A Christmas Proposition

“It’s a bed-and-breakfast and it’s full.” She raised her chin, her aquamarine eyes flashing in warning.

“I’ll sleep in my SUV.” Emmett tipped his head in challenge. “It’s either this or you don’t go. Your brother’s right about it being dangerous. Your image is plastered all over social media. I’ve seen you in the spotlight before. Paparazzi chase you, Stef.”

She was beautiful and young and easily the most famous female billionaire in Dallas, if not the state of Texas. The combination of her it-girl reputation and a rumor that she was going to marry the mayor’s sworn enemy made for tempting media fodder.

She opened her mouth, probably to argue.

Emmett lifted his eyebrows, silently communicating. Give me a break, okay?

Miraculously, rather than arguing, she gritted out, “Fine.”

“Great. Get out,” Chase said. “Both of you.”

So, his best friend was prickly. So what? Emmett wasn’t one for being handled with kid gloves. His rhino-tough hide had been hewed at a young age.

“Come on,” he told Stef, opening the mayor’s door for her to exit. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

Emmett held open the passenger door of his black SUV, a gas-guzzling, tinted-windowed, way-too-big-for-a-road-trip vehicle.

“You can’t be serious about taking this beast to San Antonio. We’ll have to pull over every fifteen miles to refill the tank.”

“Get. In.”

She glared up at his chiseled jaw and perfectly shaped head beneath very short, dark brown hair. He wore it cropped close and rarely was it more than a few inches long on top. He was bedecked in what she’d come to think of as his “standard uniform.” A crisp white shirt open at the collar and dark slacks. His brawn and bulk and attitude were better suited for a T-shirt and sweats, but his job title required a dab of formality.

She tossed her purse inside and grasped the SUV’s door handle and the front seat to climb in. Emmett’s warm, broad palm cupped her elbow to steady her, and she nearly jerked away in shock. If she wasn’t mistaken, that was the first time he’d ever touched her.

It was...alarming.

And not in the get-your-damn-hands-off-me kind of way. His touch had felt...intimate.

Once she was inside he dropped his voice and leaned close. She ignored the clean leather smell of him. Or tried to, anyway.

“Heads up. There’s a suspicious cyclist over there.” He shut her door and walked around to the driver’s side.

She scanned the immediate area outside her brother’s office twice before she spotted a casual-looking guy on a bike with a cell phone conspicuously propped on the handlebars and pointing at the SUV.

Damn.

As much as she hated to admit it, Chase might have had a point about media attention.

Emmett settled into the driver’s seat and turned over the engine, sending her an assessing, stony gray stare. Typically, his eyes held a note of blue, but today they mirrored the cloudy skies above.

“What?” she barked. “Do you want me to congratulate you because you’re right?”

He smirked. “Buckle your belt.”

“Let’s get one thing straight, Neanderthal,” she said as she jerked the belt over her torso. “You may believe a woman’s place is in the passenger seat. Or that I can’t handle anything on my own without one of you big strong men to help me out, but FYI, I am not yours to command.”

Though some foreign tingly part of her suggested that Emmett might be the perfect specimen to take commands from.

She swallowed the rest of her speech about being an adult and handling her own problems, mainly because they both felt like stretches of the truth. In all of her attempts not to involve her family in her life, she’d somehow managed to tow them in. Her parents, Chase, Penelope, Zach and now Emmett.

Angry with herself more than her driver, she stared out the window in silence as the SUV pulled away from the curb.

Three

Stef had gone to bed late last night, staring at the ceiling for a long while, her mind lost on her current predicament.

She hadn’t stayed up late to pack—she’d done that already and her matching luggage was lined up dutifully next to her apartment door. Knowing that Emmett would pick her up promptly at 7:00 a.m., she also hadn’t indulged in more than one glass of sparkling rosé before bed. No, her insomnia couldn’t be blamed on a lack of planning or too much alcohol. She’d lain awake, earning this morning’s puffy eyes and groggy brain for one reason.

She was tired of being everyone else’s problem.

