Read Online A Kilted Christmas Wish by Eliza Knight - Free Book Online Page B

his name. Definitely his face. His company. Not at all the man she thought he was.
    It was a crushing blow. The man had wined and dined her. Taken her on the most enchanting dates. Made love to her the way she thought it was in fairy tales. And it was all a show.
    She looked down at her panini. A City Café special for Christmas, green, red and white.
    All a dream after all. Darla was nothing more than a plaything for a tycoon. A way to rebound after losing the woman he was going to marry. There was no comparison between herself and Megan Winters. The woman was a freaking starlet. A red-carpet walking movie star. She remembered hearing about how Winters had been in a horrendous car accident in Europe months ago. And that was Aaron’s fiancée.
    Ouch.
    Darla swallowed that cold bit of truth, her throat tight.
    She felt her heart crushing and tears filled her eyes. That was why he wasn’t calling her back. All a dream after all.

Chapter Eight
     
    A week and a half passed without Darla hearing a peep from Aaron. Actually nine days and—she stopped her trek to the café and glanced at her watch—two hours and thirty-six minutes.
    A man dressed as Santa stood at the corner by her deli, ringing a bell and accepting donations for charity in his red tin bucket. People crowded the streets with bags stuffed full of gifts. Christmas was right around the corner and it appeared that the wish she’d wished was, in fact, not going to come true. No Highlander for her to love.
    Friday before Christmas. The café was going to be crazy with a capital C today. And she was running late. Jorge had opened for her at seven, and here she was strolling in as though she didn’t have a care in the world at nearly nine in the morning. Thank God for Jorge and Amanda.
    She gripped the bronzed handle and pushed the door in, the famil iar ding of her door’s bell ringing.
    Customers streamed from the line to tables and out the door. That was normal. Amanda behind the counter was normal. Jorge setting plates of breakfast paninis and bags of takeout on the counter was normal.
    The counter lined and every table set with at least a dozen red and white roses was not normal. Festive, but not standard. Darla would never have spent the money on something so frivolous for the café. She preferred a single wild flower of sorts on each table.
    This was… cliché.
    Damn.
    “A dozen roses for every day I’ve thought about you. Which is every day since the moment we first met. ”
    “What?” She slowly turned around to see Aaron standing behind her, wearing his black wool jacket, a dark gray cashmere scarf. His face was a little red from the cold, and a few flakes of snow melted in his dark hair.
    A grin curled his lips. A little shy, but just as sexy as she remembered. She hated the way her heart melted immediately. After the pain of the last week, she wanted to hate him.
    “Cliché, I know,” he said, stepping closer to her and taking hold of her stiff hand. She wanted to pull away, to shove him through the door, but she was powerless to the warmth of his hand thawing hers. “But after the way we started, it was the only way to go. Well, it was either the flowers or a singing courier.”
    Darla wasn’t sure she was ready to forgive Aaron. Flowers or not.
    He’d ignored her, brushed her off, and that was after she’d found out that he’d basically been screwing with her to get over the death of his almost-wife. If Darla was going to go down the relationship path again—which at this point she was considering joining a convent—she wanted it to mean something.
    Sure, Aaron was fun, and hell yes he was good in bed, but Darla wasn’t the rebound type of girl. She pulled her hand away. His touch was tugging at her heartstrings, manipulating her into forgiving him.
    “I have to work,” she said, turning away. But when she faced her café, she noticed that the entire place was staring at her. Watching them like they were some fascinating spectacle. She