All I Want For Christmas (14 Christmas Novellas to Benefit Diabetes Research) Read online

  “Where are you going?” Howie asked.

  “To take a closer look.”

  Larry was right. They’d need a miracle in the next twenty-four hours to keep their dream alive. Jack knew it wouldn’t be the end of the world if they didn’t make this deal. He’d easily be able to get a job working for one of the high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. But he’d never wanted to work for anyone else. And just as this snowy scene in the middle of San Francisco had been some director’s impossible vision, Jack wanted to see his own impossible vision come to life, too.

  A sixth sense had him moving quickly toward the Union Square set. He didn’t know exactly what he was going to learn by watching the filming of a movie or commercial. It was just that today he needed to witness fantasy become reality.

  Turning up the collars of their suit jackets, and shoving their hands deep into their pockets to try to keep warm against the strong Bay breeze that whipped between the tall buildings, the three men crossed at a busy corner. They had just stepped up onto the sidewalk when the door to the trailer opened.

  And the most beautiful woman in the world stepped out.

  Jack stopped so suddenly that Howie and Larry both barreled hard into his back and a car rounding the corner nearly knocked them down.

  Glossy, straight dark brown hair moved over shoulders covered in red velvet. Soft fabric clung to a perfect hourglass figure and swirled seductively around an incredible pair of legs, made even sleeker by extremely high heels. Long, elegant fingers were tipped with nails painted red to match the dress and the full lips that were curving up into a smile.

  The woman on the Union Square set wasn’t only the most beautiful woman Jack had ever seen, she was also the most vibrant. As she took her place on the set beneath the lights the photographer began taking pictures of her. Though Jack didn’t know what it was she was selling, he wanted it anyway.

  And her.

  He wanted her, too.

  “My girlfriend is never going to believe it when I tell her I saw Mary Ferrer live and in the flesh.” Howie’s expression was starstruck.

  Larry’s eyebrows went up. “You know her name?”

  “She’s on the covers of a bunch of magazines Layla has lying around in the living room. Hard to believe it, but Mary Ferrer is actually better looking in person.”

  Men, women and kids of all ages stopped what they were doing in the middle of downtown San Francisco to watch the beautiful model pose for pictures. As she smiled, flirted and laughed for the camera, she was sexy without being too sexy, sweet without being too sweet.

  A little girl broke free from her mother’s hand and barreled onto the set with a squeal of joy. The model scooped the girl up into her arms with a laugh, and the two of them chatted cheerfully until her mother rushed up to take her daughter back. Jack couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could see that Mary was waving away the woman’s apologies without a second thought.

  That was when something inside Jack’s chest clenched tight…and he immediately knew why.

  “She’s the answer to our problems.”

  But what he felt when he looked at the beautiful stranger didn’t just come from thinking she could be the perfect spokesperson for their invention. Jack was a scientist who believed in what he could prove with numbers and calculations and wires and chips hooked together. At the same time, he’d been following a dream long enough to understand that passion lay beneath it all.

  Suddenly, he had to ask himself, was love at first sight actually possible?

  Larry and Howie had turned to stare at him as if he’d lost his mind. “How on earth could that gorgeous creature have anything to do with our problems?”

  “Our device needs sex appeal. She’s got plenty of that. But we also need someone to represent it who will appeal to the broadest possible market.” He could see it all so clearly, just as clear as his first vision had been ten years ago. They would need both still shots and live commercials of her holding the Pocket Planner. Because people wouldn’t be able to take their eyes off her, they also wouldn’t miss the product she was selling. He gestured at the large crowd of men and women, boys and girls, of all ages. “Everyone is clearly mesmerized. Even two-year-olds can’t resist her.”

  “Okay,” Howie said slowly, “you’re making some good points. But how are you going to convince Mary Ferrer to work with us? Especially since she has to be one of the most expensive models in the world, and our budget at this point barely covers our coffee.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jack said. “I’ll convince her.”

  Howie and Larry looked at each other with raised eyebrows, but neither of them expressed another doubt. Both of them knew that when Jack Sullivan decided to make something happen, it always did.

  Chapter Two

  Mary Ferrer could hardly believe this was her final photo shoot.

  During a brief break when Gerry, the photographer, changed film and the hairstylist touched up her hair, she looked around at the set that had been created in Union Square for the shoot.

  How many bright lights had she sat beneath in the past thirteen years? How many makeup artists and stylists had she worked with? How many high-fashion looks had she sold? How many beautiful pairs of shoes had she worn that had felt as if she’d been walking on nails? How many big cities had she flown to for fashion shows then departed from as soon as the curtain fell so that she could get to her next booking on time?

  Though Mary never took her good fortune for granted, the truth was that she’d started to lose interest in all those fabulous trappings somewhere in her mid-twenties. She had been discovered at nineteen by a very well dressed young modeling scout who had passed through Mary’s small village looking for a cup of coffee while he was on vacation in Italy. The man had given Mary his card and had begged her to let him represent her as a model. She’d reached out for her big chance with both hands.