It wasn’t enough to tell her parents and her brothers that she was an adult. She had to show them. In order to show them, she needed to take care of the Blake situation herself.

Penelope was equipped to handle any PR disaster, but the more Stef thought about it, the more Pen’s plan to “wait and see” sounded like a slow track to a solution. Chase’s election was less than six months away. Stefanie refused to let Blake continue to drag her family’s good name through the muck.

Chase had made it clear last fall that he didn’t hold Stefanie accountable for her act of indiscretion with Blake. In spite of his absolving her, her guilt remained.

That Blake held this much power over her infuriated her. She refused to let him cause her to lose even one more minute of sleep.

Last night while staring at the ceiling of her apartment, she’d decided not to let Blake have that power over her family, either.

Penelope’s words rang in her ears.

If you were anyone other than my sister-in-law, I’d advise you to get married.

Well, why hadn’t that been Pen’s suggestion? It shouldn’t matter that Stefanie was her sister-in-law. A solution was a solution! There was only one eensy-weensy problem. Stefanie would have to find someone to marry, and fast.

She wasn’t sure who to approach, let alone how to ask. She’d climbed out of bed during the wee hours, unhooked her phone from the charger in her kitchen and poured one more small glass of wine. Then she started scrolling through her contacts in her phone’s address book.

Every prospect she thumbed through seemed worse than the last. She passed over ex-boyfriends, hookups and acquaintances alike. None of them were marriage material—not even temporarily. Plus, how would she ask for a favor like that from someone she hadn’t talked to in months, or years in some cases?

Hi, I know you haven’t heard from me for a while, but would you mind marrying me for a few months?

Not to mention she would need her groom to keep their marriage arrangement a secret. The entire purpose of the ruse would be to convince the press and that horrible blogger woman that Stefanie wasn’t involved with Blake. Then Blake would be forced to recant his bullshit statement.

After she’d thought it through, she decided an engagement announcement would look like a desperate cover-up. It gave Blake too much wiggle room, and she couldn’t risk him slithering into her family’s life again.

Wineglass empty and fatigue finally overcoming her, Stef had dragged herself to the couch, pulled a blanket over her body and caught about three hours of tossing-turning sleep.

The knock on her front door came way too early, even though she was ready for it. She’d pulled her hair into a sloppy bun on top of her head, dashed on a layer of makeup and donned big, dark sunglasses so that if a photo was snapped of her in the wild, she wouldn’t look like she’d had a sleepless night fretting over Blake.

Stef had called Pen yesterday afternoon and suggested releasing a statement that she was no more marrying Blake than she was marrying Kermit the Frog, but Pen had recommended against it.

We can’t turn this into he said, she said, especially while you’re out of town. Let’s let the dust settle and we’ll handle things in the new year. Enjoy your Christmas party!

Despite what she’d led everyone to believe, Stef wasn’t going to a Christmas party with her girlfriends. She was hosting a massive charity dinner that she’d arranged for some of the poorest families in Harlington, a city outside San Antonio.

Over the last three Christmas Eves, she’d hosted similar dinners and, so far, had kept her little Christmas secret. She didn’t want publicity or attention for it—not yet. She wanted to do it her way, and without input from family members on how to arrange the place settings or what kind of food to serve.

Providing for the less fortunate and giving back filled her with a sense of satisfaction like nothing else. To Stef, this dinner party was about more than writing a check. She’d personally witnessed gratitude and happiness on the faces of men, women and children who otherwise wouldn’t have had a merry Christmas.

Hiding what she was doing from her family wasn’t too difficult, but keeping her identity a secret from her guests was a bit trickier. So far so good—no one had recognized her yet. She might be widely recognized by the snooty Dallas upper crust, but to the hardworking people of Texas proper, she was simply a young woman helping out.

Her goal was to grow the charity event larger starting next year, which would mean she’d need to reveal her true identity in order to expand and give it the attention it deserved. But she couldn’t do that while living in the Ferguson shadow or tiptoeing around her brother and his career as mayor.

