A Mistletoe Kiss With The Boss

Was he Prince Charming...or Scrooge?

When sweet, kind Kristen Anderson asks self-made billionaire Dean Suminski to invest in her charity, he agrees, but with one condition: Kristen must be his Christmas-party date!

It might be glamorous being on handsome Dean’s arm, but Kristen soon discovers the bruised soul behind Dean’s brusque exterior. He has built his barriers against Christmas—and for a very good reason. Kristen’s hoping she can start to melt his defenses...with one magical mistletoe kiss!

Dean watched her face change. When she’d turned from looking at the Christmas decorations her eyes had been bright. But when their gazes met her face seemed to freeze.

“You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

“Of course I am.”

He’d expected her to lie, and laughed when she didn’t. “Because you don’t lie, you and I are going to get along spectacularly.”

She glanced down at her pretty satin dress. She looked as much like a princess in the dress as her boss, Princess Eva. But to Dean she was even prettier. She had soft-looking Scandinavian skin, so pale it had picked up the moonlight when they’d walked from the hotel to his limo, and green eyes that were a striking contrast. Her thick yellow hair had been pulled up into some creation of curls on top of her head, exposing her long, cultured neck.

And his first thought when he’d seen her was how easy it would be to kiss that neck.

A Mistletoe Kiss with the Boss

Susan Meier

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SUSAN MEIER is the author of over fifty books for Mills & Boon. The Tycoon’s Secret Daughter was a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award finalist and Nanny for the Millionaire’s Twins won the Book Buyers’ Best award and was a finalist in the National Readers’ Choice awards. She is married and has three children. One of eleven children, she loves to write about the complexity of families and totally believes in the power of love.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

WHEN THE ELEVATOR bell rang in the lobby of the upscale Paris hotel, Kristen Anderson’s heart thumped. She spun to face the ornate wrought iron doors, her whole body shivering in anticipation—

Two middle-aged American women got out.

She didn’t have time to sag with disappointment, because someone tapped her on the shoulder and asked her a quiet question.

In French.

Which she didn’t speak.

She turned around to see a man dressed in a suit, undoubtedly the desk clerk.

Speaking English, because her native Grennadian was nearly unheard of, she said, “I’m sorry. I don’t speak French.”

The elevator bell dinged again. Her head snapped toward the sound.

In perfect English, the desk clerk said, “May I ask, mademoiselle, your business in our hotel?”

She pointed at the tall, broad man exiting the elevator. “I want to see him.”

She took two steps toward Dean Suminski, chairman of the board and CEO of Suminski Stuff, but the clerk caught her arm.

“No, mademoiselle.” He shook his finger like a metronome. “You will not disturb a guest.”

Walking toward her, Dean Suminski shrugged into a gorgeous charcoal-gray overcoat. His eyes were down. She guessed that was his way of ignoring anyone who might be around him. But she didn’t care. Getting him to visit Grennady and consider it as the place to relocate his company was her mission for her country. Approaching him was also practice for when she had to deal with men like him on a daily basis after she started her charitable foundation. One desk clerk wouldn’t stop her.

“Sorry, Pierre.” She pulled her arm out of his short, stubby fingers. “Someday I’m going to build schools in third world countries. I have to learn to be brash.”

She spun away from the clerk and shouted, “Mr. Suminski!”

He totally ignored her.

“Mr. Suminski! I know that’s you. I’ve seen your face on the internet.”

He walked to the door.

She scurried after him. “I just need two minutes.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the clerk point at a man behind another discreet desk. He nodded and bounded toward her. But Suminski walked out the door and she stayed on his heels, catching him when he stopped in front of a limo.

“Seriously. Two minutes. That’s all I need.”

In the silence of the crisp early December morning, at a hotel set back, away from the congestion of Paris’s main thoroughfare, she heard his annoyed sigh and was surprised when he faced her.

“Who are you?”

With his dark eyes locked on her face, Kristen froze. His black hair was perfect, not a strand out of place. His high forehead, straight nose and high cheekbones could have made him a king.

