Page 21 of Secret Santas and Holiday Dances

“Oh, yeah! You danced with her a couple of times?”

“Yep.”

Helena blinked. “But she can’t be more than thirty-something—”

“She’s thirty-nine.”

“Oh,” Helena’s eyes went wide. “She must have been very young when she had Grace.”

Liam nodded. “Seventeen.” Basic math had figured that out for him the moment he’d found out she was Grace’s mother.

“Well, she must be a sweetheart if she has a daughter like Grace,” Helena said.

“She’s very nice,” Liam said. Nice, yes, sweet, not so much. That was a trait that Grace hadn’t gotten from her mother. Her mother would be better described as . . . determined.

Charlotte glanced in their direction right at that moment, catching both Liam and Helena in a stare. A demure smile, that didn’t fool Liam for one second, crossed her lips. She was as demure as a lioness.

He waved. “I better go say hi.”

Charlotte held his eye contact, ignoring the man she’d been talking to when she caught him staring.

He took a step forward, and Helena stopped him with a hand on his arm.

Liam looked at her.

Worry creased the corners of Helena’s eyes. “Charlotte’s a beautiful woman.”

“Yes.”

“And very charming,” she said.

“She is.” He furrowed his brow.

“Be careful there, Liam.”

He faced her full-on. “What do you mean?”

Helena took a deep breath. “You know exactly what I mean. If you cross that line, there’s no coming back from it.”

Her words were like a fist to the gut. He trailed his gaze to Charlotte and back again. She couldn’t think . . . He glanced at Helena. Actually, she could and did. It was completely unwarranted, though. But his sister’s thoughts aside, there was no harm in asking for a dance.

“I’m not making moves on Charlotte, and have no plans to,” he said and left Helena there to mull that over.

Charlotte turned to him as he approached, cutting off the one-sided conversation the man she was standing with was having with her.

“Liam, how good to see you.” Charlotte smiled, curtsied to the guy she’d been talking with, and excused herself to take Liam’s arm. She led them away. “Just in time. Somehow Frank keeps finding me and chatting my ear off about politics. If I’d known he was going to be at this party, I might not have been so eager to come.”

“Glad to be of service.” He grinned.

“So, tell me. Is this the kind of party where you get bored after an hour and want to go home or is it the kind you want to stay at until the last call?”

“It depends on what your definition of a good party is,” Liam said. “Emma’s parties have a lot of food, a lot of dancing, and she’s brought in an opera singer whose wedding she helped plan last year to do a Christmas performance.”

“Is the opera singer a male or female?” Charlotte turned and glanced up at him through her lashes.

“Female,” he said.

She snapped her fingers. “So close to being perfect. I guess I’ll just have to content myself with food and dancing.”

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