Yes, going public would mean she’d have to do a bit of pruning to her own reputation before next Christmas.

“Coming!” she called when the knock at the door came again.

She rushed to the door and held it open, but rather than ushering Emmett forward, she ended up walking outside into the cold with him.

“Is that snow? Oh my gosh, that’s snow!”

Snow in Texas was a rare occasion. Typically this time of year temperatures hovered in the forties.

“Yeah—hey, where are you going?”

She ignored him to step out onto her upstairs front stoop. The snow wasn’t sticking, sadly, but the flakes were enough to fill her heart with joy. Each delicate, sparkly and, yes, sloppy flake was a reminder that her favorite holiday was nearly upon them.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s wet. Inconvenient. And not why I live in Texas.”

She frowned at Emmett. In a black leather coat, his white collared shirt visible just beneath the open zipper, and his standard black pants and leather boots, he should look like a tall, attractive, sturdy man she could count on. Instead, he was a grousing, grumpy individual set on ruining her good mood.

“It’s magical. And I refuse to let you make me feel bad about that.”

She slapped a palm against his broad chest, shoving him aside. Okay, so she didn’t so much shove him as push against a chest made of solid muscle that had no give whatsoever. No matter! Emmett Keaton was not going to ruin her day. She’d already given that power away, and all too recently. It was a mistake she vowed not to repeat.

“I’ll just take these magical bags out to my mystical SUV and wait for you to float on down, then,” he said as he picked up her luggage.

Humming a Christmas tune to drown out Scrooge Keaton, she snagged her coffee thermos out from under the single-cup coffee maker and snapped on the lid. She might have to spend several days with him, but thank God the car ride was only four hours long.

How much damage could he do in four hours?

Hour One

“No Christmas music.”

“That’s inhumane.”

She stabbed the button on the radio to turn it on and Emmett pushed a button on the steering wheel to shut it off.

“Can you explain to me how I am on my way to a Christmas celebration—that you have volunteered to drive me to, by the way—and yet I’m not allowed to listen to Christmas music on the drive over?”

“My car. My rules.”

“That was rhetorical. Don’t be a grump.” She turned on the music again, and again Emmett turned it off. “What if the volume is really, really low?”

He didn’t pull his eyes from the road, not even to glare at her.

“Fine. I’ll talk instead.” She cleared her throat. “So, I found this dress for my mother’s art show next month. It’s blue and sparkly and goes perfectly with my new shoes that I bought from—”

A long-suffering sigh sounded from his chest, and Emmett powered on the radio in surrender. He thumbed down the volume button on the steering wheel, but she considered it a win.

Hour Two

“I don’t see why we couldn’t stop at a decent restaurant and order takeout.” She held the fast-food bag between a finger and thumb and eyed the grease spots that had seeped through the paper dubiously. “There are approximately a million calories in this bag. If I’m going to consume a million calories, it’d better be a gourmet meal.”

Emmett stuck his hand into the bag and came out with one of the cheeseburgers. She watched as he unwrapped the sandwich, took a huge bite and, because that move took both hands, drove with his knee.

Because he was big enough to drive with his knee.

One booted foot firmly on the floor, his left knee kept the SUV perfectly positioned in the center of the lane.

What an irritatingly sexy move that was. Why did he have to be so damn capable at everything?

She rummaged through the bag until she found her sandwich. A fish sandwich had been the least calorie-laden item on the menu. It was roughly the size of a silver dollar, smashed flat, and half the cheese was glued to the cardboard container rather than on the bun.

“Great.”

Emmett’s hand plunged into the bag again and he came out with a container of fries. The burger held in one hand, he wedged the fry container between his big thighs and shoved three or four fries into his mouth. Even with one cheek stuffed like a chipmunk’s, he didn’t appear any less capable.

She’d been around strong men all her life. Her father and her brothers were all strong, commanding, decisive men.

Emmett had those traits as well, but it came in a less refined package. Sure, he dressed well, but there was a rough-hewn edge beneath that Armani shirt.

It bothered her. It bothered her because it didn’t make any sense.

