CHAPTER 1

Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.

Prince Robert lifted his head and whinnied, to the delight of all six people riding in the horse-drawn carriage.

In the back row, Alyssa Chambers snuggled under the blanket, a cup of warm cider held tight in her hand. The soft strains of Bing Crosby crooning Winter Wonderland drifted back from the speakers hidden low on the carriage side walls. Colored holiday lights sparkled in the fog, the mist giving the lights an ethereal quality that seemed appropriate for the Christmas season.

The carriage moved steadily down the street, providing Alyssa and her companions in the carriage a stunning view of the ornate homes in Dallas's Highland Park neighborhood, now shining and sparkling for the holidays.

"Oh, man," Claire Daniels moaned. "Isn't this just the most romantic night ever?"

Beside her, Alyssa turned, brows raised. "Um, hello? Dateless, remember?"

Claire lifted her chin. "I'm practicing the power of positive thinking."

Alyssa glanced at the two rows in front of them. Two rows with four people. Two couples. Two guys. Two girls. And they were snuggled under the blanket, arms around each other, oblivious to the lights, the music—everything but each other.

And Alyssa, well aware that she was enjoying a romantic carriage ride with her best friend instead of a boy friend, swallowed hard on the jealousy that rose in her throat.

"Positive thinking, huh?" she asked. "Is it working?" If it was, she was going to have to try it—really try it. Because despite all the ho-ho-ho and happy holiday festivities that Dallas offered up during late December, Alyssa really wasn't feeling the seasonal love.

"Not in the least," admitted Claire. She'd recently broken up with her boyfriend of the last year. Or, rather, he'd broken up with her. And the loss of Joe had hit Claire where it counted—her pride. To be honest, Alyssa had never been sure that Claire was in love with the guy, but to hear Claire tell it now, Joe was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and now that he'd decided to walk, her life was over and her chances of finding love and romance had spiraled away, like water down the toilet bowl of life.

Melodramatic, maybe, but that was Claire.

Alyssa had always been more understated than her friend, which was why she now sat quietly in the carriage, plotting creative ways to torture the idiot who had decided that Christmas events should be designed for couples.

Party hosts expected you to arrive with a date. The theater sold Dinner and a Show packages for two. Even the carriage ride to see the famous Highland Park lights seated you in even numbers, as if you weren't anybody unless you were part of a couple.

Was it any wonder the suicide rate increased during the holidays?

Alyssa had been single since summer when she'd broken up once and for all from her boyfriend Bob. That had been a particularly unpleasant break-up since they'd started out as friends. Good friends. Solid. But after a while, they'd started dancing around the attraction thing, and before Alyssa knew it they were out on a date, and then they were in bed, and then they were a couple staring down the road to a life and marriage and kids and a dog.

For a while, that had seemed perfect. But then little things started to get in the way, and after a while, neither Alyssa nor Bob could even remember how they'd been friends. They seemed so uniquely unright for each other that even the memory of the times they used to hang together had been tarnished.

The break-up had been worse because it had been two break-ups: with the lover, and with the friend. And as an added injustice, she'd been dateless ever since.

"At least you can take Chris," Claire said. "To all the parties and stuff, I mean."

Alyssa nodded. Chris was a prime example of not making the same mistake twice. Her across-the-hall neighbor was desperately sexy, funny, and easy to talk to. But he was her friend, and had been from the get-go. The stamp of friendship was firmly on his forehead, and despite the fact that he was funny and smart and incredibly sexy, there was no way was she would ever risk that friendship for a sex. No way, no how.

She'd learned that lesson with Bob in a big way.

Not that sex was even in the realm of possibilities. When they'd first met, she'd felt a warm tingle of attraction, and then firmly and soundly squashed it. For one thing, the tingle had so clearly not been reciprocated. In the two years they'd known each other, he'd never made even the slightest hint of a move on her.

