Page 8 of Husband for the Holidays

Exactly. Given her upbringing, finding her like this defied logic.

They arrived outside Konstantin’s building. Eloise leaned to peer upward.

“Is there a restaurant up there somewhere?”

“I’m not sitting in a restaurant with Santa’s Little Helper.”

“You’re not kidnapping one, either. That sort of behavior puts you on the Naughty list.”

“I’ve never been on the Nice one,” he drawled as he stepped out into the gust of wind and peck of snow. He liked to believe he was civilized and fair, but nice? No. That skated too close to caring and sentiment. He wasn’t one to bemoved.

Eloise had left the SUV and was standing on the sidewalk under the awning when he got there, hugging her coat lapels tight under her throat.

“I’d rather go home. Which way is the subway?” She squinted into the wall of flakes falling on either side of the awning.

“You said I could buy you dinner. Oscar will pick up our meal.” He nodded at his driver to leave and the car pulled away. “Come wash your face and tell me what’s going on.”

He started toward the entrance, but she stayed where she was.

“Really?” He stepped back to face her. “We’ve been alone before. Nothing happened.” It was a lie. Something had happened to him the last two times he’d seen her, but he’d put the brakes on before he stepped over any lines.

At least, he believed that until her gaze flashed up. Her hazel eyes reflected the white lights roped around the potted trees that lined the carpet to the door. He caught a glimpse of something in her eyes that was so naked, he felt the jolt of it travel into his chest and zing into his gut and groin.

Her lashes swept down, breaking that connection, but the electrical lines inside him were still smoking and tingling.

Thatwas what he had turned away from twice before. She sparked a sexual reaction in him that was not only inappropriate, it was as dangerous as a keg of dynamite. He had walked away those other times because she’d been too young. She’d been grieving. And she was his best friend’s kid sister.

He could have done it again right now. She wanted to leave and he could let her. He wasn’t stupid enough to bring explosives into his home and start playing with matches.

But he couldn’t let her go, either. She wasn’t even wearing gloves or a proper hat.

“If I wanted sex tonight, I would have gone on my date,” he said tersely, hoping to alleviate that worry from her mind. “This outfit of yours is not as seductive as you think it is.”

“Rude.” She scowled at him, but she was shivering.

Ilias’s voice was in his ear again.I don’t want her to be cold.

“Come inside,” Konstantin insisted. “Your brother would expect me to help you.”

“That’s emotional manipulation,” Eloise accused with affront.

“It’s the truth.” He glowered at her.

Eloise rolled her lips together. A strange hotness had arrived behind her eyes and in the back of her throat. She missed Iliasall the time. The promise of talking to someone who remembered him, who had cared about him even a fraction as much as she had, was tempting enough to override all her reservations.

She wasn’t really afraid of Konstantin, anyway. She was afraid of her outsized reaction to him. The tiniest little remark seemed to slide straight through her skin and leave a wide bruise.

But she was freezing and hungry and her brother would have at least expected her to give his best friend a few minutes of her time.

Also,shewanted to give Konstantin her time.

She sighed and walked to the door into the building, allowing him to reach past her and open it for her.

This high-rise was even nicer than the ones she’d been delivering gifts to. The elevator he guided her into read Private above the doors. Konstantin’s fingerprint triggered the single button inside it and it shot skyward in silence.

Eloise wasn’t a stranger to wealth. She’d grown up benefiting from the Drakos fortune, the one her mother had married into and her brother had inherited. She had attended a top boarding school and skied St. Moritz and shopped Paris and Milan every season.

Konstantin was way above that, though. Maybe if he had survived, Ilias would have kept up with Konstantin, but maybe not. Ilias had commented once that Konstantin wasdriven in a way I never will be. She had always wondered if that had anything to do with Konstantin being an orphan, but who knew with him. He was a private person, as he’d made clear more than once.

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