Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 29000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 145(@200wpm)___ 116(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 145(@200wpm)___ 116(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
Which is why I decide to steal the town’s ridiculous Christmas tree topper and burn the peg leg—yes, a peg leg. I’ll be doing the town a favor by making Jingle Hell a slightly less embarrassing place to spend the holidays.
Then, sweet, generous, sunshine-y Holly Jo catches me in the act. Holly, whose smile has always melted my icy heart. Even when we were kids.
She ropes me into baking dog treats with her to make amends, when the power goes out and we’re snowed in together for the night.
Add in one roaring fire, an unexpectedly sexy reindeer costume, and some whipped cream, and suddenly my trip to Jingle Hell is turning into Jingle Hell Yeah…
But what happens when one night with this woman isn’t nearly enough?
Contents include a lonely businessman, a happy-go-lucky optimist in a reindeer costume, and all the holiday hijinks. This swoony romance is the first book in a series of interconnected standalones following the billionaire Ratcliffe brothers.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
LUKE
A billionaire with a bad attitude about the holidays.
(And just about everything else…)
“Jingle Bell Junction. More like Jingle Hell…” I sink lower on the sleet-dusted park bench in Jingle Bell—Hell—Junction’s town square, glaring at the massive tree twinkling by the gazebo.
By tomorrow night, the monstrosity will be covered in gaudy, oversized ornaments, and the entire town will be gathered to sing carols, swill hot chocolate, and pretend there’s a reason to believe there might someday be peace on earth.
I know better.
I run a multibillion dollar business selling electrical wiring to nuclear arms facilities. If there were a reason for hope, I’d be on the verge of bankruptcy.
But business is booming.
“Pun fucking intended,” I slur to the tree, lifting my heavily spiked eggnog in a grim toast. “You energy-wasting bastard.”
“Easy there, Holiday Monster, or you’ll set the tree on fire with your eyeballs.” My brother, Elliot, appears at my side, his messenger bag swollen with whatever maple-flavored, flannel-covered, Vermont-themed garbage he picked up at Kathy’s Kountry Store.
“That’s another thing I hate.” I intensify my glare at the “holiday magic” vomited all over the gazebo, the tree, the businesses surrounding the square—even the Victorian town hall building teetering high on the hill behind the graveyard at the edge of town. “The deliberate butchering of the English language. Neither Kathy, nor her Kountry with a K store, are cute. If I were in charge, people who called country stores, ‘kountry’ stores, would be dragged out into the street and pelted with yellow snowballs.”
Elliot sighs. “And yet again, you choose violence. Why must you always choose violence?”
“Fuck off,” I grumble.
“I will not fuck off,” he says. “It’s the happiest time of the year, and we’re honoring our grandfather’s dying wish by spending the holidays together in the beautiful home he left us. And we all like each other! How many brothers and sisters with crap parents like ours can say the same?” He pats his bag with a grin. “And I have enough Santa-shaped sugar cookies, chocolate drizzled peppermint popcorn, and triple maple fudge to keep all four of us wasted on sugar until morning.” He nudges my shoulder. “Now, come on. We should get on the snowmobile and back up the mountain before the weather gets any worse. Ashton and Bran will be worried.” He glances over his shoulder at the mansion above town, where our younger siblings are busy decking the halls, even though Christmas isn’t for another three weeks.
“Snow we can handle, but this sleet is dangerous,” Elliot continues as I slug down another gulp of eggnog and wish my sister wasn’t an interior decorator, highly skilled in the field of blanketing sixteen thousand square foot estates in wreathes and plaid reindeer. “We’re probably going to lose power before the night is over.”
My lips curve in a grim smile. “Then we should stay here, where they have a generator to keep the tree lights glittering every second between now and whenever they’re finally giving up on Christmas these days. January 15th? Valentine’s Day? When do these monsters finally take down the lights and let us weather the winter in peace? The Fourth of Fucking July?”
“You’re going to freeze to death if you stay here,” Elliot says dryly, ignoring my rant. “A suit is hardly winter weather clothing, you forgot your hat, and your heart is five sizes too small.”
I shift my glare his way.
He lifts a hand in surrender. “Don’t kill the messenger. I’m just saying—people with cranky, holiday-hating hearts are more susceptible to the cold. It’s a scientific fact. Half of all hypothermia deaths occur in people with Grinch-itis.”
Arching an unamused brow, I take another slow sip of my whiskey-soaked nog.