Billionaire Bachelors 10 ; Holiday Treasure(6)

"Yes, moving is unpleasant," Tanner said dryly. "Well, I have some phone calls to make … " He held open the door she'd blown past when entering his place illegally. He'd really begun to care about legality.

"I'm sorry. I'll leave you be. My name is Kyla, by the way, Kyla Ridgley." She walked right up to him and held out her hand.

Tanner looked at it for a moment as if he didn't know what to do, but then his manners kicked in and he held out his own hand. "Tanner," he offered, and nothing more.

"Well, it's great to meet you, Tanner," she said, and then her warm, slender hand was somehow clasped in his.

Tanner nearly took a step back when their fingers touched. It felt like a spark had just ignited between the two of them.

"Um, great to meet you," Kyla almost gasped. She jerked her hand from his and dashed through the door.

When she slipped inside the apartment right across the hall from his and quickly closed the door behind her, Tanner stared for several moments at the space she'd been occupying.

Maybe his "jail" time had just become a lot more bearable. With a slight smile lifting the corners of his mouth, he picked up his phone to call his assistant.

Furniture was his first priority.

Then, he was going to find out a bit more about his new neighbor. A three-week fling might just make this situation a whole lot easier to swallow.




 

 

Chapter Four

Kyla leaned against her door and took a deep breath. Normally, men didn't intimidate her. She'd grown up with a loving family, and had enjoyed high school and the first two years of college. She'd had a healthy dating life.

Then … boom.

Her picture-book world had fallen apart in the blink of an eye. On a family vacation, they'd all been driving down a mountain road after a fun day of snowboarding. And then their car had skidded on black ice.

She was the only survivor.

After a week in the hospital, she'd been released, with nowhere to go where she felt safe. After dropping out of school - she couldn't face anything or anyone - she'd found herself at this apartment, both her place of refuge and a spot where she hoped to heal someday.

She knew it wasn't her fault that her family was gone. But why was she the only one to live? Why wasn't it her mother, who did charity work, or her father, who made a difference in the world through his teaching? Why couldn't her brother have survived? He'd graduated from high school the previous June and planned to join the military after college. He'd have been an officer and a gentleman.

No, she'd been the one to survive. The only one who still didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. So now she found herself taking odd jobs, just trying to hang on, instead of really living.

She'd been left her parents' home when they'd passed, along with a substantial inheritance, but she couldn't find it in her heart to use the funds or to stay in that house. She hadn't been there since the accident. She was too afraid to face the memories of those empty rooms. Seeing her dad wrestling with her brother on the living room floor, hearing their laughter and her mother's sweet singing ringing in from the kitchen. They were such an old-fashioned family in many ways - more than half a century later, they'd somehow captured the best of the 1950s without the worst that went along with it.

Never again would she and her brother wake up on Christmas morning and rush downstairs to open the gifts her parents had so lovingly picked out. The realization that these memories would play continually and vividly in her mind, although she would never see her family again in real life, whatever that was, made it all too overwhelming to face.

Kyla shook off the thoughts. It had been months since she'd allowed such painful memories to intrude so forcefully, but with Christmas not much more than three weeks away, her family was front and center more than ever before.

After all, December 23rd was the day her life had been irrevocably changed, the day she'd lost her family and suddenly found herself an orphan. It didn't look as if she'd ever again be able to enjoy the holiday she had once cherished. 

Kyla was trying to put herself out in the world again, trying to meet people. She wasn't interested in dating, but the odd tingling her new neighbor had inspired shocked her. He couldn't have touched her heart - it was encased in ice. But he'd still had some effect on her, and considering his standoffish behavior, that made no sense at all.

Maybe it was because he'd been so cold in the way he spoke, and then so very hot to the touch. No matter. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and then told herself she wouldn't think about her temporary neighbor again.

Heck, the current owner of this stupid mass of brick and mortar, whoever had taken it over wanted them all kicked out on the street. She really didn't know how long she was going to get to stay. The thought of moving, of leaving the place she'd chosen as somewhere to heal, was terrifying. She didn't want to leave yet. She just wasn't ready.