When she didn’t answer, he said, “Fine,” and began to turn away.

“I’m Kristen Anderson,” she said, her voice coming out louder than it should. She sucked in a quick gulp of air and calmed herself. When she spoke again, it was quieter, smoother, and with authority. “Gennady would like you to consider moving your company to our country.”

He faced her again. “Prince Alex would know I wasn’t interested.”

Prince Alex was the husband of Kristen’s boss, Princess Eva. As executive assistant to Grennady’s future queen, Kristen knew Alex had immediately said no to considering Suminski Stuff as one of the tech companies being recruited to boost their flagging economy. But their options had run out. Dean’s was the only company left.

“So that’s why you weren’t put on the list?”

He smiled. But the movement wasn’t warm or friendly. More sarcastic. Almost frightening. “There’s a list?”

“There was. It’s dwindled.”

“To no one, I’m guessing, if they sent you to barge in on my day.”

She swallowed. Those black eyes were just too intense—like they saw every damned thing going on in her head. She’d read that he was shrewd, uncanny in his ability to judge his opponents. Orphaned at four, raised by a cold grandmother who hadn’t wanted him, he’d played video games to amuse himself. At fourteen, he’d gone to business school because he’d taught himself to code and didn’t need any more instructions in computers. He was brilliant. He was arrogant. He was also their last chance.

She opened her hands in supplication. “If you could give me two minutes of your time, I could persuade you to visit and make an assessment about whether or not you might consider, perhaps, moving your company to Grennady.”

“That’s a lotta maybes and mights and perhapses.”

“It’s possible you’re not looking to move.”

“I’m not.”

“You should be. Grennady is a beautiful country with a diverse labor pool.”

He scowled, and really just scared the hell out of her. Tall, broad-shouldered, and blunt, he made her blood tingle with fear. And she had the feeling he did it deliberately. Maybe this was why Prince Alex didn’t want him in their country? And maybe she had overstepped in contacting him. Grennady might be desperate to find an employer who could keep their younger, educated residents at home, but Suminski Stuff wasn’t the answer.

She stepped back. “You know what? I’m sorry I bothered you. Have a nice day.”

He shook his head. “You’re gonna give up that easily? I had higher hopes for you.”

Her face scrunched in confusion. “What?”

“You obviously flew from your frozen country to Paris where you don’t even speak the language.” His head tilted. “I heard you tell the clerk. You also didn’t mind running after me, shouting in a quiet lobby. That takes some guts. But when you finally had my attention, you backed off.” He almost smiled. “Too bad.”

He turned to leave, but she caught his arm. “What would you have done, if you were me?”

He laughed. “So now you want me to teach you how to dicker?”

His dark eyes held her gaze. She swallowed down her fear because, damn it, why should she be afraid of this guy just because he had money? And was big. And handsome. And had a terrifying way of looking at her.

“I don’t want you to teach me to dicker. I want you to listen to my pitch for about fifteen minutes.”

“Before you said two minutes.”

“That was if I didn’t show you some pictures.”

He looked at the blue sky, then back at her. “All right. Get in the car. I’m on my way to the airport. You’ve got the entire drive. Give it your best shot.”

Hope burst inside her. Maybe he wasn’t so bad, after all? “Really?”

He motioned to the black limo awaiting him. “Here’s lesson one. Don’t question good luck.”

The driver opened the car door and Kristen slid inside. Warm leather seats arranged in a semicircle greeted her.

Dean Suminski eased in beside her. A few seconds passed in silence as the driver got behind the wheel. Dean spent the time texting.

As the car pulled away from the hotel, Kristen said, “So I’m assuming you already know a little bit about Grennady?”

“I own controlling interest in a big company. I know who’s managing the world’s oil. I met Xaviera’s Prince Alex a few years back. When he married, I did my research.”

“Why would you care who he married?”

He sniffed a laugh. “Would you put your money in oil stocks if the region was unstable?”

“That has nothing to do with Alex getting married. Besides, that region’s always unstable.”

