The Kiss Before Christmas: A Christmas Romance Novella
An English Girl in New YorkAs the snow starts to fall on Manhattan, PA Dory Mackenzie is a long way from home, far from the comforts and cheer of her cozy family Christmases back in Liverpool.So when her boss Tyler Alexander offers to pay her pricey ticket home for New Year, Dory just can’t say no… even if she has to pretend to be his girlfriend for the holidays!Tyler may be hiding the real reason he needs a girlfriend-of-convenience but that’s the least of Dory’s worries when she’s up against the disapproval of his high society mother, and the suspicions of his gorgeous older brother Lucas, the black sheep of the family.There’s no fooling Lucas, and it’s not just the truth he wants to get closer to… So before the bells have even rung out for Christmas day, Dory finds herself caught up in the Alexander family’s dramas – and sharing more than just a few kisses under the mistletoe!Lose yourself in this gorgeously romantic and heart-warming novella this holiday season.
Читать The Kiss Before Christmas: A Christmas Romance Novella онлайн беплатно
The Kiss Before Christmas
Sophie Pembroke
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
Contents
HarperImpulse an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2013
Copyright © Sophie Pembroke 2013
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Sophie Pembroke asserts the moral right
to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International
and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
By payment of the required fees, you have been granted
the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access
and read the text of this e-book on screen.
No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,
downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or
stored in or introduced into any information storage and
retrieval system, in any form or by any means,
whether electronic or mechanical, now known or
hereinafter invented, without the express
written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © December 2013
ISBN:9780007569526
Version 2014-10-01
Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.
For Charlotte.
I wouldn't be here without you.
Dorothea Mackenzie stared at the screen, willing the words to change. They didn’t. She tried blinking. Nope, still there, in all their guilt-trip-inducing glory.
My dearest Dory,
We went to choose the Christmas tree yesterday, sweetheart, but it wasn’t the same without you. I think Mum was a bit sad decorating it without any of you kids around, but Molly and Tim don’t get in until the 24>th, and she didn’t want to leave it that late. She had ‘Lonely This Christmas’ playing on a loop. A call from you would definitely cheer her up – especially if you happened to mention your flight times (hint hint!). I can come and collect you from the airport any time on Christmas Eve, just let me know. I’ve not taken any taxi bookings the whole day, just in case.
Love and mulled wine
Dad x
A definite two-pronged attack. Clever. First mentioning Mum beingsad, which they all knew meant big eyes and deep sighs and very brave smiles, and which he knew Dory couldn’t stand. And then not taking any bookings on Christmas Eve, a night that promised time-and-a-half for a Liverpool cabbie, and usually some pretty good festive tips, too.
All this despite the fact she’d told him a month and a half ago she wouldn’t be home for Christmas. Hell, she’d already posted all their presents.
‘They’re bringing out the big guns now, then?’ Tyler said, reading over her shoulder in that way he knew she hated. ‘How are you going to get out of that one?’
Dory shifted her computer screen so he couldn’t see. There wasn’t a lot of point; she was pretty sure IT would send him up every email she’d ever received or sent if he asked. But it was the principle of the thing. ‘Aren’t bosses supposed to be less…’ She trailed off still in search of the right word to describe Tyler.
‘Charming? Handsome? Awesome?’ he guessed.
‘Intrusive.’
‘Hmm. And I thought assistants were supposed to be more fawning, generally.’ He wagged a finger at her, mock sternly. ‘Don’t think you can get away with anything, just because you’ve got that cute British accent thing going.’
Dory was starting to suspect that her accent was the only reason he’d hired her. It certainly wasn’t to fawn over him, since she’d made it painfully clear at the job interview that that wasn’t going to happen. In fact, the exact phrase she’d used was ‘I’m not the kind of assistant who fetches your dry-cleaning and straightens your tie. I’m the kind of assistant who makes your workload lighter.’
Dad always said she wasn’t great with subtle.
Of course, for the brief three-month period when she’d had an assistant of her own, back at her last job – her Dream Job – she hadn’t exactly been fawned over either. More insulted, actually.
Maybe her assistant hadn’t liked the accent. Liverpudlian was an acquired taste, Dory supposed.
‘Was there something you actually wanted?’ Dory asked. ‘A report that needs writing, or a meeting to set up?’
‘Yeah, I need you to pull up the publicity shots from that charity event in Washington D.C. last week. See what people are saying about the cause, the people involved, that sort of thing.’
‘You mean you want me to check that they caught your best side in the photos.’ She’d been Tyler’s assistant for six months now. She knew what really mattered to him, and it often had little to do with the multi-million-dollar restaurant chain he stood to inherit, or its subsidiaries – even if he was the CEO.
‘That too,’ he admitted with a grin. ‘Send them through when you’ve got them.’
