A Christmas Billionaire Read online

  No.

  Not the same North.

  It couldn’t be, it wouldn’t be, it—

  “So, Noel Klaus, our community activist and former Peace Corps volunteer, has just referred to you as a sociopath willing to make homeless these octogenarians a week from the most blessed holiday of the year. How, Mr. North, would you like to respond?”

  “Excuse me, Mary? Did you say Noel Klaus?”

  Her sex quivered with the sound of her name on his lips. Heat tore through her belly and she closed her eyes. That voice, oh God no, it couldn’t be, but it was. She knew that voice. A tremble started in Noel’s toes and whispered up her legs. Every cell in her body aware of his presence, memories of his lips on her lips and his fingers, his hands—oh God, what that man could do with his hands. Noel forced her eyelids open and the memories from her mind. A long, deep breath of cold air entered her lungs and tamped down the heat that threatened to overwhelm her.

  “Noel Klaus,” Mary Crossmore said and stepped out of the way. “Meet Nick North, sociopath and billionaire.”

  Noel stared into Nick’s eyes. Slivers of gray around a sea of black. His gaze devoured her. She could do this. Hadn’t she walked away from Nick once before? She could most definitely do so again, although this time she needed a win before she departed.

  “Noel.” His voice was a river of cold.

  She shivered.

  “Nick.” She raised both her eyebrows. Her attempt at practiced nonchalance. Cool, calm, and collected. Nick would have no power over her, not now. She’d managed to escape his grasp when she was younger and now, now, she knew even better who she was. She’d been right about him all those years before when she’d fled that Christmas Eve night.

  “This isn’t much of a surprise,” Noel said. She hardened her heart. “In fact, this is exactly what I would have guessed your future to be.” She hooked the corner of her mouth up in an attempt at a self-satisfied and righteous smile. She jutted her chin. She had the power of the people on her side. “Ousting widows and old people from their homes and right before Christmas. I guess your father got what he wanted after all—a man just like him.”

  Damn, the man was gorgeous, even if he didn’t have a heart. Full lips. Patrician nose. Black hair that tickled the collar of his crisp dress shirt. The only indication that her words landed a direct hit was the tiniest flinch of the muscle in the right side of his jaw. Her gaze scraped along his face. Then his eyes locked with hers. He knew that she’d witnessed his little tell. That tiny trait hadn’t changed since B-school. The only glitch in his impenetrable facade was that tiny little flinching muscle that happened when Nick was annoyed.

  Oh yes, and she’d had the distinct ability to annoy him.

  And love him.

  And make him growl and moan and call her name.

  Noel’s eyelids hovered at half-mast at the memory of Nick above her, his lips on her chin, his fingers pressed against her swollen nub, and his cock thrust into her, his touch, his masculinity, his raw power over her nearly sweeping her away. The heat from the memory made her sex wet and her breasts tingle with want.

  For fuck’s sake, what was this desire? Like whiplash from unadulterated disdain to sex-throbbing want? Her eyes widened. If she weren’t chained to the door of Winter Pines, she might leap into Nick’s arms and press her lips to his.

  Nick’s nostrils flared and he took a step back.

  Did he feel this heat too? How could he not? How could anyone watching this interaction on channel 32 fail to see the desire she felt for Nick?

  “Yes, so my profession is of no surprise, but what about you, Miss Klaus? It is miss, still, is it not?”

  Noel tossed her curls and straightened her spine. She took a deep breath and attempted to banish the heat swirling about her as though it were a flurry of snow.

  “Yes, yes, it is still miss.” She said with an ice-cold bravado that she definitely didn’t feel. Damn him. Nick knew, he knew that she’d wanted a marriage, a family, a career and that now, here, for her, only having the career would feel like a defeat. She’d wanted to finish graduate school, to work for a nonprofit, to get married and have a family. What her heart had believed she’d found in her love with Nick.

  She had been wrong.

  “Wait?” Mary said, her eyes widening with shock and surprise. “You two know each other?

  “Did,” Noel said.

  “Knew,” Nick said at the same time.