At first, her pride had been tweaked by his failure to make a move, because that was what guys did, right? And, yeah, also because the tingle she'd felt had been more like a loud, clanging bell. But the truth was that his disinterest made her life easier because Chris and his freelance writer lifestyle was squarely N.M.M.—Not Marriage Material. Alyssa had never seen the point in dating guys who didn't even land on the possibility spectrum. Yes, she'd broken her rule on a few occasions and gone out with guys who were clearly not the matrimonial kind, but she never managed to stay friends with them after the inevitable breakup. Better to put those guys in the "friends" column from the get-go and avoid any messy entanglements later.

As far as she was concerned, Chris was at the very top of that column. And, yeah, there were times late at night—when they were watching a movie or making margaritas—that she'd feel that warm flood of desire and frantically wish he'd do something to scrub that scarlet N.M.M. off his forehead. But she knew better than to believe that would ever happen. She'd grown up with a man just like Chris, after all: A freelance writer out perpetually chasing a story—and a paycheck.

Alyssa could remember the long weeks when her dad was away on a writing assignment, and the pang of longing for a father who was never home. She'd beg to go with him, and when he returned, she'd pour over the pictures and imagine that She'd been right by his side. But her dad never took her. Not feasible, he'd said. Not when she had school and he had to work.

He'd tell her and her mom that he had to chase the stories so that he could pay the bills, but Alyssa had overheard the frequent arguments about money, and most particularly about the fact that her father had a journalism degree and had turned down an offer of full-time employment at the local paper.

McCarthy Chambers's wanderlust kept him from holding a steady job, and even though he claimed he'd be the next Truman Capote—and was constantly at work on some never-published epic tome—he never managed to land the big stories, much less the big paychecks. When Alyssa's mom was laid off from her teaching job, the family not only lost their car, they lost the house, and eleven year old Alyssa found herself living in a one bedroom apartment with paper thin walls instead of a charming little house on a tree-lined street with her best friend two doors down.

She'd hated her father that month, an emotion that had been even harder to handle because she loved him so desperately. When he was around and life flowed smooth, he was a joy. But when money was tight or he got sucked into a creative wanderlust, it had been a black, lonely hell.

And now that his various medical issues had forced him to stop traveling for work, her mom and dad were struggling to make ends meet with their minimal social security checks. Not the life Alyssa wanted. Not at all.

As an adult, she figured she understood now what made her dad tick. Intellectually, she could acknowledge that he was a man who had wanted a nomadic life, and even though he'd loved his wife and daughter, he should never have been a family man.

Alyssa loved him, she understood him, and she'd even forgiven him for the crappy chunks of her childhood. But there was no way in hell she was ending up like her mother. No way she was foisting that lifestyle on her own children. Alyssa Chambers had very specific things she looked for in a man, and financial responsibility and a steady presence in the house were tops of that list.

And Chris—who didn't even have a savings account much less health insurance, and who spent weeks bouncing around the globe writing travel articles—was definitely not that man. Not in a big way. Even as just friends, his devil-may-care attitude drove her nuts. He was an exceptional writer, and had a great relationship with Tourist and Travel, one of the premier travel magazines in the world. From what Alyssa had seen, Chris could have easily landed enough articles to earn him a solid annual salary. But instead, he took assignments only when his money was running out, and then he'd take anywhere from three to five assignments back-to-back and disappear for two months. The rest of the time, he holed up in his apartment working on a series of novels that he was hoping to sell.

Alyssa told herself that she admired his creative spirit, but the truth was she didn't know how he could stand it. She'd forced him to have The Money talk once, and he'd admitted that he banked his writing checks, lived off them until the well ran dry, then took another assignment to fill the pot back up again. He didn't carry insurance on his motorcycle, and he'd actually lived a few months on beans, rice and spaghetti because he purposefully turned down an assignment in order to stay home and work on his book.

It wasn't even her life and she was stressed just thinking about it.

