All Chapters of THE BILLIONAIRES 31-DAY CHRISTMAS CONTRACT : Chapter 11 - Chapter 15

❄ · ❄ · ❄Dinner began beautifully, which was how Elodie knew it would end in disaster.Mrs. Pruitt had outdone herself: a roasted goose glistening in the center of the table, chestnut stuffing, honeyed carrots, a silver tureen of bisque. Forty candles lit the long dining room, and the Hale family, scrubbed and dressed in velvet, glowed along both sides like figures in an old painting.Vittorio sat at Odalys’s left, Anders beside him. Elodie sat across from them, with Julian at her side, so close that his sleeve brushed hers each time he lifted his glass.“I must compliment your cook,” said Vittorio, to the table at large. “Truly. Her hand with a goose is superb. We Marchetti know about hands. It is how the business was built, by hand, a recipe at a time, my great-grandmother’s kitchen in Bologna.”“A lovely heritage,” said Odalys. “I have always admired a family that remembers its kitchen.”“It is not nostalgia, signora. It is p

❄ · ❄ · ❄The folder was waiting on the floor of her room, just inside the door, and Elodie opened it with her lips still warm from his kiss.She had floated up the back stairs at one in the morning, past the sleeping house and its haze of music and cider, and shut her door, and stood with her fingers pressed against her mouth. Snow came down past the window in great soft flakes. She was smiling. She did not yet know it would be the last time she smiled that night.Then she saw it: a plain manila folder, unmarked, unsealed, slid under the door by someone who did not want to be seen. Light as paper. She carried it to the lamp and opened it.The first page was a memorandum on the letterhead of a law firm she knew very well: Adeyemi & Cross. The date, in the corner, was the eighth of November.She read it once, quickly. Then again, slowly, with her finger moving beneath each line.RE: Marchetti Confections, trust provisions. Confirm

❄ · ❄ · ❄Christmas morning at Hollin Hall was loud, golden, and utterly unreal.The children had been up since five. By seven the great drawing room was a sea of torn paper and ribbon. The deaf great-uncle had received a hand-knitted scarf and was wearing it like a flag. Tobias had been given a tiny, expensive watch and was weeping into it. Admiral had found the box with the ham in it, and had been removed from the room by three people, one of whom was Winifred's husband, who had said more words in the past hour than in the previous week.Elodie sat on the floor beside the tree and smiled until her face hurt.She had learned the trick years ago. You put a smile on the front of your face and let it walk around by itself while the rest of you stayed home. It worked beautifully. Several people told her she looked radiant. Rafe, passing with a tray of cocoa, gave her a very sharp, searching glance and said nothing at all.Julian sat across t