  All her childhood friends had been either married or engaged by eighteen. Just like the other women in her village, Mary knew her girlfriends would have a handful of children by their mid-twenties…and they would stay in the same place their whole lives.

  But Mary had always dreamed of more.

  Of bigger.

  And better.

  She had always wanted to travel the world, had been filled with a deep need to see what else was out there. She’d read everything she could get her hands on in the library about other countries, from compelling travel journals to somewhat dry atlases. She’d also made sure to learn English so well that she could read it fluently by the time she’d graduated from school. Alone in her bedroom as a child, she would read her English language books out loud and try to mimic the tones of the actresses starring in the subtitled American movies at the theater in Rome.

  Unfortunately, all Mary’s mother had wanted was for her to settle down with a nice man who was up to the job of “taming” her wild urges and giving her babies. If Mary closed her eyes and blocked out the sounds and activity around her, she could still remember their final conversation as if it had happened yesterday.

  “I will not allow you to leave,” Lucia Ferrer had declared.

  But Mary had not only inherited her mother’s dark hair, flashing blue eyes, and olive complexion, she’d inherited her stubbornness as well.

  “This is my chance to finally get out of this small town,” she’d retorted in rapid-fire Italian. The two of them were so similar that the years since Mary had hit adolescence had been fraught with tension. Her father had done his best to try to smooth things out between mother and daughter, and she could see the alarm in his eyes at their exchange.

  “That man you met at the coffee shop wants to take you to New York so that you can bare your skin to strangers in flashy clothes after they’ve painted your face with makeup like a tramp.”

  Terribly frustrated with the way her mother was automatically assuming the worst—and the fact that she wasn’t giving Mary any credit at all for knowing right from wrong—she explained again. “Randy is a scout who works with a very successful agency. He says he can get me work as a model with famous designers in Paris and London and New York City.” Lifting her chin, she declared, “There’s nothing you can say or do that will stop me from going.”

  But her mother refused to see things Mary’s way. “If you leave today, don’t bother ever coming back. You will no longer be my daughter.”

  In that moment, one she’d never forget, Mary had let her mother’s absolute refusal to see reason—and her own flaring temper—push her all the way out the door and away from their small country village.

  But Mary had never believed her mother would stand by her threat.

  She’d been wrong.

  As Mary opened her eyes, she was glad of the chance to focus on the lights and excitement of downtown San Francisco at Christmastime rather than giving in to the gnawing pain in her heart that had grown bigger and bigger over the years that she'd been estranged from her parents.

  But though she dearly wished she and her mother could have seen eye to eye over her career opportunities, Mary couldn’t imagine giving up the experiences she’d had all over the world or having had the chance to work with so many talented and passionate people. The past thirteen years had been exciting, lucrative and challenging. Despite the long hours and working in conditions like today, when the winter wind blew straight through the thin velvet of her dress and chilled her from the inside out, she would never complain about her career.

  Gerry, one of her favorite photographers, moved to where she was standing at the side of the set with an apologetic smile on his face. “Sorry for the delay, Mary. I know it’s cold out here. Are you ready to get started again so we can finish up and then go get warm?”

  Shaking off her thoughts of the past, she smiled back at him. “Absolutely.”

  But instead of picking up where they’d left off, he put his hand on her arm. “I still can’t believe this is the last time I’ll get to photograph you. Please tell me you’ve changed your mind.”

  Mary would have hugged him if it didn’t mean sending all of the stylists into a panic and losing another fifteen minutes to more touch-ups to her hair and makeup and clothes.

  She’d had an amazing career and was still in high demand around the world for both print campaigns and runway shows, but after seeing what happened to models when they kept working past their prime, and how bitter they became when they were inevitably passed over for younger women, she’d made the decision to step into the next phase of her life.

  “I’ve loved working with you, Gerry. Hopefully, we’ll work together again in a different way in the future.”

  “Have you decided what you’re going to do next?”

  As soon as she’d announced her retirement from modeling, Mary had been offered plenty of opportunities to consider: fashion editor for a major magazine, working with Randy at the agency, taking on an advisory role for a makeup company. As a teenager, she’d known becoming a fashion model was exactly the right choice. Now, after thirteen nonstop years, she knew she needed to take as much time as necessary to think through her next steps. And she would start by settling into the beautiful attached house she had rented last month on Nob Hill, just a few blocks from Union Square.

  “As soon as I decide,” she promised her friend, “you’ll be one of the first to hear.”

  As she moved back onto the set, she turned her gaze to the side and saw an extremely handsome man who was watching the shoot. He was wearing a suit, but his dark hair was a little too long and his five-o’clock shadow looked as if it hadn’t been touched for half a week, at least. His eyes were interested, like those of so many others. But something about the way he was looking at her was slightly different…as if he was looking deeper than men usually did.

  Oh my.

  Mary had worked with the best-looking men in the world, but none of them had ever made her feel this shock of attraction. Especially not with just one look.