It bothers you because you find it attractive.

Just like she’d found Blake attractive? Just like she’d found plenty of other men who were all wrong for her attractive?

She nibbled on the edge of her fish sandwich, sending a longing look to the fries nestled between Emmett’s legs.

“See something you like?” He crumpled the empty burger wrapper and tossed it into the fast-food bag at her feet.

She jerked her gaze to his face and was alarmed to find him smiling over at her.

“No. I don’t,” she argued a little too fervently.

His smile remained. Eyes on the road, he proffered the container of fries.

Rather than resist, she plucked out three perfectly golden, salty potatoes and reminded herself that the bossy, attractive man in the driver’s seat was as bad for her as this meal.

Four

Hour Three

Emmett slid a look over at Stefanie, who was intently scrolling through her phone and had been for the last several miles. What the hell was she doing?

“You’re going to make yourself carsick,” he grumbled.

He could feel her eyes on him. Wide, innocent eyes.

He didn’t understand that observation about her, but it was nonetheless true. The only Ferguson daughter wasn’t naive or immature. She was headstrong and mulish, and he knew from experience, since he had both those attributes in spades. When they belonged to a woman, however, people saw her as a trite, vapid troublemaker.

Frankly, it pissed him off. He’d known Stef for as long as he’d known Chase, and she wasn’t any of those things. But she must’ve been immune to what the public said about her. She never complained about her image or tried to make herself smaller because the media talked about her.

“You do your thing, I’ll do mine.” Her snide remark made him smile in spite of himself.

His “thing” at the moment was chauffeuring her safely from Dallas to San Antonio so that she could hobnob with her friends and ignore him. Which was what being around her was always like. He’d been joking about sleeping in the SUV, but he assumed he could find a last-minute room. San Antonio was a big city.

He checked the rearview mirror and noticed the same black sedan he’d clocked earlier. It trailed three or four cars behind him. He wasn’t so paranoid that he believed they were being followed—it was a highway and they were all heading the same direction—but neither would he take Stef’s safety for granted.

He’d been in the habit of looking out for her over the past couple of years, so he supposed that was the reason he’d offered himself up as the human sacrifice rather than asking her to change her plans.

First off, he knew she wouldn’t. And if she’d gone anyway, he’d have been the one tailing her right now.

Another glance showed the black sedan sliding into the same lane and vanishing behind a semi.

It was early yet. He’d keep an eye on it.

Both eyes.

Hour Four

Stef paused her scrolling through her address book, which she’d been desperately searching for a man to marry her for show.

She was young, rich and attractive, yet this was proving to be an insurmountable task. Every name she passed on the list was either seeing someone or the wrong choice. Like Oliver James, for example.

She and Oliver had casually dated for three months last summer. He was a successful commercial real estate buyer and a few years older than her. They’d stopped seeing each other mutually when things had simmered down.

She’d been contemplating texting him to find out if he was still single when Emmett spoke up to ask her if she was cold and snapped her out of her imaginings. Just as well. Oliver was a nice enough guy, but she didn’t know if she could trust him when it came to being discreet. He was showy with a big personality. Always telling a joke or commanding the attention of the room.

Definitely not a good choice for an undercover marriage.

Now, though, her eyes rested on a name that she hadn’t considered before. She blinked, considered what she knew of the man and wondered if she could slot him into the role of groom even on a pretend-temporary basis.

Emmett Keaton.

She wrinkled her nose, but the distaste she tried to feel wasn’t there.

Stefanie Keaton.

It might work.

At first blush, the idea seemed insane, but when she allowed herself to walk through the steps of arranging a wedding to the man driving, it wasn’t so insane.

Emmett didn’t like her and she didn’t like him that much, either. Ending a marriage when it was time would be as natural as breathing for them.

She looked up “marriage licenses in Harlington” on her phone and Google provided the website for the city. She hadn’t exactly lied about going to San Antonio. The smaller district was located about thirty minutes outside San Antonio. If she had told Chase that she was heading to the one-horse town to visit her high-class friends, he would’ve known something was up.