“Let’s call it controlled instability because of people like Prince Alex’s dad, King Ronaldo. As long as Ronaldo is happy, he’s strong. I needed to make sure Alex’s marriage didn’t rock the boat.”

She supposed that was true. “So you know that our country’s every bit as well ruled as Xaviera.”

“Your country nearly had a coup at the beginning of the year.”

“Nearly. King Mason was on top of things.”

He made a noncommittal sound.

“But, just for the sake of argument, let’s pretend he wasn’t. He is now.”

“True.”

“We’re going through something that could be described as a renaissance, and you could be part of that.”

“I’m rich. I don’t need to be part of anything.”

His phone rang. He slid it from his breast pocket. “Very few people have this number. So if someone’s calling it’s important.” He clicked the button to answer. “Hello?”

A pause.

“Maurice! Je m’excuse. Mon voyage a été coupé court...”

French again. Damn it. She knew two languages. The language of her country and English. It was becoming clear that she would have to fix that, if she wanted to run an international charity.

As he went on, holding a conversation in a language she didn’t speak, she looked at the luxurious interior of the car. She’d ridden in limos with the princess, of course, but this felt different. She wasn’t the scampering, scrambling employee of an important person, doing her job to make Eva’s life easier. She was the one talking to the important person.

She was more than getting her feet wet with this guy. He took her seriously.

She felt herself making her first shaky step into the life and work she really wanted. Though she loved being Princess Eva’s assistant, she had a degree in economics and a plan to change the world. When she was in high school, her pen pal Aasera had been one of six kids, living in Iraq. Her brothers had been educated, but she and her sisters were not. So she’d sneaked her brothers’ books. When they discovered, she’d begged them to teach her to read and write, and they did.

She had been brave, determined. She’d often said her country would be a different place if women were educated, and she’d intended to make that happen. But she’d been killed by a suicide bomber, and in her grief Kristen had vowed to make Aasera’s wish a reality.

Today, she was finally beginning to feel she could make that happen.

Dean hung up the phone. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine.”

The words were barely out of her mouth before his phone rang again.

He waved it at her. “Sorry. I have to answer.”

This time he spoke fluent Spanish. Not wanting to appear to be listening in, though she couldn’t since she also didn’t speak Spanish, she looked at the beauty of Paris outside the car windows. The curved arches. The ornate buildings. Happy people bundled in scarves and warm coats, sitting on the chairs of sidewalk cafes, in spite of the December cold.

She almost couldn’t believe she’d been courageous enough to take her own money and track down Dean Suminski, but here she was, in Paris, trying to influence him as an equal—or at least as someone who deserved his support. It filled her chest with pride and her stomach with butterflies, but after three years as Eva’s assistant, she was ready to move on.

Dean talked so long that the city gave way to a quieter area, and then the buildings became fewer and farther apart. Suddenly a private airstrip appeared. Eight or ten bright blue, gray and tan metal hangars gleamed in the morning sun. Around them were five jets that ranged from a sleek, slim, small one to a plane big enough to hold the entirety of Grennady’s parliament.

Dean Suminski continued talking as the limo stopped in front of one of the smaller, sleeker jets. He talked as the driver opened his door. He talked as he motioned for her to get out of the limo and as he followed her out and onto the tarmac.

Finally, he clicked off the call. “This wasn’t my fault. As I said, any call that comes in on this phone is important. Normally, I don’t feel the need to make amends, but if you want, you can fly to New York with me. That gives you almost nine hours to make your pitch.”

Her eyes bulged. It was one thing to take a few steps toward her dreams, quite another to cross an ocean. “Fly to New York?”

“You don’t have time?”

“I...” She didn’t want to tell him she’d used her own money to travel to Paris and couldn’t miss her flight home the following morning. She didn’t want to tell him that her boss and her husband were at Prince Alex’s island home of Xaviera with his family, at the end of their vacation celebrating American Thanksgiving with Princess Ginny and Queen Rose. She didn’t want to admit that Princess Eva didn’t know where Kristen was, and hadn’t authorized her talking to him. She wanted to surprise them with a visit from Dean Suminski in January, as a way to thank them for being so good to her, but also to show them she could get a job done. So that when she left their employ to begin her charity, they’d be her first backers.

