My Fake Christmas Fiance (Kane Christmas #1) - Julie Kriss Page 0,7

apparently he was now my real fiancé. Because both of our fathers were gone, his to prison and mine to Tibet, and the marriage deal we’d made couldn’t be annulled without both of them. It was hard to imagine a guy like Wes Kane actually getting married, since he could have any woman he wanted with a snap of his fingers. It was especially hard to imagine him marrying me. Not that I was so awful, but we were just…different. Very, very different. And everything he did drove me crazy.

I adjusted my glasses and grasped the handle of my suitcase. There was nothing to do but go to Denver and handle this. I would handle this. I’d handled every crisis of my life so far, starting with my parents’ awful divorce, my father marrying Janice, my troubles getting promoted at The Christmas Experience, and now this. I would handle this fake engagement. I would handle Wes. Without actually touching him, of course.

No way was I touching him.

Steeling myself, I left my apartment for the last time and hailed a taxi for the airport.

Chapter 3

Wes

We were one week to Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year.

I meant that professionally, though I also loved Christmas in the decorate-the-tree, sing-carols, and wear-bad-sweaters sense. Christmas was in my blood. I was raised on it, it was the reason I’d gone to college, and it was the only career I’d had since I graduated. It was odd for a guy who had never tasted eggnog, but Christmas was my life.

This was my first Christmas as CEO of Kane Co. It had been, to put it mildly, a crazy year. A year ago the company was in a tailspin, close to crumbling. Profits had been down and continuing to sink. The merger with The Christmas Experience was a last-ditch effort to stay afloat. Without it we wouldn’t have made it as far as Thanksgiving, which was why I’d signed my father’s stupid marriage contract. What was a simple signature when my entire company and all of its employees were on the line?

So I’d signed it, figuring there would be a way out. Then Penny’s father went to a monastery and my own father went to prison, because apparently he couldn’t stop gambling with company money and hiding it. My mother was horrified by what my father had done, and my sister, Sophie, felt betrayed. Me? I was angry. But at the same time, I was ready. I was twenty-nine, and all I’d ever known was Kane Co. I was ready to take over. My father had robbed a lot of people, and he had fucked up, but this was my company now.

And it was working. My new CFO, W.B., was helping me keep track of every dime that came in and out of the company—legitimately this time. My new ornament designer, Joy, had created an incredible line of product that was a huge success this year and had gotten us buzz and recognition. The merger with The Christmas Experience was going to benefit both companies. The only snag in all of it was the fact that I was now sitting in the Denver airport, waiting for—

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

I looked up from my laptop at the woman standing in front of me in the waiting area of the arrivals lounge. She was in her thirties, good-looking and toned, wearing designer jeans and a silk blouse, her wool coat draped over her arm. She gestured to the empty seat next to mine.

“No, it’s not taken,” I said, and she smiled as she took a seat. I glanced around and saw that there were other empty seats in the lounge.

“Are you waiting for the San Diego flight?” the woman asked. “According to the arrivals board, it’s twenty minutes late.”

“Thanks,” I said, though I already knew that. I looked back at my laptop, trying to give her a polite hint. “Yeah, that’s the flight I’m waiting for.”

“Me, too. We’re lucky it’s only twenty minutes late, with the snow and the amount of Christmas travel. It’s a crazy time of year.”

I made a polite sound and went back to the spreadsheet W.B. had sent me an hour ago. The man might be a mystery, but he was a genius at spreadsheets. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, I had no idea. I just knew that the company my dad had tried to ruin wasn’t going under.

There was a moment of quiet, and I