A Daddy By Christmas. Teri Wilson

“Allegra, how bad is the school struggling?”

      “Pretty bad.” Allegra sighed. “We had the big dance-athon fund-raiser a while back, so the business is out of the red. But we’re still barely getting by. We’ve got just enough to pay the bills every month. I keep thinking that if we could give the studio a major face-lift, we could attract serious dance students. Maybe we could even hold a summer intensive for one of the dance companies.”

      “That’s a great idea.” But it would never happen in the school’s current condition.

      Chloe looked around again, and her gaze snagged on all the little things that needed to be fixed—the cracked walls, the scuffed floors, the faded furniture. Even the window overlooking the lobby had a tiny spiderweb of cracks in the corner. She frowned at it, until something beyond the glass caught her attention.

      Correction: not something. Someone.

      His head towered above the crowd, and his expression was as grim and intense as ever. Chloe had never seen anyone look so woefully out of place at a ballet studio before. It would have been comical if the sight of him hadn’t been such a shock.

      “Brace yourself. I’m going to open the door and let the kids inside.” Allegra paused midway across the room. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

      Not a ghost. A thief.

      A puppy thief.

      The man on the other side of the window finally glanced her way. He did a double take, and then his gaze collided with hers.

      She forgot how to breathe for a second. All day long she’d kept imagining that she’d seen him, and now here he was in the flesh, as if she’d somehow conjured him.

      Anders Kent.

      Her would-be fiancé.