But she was also proving to herself she had what it took to be more than an executive assistant. If she couldn’t persuade Dean Suminski to visit Grennady with an eye toward relocating, would she be able to persuade benefactors to put up the millions of dollars she would need for her schools?

“Once we get to New York, the plane will turn around and bring you back home.”

Probably in time for her flight. Or she could simply tell Dean Suminski to instruct the pilot to take her back to Grennady. “That’s generous.”

His eyes turned down at the corners as he frowned. “Generous?”

“Well, you could leave me at the airport.”

“I could.” He glanced away, then looked back. “I know I have a reputation for being...well, not a nice guy. But you don’t need me to be a nice guy. You want time to make a pitch. I’m offering it. Consider this an early Christmas present.”

It suddenly struck her that he must be interested. He hadn’t told her to get lost at the hotel. He’d offered her time in his limo, though that hadn’t worked out. But here he was again, giving her a chance to sell him on her country.

“Thought you said you weren’t thinking of relocating?”

“Thought you said I should be.”

CHAPTER TWO

“YOU SHOULD.”

Dean Suminski studied the pretty girl in front of him. Blonde with pale green eyes and a generous mouth made for kissing, she wore a simple black wool coat over black pants and sensible shoes. Normally, he would have had his bodyguard deal with anyone who approached him, but she reminded him of himself ten years ago, when Suminski Stuff was in its infancy. When he wore simple, practical clothes, hoping he didn’t stand out for his lack of sophistication, and when he was trying to raise money from investors to start his business.

Still, he hadn’t gotten this far by being stupid. He’d texted his executive assistant and told her to get everything she could on Kristen Anderson of Grennady, and that’s what the call in Spanish had been about. This woman really did work for Princess Eva.

If Grennady’s royal family had sent her to him, there was a reason. He might not want to be part of a renaissance precipitated by a near coup, but he wouldn’t mind having a desperate country at his mercy.

He said, “All right. I’ll admit that the most popular places to locate a corporation in the United States are getting crowded.” He speared her with a look, delving deeply into those pretty green eyes, knowing she wasn’t very experienced at negotiating and wondering why a princess would send her. Surely, more astute negotiators or even public relations people would do a better job.

Especially since he knew Alex Sancho, Princess Eva’s husband, didn’t like him.

Her eyes brightened. “So there is a chance you’d relocate?”

The sparkle in her eyes hit him like a punch to the gut, surprising him. Those soft green orbs were little mirrors to her happy soul. And that lush, kiss-me mouth? It took a stronger man than he was not to notice its plump fullness.

Still, he shouldn’t be looking. He only dated sophisticates. Women who took lovers, who weren’t seeking happily-ever-after, as this bubbly, obviously naïve woman would be.

But the feeling in his gut wouldn’t go away. It kept telling him that something about her was important. And he should pay attention.

He pointed at the plane. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

She preceded him up the short stack of steps into his jet. When she gasped, he laughed.

“The princess never takes you on her jet?”

“Up until last year, she didn’t do much government business. Actually, she didn’t even have bodyguards.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to waste these next few hours gossiping?”

“No.” She waved her hands. “Sorry. I know your time is precious.”

“Let’s just buckle in and you can start your pitch once we’re at cruising altitude.”

As he spoke, his second-in-command and best friend, Jason Wilson, stepped into the corridor from the office in the back.

Short, twenty or thirty pounds overweight, but looking expensive and self-assured in his three-piece suit, Jason said, “We have a problem.”

Dean motioned for Kristen to take a seat and buckle in. “I suppose we do if you flew the whole way to Europe rather than phone me.”

Jason caught Dean’s arm and moved him to the back of the plane before he whispered, “While you were in meetings yesterday, I got word from a few investment firms that our stock’s about to be downgraded and they’re going to advise investors to sell.”

Forgetting all about Kristen Anderson, he gaped at Jason. “Sell?”

