The Kiss Before Christmas: A Christmas Romance Novella

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Nothing. This did not bode well for the journey north.

She sighed. ‘So the chances of getting you to carry my suitcase out to the cab are—’

‘Slim.’ That wasn’t Tyler. The word came from the doorway, in a deeper, warmer, far more amused voice. A voice she recognised. Dory wondered how much Lucas had heard. Hopefully not the perfect boyfriend crack. She winced. She really was going to have to be more careful.

Tyler had jerked to attention the moment his brother spoke. Dory rolled her eyes. Of course he looked up now. ‘Lucas.’

Something about the way he said the name sounded off. But Dory didn’t dwell on it too long. Not when Lucas Alexander, the black sheep himself, was standing right behind her. Her curiosity had much better things to do than ponder about Tyler’s big brother issues.

Instead, she swivelled the chair around, plastered on her best ‘meet the family’ smile, and got gracefully to her feet. Well, mostly gracefully. She only had to grab the arm of the chair a little bit, and she didn’t think that Lucas noticed. Much.

‘Hi! I’m Dory,’ she said, letting go of the chair and wobbling forward. Probably the fault of the heels on her new knee-high boots. Because Lucas, though tall, broad, and smiling that same Alexander smile that had been plastered all over the Internet that week, wasn’t nearly as classically handsome as his brother, and she worked with Tyler five days a week without swooning even a little bit. Which wasn’t to say that Lucas wasn’t attractive, of course. Better looking than his photos, even. Just… with rougher edges than his younger brother.

Maybe it was the stubble.

‘So you’re who he’s bringing home to meet Mother.’ Lucas ran his eyes from her perfectly straightened and shiny hair, past her respectable yet stylish, seasonally green dress, to the aforementioned polished boots. Dory waited him out. She knew how to dress for a part. In the end, his gaze flicked over to Tyler instead, and she chalked a mental point up to her side. She wasn’t entirely sure what the competition was, yet, but there was no mistaking the challenge in Lucas’s gaze. What was it? she wondered. Checking to see if she was good enough for his brother? Or did he have his own suspicions about who Tyler was with the other night? Why else had he suddenly shown up here, when as far as she was aware, he was supposed to already be up at the family estate, dancing attendance on Felicia?

Tyler darted out from behind his desk at last, standing midway between her and Lucas, glancing between them, obviously caught off-guard by his brother’s arrival.

‘Lucas, this is Dorothea. My girlfriend.’ He didn’t even choke on the last couple of words. She was almost proud.

‘Dory,’ she corrected him.

The smile Tyler gave her was far more charming, more affectionate than she’d ever seen from him before. Apparently the perfect boyfriend act was on, at last.

‘Darling, you know I prefer your full name. Far more beautiful. Just like you.’

Yeah, they were screwed. Nobody was going to fall for this. Ever.

But in the doorway, Lucas merely rolled his eyes. ‘Well, if you two lovebirds are ready, we may as well get this show on the road.’

‘Show?’ Dory asked. ‘I was just about to call for a cab to the station…’

Lucas shook his head. ‘Not anymore. Mother decided there were far too many ways a train journey could get delayed, or even cancelled. So I’m driving us all up there. Together.’

***

Lucas didn’t wait to see the annoyance on his brother’s face. Bad enough he was being sent to play fetch because Mother’s insecurities, paranoia and control issues had reached a new height. He wasn’t pandering to his brother’s fragile ego too. He didn’t care who Tyler was dating, besides a fleeting thought that Mother would hate the heels on those boots. Lucas quite liked that thought and the way the boots clung to Dory’s calves, but beyond that he didn’t really care if she came for Christmas or not. Personally, Lucas wasn’t all that bothered about being there for Christmas himself. In and out, that was his plan. Stay just long enough to mollify Mother for another few months, then get the hell out of town, back to his real life. The one that didn’t involve the Alexander legacy anymore.

Except… the thing with the photos. Something about it felt off. Like Tyler was hiding something. And if there was a problem, Lucas really needed to get it fixed before their parents figured out what it was and used it as another excuse to try and drag Lucas back into the family business. He’d only got out in the first place because Tyler was there, ready and eager to step into the CEO role – and had already proved himself capable while Lucas was in the hospital. But Patrick Alexander believed in the proper way of doing things, and Lucas knew that not having his eldest son in charge of the company still rankled. Mostly because he kept telling him so. And if he got it into his head that Tyler was a liability to the family reputation…

Lucas shook the thought away. Tyler was fine. He had Dory to present to his parents and a few unfortunate photos would soon be forgotten. It would all be okay.

