Page 1 of Naughty Santa

CHAPTER 1

It was official,Paris decided.

She’d landed in hell.

And the Bible was wrong. Because it wasn’t hot here at all. It was frigid, freezing, wet, windy and...white.

God.

It was so freaking white.

Louis had started whimpering the moment they stepped out of Terre Haute International Airport, and she felt a bit like joining him. “It’s okay, baby.” Paris tried to soothe her sweet little bichon, wishing she had bought him—and herself—a thicker sweater.

Briefly, she considered turning around and getting on the first plane back to L.A.

She probably would if she hadn’t just endured a red-eye from LAX trying to get to this winter hellscape. She’d had a layover in Minneapolis at four a.m. while sitting in a waiting area with a screaming baby and an obnoxious man loudly talking to someone the entire time on his cellphone.

Who the hell could he have been talking to at that time of the day? And why did he think the rest of them gave a shit that the Red Wings were playing like shit this season?

Considering it had been the middle of the night, and she’d gotten zero sleep on her earlier, overcrowded flight, she’d seriously considered going over to the man, grabbing his phone, and smashing it under the heel of her boot.

Violence wasn’t usually her thing, but damn she’d been tempted.

When it was apparent she wasn’t going to be able to close her eyes for a few minutes and rest in Minneapolis, thanks to the disgruntled hockey asshole, she had stumbled around in search of a Starbucks, waited in line for thirty minutes to order, and finally boarded a frighteningly small plane to Indiana.

Paris was exhausted and running on nothing but a soy latte and organic chickpea puffs. High functioning wasn’t a word she’d use to describe herself at the moment.

She briefly let goof the handle of one of her Steve Madden bags, as she hitched the shoulder strap of her Vanderpump Pets dog carrier higher on her arm and adjusted Louis’s sweater. The poor baby was shivering.

Paris set him down to do a tinkle, but all he managed was bouncing from paw to paw and a half-hearted potty before looking at her in desperation. She scooped him up and put him back in the carrier, hoping it would at least add a barrier against this brutal wind for him.

She wasn’t quite that fortunate because the air hurt her face.

Why in the hell would people choose to live in places where the air actually hurt their faces?

“Someone was supposed to be here,” she murmured to Louis, wondering what the hell she would do if the store employee was a no-show. Renting a car and trying to drive in all this snow seemed like a very, very bad idea for a California girl.

Once again, she tried to figure out what kind of lunatics would live in a place like this voluntarily? Had no one in Indiana ever been to L.A. with its bright sunshine and warm breezes?

Sure, there was smog, but that felt easier to breathe than this crisp, cold air that burned all the way to her lungs. Finally, she went back inside the airport because if left to the elements, she would freeze to death.

Paris spent the better part of twenty minutes dragging her two oversized bags, Chanel tote, and Louis around the baggage claim area searching for her name on one of the drivers’ signs, just in case she’d missed it earlier. When that proved fruitless, she returned to the tundra, aka the passenger pickup area outside. She got all her bags aligned on the sidewalk and spit the hair out of her mouth, blown there courtesy of the wind, which kept hurling it across her face, forcing it into her lip gloss.

Blinking rapidly, Paris pulled her sunglasses from her purse and put them on. Not because there was any actual sun in this godforsaken waste land, but because they served as a protective barrier from the snowflakes gathering on her eyelashes.

Now she understood why skiers needed goggles.

Also, why was there no overhang here? Didn’t most airports provide shelter for travelers? She added no overhang to the running list of complaints she was compiling about this place in her head.

“Uh, Miss.” Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Paris glanced around to see an elderly man pointing to where her suitcase was rolling away from her.

“Shit,” she muttered, grabbing the handle of her other bag and dragging it behind her to chase her luggage. Not an easy task in Fendi heeled boots. She had almost reached it when her foot slid across a slick patch of ice, and she did the world’s most ungraceful windmill as she tried not to fall on her ass.

It was official.

She hated Indiana.

“Paris?” a female voice called out.

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