“The Devonshire notes are summarized. All emails have been responded to and all the Christmas gifts have been purchased, except for this one.” My assistant, Tim Yutley, points to a name at the top of my list. “I’ve attached a list of suggestions for you.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. I fucking hate Christmas.

“Why is the office music stuck on that Ho Ho Ho shit?” I growl. “And what the hell is that monstrosity around your neck?”

The thin young man flips up the end of his blinking tie. “It’s called a tie, boss. And as for the music, it’s Christmas. I know you don’t celebrate it anymore, but the rest of us do. Also, here’s our bonus checks.” He shoves a sheaf of checks in front of me. “Every year, my mom asks me how I like my job and I tell her that it’s great except for one month out of the year when my good-humored boss turns into a Grinch.”

“Christmas is more than two weeks away. And if I were a Grinch, you wouldn’t be getting one of these.” I scrawl my signature on the top one which conveniently is for Tim and slap it face down on the desk.

“This is true.” He snatches up the bonus and slides it into his breast pocket. “But you have to admit that you are very ornery during this time of year. You won’t let us put up Christmas trees, mulled cider is deemed the devil’s drink, and the sight of flashing holiday lights makes you frown for days. You never used to hate Christmas. In fact, up until three years ago, you used to attend the Yuletide Black and White Ball.”

My pen stills halfway through the signature on the next check as Tim’s words bring up a tortuous memory—one that I spend all year stuffing into its stocking in the back of my head. Yeah, the smell of pine trees and spice fucks me up. It makes me want things that I have no business wanting.

“People don’t like Christmas, Tim. They like what they get at Christmas, such as these.” I finish signing the bonus and wave it at his face. “If the holidays were just people getting together and eating without giving gifts, we wouldn’t start celebrating it in October.”

“We do have a holiday about togetherness and food that involves no gifts. It’s called Thanksgiving. You worked through it, so I can see how these days run together for you.”

Tim’s worked for me for a long time, which is the only reason he gets away with this snark. I opt not to engage. The boy dyed his hair green, for Christ’s sake. He loves this fucking holiday so much he might as well embroider it across his ass.

I finish signing the checks. “Did you hire that assistant you wanted?”

He hums about Santa baby getting lucky as he gathers up the staff bonuses. “Sure did. She starts tomorrow and I’ll have her whipped into shape in a week.” He gives me a little pat on the shoulder. “You’ll survive without me. It’s only ten days.”

“Ten days of hell,” I mutter, but I let him go without protest.

Tim works like a dog for fifty weeks out of the year. The only thing he wants is to spend two weeks with his family. Christmas is big for them. I think one of them even dresses up like Santa and comes to the house to pass out gifts. So we get a temp in to answer phones and remind me of appointments, although I don’t have many. It appears that most people are like Tim and enjoy the break. I like to work. After all, it’s not like I have something to go home to.

I never used to be grumpy about the holidays. Not until three years ago. Three years ago, a forbidden morsel draped in organza and silk interrupted a little private moment I was having with a socialite. I’ve since forgotten the woman’s name and face, but every little detail about the girl in white is etched into my brain from the pale pink manicure to the fake diamonds dangling from her perfect little lobes.

I was bored out of my mind in that cloakroom and about to push off the woman’s mouth and zip up my pants when the girl walked in. One look at her cherry-pink mouth forming a licentious circle, one sniff of her cinnamon spice drink, one glare of her pine tree-green eyes, and I was a goner. I came so hard my eyes rolled into the back of my head.

I’ve never had another orgasm as good since that night. What’s weird and sick is that I don’t even want another woman. I only want Willow Kaplan. That’s the weird part. The sick part is that she’s not a woman. She’s a girl. Underage and out of reach.

Or was. I peer down at the Christmas list. She’s eighteen now. As of December 1, the girl is legal and ripe for the picking. I sent her father a check because I didn’t trust myself to have any communication with Willow herself.

She’s temptation incarnated. If I allow myself to think of her, I get hard. If I sent a gift directly to her, I would find myself at her doorstep, dragging her out of her home and carrying her to my penthouse at the Plaza.

Which is why she’s the only person on my Christmas list who I haven’t purchased a gift for. There’s about a million things I’d like to buy for her and all of them are inappropriate, from the plaid school girl uniform skirts to the ballet flats tied with ribbons to the wispy baby doll nightgowns.

I can’t buy those things for a newly-turned eighteen year-old. I can’t force my kink on her—not now and not ever.

I’ve told myself that a million times, but my dick doesn’t get the message. All he knows is that she’s the hottest thing I’ve laid eyes on in my thirty-eight years and no one is going to be able to satisfy my desires but her. It gets worse around the holidays, the anniversary of her standing inside the coat room for way too long, watching me with her hungry eyes, licking her fuckable lips, and touching herself over that snow-white dress.

She looked like a Christmas angel and smelled like a spicy dessert. Is it any wonder that I can’t walk by a Christmas tree without my dick standing at attention? Yet the only gratification I get is from my own hand when I’m fantasizing about all the filthy things I’d like to do to her perfect, lithe body.

I shove back from the desk and massage my aching cock. I should be damned to hell for wanting a teenager, especially one that is young enough to be my daughter. I should be tied to a post and whipped for wanting to bend her over my knee and spank that flawless ass of hers until it’s bright cherry red. I should be hauled into Central Park and stoned for wanting to pound my cock between her lush thighs while she screams for her Daddy to take her.