  Their gazes locked. The heat pulsed between them.

  “We were in business school together, but I left and joined the Peace Corps, while Mr. North, it would seem, continued his course of study and became the capitalist that every B-school in America would desperately hope to create.”

  “Ah, Miss Klaus.” He shook his head and a sly smile curled over his lips. “Still the heart that bleeds for everyone. Saving the world one welfare check at a time.”

  Noel stiffened. His words were patronizing and dismissive. She’d known a man, once upon a time, who believed in philanthropy and helping people less fortunate than those who had the luck of being born into the diamond-encrusted world in which Nick had been bred and raised.

  “Mr. North, not all of us come into the world with a multimillion-dollar trust fund waiting for us. Some of us do fall on hard times and when those hard times happen, yes, yes, I do believe in helping my fellow man and woman. I do believe that charity is a truth upon which this season rests, is it not? How charitable is it to make the residents of Winter Pines homeless?” Noel took a deep breath. A semicircle of the remaining residents had formed around her and Mary and Nick. His eyes flitted to each person and while his face remained hard and non-emotive, as though frozen by the winter cold, he shifted his weight slightly and Noel knew his discomfort grew. Around him stood the people whose home he would steal. Some form of the heart she’d loved had to still beat within Nick’s chest. He couldn’t be completely heartless, could he?

  “Miss Klaus, as I am sure you’re aware, the majority of the White Pines residents have accepted North Industries buyout—”

  “And surely you are aware, Mr. North, that many of these residents have lived at White Pines for twenty years. They’d prefer to stay together instead of being scattered.”

  “Noel?”

  Noel turned toward the soft voice. Nonna walked out from the side door. She wore a green sweater with Santa’s face embroidered on the front. She looked frail and cold.

  “Mrs. Hyland, would you please help Nonna? Would you take her back inside?”

  “Noel, I’m fine.” She shook off Evelyn Hyland’s hand from her shoulder. “What is Nick doing here?”

  Noel’s jaw dropped. Nonna remembered Nick?

  “Are you going to invite him in? It’s too cold out here. Nick, tell those workmen to go home, unchain Noel, and come into the house. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Klaus,” Nick said, with a hint of a smile on his lips. “I do understand.”

  “Nonna, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Mr. North is the man who is trying to tear down Winter Pines—”

  “I know that, Noel. But he’s not going to tear it down while we’re all still inside”—Nonna turned her sharp gaze to Nick—“are you, Nicholas?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  A tiny smile broke over Noel’s face. Nick wasn’t afraid of Nonna, but he’d always respected her.

  “Go on,” Nonna said. “Let those men get home to their families, tell this Barbie doll with a camera to pack up. Also tell that man of yours—what’s his name? Frederick?—that he can come in too. I have pie and coffee.” Nonna looked around at the White Pines residents. “Come on now, people, it’s cold and it’s dark. I’ve had enough of this nonsense for today. I need to be in bed in an hour.”

  Mary appeared stunned, as though she didn’t know how to end her live segment, so she turned back toward the camera and simply said, “This is Mary Crossman for channel 32 News.”

  She walked close to Nick and nearly pressed her bo
dy against him. “Mr. North, here’s my card. Please do let me know if I can be of any help with this story. I’d love to do a more personal interview.”

  “Thanks, Mary,” Nick said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Noel rolled her eyes toward the stars that glowed from the night sky. Jeez. Some things hadn’t changed. She’d never grown used to all the women who threw themselves at her boyfriend when she dated Nick. Some women had no shame, absolutely none.

  Mary and her cameraman walked toward their news truck.

  Nick turned toward the man standing off to the side. “Frederick, send the men home. I’ll speak with Mrs. Klaus.”

  “Very well, sir,” Frederick said. That impertinent smile was still on Frederick’s lips.

  He leaned closer to Frederick, so that his question might go unheard by Noel. “Did you know who this was? The woman chained to the door of Winter Pines Retirement Home?”

  “All I knew was that she was a former Peace Corps volunteer.”

