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CHAPTER ONE

WAS THERE ANYTHING worse than a wedding on Christainst the snow, holly and ivy decking the halls and the scent of winter roses in the air?

If there was, Holly Marlowe couldn’t think of it

“Youbetween the newly married couple

Heartbroken, Holly watched as Oliver—the boss she’d loved in devoted silence for three years—beamed back and lowered his head to kiss the bride

Her younger sister, Nicole

The guests in the pews looked enchanted at the couple’s passionate eht red lass s, then back at the nave of the old New York City church, lavishly decorated with flickering white candles and red roses

Finally, the newlyher bouquet back froers, the bride lifted her new husband’s hand triumphantly in the air

“Best Christmas ever!” Nicole cried

There was a wave of adoring laughter and applause And though Holly had always loved Christical and full of treats each year for her little sister since their parents had died, she thought she’d hate it for the rest of her life

No A lump rose in Holly’s throat She couldn’t think that way She couldn’t be selfish Nicole and Oliver were in love She should be happy for them She forced herself to san in the alcove above

Sroom started back down the aisle And Holly suddenly faced the best man Oliver’s cousin, and his boss Which made him her boss’s boss

Stavros Minos

Dark, tall and broad-shouldered, the powerful Greek billionaire seemed out of place in the old stone church The very air seeive him space He hadn’t been forced to wear soed Christer Of course not She looked over his sleek suit enviously She couldn’t i

Then Holly looked up, and the Greek’s black eyes cut through her soul

He glanced with sardonic amusement between her and the happy couple, as they continued to walk down the aisle to the cheers of their guests And his cruel, sensual lips curved up at the edges, as if he knew exactly how her heart had been broken

Holly’s mouth went dry No No, he couldn’t No one must ever know that she’d loved Oliver Because he wasn’t just her boss now He was her sister’s husband She had to pretend it never happened

The truth was nothing had happened She’d never said a word about her feelings to anyone, especially Oliver Theas his secretary, Holly had been secretly consumed by pathetic, unrequited love No one had any idea No one, it seemed, except Stavros Minos

But it shouldn’t surprise her the billionaire Greek playboy o, as a teenager, he’d single-handedly started a tech company that noned half the world He was often in the news, both for his high-powered business dealings and conquests of the world’s an music thundered relentlessly around the in his eyes

Wordlessly, he held out his arm

Reluctantly, Holly took it, and tried not to notice how muscled his arger than her thigh! It seemed ridiculously unfair that aIt hy she’d carefully avoided looking at him whenever she’d liaised with his executive assistants—he had three of them—at work

Shivering, she avoided looking at hiain now as they followed Oliver and Nicole The faces of the guests slid by as Holly smiled blindly at everyone in the packed wooden pews until she thought her face ht crack

Outside the old stone church, on a charuests waited to cheer for the couple, tossing red and white rose petals that fell against the thin blanket of snow on the ground

The afternoon sunlight eak and gray against the lowering clouds when Holly reached the safety of the waiting li Stavros???s arm, she scrambled inside and turned to stare fiercely out the , blinking fast so no one would see her tears