He just had to get through a two-hour drive north from New York on the busiest Friday of the year, with his brother and his latest flame in the car with him, then survive three days with his family.

Easy.

‘You guys ready to go?’ Lucas jangled the keys in his hand in the hope they’d get the hint. Getting out of Manhattan on the Friday before Christmas would be a nightmare as it was. If they waited much longer they were bound to catch the worst of the traffic.

‘Yeah. Yeah, sure,’ Tyler said, but he slid back behind his desk as he spoke. ‘I just need to…’ he trailed off as his gaze caught on the paperwork again.

Lucas gave Dory a meaningful glance. Surely this was girlfriend territory if ever he’d seen it.

She looked confused for a moment, but then she sighed. Stepping towards the desk on those ridiculous heels, she leant over, giving Lucas a stunning view of her ass. Blinding her boyfriend with cleavage to get her way, he supposed. He sighed. Aren’t you bored of that kind of girl yet, Tyler?

But then Dory grabbed the file in front of Tyler and, straightening up, flicked through it, then closed it. ‘This can wait until we get back. Mr Jenkins is away until the New Year now, anyway.’ She grabbed the next file in the stack. ‘This became irrelevant after yesterday’s late meeting, and this one I dealt with last week.’ Picking up the last two files on the desk she gave them a cursory glance and said, ‘If you’re very good, I might let you take these two with you. But you’re only allowed to work first thing in the morning, before any of your family gets up. Deal?’

Okay, maybe this was a different sort of girl.

‘But Dory,’ Tyler whined, but she cut him off.

‘No arguing. That’s the deal, okay? If I’m with your family, you’re with your family.’ She handed the permitted files across the desk to him. ‘Now let’s get going before we hit the traffic. Since we have such a considerate ride to your parents’ house.’

She turned back and beamed at Lucas then, but he didn’t smile back. He’d finally put his finger on what had been bothering him about Dory since he walked in. The accent. How had he not placed it before? After all, he’d heard it just a few days earlier.

‘You’re his assistant,’ he said. And there it was. The scandal that Tyler was hiding from their family-first, believer-in-good-old-fashioned-morals father.

Dory’s smile faltered, but only for a moment. Then she glared at Tyler. ‘Told you someone would notice.’

‘Lucas can keep a secret. Can’t you, bro?’ Tyler said.

Three days of keeping secrets from his parents. Just what he’d wanted from his brother for Christmas. ‘That’s why you were hiding her. Why the photos were such a big deal. Why you didn’t want to…’

‘Didn’t want to bring me home to meet the family,’ Dory finished for him when he trailed off awkwardly. ‘It’s okay. I know I’m not exactly the sort of girlfriend Tyler usually brings home. There’s the accent, apart from anything else.’

‘On the plus side, you seem much better at telling him what to do,’ Lucas offered, making her grin. She had a nice smile, he realised. Wide and bright and friendly. Which wouldn’t get her anywhere with Patrick and Felicia Alexander.

Then she scowled at Tyler. ‘I am. So get in the car, Alexander!’

Grabbing her own case, Dory headed for the lift again, but Lucas stopped her. ‘I’ll take that for you.’

He held out a hand and, after a moment’s pause, Dory let go of the handle and pushed the case towards him. ‘Nice to know one of you Alexander boys is a gentleman,’ she said, in a terrible impression of a Southern-belle drawl.

Tyler’s laugh was louder than Lucas thought it really needed to be. ‘Oh trust me,’ he said, ‘Lucas opted out of gentleman status two years ago. Besides, I’ve got my own case to carry.’ He held it up, as if to prove the point.

But Dory wasn’t looking at her boyfriend. She was looking at Lucas, and the curiosity on her face made him nervous.

‘And why was that, exactly?’ she asked. ‘Tyler never really talks about his family. Well, not as people, anyway.’

‘Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?’ Tyler asked, as Lucas headed for the lift, case in hand.

He knew what Dory meant, even if Tyler didn’t. To Tyler, the family was the Alexander Family and all the restaurants, charity and money that went with it, not the individuals who were born into it. It was sort of inevitable, he supposed. The reputation of the family, their success, had always been the measuring stick of their parents’ happiness and pride.

It had been Lucas’s, too, until two weeks in a hospital one fall taught him different.

Dory didn’t answer Tyler’s question, which he figured gave him permission not to answer hers, either. But he had a feeling it was going to be a long car journey.

***

Dory stared at the mud-smeared wheels and side of the four-wheel drive, looking utterly out of place parked in front of the Alexander Building offices.