“Tech Junkie ran an article about you. They suggested that the new product is late because we don’t have one.”

“That’s absurd!”

“Oh, it gets worse. They said you’re so far removed from real life and so far removed from real people that it’s a miracle you came up with the original operating system and games that you did. They claim being out of touch with real people means you can’t figure out what they want because you’re not one of them.”

“How I live has nothing to do with my abilities.”

“Not according to the pundits quoted in the article. They say your reign is over. That you had five or six good ideas and exhausted them.”

The urge to shake his head at the stupidity of some people was nearly overwhelming. He was a genius, for crying out loud. Of course he didn’t live like a normal person.

“I spent my childhood poor, looking for ways to entertain myself. I know software. I know games.”

“They say that’s what got you here. But your ideas are gone.”

He tossed his hands in frustration. “We have a fantastic series of games in the works!”

“In the works for three years. Too long in this market.” Jason snapped his fingers. “Everything’s all about speed these days.”

“The series has to be perfect before I can even talk about it, let alone roll it out.”

“Then you’re pretty much screwed.” Jason’s gaze strayed to Kristen. “Who’s that?”

He didn’t like explaining himself to anybody. Not even his best friend—especially since he wasn’t entirely clear why he was willing to hear Kristen Anderson’s pitch. Every time he looked at her, he got a “there’s an opportunity here” feeling. Which made no sense since Alex Sancho was married to her boss. Couple that with the way he kept noticing all the wrong things about her, and being around her was tempting fate. Which was absurd. He did not tempt fate, push envelopes or even take risks. He was cautious. That’s why he was rich.

Yet here she was in his jet.

He held back a wince as he said, “She’s a girl I met at the hotel.”

Jason’s eyes widened. “Really?”

Deciding to let honest and genuine Kristen explain this, he turned and started up the aisle to the four plush seats. “Kristen, this is Jason Wilson, my second in command.”

Kristen jumped off her seat and extended her hand. “Kristen Anderson. I work for Princess Eva of Grennady.”

Jason’s gaze walked back to Dean. “Prince Alex’s wife’s assistant is your new girlfriend?”

She laughed. “No. I’m not his girlfriend. My country wants your company to consider relocating to Grennady.”

The pilot’s voice came over the speaker, advising passengers to buckle seat belts and get ready for takeoff.

Dean caught the gaze of Kristen’s happy green eyes. An unwanted tingle of attraction zipped through him, but so did that damned feeling that she, somehow, was important.

He said, “You buckle in,” then he faced Jason. “Let’s take this discussion to the office.”

He followed his friend down the aisle to the compact room. As they fastened their seat belts, Jason said, “So, who is she really?”

Dean focused his attention on his cantankerous buckle so he didn’t have to look at Jason. “She told you. She’s from Grennady. Her country wants us to consider locating there.”

Jason’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t like her?”

He did actually. Even if he paid no attention to the “she’s important somehow” feeling or the way her physical appearance kept tempting him, she was smart and ambitious. She was also totally inexperienced, but that might be why she was such a curiosity. She wasn’t a shark. She wasn’t a schmoozer. She was too naïve, clearly too green to be either of those. She was just a woman trying to do a job. If the royal family had an agenda in sending her, he didn’t think she knew it.

“If you’re asking if I want to take her out, the answer is no.” He might be attracted to her, but he didn’t date. And she was too naïve to fit the role as his lover. “I told her I’d listen to her pitch in the car, but got caught up in a phone conversation with Stella. So I told her I’d listen on the plane. When we land in New York, the plane will turn around and take her home.”

Jason said, “Okay, fine,” as the jet taxied. “As long as this mess with investors comes first.”

“Of course.”

When they were in the air, climbing to cruising altitude, he and Jason began a discussion of how to combat the Tech Junkie article. But in hours and hours of studying schematics, employee reports and his own damned business plan—which was shot to hell because the schedule was now almost two years behind—all they could come up with was a stopgap measure: contact the most influential brokerage firms and ask them to delay advising their clients to sell to give Suminski Stuff time to get the games to one more set of beta testers.