  The suit, frankly, looked all wrong on him. And not just because it needed better quality fabric in the hands of a top-notch tailor. Something told her that well-worn jeans and a favorite long-sleeved shirt would have accented the man’s rugged sensuality much better.

  “That’s perfect, Mary,” Gerry called out to her. “Your look of longing is exactly right. Hold steady with it while I get some shots from the other side.”

  She’d been so lost in the beautiful stranger’s eyes that she hadn’t realized Gerry had started shooting again.

  It wasn’t like her to be caught off guard while working. She was known for her focus and stamina. And, sometimes, if people were being disrespectful to her or the crew on a shoot, her Italian temper would be revealed. Since she always gave her best, she didn’t think it was too much to ask others to do the same.

  Longing. That’s what Gerry called this feeling inside her chest. And perhaps he was right.

  Mary had been a virgin when she left Italy at nineteen and, with her mother’s voice continuing to ring loudly in the back of her head, she’d been careful not to let anyone take advantage of her innocence, either personally or professionally. At twenty-one, she’d truly believed she was in love with her first lover and that he felt the same about her. Too late, she’d realized he was simply in love with her glossy image. He was always gone before the morning light brought bed head and morning breath. Then, when she’d been hit with an awful flu and he wouldn’t come anywhere near her, she’d had to finally accept the truth that he only appreciated her when she was the “perfect” version of Mary Ferrer.

  She’d been more careful with her next boyfriend, and the one after that. She’d made certain they had plenty of occasions to see the real her. And yet, as each relationship progressed and then eventually fizzled, she couldn’t help but feel that they had all expected so much more from her than from other women. She wondered if she would ever be able to live up to the idealized image men had of her from all her magazine and newspaper photos.

  But it was her last relationship that had taught her the most. Romain Bollinger owned the finest watch company in the world. She had been hired to promote his important new line of Swiss watches, and though she’d always been careful not to mix business with pleasure, he was persistent—and charming—enough that she became his lover, as well. However, when the ad men decided the next phase of advertising for the ultra-important brand would be better served in the future by a woman ten years Mary’s junior, Romain agreed with them by replacing Mary not only in his ads…but in his bed, as well.

  That’s when she learned that he had wanted her not for herself, but for her value to his company, both in his campaign and on his arm at parties. When her value disappeared, so did any pretense of affection. She’d been determined to finish out her contract, and that final week of photo shoots with Romain hovering over her harshly critiquing every pose and expression had been excruciating.

  As she’d walked out of Romain’s Geneva penthouse for the very last time after finding him in bed with her young replacement, she’d sworn that she would never give up her freedom for anything but true love.

  Now thirty-two, and still nowhere close to finding true love, Mary was all but certain her “freedom” would last forever.

  But as the stranger’s eyes remained locked on hers while she held his gaze so that Gerry could get the shot he wanted, a shiver went through her that had nothing to do with the cool December air rushing over her skin.

  Mistaking the reason for her shiver, Gerry called out to one of the crew to turn up the portable heaters on set.

  For the next couple of hours, she continued to pose. Strangers came and went all around Union Square, but the beautiful stranger remained exactly where he was. Perhaps she should have been wary from his interest, but he didn’t look alarming in any way.

  He simply looked like a man who was interested in a woman.

  Maybe, she thought as Gerry finished shooting his final roll of film and the gorgeous stranger walked toward her, today wouldn’t be an end, but the beginning of something new and amazing.

  Chapter Three

  As the sun set behind the buildings in Union Square, the temperature immediately dropped by several degrees. Normally, once they called a wrap, Mary would have rushed back to her dressing room trailer to warm up with a cup of tea but, despite her shivers, she headed toward the man to meet him as he walked directly toward her.

  Instead of simply holding out his hand and introducing himself, he took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. If another man had done this, it would have felt presumptuous, but Mary sensed that he was genuinely concerned for her having been out in the cold for so many hours.

  His jacket, so big that it swamped her slim frame, smelled like clean, warm male. She wanted to burrow deeper into it, but instead she held it closed across her chest with one chilled hand while holding the other out to him. “I’m Mary. Mary Ferrer.”

  “It’s been a pleasure watching you work, Mary. I’m Jack Sullivan.”

  Despite having stood outside in the cold for the past several hours without any lights or portable heaters nearby, when his fingers closed over hers, they were warm. Even in her heels, she had to tilt her head to look up at his face and figured he was at least three inches above six feet. His shoulders were broad, his hips trim, and his hand over hers was large and strong.

  “Could I take you for a cup of coffee or something to eat? You’ve been working so hard, I expect you’re starved.” He grinned and said, “I know a place not far from here that’s got the best cherry pie you’ve ever tasted.”

  She couldn’t have contained her pleasure even if she’d tried. “I love cherry pie.” She gestured at her dress and heels. “I just need to get out of this outfit first and thank the photographer and his crew.”

  “Take your time. I’ll wait here.”

  She started to take off his jacket, but he put his hands over hers where she was holding the lapels. “Keep the jacket. You can give it back to me once you've changed.”