  Did he believe Frederick? He wasn’t sure. Was Frederick attempting some sort of matchmaking scheme? “Please have my office clear my schedule for the rest of today.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Nick turned back toward Noel. His breath caught in his chest. This woman. This damned woman. She was more beautiful than the last day he’d seen her. His body responded to her as though he were a teenaged boy confronted with a centerfold.

  Noel fought to turn over the padlocks on the chains that held her and insert a key into the lock. Nick stepped forward. He was close to her now. The scent of her filled his nostrils, pine and snow and outdoors and oranges. Fresh and clean. Noel had always smelled fresh and clean and like home.

  “May I help you?” Nick asked.

  “I can do it myself.” Noel jerked the padlock closer to her body. Her hand twisted around like a pretzel in an attempt to get the key into the lock.

  “I’m certain that given time and adequate lighting you could do this, but what I’m offering is my help.”

  She let out a long sigh and her breath smelled of cinnamon. He looked into her eyes. Those damnable green eyes. He fought the urge to reach out and wrap his hands into those red curls and pull her close to him and capture her lips with his. Damn, but the power of his physical attraction to her was still strong, even while anger burned in his heart.

  She’d left him. She’d abandoned him. She’d destroyed all that he’d thought his future would be. And for what? To go to Africa and lead a goat and plant a tree?

  “Noel, please.”

  He would not soften to her. He would play her. He would get what he wanted, these people out of Winter Pines and the damned building demo’d before Christmas. She handed him the key to the lock and he pulled it forward. He stepped even closer. Her breath caressed him. The pulse in her neck beat fast, her heart rate like a hummingbird’s.

  His cock grew hard beneath his pants. He inserted the key in the padlock, and all he could think of was putting his cock inside her body. The warmth of her. Noel’s lush legs wrapping around his waist and pulling him forward. That hot and passionate heart that beat for every lost soul beating for him again, as it once had. Her hands in his hair, his name on her lips. He turned the key and the lock fell open.

  “Done,” Nick said. His gaze met hers and heat fired between them. Molten and real and undeniable.

  She held out her mittened hand and he dropped the keys into it. She unwrapped the first giant chain and he lifted it from her. She stepped from beside the door.

  Crunch.

  “No,” Noel said and shook her head. “No, that can’t happen. How, after this day?” Her gaze dropped to her feet. Beneath her toe was a pair of glasses. Nick bent down and picked up the mangled frames.

  “Yours?”

  Noel nodded.

  “Still blind without them?” Nick asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Extra pair?”

  “Of course not,” Noel said. She held out her hand.

  “May I?” Nick asked.

  Her tongue darted out over her lips. She didn’t want to say yes, he could feel that in his bones, she didn’t want to take anything from him aside from a piece of property for which he’d already paid. Noel could harden her heart to progress, to capitalism, to money, but she had never been able to harden her heart to compassion, to helpfulness, to genuine kindness.

  “Yes,” Noel whispered.

  “Frederick?” Nick called. Frederick stood to the side, speaking with the foreman of the crew he’d just released for the next two days.

  “Sir?”

  “Would you have these fixed?”

  “Immediately, sir.”

  Frederick walked toward the car. Nick turned back to Noel. Still as beautiful. Still as stunning. Still as sexy. But still absolutely the biggest pain in his ass that he’d ever met.

  Chapter Two

  “Nonna, I really don’t want him here,” Noel said. She shadowed Nonna, who hustled around the kitchen of her town house.

  “Dear, you may not want him here, but he is here, and in my opinion the best way to get him to listen to reason with regards to White Pines is to talk to the man.” Nonna peeked out the kitchen door to where Nick sat at the dining room table.

  He was a mountain at a tiny table. He was intimidating and he simply oozed sex. He always had. Charisma and charm and—

  “Tell me again why you didn’t marry him?” Nonna asked. “I think if I’d been your age and he wanted to marry me, I would have married him.”

  “Nonna!” Noel said and pulled three plates from the kitchen cabinet. “Well, first of all, I ran away when he proposed.”

  “Oh yes, I remember that. You were in my living room, sobbing in front of the fireplace. Christmas Eve, wasn’t it, dear?”