They made a list of firms to call when they got to New York, and created a script of what they would say, but Dean knew brokers were right to be concerned. The games they’d been working on had had one setback after another because the series was too ambitious. No one really knew how far away it was from rollout. The staff had gotten tired, worn down, and everything was now taking longer than it should.

He’d been warned. But he’d gotten arrogant. His staff could do anything...

Or so he’d thought. And now they were in trouble because he couldn’t even give a hard date for when it would be ready for another round of beta testing, let alone a hard date for when it would be for sale.

When the script was ready, Jason scrubbed his hand across his mouth. “So this is what we say?”

Dean shrugged, then leaned back in his comfortable chair. “Yes. If the brokers listen to us, I think we’ll buy about six weeks. But we’re going to have to do some hand-holding. And at the end of that six weeks, we have to have something—even if it’s only a date for when it can go into beta testing again.”

“Christmas is smack-dab in the middle of those six weeks. Then New Year’s.”

“So we’ll cancel Christmas.”

Jason laughed. “We can’t cancel a holiday.”

“No, but we can cancel vacations and leave.”

“They’ll hate you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not feeling warm and fuzzy toward them right now, either. Three years they’ve been working on this. If anybody’s got a right to be disappointed, it’s me.”

The pilot announced that it was time to buckle in for landing and Dean wasn’t surprised. The flight to New York had felt like the shortest of his life because he’d spent it figuring out how to keep investors from dumping his stock, when, really, if he was one of them he’d drop his stock like a hot rock.

He and Jason buckled in. The jet landed and taxied to his private hangar. They unbuckled their seat belts and stepped into the aisle only to find Kristen Anderson facing them, looking furious.

He squeezed his eyes shut. This was why he didn’t deal with people. He wasn’t considerate. He had a one-track mind. Right now his company was in danger of total failure. He didn’t have time to listen to a pitch for something he neither needed nor wanted.

“Sorry. I’d say you could have the limo ride to my office to chat, but then you wouldn’t be able to turn around and fly home.”

Her pretty face softened a bit. “I’m okay with that. Just have your plane take me back to Grennady instead of Paris and I’ll be fine.”

Dean started to say, “Okay,” but Jason caught his arm. “She can’t have the limo ride. You have to start making those calls the minute we step off this plane. I’m guessing you’ll be spending the entire day talking. After that there’s the Christmas gala.”

“I can miss that.”

Jason sniffed a laugh. “Really? After you spend an entire day convincing brokers that the company’s solvent and you’re fine, not some prima donna genius who doesn’t understand real life, you think you can miss an event where you actually mingle like a normal person? The one that opens the season? The one that everybody goes to?”

Damn it. Jason was right. The speculation of why he hadn’t attended the party of the year could undo all the hours he’d spend making those telephone calls.

He unhappily caught Kristen’s gaze. He hated messing up the way he had with her. He didn’t make mistakes. And even when he did, somehow or another, the situation turned out okay, as if his instincts could see the future and know there was a reason he’d done whatever unusual thing he’d done.

But not this time.

There was no “reason” that he’d strung her along except that he had an odd feeling in his gut every time he looked at her. And now he had to brush her off.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Anderson. It appears I really don’t have time to talk to you. It’s best you take the plane back.”

“Seriously? I just sat patiently for hours and you won’t even listen for fifteen minutes?”

The word sorry was on the tip of his tongue again but he swallowed it. Technically this wasn’t his fault. “You orchestrated this. I told you I was a busy man. You took a risk and it didn’t work out.”

Jason caught his arm, but he addressed Kristen. “Just hold on for one second.” Then he faced Dean. “Can I talk to you in the back?”

Dean reluctantly followed Jason to the aisle in front of the office.

“We sort of have a weird opportunity here.”

Not following how or why, Dean said nothing.

“We want to counteract that article. We want brokers and big investors to see you as a normal guy, and be comfortable that you’re not worried about the situation with the new games.”

Dean quietly said, “Yes.”

Jason nudged his head toward the front of the plane. “So why not take her to the party tonight?”