‘I’m guessing you don’t live in the city, then?’ she said, as she followed Lucas and her suitcase around to the boot of the car. No, not boot. Trunk. One day, she’d get that right and someone would appear and announce her a true American, once and for all.

Tyler laughed. ‘City life is one of the many things Lucas has scorned over the last couple of years.’ Leaving his case by the back of the car, he went to climb into the passenger seat. Dory pulled a face. Great. Two hours in the back of the car would do nothing for the butterflies in her stomach. Chances were, she’d arrive at Midfield House and immediately vomit all over a poor, defenceless servant. Or worse, Felicia Alexander herself.

‘Hey, Tyler? In the back.’ Dory looked over at Lucas as he spoke, but he slammed the boot and climbed into the driver’s seat. Weirdly, it seemed like her fake boyfriend’s brother was on her side.

‘I’ve got longer legs,’ Tyler argued. ‘I need the room.’

‘I get car sick,’ Dory told him, yanking open the passenger-side door. ‘Trust me, we’re all going to be happier with me in the front.’

‘Fine.’ Looking sulkier than a billionaire businessman and heir to one of the most profitable family businesses in the country had any right to, Tyler clambered back out of the front seat and into the back.

‘Thank you, darling,’ Dory said, as sweetly as she could. Lucas smirked as she clipped on her seatbelt, waiting until she was settled before he started the engine.

Music blared out of the stereo, but Lucas made no move to turn down the volume. Dory ducked her head to hide her smile as Freddie Mercury belted out ‘Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy.’

But Lucas obviously saw it anyway. ‘You’re a Queen fan?’

‘My father is. He sings this song to my mother when he’s doing the ironing on a Sunday.’

‘Your father irons?’ Tyler asked, sticking his head between the front seats.

‘Your parents are still in Britain?’ Lucas asked at the same time.

Dory decided to answer the more sensible question. ‘Liverpool, yeah. I’m going back to see them over New Year.’ She couldn’t help the small glance back at Tyler as she spoke. He’d promised her the ticket as a present on Christmas morning at Midfield House. Until she had it in her hand, it still seemed impossible.

‘Liverpool,’ Lucas repeated. ‘The Beatles, yeah?’

‘Amongst other things.’

‘Like?’

Dory looked up at him. ‘Sorry?’

‘Like what other things?’ Lucas’s gaze flicked away from the road as he smiled at her, then back again as he pulled out into the busy traffic.

‘Um, the docks. Liverpool FC. The Liver building.’

‘The accent.’ Tyler’s inflection made it clear that wasn’t a compliment.

Dory glared at him between the seats. ‘You always said my accent was the first thing you fell for about me, darling.’

The pointed endearment obviously reminded him of their arrangement and he recovered quickly. ‘Yours isn’t true Liverpudlian anymore, honey. It’s mellowed. And on you, any accent would be beautiful.’

‘Hmm. Better.’ Dory settled back into her seat.

The stereo switched to ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and Tyler groaned.

‘Do we really have to listen to this?’ he asked. Dory and Lucas ignored him.

‘In about five miles he’s going to ask if we’re nearly there yet,’ Lucas told her. ‘And another five after that he’ll probably need a bathroom break.’

‘Trust me, I know,’ Dory said. ‘He’s dreadful in airports, too. Every time they call our flight he’s disappeared off to do something.’ Business trips with Tyler were a nightmare.

‘He’s even worse in cars,’ Lucas replied. ‘No in-flight entertainment.’

‘I’m sitting right here, you know,’ Tyler put in from the backseat. ‘Ears burning.’

‘I can’t imagine you taking a lot of family road trips as kids,’ Dory admitted. ‘I’d have imagined more private planes and first-class travel.’

‘Mostly, yeah,’ Lucas said. ‘But when we went away to school or came home for the holidays, our parents would send a car to get us. Tyler was always bored within the first twenty minutes.’

‘Not everyone can be entertained by staring out of a window at nothing,’ Tyler said. ‘And seriously. Can we put some talk radio on or something?’

‘Oh!’ Dory rummaged around in her handbag and pulled out her iPod. ‘I brought music!’

Lucas nodded at the car stereo. ‘Then put it on.’

Plugging the iPod into the adapter, Dory scrolled through to the right playlist then sat back and waited, trying not to smile too much. No point giving away the surprise too early.

As Cliff Richard sang about seasonal plants and alcohol, Tyler buried his face in his hands.

‘What, exactly, did I do to deserve this?’ he asked.

Lucas winced at the music. ‘Tyler, this is all your fault. Every last bit of it.’