  Noel took a long deep breath. To relive what was one of the most painful memories of her life was not what she wanted to do.

  “I had to go, Nonna, I had to leave—” Noel looked toward Nick, who stared at the framed pictures of Noel growing up that hung on the wall. “Nonna, look at him,” Noel whispered. “We’re so different. Can you believe that I was ever in business school?”

  “Yes dear, I can. You come from a long line of entrepreneurs. You would have made a fine executive, or done well leading a nonprofit, which was what you wanted.”

  “Nonna, what I wanted was to go and help the children in Africa.”

  “And you did that, didn’t you, dear?” Nonna looked her in the eye. “After you abandoned that man without much of a good-bye or an explanation.”

  It was so tough to have the witness to one of your worst moments as a person standing in front of you, laying it on the line. Especially when one room over was the target of your bad behavior, sitting at a dining room table that had plastic slipcovers on the chairs, waiting for a piece of pecan pie.

  “Ice cream, dear?”

  “Nick won’t want ice cream, but he’ll take coffee. Two sugars no milk.”

  Nonna smiled. “Funny what the mind remembers. I still could make your grandfather’s coffee and his cocktail and his favorite meal in my sleep, and he’s been gone for nearly ten years.” A sigh passed over Nonna’s lips. Memories of Nonna and Grandpa together, holding hands, flirting, even kissing, were vivid in Noel’s mind. She wanted a love like that. A bottomless love. A love where they had so much in common: common beliefs and ideals and desires and wants and needs.

  “Never did like me working, your grandfather.”

  “What?” Noel turned toward Nonna. “You always worked.”

  “And he always hated it. Canceled my vote out in every presidential election too.”

  “What are you talking about?” Noel pulled out three coffee cups.

  “Oh dear, there is so much you don’t know. Your grandfather was a Republican to his core, but me? I’m nearly a socialist in comparison.”

  “Nonna?” Noel said and shook her head. “That’s not true. Grandpa marched for civil rights and he was for busing and—”


  “Darling, just because he was a conservative doesn’t mean he didn’t believe in equal rights for all Americans.” Nonna looked at Noel. “No matter who a person votes for, most people have good in them.”

  Noel grabbed three forks. “Go sit, Nonna, I’ll bring this out.”

  Nonna walked into the dining room and reached out her arms. Nick stood and Nonna wrapped Nick into a hug. He was gargantuan next to Nonna. His frigid stare turned to a warm smile with her words. Noel couldn’t hear what Nonna said to Nick, but she knew it was the first smile filled with warmth that she’d seen on his face since he arrived at Winter Pines. How could this be happening? How could Nick now be in her grandmother’s town house?

  Nick stood with his shoulder toward Noel. His dress shirt was still impossibly crisp for evening. There were hard, lovely muscles beneath that handmade shirt. At least there had been, and by the looks of Nick’s impossibly firm ass, there had to still be.

  Her sex clenched. Her attraction to him was beyond logic. She’d had sex all of three times since she’d left Nick. Two lovers. Both unacceptable in every way. How many lovers had Nick had? Heat, a wildfire of jealousy, pitted her gut. Hell, he might even be married by now. Her heart hammered in her chest. Of course, he had to be married by now. There was no possible way such an eligible bachelor had gone unclaimed by the society ladies in Chicago. Probably the perfect little Republican wife with a blonde bob and blue eyes, who said “yes dear” and “no, dear” and never talked back. A woman who would shuck her job and her identity and be exactly everything he and his family wanted and needed from the woman who wedded Nick.

  Noel pulled air deep into her lungs and patted her hand over her curls. She picked up the tray that held three pieces of pecan pie, forks, napkins, coffee cups, and the coffee carafe. She could do this. She could convince Nick not to flatten Nonna’s town house and the rest of White Pines and not fall into bed with him. She squinted her eyes. She really couldn’t see much more than two feet from her face. And yet with each step she took closer to Nick, her entire body heated with his nearness. Her nipples pebbled beneath her sweater. Heat flew through her body.