Bottom line? There was no way—no way—a guy like Chris would ever end up on her love life radar. Which meant that though she might have an escort for holiday parties, she didn't have a date.

As the two sets of couples in front of them snuggled closer—completely oblivious to the fact that they were rudely thrusting their public displays of affection all over the less fortunate in the carriage—Prince Robert turned to the left, then started down yet another austere, tree-lined street. Like all the houses in Highland Park, these tended to be home to old money families, the elite of Dallas Society. The kind of people who still participated in debutante balls and who could trace their lineage back to the days when Texas was a Republic. The kind of people who either stayed home or took the whole family with them when they traveled.

"That one," Claire said, pointing to an utterly traditional colonial style mansion. "That's always been my favorite in this neighborhood. And look! The topiaries are shaped like Santa's elves."

Alyssa had to concede the topiary point, but the house itself did nothing for her. It was big, but it didn't have personality. Even so, given the chance, she'd live there in a heart-beat. The house, she knew, belonged to Russell Starr. And Russell Starr was M.M. all the way. Not even the slightest hint of an "N" in sight.

The Starr Family was Texas royalty, and a century ago had founded the eponymous Starr Hotels and Resorts, a five star worldwide chain that had faltered seven years ago after Thomas Starr had passed away, leaving the future of both the company and the family in the hands of his then twenty-three year old son, Russell.

Because Alyssa had gone to school with Russell, she'd paid attention when the business community had rumbled about the massive hotel chain being left in the control of an inexperienced twenty-three year old upstart. And while the society mavens and business naysayers had forecast doom and despair for the famous hotel chain, Alyssa had believed that Russell would pull the family business out of its slow spiral toward oblivion. And she'd been right. Now, seven years since he took the helm, the Starr chain of resorts was bigger than ever, with hotels on four continents, five star ratings across the board, and a celebrity client list that would make even the most jaded celebrity watchers drool.

"I'm hoping to land him as client," she said. "Well, Russell Starr and Starr Industries."

"Really?"

"That's my ambitious plan," Alyssa admitted, though she so far hadn't thought about how she would implement the plan. She needed to, though, because although her billable hours were outstanding and she'd brought in an exceptional book of business over the course of the year, she'd hadn't brought any clients to the firm this quarter, which meant that as far as the partners were concerned, she was the ugly stepchild compared to Roland Devries, who was the other associate with his eye on the partnership slot.

The partners were meeting right after the holidays to decide who would be invited to join the firm as a junior partner, and unless Alyssa could rectify that deficiency, she was afraid that Roland would get the slot for which she'd worked so hard. And that was simply not acceptable. She'd gone into law school planning on making partner by the time she was thirty, and she'd signed with Prescott both because of the firm's stellar rep and its fast-track to partnership. Like being a tenured professor, partnership in a law firm meant job security and income stability, and for Alyssa, that was the holy grail.

"Do you think you have a shot? I mean, surely he's got attorneys coming out of his ears."

"Actually, the company handles most of their legal work in house."

"And you're thinking he'll hire your firm because ...?"

"Remember that fundraiser for Love Without Boundaries I worked on earlier this year? The gala and auction to raise money for medical care for orphans in China? Russell was on the committee, too, and he mentioned that he was considering retaining an outside firm so that his in-house staff could focus on big picture issues and function more in a supervisory capacity." She shrugged. "So why not Prescott & Bayne?"

"Why not indeed," Claire said, eyeing her suspiciously. "A guy like Russell Starr's probably courted by a lot of firms. Why you?"

"For one thing, Prescott's got a great reputation."

"So does Daniels & Taylor," Claire said, referring to the firm her grandfather had founded, and where she now worked. "So do lots of firms."

"True," Alyssa conceded. "But we talked about it, and I really got the feeling that he would be open to me sitting him down and explaining why he should retain Prescott."

"So why isn't he already with the firm?"

