The Twelve Dates of Christmas

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s great. It’ll tell you things you never even realized you wanted to know.” He smiled politely. “I’d let you use it for free.”

She squeezed her eyes shut in distress. “I don’t want your handouts. I don’t want anybody’s handouts!”

Yeah. He could see that. He didn’t know where she’d come from, but she had guts and grit. She wanted to make it on her own.

“We could bargain for it.”

She gasped and scrambled away from him. “Not on your life.”

He laughed. Again. Fourth time. “I’m not talking about sex.”

She relaxed but gave him a strange look. “I don’t have anything to bargain.” She petted her coat. “Unless you’re into vintage women’s clothes.”

“Nope. But you do have something I want.”

Her gazed strolled over to his cautiously, wary. “What?”

“Time.”

“Time?”

“Yeah. I have ten Christmas parties, a wedding and a fraternity reunion coming up. I need a date.”

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ef89640e-24f5-5135-953a-0aa4770ed3e3)

ELOISE STARED AT Ricky Whatever. “I don’t even know your last name.”

“It’s Langley.” He smiled at her. Those silky brown eyes held her prisoner. “And yours?”

“Vaughn.”

He reached out and shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Eloise Vaughn.”

“So you have twelve places to go for Christmas and you want me to go out with you?”

“No. I want you to be my date. Big difference.”

She eyed him askance. “I’m not sure how.”

“There’d be nothing romantic between us.” He winced. “Except to pretend that there is. I need space. A reason to bow out of conversations. Bringing a date to parties has a way of giving a guy options.”

She studied him, realized he was serious and said the thing he was dancing around but wouldn’t quite say. “And you want people to stop fixing you up all the time. With someone at your side, they’d leave you alone.”

“It’s more complicated than that. Really what it comes down to is easing myself back into the world and into my social circle. A date at my side would be like a living symbol to my friends that I’m fine, and they can all stop worrying about me.”

Eloise got comfortable against the supple leather seat. He talked like a guy coming off a bad relationship. Nobody wanted to have to go to parties when they were smarting from a breakup. He probably didn’t want to have to explain where his ex was. Or, worse, have to flirt or be flirted with.

“So you’re looking for ways to be able to go to parties without being social.”

“I don’t mind being social. I just don’t want to have to be too social. Look, I’m not in the market for something romantic, so you’d be perfectly safe. You might even enjoy yourself. Meet some new people. Make some work contacts.”

Yep. Anybody who wasn’t in the market for something romantic was still hurting over a bad breakup. But he’d also said the magic words. Work contacts. The employment market was so tight she couldn’t even get interviews. But if she could meet the higher-ups of some companies, she might impress them and maybe open a door for herself.

“And I don’t have to do anything but smile and be polite?”

“And pretend to like me.”

She already sort of liked him. He was handsome and just a little bit scruffy, the way a man was when there was no woman in his life. And he was honest. So pretending to like him wouldn’t be hard.

“We’d need a story.”

“A story?”

“How we met. Why we’re dating.”

“Why don’t we just say we met at Olivia and Tucker’s party and hit it off?”

“It’s only half a lie. We did meet at the party. But we didn’t exactly hit it off. We barely spoke.”

“We’re talking like two friends now.”

She thought about that. “Yeah. I guess we are.” She sucked in a breath. “And you’d help me find a job?”

“You don’t want to use Jason Jones to find a roommate?”

“A roommate is temporary. I want a permanent solution. I want a career.”

His brow wrinkled. “Are you asking me to hire you?”

She gaped at him. “God, no! I don’t want to be the girl in the office who got her job by dating the boss. Sheesh! Talk about instant pariah. I want you to get me job with one of your friends.”

“I can’t getyou hired, but I could help you make contacts.”

She shook her head. “If I’m going out with you—” She did the math in her head...ten parties, one wedding, one fraternity reunion “—twelve times, then I’m getting twelve dates’ worth of help.”

“What do you want me to do? Run an ad saying that someone should hire you?”

“I don’t care what you do. Pick your friends’ brains to see who’s looking for an HR person and get me interviews, and I’ll go out with you twelve,” she deliberately exaggerated the word so he’d see the significance of the big number, “times.”

His eyes told her he was doing a bit of mental calculating—proving he took her seriously—before he stuck out his hand to shake hers. “Deal.”

She took it. “Deal.”

They reached her apartment building. She slid out of the limo, and he did too. “You don’t have to walk me upstairs.”

“Someone could be hiding—”