My Fake Christmas Fiance (Kane Christmas #1) - Julie Kriss Page 0,6

loved that ring. Not because it had come from him, of course—because it was pretty. I’d never indulged much—okay, at all—in expensive jewelry, but once I put this ring on, I hadn’t wanted to take it off.

I liked the ring. If only it didn’t come with a whole man attached to it.

“Miss Gold?”

I looked up to see one of the office movers standing in the doorway. He looked around, uncertain.

“Oh,” I said. “Hi.”

“Um, they told us everyone would be gone by now and we could get started. You know, with the boxes and the furniture and stuff.”

“Oh, yes. Right.” I looked at my desktop, bare except for my laptop, and then I swiveled in my chair, taking in the empty shelves and filing cabinets in my pathetically empty office. “Right!” I said again, trying to put some enthusiasm into it this time. “Time to go!”

The mover didn’t say anything, but he looked a little wary, as if he thought I might be losing it.

“I was just…wrapping up,” I said, closing my laptop and putting it in my laptop bag. “Just taking care of a few last-minute details, and the next thing I knew time had flown by. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Um, sure?” the man said.

“But I really do need to go,” I said, standing up and making a show of collecting my things. “Because I have a flight to catch. To Denver. In a few hours. A one-way flight. To Denver.”

I sounded certifiably insane, but I couldn’t help it. This was not how my life was supposed to go. I was supposed to work my way up at The Christmas Experience, learning as I went, and then eventually, one day I’d take over for my father and run the company. A badass female CEO—that was supposed to be me.

But somehow it hadn’t worked that way. Every time I mastered something new in the company, my father would tell me what great work I was doing, then ignore me again. Meanwhile, the men he hired got promoted over and over. The last promotion I’d lost out on had been given to a guy I’d gone to high school with, who had been suspended four times for smoking weed on school grounds. That guy was making more money than me.

It felt like my dad was actually trying to keep me from being a success. No matter how hard I worked or how many hours I put in, it made no difference. And now I couldn’t take it up with him, because he’d decided to live in a monastery in Tibet. After he’d decided to find a husband for me, because I’d never find one on my own.

The mover didn’t know any of this, of course, and I didn’t want to burden him. I packed my things and took a last swig of cold tea from my mug. Then I added my mug to my bag and slung it over my shoulder.

Despite my depression, I couldn’t be rude. “Bye!” I said to the mover as I walked out the door.

Home in my apartment, I made my way through the stacks of boxes and bags to the bedroom, where I’d left a change of clothes out. I’d already packed my suitcase for tonight’s flight to Denver, and everything else would go with movers and get dropped in my new apartment in a few days. The apartment I’d never seen, except in photos.

Breathe, Penelope. Breathe.

“It’s a new start,” I said out loud to myself as I took off my navy blue suit and put on jeans and a sweater, my brown leather boots. “A new adventure. I’m only twenty-nine. New adventures are good. New adventures are good.”

It almost worked. By the time I was changed, my suit packed into my suitcase, I felt normal again. I could do this. There really was nothing in San Diego for me anymore, and Denver was supposed to be nice. The merger was going to go smoothly. And then there was Wesley Kane.

I shut my eyes for a second, not wanting to think about him. Except I did think about him. Handsome face, dirty-blond hair, blue eyes that caught you from across a room. He wore a suit like he was born to it, but nothing about him was stodgy or bland. His gaze was electric and his smile was knee-weakening. He was whip-smart and had a dirty sense of humor. In short, for a girl like me, he was terrifying.

And for the past year, he’d been my fake fiancé.

Except