Alyssa could feel her cheeks warm. "I was planning to make an appointment after the gala wrapped, but by then...well...I felt a little awkward about it."

Claire's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Why?"

Alyssa drew in a breath. "Because he kissed me. The night of the gala."

"No way. Seriously?"

"Depends. Is one hot and heavy kiss within your definition of serious?"

Claire turned to face her dead-on, her jaw hanging open. "Why didn't I know this?"

Alyssa shrugged. "I was still dating Bob. It just happened, you know? And I felt terrible afterwards."

"Details," Claire demanded. "Right here. Right now."

"Honestly, there's not a lot to tell," Alyssa said, feeling so under the microscope she was almost sorry she brought it up.

"The hell there isn't. Start at the beginning." She waved a hand. "Go on."

Alyssa sighed, trapped. "The truth is, we went to high school together, so I've known him for ages."

Claire's brows lifted. "You went to school with Russell Starr?"

"I was on scholarship. I'm pretty sure his family actually endowed my scholarship." Her gaze darted again to the Starr property, and she sighed. A family like that didn't have to scramble for a paycheck or worry about making partner.

"Were you guys friends?"

Alyssa shook her head. "Not back then. He was a grade ahead, but he was every girl's fantasy guy, you know? The guy in school that you're certain would be absolutely perfect if only he'd notice you."

"Well, duh. Starr family. How much more perfect can you get? But hello? When are we getting to the kissing part? What happened? Tell me everything. He asked you out on a date?"

"Sort of. My car had a flat, and he drove me home." She shrugged. "On the way, he suggested we stop for drinks."

Alyssa still thought that was a key piece of information: they'd stopped at his suggestion.

The night had been fabulous, full of wine and laughter and even a few long, heated looks, and it had only gotten better when he'd delivered her straight to her door. She'd invited him in, but he'd declined. What he'd done instead was lean in, tell her he'd had a fabulous time, and kiss her oh-so-gently, but with a ton of promise. She'd felt the tingle all the way down to her toes as he'd walked away. And she'd stood like an idiot in front of her apartment door as he'd walked back to his car and driven away.

Bob had come over for breakfast the next morning, and Alyssa's Cinderella delusions had evaporated. After all, Russell was a Society Page regular, and at the time, she'd still been happily dating Bob. The drink had been a drink, and the kiss a sweet memory. Nothing more.

Still, she could fantasize. And regularly did, for that matter. Her thoughts drifting to what would have happened if he'd come inside for that kiss. Who knew where it might have led...

She sighed, her breath clouding in the chilled night air.

"Wow," Claire said. "Talk about the one that got away."

Alyssa rolled her eyes. "I never had him in the first place," she said. "He can't get away if I never had him."

"A fact about which I hope you are soundly kicking yourself. He kissed you goodnight and you never even followed up? Called him again? Made any move to let him know you were interested?"

"I was dating Bob," Alyssa said, her voice small because she knew Claire was going to jump all over that.

"And you told him that?"

"Claire, I was dating him. We were serious. Or I thought we were. Yeah. I mentioned him."

Claire rolled her eyes. "Never mention to a guy that you're dating another guy. All guys need to be kept in the realm of possible. Until you're married, that's a simple fact of life." Alyssa scowled, but Claire barreled on. "So what happened after you broke up from Bob? With Russell, I mean?"

"What happened? Nothing happened."

"You didn't call him? I mean, forget the whole legal retainer stuff, but didn't you at least call and ask him out for drinks?"

"No! Of course not."

Claire shook her head as if Alyssa had utterly failed. "You know, if it wasn't for Joe being an absolute prick and you being completely clueless, we could be double-dating tonight instead of escorting each other."

Alyssa sighed, knowing that Claire was absolutely right.

She glanced around, taking in the dancing lights of the Highland Parks neighborhood. The children going from door to door singing Christmas carols. The couples strolling the neighborhood, their faces close as they shared kisses under mistletoe.