The orgasm throbs at the base of my spine. I just need to get through the next week. I tear open my pants and palm my cock. It takes only a few rough jerks before I’m spilling into my hand. Feeling semi-disgusted with myself, I get to my feet and go to the private washroom attached to my office to clean up.

One of these days, I’ll cure myself of my obsession, but it’s not going to be this day.

* * *

“You want me to mentor your daughter?” I ask incredulously. It’s dark at the Beekman Bar, with its paneled walls and dim lighting, so it’s not easy reading the man sitting on the stool next to me.

“I’m at my wit’s end,” Mason Kaplan confesses, before taking a sip from his tumbler. “She’s been kicked out of NYU. She’s burned through five jobs in the last two months. Three of my clients are on the verge of firing me. She put the son of the last client in the hospital. I don’t know what to do with her.”

I clench my hand around my own glass at the mention of her being endangered by some reckless punk. “Stop trying to get her to act like bait for your business deals,” I tell him bluntly. “It’s wrong and nasty. She should be left alone.”

“She’s not bait,” he protests. “But these men always open their wallets a little wider if there’s a pretty girl at the table. That’s actual scientific fact.”

“You can hire a hooker for that.” I’m going to have to move my money. The way Kaplan is doing business these days is fucked up. If it wasn’t for my need to see Willow taken care of, I would’ve pulled the plug long ago. There must be other ways to help her out—ways that don’t require me to be in close proximity to her. I reach inside my jacket for my checkbook. “I’m happy to float the girl a loan. How much does she need?”

Mason’s eyes glitter with greed, but he wants more than one check from me. He waves his hand airily “It’s not the money. It’s you. She wants you.”

My hand drops to my lap and all rational thought flees from my head. You. She wants you. It’s a good thing I’m sitting down and my dick is out of sight because the entirety of my bloodstream is rushing to my pants.

I cough. Surely, I didn’t hear Mason correctly. “What?”

“She wants you,” he repeats. “She said that she’s always wanted to work for you and promises that she’ll be a good girl if you give her a job. I’m begging you, take her in.” He folds his hands in mock prayer on the wooden bar top.

She wants you. She’ll be a good girl.

Holy fuck. If Mason knew what he was asking, he’d pick up the crystal tumbler, chuck it at my head and hide away his daughter forever. Instead, the dumb fool wants to send her to me all but gift-wrapped. This is some kind of wicked test and guess what? I’m probably going to fail.

I try to be good though. I make the effort. “Willow’s too smart of a girl to spend time working as some admin in my office. Let me make a few phone calls.” I set my glass on the bar top.

“I’ve tried, Con. I’ve tried.” Mason rakes a hand through his over-gelled hair. “I’ve called in favors. I’ve wheedled her friends to my side. I’ve offered her Hermès bags and trips to Paris, but the only thing that she’d agree to do was work here. I know I’m asking a lot and I’m probably overstepping my boundaries by a mile, but this seems like the only solution. If I don’t get her a job, she’s going to spend all her time partying. Page Six already called me twice this morning asking if Willow was involved in the orgy that took place at the Standard last night.”

The glass shatters. A bartender hurries over, swiping away the broken pieces and apologizing profusely. I wave him off. With more calm than I feel, I pick up a cocktail napkin and wipe the blood from my hand.

“Was she?” I ask. Another, more perceptive man might’ve recognized the strained violence in my voice.

Mason is not that man.

“Nah. I mean, it wasn’t an orgy. It was a photography shoot for High Life Magazine and everyone wore body stockings. She was just helping out the photographer who’s a friend.”

“You should’ve sent that girl to boarding school years ago,” I tell her incompetent father. I toss the crumpled, bloodied napkin on the bar top. Taking in Willow Kaplan is a mistake. I know this. Mason should know this. Willow certainly knows this. The girl thinks I hate her and for good reason. When I haven’t been able to avoid her, I’ve treated her like she’s more irritating than the drunks that stumble around on St. Patrick’s Day begging for kisses.

“I know, but Willow’s got a mind of her own. I can’t control her.” He spreads his hands in surrender. “She’s always been able to get whatever it is that she wants, no matter how many times I tell her no.”

That brat needs a firm hand applied to her backside, but that hand shouldn’t be mine. I stare at the fool. “Last chance, Mason. I can write out a check for a year’s worth of Ivy League tuition.”

“She won’t go,” he insists.

We engage in a staring battle, with Mason putting on his most guileless look and me trying to keep three years of lust out of my eyes.

At my prolonged silence, Mason sighs heavily. “Maybe I can get her a position with Ennis Dvorskey. I’ve heard—”

“No.” Over my dead body. Dvorskey treats women like dirt. Willow Kaplan is a brilliant, mischievous eighteen-year-old—far too precious to be sullied by my hands, but Dvorskey would snuff out all the light in her eyes. “I’ll take her.”

At my capitulation, Mason claps his hands together and then stands, shaking out his pants legs. “You won’t regret this.”

I already do. After he leaves, I motion for the bartender to come over.

“Another drink, sir?”

I point to the bottle of whiskey he’d been pouring from. I have to tell Tim that he’ll now have a different new assistant working for him. But first… “Give me the entire thing.”