme.” She shook off his hold.

“They’ll survive. You may not,” he added scathingly. “Come.” He tried to turn her back the way they’d come.

She dug her boots into the clumping snow. “I need my job if I want to eat.” That had been a harsh lesson, but she’d sure learned it in the last eight months.

“I’ll feed you.” He looped his arm behind her in an arched cage that swept her along like a blade plowing snow. “While you eat, you can tell me what the hell has happened that you’re resorting to this.”

Her feet stumbled to keep up with him while her back absorbed his strength all the way into her blood cells.

“You’re acting like I’m dealing drugs.” She looked back at the carnage of her paycheck, losing any chance at keeping her job when a figure darted out of the shadows to claim the sack and what was left of the parcels. They dragged all of it around the corner.

She couldn’t begrudge someone living on the street for seizing an opportunity. She had a better understanding of poverty these days. She was even a little glad that some poor soul would enjoy something like a Secret Santa windfall, but it only reinforced that she wasveryfired.

Konstantin cursed under his breath and dropped his arm from around her as they arrived under the awning of the building they’d just left.

A beautiful woman had just walked out and—

Wait. Was that Gemma Wilkinson, the actress? She was red carpet–ready in a pine green gown under a black wrap. Her hair was up, her ears adorned with diamonds and her smoky eyes were trained on them with appalled astonishment.

“I asked Giles what was keeping you and he said you walked out. I thought you were having a cigarette.”

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