Romance was in the air tonight. It just wasn't in the backseat of the carriage.

CHAPTER 2

"I said drop the knife."

"Alyssa," he heard himself whisper. "Alyssa, you're alive."

#

Christopher Hyde stared at the computer screen, frowned, then methodically backspaced over the last bit of text he'd written, changing "Alyssa" to "Alicia."

He shook his head. Still too close, what with the letter A. He backspaced again, and suddenly the femme fatale's name in his second Max Dalton novel became Natalia.

Better.

Better still if he would go in and change the description, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do that. Maybe once the whole book was finished he'd change her hair from black to red. Right now, though, he could only see the girl in his imagination. Alyssa-called-Natalia.

And, yeah, she was the girl of his dreams.

He'd started writing the Max Dalton series before he'd met Alyssa. The character had been in his head for years—an obscenely wealthy freelance operative who traveled the world on assignment for the highest bidder. Max had Chris's own wanderlust, and although Chris had never rescued a child kidnapped by terrorists or scaled a mountain range trying to find ancient artifacts before the bad guys located them, he poured his own fantasies into the character. His childhood had been staid, boring. He'd seen nothing other than his small Texas hometown, population 712, until he was twenty years old. But he'd read every National Geographic that came in the mail cover to cover, and he'd fantasized about seeing those places himself. About having adventures all over the world.

His journalism degree had been his ticket out, and now, he earned his keep by traveling the world and writing about it for tourists. And with any luck, one day he'd supplement that job with the Max Dalton novels he was currently trying to sell.

He'd landed an agent with the first book, and she was about to begin the process of pitching it to publishers. The entire process was nerve-wracking, and he was trying to bury the nervousness by burying himself in the second Max Dalton adventure. An adventure in which Max teamed up with another operative—a female—who may or may not be an ally, and who was most definitely a lover.

And who in his head was all Alyssa.

He still remembered the day she'd moved in. She'd been trying to drag a battered, butt-ugly recliner from her rental truck to her apartment. He'd offered to either help her carry it or torch it, her choice. She'd gawked at him for a long second, and at first he'd feared he'd gone too far. Then she'd collapsed into the recliner, bent over with peals of laughter. The chair was a gift from her father, she'd said. "He has terrible taste, and he never should have spent the money on the damn thing, but I love him." She shrugged. "So it'll get a place of honor in the living room."

The next day, she'd knocked on his door, and invited him over to see how she'd "done up that hideous chair." He'd walked inside, then breathed deep of the smell of cinnamon and cloves that seemed to fill her apartment. A scent that now belonged entirely to Alyssa, prompting delicious thoughts of her at random times and locations. Especially now, during the holiday season.

As for the chair, it was tucked into a corner next to an absolutely hideous gold-plated floor lamp decorated with flying cupids. She'd hung a velvet painting of dogs playing poker behind the chair, and set off the entire area with a small gold shag rug that looked like a reject from an Austin Powers movie set. The corner was an utter contrast to the rest of the living room, with its soft lines and feminine colors.

"I'm calling it the corner of testosterone," she said, and he could see her lips twitch with suppressed laughter.

"I think my testosterone is offended," he'd said dryly. She'd stared for a moment, and then her laugh had burst forth. "Seriously, though, I like it."

And that combination—that subtly sexy girl who was willing to be a little bit silly because she loved her dad—completely swept Chris off his feet.

Not that he'd told Alyssa that. Alyssa knew he was alive, of course, but she thought of him as a friend, not a flesh and blood man. A sad state of affairs about which he had no one to blame but himself.

At first, she'd been dating some guy—Bob, Bill, something —- who had never been good enough for Alyssa. And Chris didn't put the moves on attached women, no matter how sexy they were.

But even when that happy day had come and she'd kicked Bob to the curb, Chris still hadn't made a move. Hadn't even hinted how he felt.