She hadn’t told Emmett yet, but they weren’t close to where he needed to pull off the highway. She opened a map. In about twenty miles, he’d need to reroute.

Back to the issue at hand: marrying Emmett.

The marriage license had a seventy-two-hour waiting period. If they applied today... She counted the days on her fingers. They’d be good to go by Christmas Eve. The question was, could she find someone to marry them at the last minute on a holiday?

She opened her email app and pecked out a correspondence to the woman who ran the B and B where Stef had made her reservations.

Hi, Margaret,

Do you know anyone who could marry a couple on Christmas Eve?

She watched out the windshield, considering the timing of the charity dinner. It was a six o’clock dinner, and even with cleanup she’d be out of there by ten o’clock. Once they returned to the B and B, changed into whatever wedding attire she was able to scrounge up in the three-day gap between license and “I do,” that’d mean...

Preferably midnight, she typed. As Christmas Eve turns to Christmas day.

She smiled to herself as she finished the email. Married at midnight on Christmas day. Could it be more perfect?

She slanted a glance at Emmett and frowned. Maybe perfect was overshooting it. She hoped he could summon up an expression other than “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” for a few of the photos.

She should probably make sure Emmett didn’t have a secret wife or girlfriend first. He kept his personal life in Stef’s blind spot. She knew him in relation only to what he did at the mayor’s office, and even then it looked to her like a bunch of walking around while wearing a starched white button-down shirt and a stern expression.

“Do you date?”

Emmett snapped his head around, a look of incredulity on his face. “What?”

“Date. Do you date?”

If she wasn’t mistaken, he squirmed in his seat.

“Women. Men. Anyone?”

“Women.” His frown intensified.

“Are you dating anyone right now?”

He said nothing, both hands on the wheel in an elbows-locked position.

“Why?” he finally muttered.

It seemed too early to blurt out that she wanted to marry him. She’d have to ease into that request.

“Just making conversation. I never see you with anyone whenever you’re at a family function.”

“That’s work.”

“You can’t work all the time.”

“I can. I do.”

Yeah, this was getting her nowhere.

“Your head is the perfect shape. Not everyone can wear their hair that short.”

“The deep car chatter continues.”

“I’m just saying, I’m sure you can find a date even though your personality is basically the worst.”

His shoulders jumped in what might have been a laugh, but no smile yet.

She smiled, enjoying a challenge. “So? Do you date?”

“Not as much as you do.”

She ignored the jab. “Are you seeing anyone right now?”

“Yes. You. Exclusively.”

He didn’t take his eyes off the road to look at her so he didn’t see her bite her lip in consideration. As segues went, this was pretty much her only chance.

“I talked to Penelope about how to handle the Blake situation. Know what she said?”

“Stay out of it and let her do her job?”

Almost verbatim, but that wasn’t what Stef was getting at.

“She said that if I were anyone else, she’d suggest I get married.”

“She would suggest you pretend you’re married?” he asked, his tone flat.

“No. She would suggest I literally get married. Marriage licenses are public record. Any reporter worth her salt could verify if it was real or not.”

Emmett said nothing.

“I’ve been scrolling through my phone in search of Mr. Stefanie Ferguson, but no luck. I’m almost halfway through the alphabet.”

He changed lanes, the mar in his brow deepening.

“You’re going to have a lot of wrinkles when you’re old because of the frowning. Did you know that—”

“It takes more muscles to frown than smile? Yes. I knew that.”

“Anyway, when I find my husband-to-be, it’ll only have to last until the election. Once Chase is reelected as mayor, I can annul it, no harm no foul.”

A minute of silence passed, the only sound in the car a Mariah Carey holiday tune playing quietly on the radio. Emmett stabbed a button on the steering wheel to shut it off.

“You have to take this exit for where we’re going.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I know so.” She held her phone up and showed him the map.

“Where is that?” he asked, even as he dutifully changed lanes.

“I lied about San Antonio. We’re going to a town called Harlington. It’s just outside—”