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Unwrap Me
Melissa MacNeal
Susan Lyons
Melissa Randall
KENSINGTION PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
Contents
Unwrap Me
Susan Lyons
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Naughty Noelle
Melissa MacNeal
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
All She Craves For Christmas
Melissa Randall
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Unwrap Me
Susan Lyons
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my great critique group: Elizabeth Allan, Michelle Hancock, and Nazima Ali. Special thanks to Bonnie Edwards for giving me the perfect title for this story. And to Judy Jackson for being the authority on all things Christmas and the inspiration for Nick’s mom. I invite my readers to contact me via my Web site at www.susanlyons.ca.
1
“Judith Benedetto, what do you mean you won’t come to Mazatlán for Christmas?”
Jude gazed longingly at the flat-screen monitor on her office desk. Why couldn’t her mother stick with e-mail? That way, it was easier to say no. “Mama, you and I haven’t done Christmas in eighteen years. I’m not about to start.”
Silence at the other end.
Okay, she was a bitch for reminding her mother of the year they’d discovered the truth: The man Jude had called Daddy had another wife—a first and legal wife—and another daughter—an older and legitimate daughter. She and her mama were afterthoughts. Second-rate. Illegitimate.
Jude had been eight. That year, she’d realized there was no Santa Claus. And no Daddy. It was the last Christmas that had been celebrated in their house.
“I know, bella,” Mama said gently. “That year was horrible. But I was wrong to let your father turn me into a cynic. I shouldn’t have condemned Christmas.”
“Oh, come on. It’s a ridiculous, hypocritical, crassly commercial—”
“It doesn’t have to be, Jude. Its essence is love. And now that I’ve found Manuel, my heart’s full of love again.”
Was this the same woman who’d slammed Christmas for years, using the very same words Jude had just been spouting when she’d been so rudely interrupted? The woman who’d been anti-male ever since “that jerk” deserted them? Jude had been shocked when her mama had returned from a holiday in Mexico last February saying she’d fallen in love with a restaurant owner. Stunned when the two had married last summer. Now she was utterly flabbergasted that her mother was buying into all that hokey shit about Christmas.
Still, she’d been raised to be polite. “I’m happy for you, Mama, and I do hope it works out for you and Manuel.” She tried to keep cynicism out of her voice. Trusting a man was asking for heartbreak. “But my own luck with guys and Christmas sucks.” When she’d finally let a man into her wounded heart, he’d run out on her, too.
Last Christmas.
“Then you need a good experience to replace the bad ones. Come join us for the holidays. We’ll do all the special things from when you were a kid, plus Manuel’s family traditions.”
How could Mama sound so excited? The very thought of all those ridiculous decorations and hypocritical activities made Jude cringe. In fact, her chest ached like she had a raging case of heartburn. “Let’s face it, Christmas is a crappy time for me. I hate it, and I’m absolutely not celebrating it. Gotta go. Love you.” Firmly she hung up the phone and opened her desk drawer, looking for the bottle of antacid pills.
“So, Jude, guess this isn’t the best time to make you draw a name for the Secret Santa?” The voice behind her made her spin around.
Karen, her colleague and friend, stood in the doorway holding a box covered in fancy Christmas paper. The kind of paper that had wrapped the gifts piled under the tree Jude and her mama used to decorate—sometimes with that jerk’s assistance, more often on their own because he was away. Supposedly on business, but instead hanging out with his true family.
Jude swallowed a couple tablets and glared at the offending box. “This office does the Secret Santa thing? Barf. Not me.”
Karen set the box atop a stack of files and shot her a steely gaze—or as steely as a pair of round blue eyes framed in blond ringlets could get. “You’ve been here six months, and you’re making a great impression. The Arkins are into the holiday stuff. It’d be a career-limiting move to opt out.”
Jude groaned. She loved her work—matching people to rewarding jobs—and had been lucky to get on at Headliners. It ranked as one of Vancouver’s leading professional recruitment firms, aka headhunters.
It was also a family-owned company. Will Arkin was president, his daughter, Amanda, was vice president, his lawyer son, Bruce, handed legal and financial matters, and Bruce’s wife, Olympia, was the office manager. They treated their employees almost like members of the family.
Jude liked their corporate culture—flexible work hours, support for employees with family responsibilities, offices in a renovated brick building in Yaletown rather than one of the huge office towers. So far, the only serious downside was this Christmas crap.
She could quit. Find another firm that was all about business and didn’t expect employees to celebrate holidays together. But if she quit, it’d be kind of like letting him ruin her life all over again. “This is so unfair.”
“Grinch. Is there anything you like about Christmas?”
“When it’s over!” She resisted rubbing at the pain in her chest. Once upon a time she’d loved the season. But that was when she’d been a baby, naive enough to believe in St. Nick and other lies—like that her jerk father loved her and her mama.