She'd come to him, told him about the break-up, and suggested they watch something fast-paced and mindless on his big screen television.

He couldn't say no, of course, and though she'd seemed fascinated by the car chases and explosions, he'd spent the movie wondering how to tell the woman who'd become one of his best friends that he'd fallen hard and fast for her. And then, when the movie had ended, she'd smiled at him with sad eyes and reached for his hands. There'd been a window of opportunity right then. A single short window during which he could have done what Max Dalton would have so smoothly done—leaned in and kissed her. Told her in no uncertain terms that he wanted to be more than friends.

But while Chris might write Max Dalton, that didn't mean he walked the walk. Especially not where women were concerned. A sad reality that was cemented when she'd said, "Thanks for letting me hang out with you. I really need a solid friend right now."

He'd swallowed. Her words had felt much like what he imagined a knife to the heart felt like. Sharp and painful, and totally deadly.

He knew then he had no chance with this woman. Not as a rebound guy. Not as anything.

It was, he'd thought, one hell of a crappy wake-up call.

Still, he needed to do something. More and more, she was on his mind. Creeping into his dreams. Into his books. Hell, Max Dalton was not a one-woman kind of guy. He got in, he got out, he did the job, and he blew shit up. He didn't turn all gooey for a girl.

Except lately, he did. And Chris had a feeling that unless he got Alyssa out of his system, Max Dalton was going to turn into a one-woman man, and then where would Chris be? Probably writing a romance novel instead of the second testosterone-laden spy thriller he'd told his agent was in the works.

Max Dalton wouldn't let thoughts of a woman torment him like that. He'd just sidle up to her, whisper in her ear, and take her to bed.

A nice fantasy, but that's all it was. A fantasy.

Chris wanted more. Warmth and reality and lazing around in bed with the paper on Sunday morning. Shoving jeans and t-shirts into backpacks and taking off for Paris on the spur of the moment. Hiking along a beach at sunset, especially a white sand beach in some exotic location.

And damned if he didn't want that with Alyssa.

Frustrated with himself, he got up from his desk and stretched, his eyes wandering to his door as he did so. He needed to get his ass in gear and start packing. He had to catch a flight first thing in the morning.

The phone rang, and though he considered ignoring it, he knew he had to answer it. Technically, he was already on assignment, and if it was Greg, his editor at Tourist and Travel, then Chris really did have to take the call.

Caller ID showed only a New York area code, and he snatched it up, expecting Greg and instead hearing the harsh, cigarette-soaked voice of Lilian Ashbury, the powerhouse agent Chris still couldn't believe he'd landed.

"How fast can you finish the second Max Dalton book and get me an outline for the third?" she asked without preamble.

"Happy holidays to you, too, Lil."

"Bah humbug. It's slush and ice up here, not a damn thing to be happy about."

"Is that why you're working on a Saturday?"

"I'm tireless in my efforts to represent you," she said, deadpan. "I had lunch with Roger Eckhard," she said, referring to a senior editor at Main Street Books, Chris's dream publisher. "I pitched him the book, and he loves the concept. He's leaving on the fifth to start the new year with two weeks in Italy, and I want him to take both manuscripts and an outline for the third with him. We want him looking at this series like a franchise, and you as the next Ian Fleming. If he does, I think we can expect the kind of offer that will make you a very happy man."

"I —"

"Just say thank you, Lil. And no problem, Lil."

"No problem, Lil," he said, fighting a grin. He'd make it work. No sense telling his agent that the proximity of his next door neighbor was keeping his head in a decidedly un-Max-like mode. But that was okay. Because he was about to go spend a week in New Mexico in a flashy, splashy resort. He'd shift between writing the article for Tourist and Travel and writing pages of Max Dalton's next installment. He'd hole himself up in his hotel room, crank out the pages, and produce some fabulous shit.

With over a thousand miles between him and Alyssa, how hard could it be?