Millionaire Under The Mistletoe: The Playboy's Mistress / Christmas in the Billionaire's Bed / The Boss's Mistletoe Manoeuvres. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

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СКАЧАТЬ is mine,’ Charlie crowed, discovering a bottle of champagne.

      Clicking his tongue tolerantly, his father removed the bottle from his crestfallen son’s hand. ‘This is really very generous of you, Reece…’

      ‘A small thank-you for everything you’ve done for me.’

      ‘It really wasn’t necessary,’ Jack insisted.

      ‘Dad, you’re not going to give it back, are you?’ Charlie asked in alarm.

      ‘How did we raise two such avaricious little monsters…?’ The twins exchanged rueful grins. ‘What the boys are trying to say, Reece, is the gift is much appreciated. Can we offer you a drink—it looks like there’s one on the go… Darcy…?’

      ‘In case nobody noticed, I’m busy,’ she responded shortly.

      If her stepfather had looked annoyed by her unneighbourly response she could have coped, but no, he had to go and look hurt and guilty.

      ‘I suppose,’ he responded worriedly, ‘we have let a lot of things fall on your shoulders.’ He turned to Reece. ‘It’s just my wife usually…’

      ‘I enjoy it, Dad,’ Darcy interrupted hurriedly, hating the forlorn expression on her stepfather’s face and despising herself for putting it there. ‘Actually, I was just off to pick up the tree. Anyone like to come?’ she enquired. She was predictably underwhelmed by the response. ‘Right, I’ll be off, then.’

      ‘If you don’t mind, I wouldn’t mind coming along for the ride.’

      Darcy spun around, horror etched on her pale features. ‘You!’

      ‘I’m getting a bit stir-crazy, unable to drive,’ Reece explained glibly to the room in general.

      ‘You’d be bored,’ she said several shades too emphatically.

      ‘I think it’s an excellent idea,’ Jack responded firmly, reproach in his eyes.

      Nick spoke for the first time. ‘I’m sure Darcy will enjoy having company.’

      Darcy shot her treacherous narrow-minded brother a seething look from under the sweep of her lashes. ‘There will be lashings of mud.’ Nobody paid her any heed.

      ‘Borrow some Wellingtons—the twins look about the same size as you.’

      With a sigh Darcy subsided into a resentful silence whilst her eager family—with the notable exception of Nick—equipped their neighbour.

      ‘You look awfully pale, Darcy.’

      Thanks, bro, she thought as Nick’s contribution to the conversation brought her a lot of highly undesirable attention.

      ‘Yes, she does, doesn’t she?’ her stepfather agreed. ‘Are you feeling all right?’

      ‘Absolutely fine.’

      ‘It’s probably sleep deprivation,’ Nick continued smoothly. ‘She’s not been sleeping too well.’ He wasn’t looking at his sister as he spoke but at the tall figure who stood beside her. The two men exchanged a long look.

      ‘Is that right? You didn’t say so, Darcy.’

      ‘Lot on my mind, Dad…’ she muttered. ‘Holidays are always the same—it takes me the first week to wind down.’

      ‘Darcy is a computer analyst,’ her proud stepfather explained to Reece. ‘She has a very responsible job.’

      Darcy cringed. ‘Give the man a break, Dad,’ she laughed uncomfortably. ‘I’m sure Mr Erskine doesn’t want to know about my work.’

      Nick, of course, couldn’t resist stirring the pot. ‘You mean, he doesn’t already?’

      ‘If you’ve got nothing better to do, Nick, you could take a look at the Christmas lights for me.’ She felt a surge of satisfaction as her brother looked suitably horrified at the prospect. ‘They don’t seem to be working.’

      ‘I think,’ Nick announced hopefully, ‘that it’s time we bought some new ones.’

      ‘You can’t do that, Nick!’ Charlie protested. ‘We’ve had them for ever…’

      ‘My point exactly,’ Nick muttered. ‘It’s the same every year—they never work.’

      ‘I remember the time the cat—that one that had no tail—’ Harry began.

      ‘Oscar,’ his twin supplied.

      Nick decided to inject a little reality into this trip down memory lane. ‘I remember the time they fused the electrics while Mum was cooking Christmas dinner…’

      There was a collective subdued gasp of dismay and all eyes turned to Jack.

      ‘Far be it from me to break with tradition,’ Nick put in quickly. ‘I’ll fix the damned things.’

      ‘You all seem pretty protective of your father,’ Reece observed as he trailed Darcy outside.

      ‘Stepfather, actually, but yes, I suppose we are.’

      ‘Stepfather; that makes the twins your…?’

      Darcy gave a resigned sigh. ‘Jack adopted Nick and me when he married Mum—I was five. Not that it’s any of your business.’ She stood beside the Land Rover, jingling the keys. ‘You can’t want to come…’ Please…please, let him say he doesn’t. She always had been a hopeless optimist!

       CHAPTER FIVE

      ‘DID you have to bring this thing?’ Reece scowled as the big dog, his paws planted on the back of the passenger seat, licked his face ecstatically.

      ‘I wanted him to come,’ Darcy, tight-lipped, pointedly replied. ‘Sit down, Wally!’ Reluctantly the big animal curled up on the back seat of her stepfather’s Land Rover, his eyes reproachful.

      Reece wiped the excess canine saliva off his neck with a pained grimace. ‘A man could get to feel unwanted.’

      ‘Not by Wally.’ The dog’s ears pricked up at the sound of his name. ‘Or my family,’ she reflected with a frustrated little snort. ‘You’ve certainly weaseled your way into their affections,’ she hissed nastily. ‘It was a master stroke to appeal to the twins’ stomachs.’

      Reece, who wasn’t really interested in the direct route to the twins’ hearts, responded with a slightly distracted smile.

      ‘I take it the way to your elder brother’s heart is not through his stomach…’

      ‘You noticed that, did you?’ Darcy had not yet forgiven Nick. How dared he lecture her on morality, she fumed—the man who had had, much to his parents’ dismay and her awe, an affair with a thirty-year-old divorcee when he was just seventeen?

      ‘Let’s СКАЧАТЬ