A Christmas Affair (3 page)

“There you are! What on earth are you still doing at the office?” Margo, her assistant, hissed into the line. “You’re supposed to be here at Rowan’s place for the
E!
interview. We’re all waiting.”

Corona sprung up out of her chair. How on earth had she forgotten about that? She glanced over at the calendar and there in bold black lettering was indeed this afternoon’s interview. “I’m on my way. Stall them.” She slammed the phone and then glanced back down at the stack of diaries on her desk. She needed to find a new hiding space. The floorboard that she had concealing her stash had been suspiciously moved, and she had a growing fear that someone had found her treasure trove.

With no more time to think about the possible spy, she jammed the books back into her briefcase and rushed out of her New York office. She had more important things to deal with right now than daydreaming about a decade-old love that had never had a chance.

C
orona rushed up the stairs to the SoHo apartment in a pair of fresh-out-of-the-box Louboutins. While she went through the fruitless exercise of berating herself for running late, she had long ago accepted the fact that in all likelihood she would be late for her own funeral. It wasn’t that she was lazy or didn’t plan ahead of time—she just had a tardiness gene somewhere in her DNA. At least that was her excuse and she was sticking to it.

“Is everyone still here?” she asked Margo the moment she bolted through the front door.

Relief washed over Margo’s face at the sight of her boss. “Oh, thank God. The film crew has been here for over an hour. They were just talking about doing the interview without you.” She rushed over to help Corona out of her A-line Mischka coat to reveal her snow-white Gucci pantsuit. “Nice,” Margo said, her eyes widening appreciatively at Corona’s immaculate fashion sense.

“Thanks. I can’t have my fiancé show me up. Call me vain.”

“All right, Vain,” Margo said, shooing her toward the living room. “You just get in there before Rowan starts reenacting his Hamlet soliloquies from his Shakespeare in the park days.”

Corona smiled. No one loved a camera more than Rowan James. Heralded as this generation’s most bankable movie star, Rowan lived to be in the public eye. He instinctively knew his best angle and lighting at any given moment. While Corona thought of herself as attractive, she couldn’t say that she and cameras had the same love affair.

Inevitably, her plump apple cheeks would look too big or her doe-shaped eyes would make her look like a deer caught in the headlights. It was the oddest thing. When people met her, they would always toss out the backhanded compliment that she was more beautiful in person.

“Hurry,” Margo kept shooing her. “He’s getting ready to thank God and the Academy.”

Corona laughed, brushed her thick hair behind her ears, and marched into the apartment’s large, open living room with a ready-made smile. “Hello, everyone. I’m so sorry to have kept you all waiting,” she announced, with her voice all syrupy sweet. “Things were crazy at the office.”

Rowan James turned his dark head, and his glowing blue eyes lit up at the sight of her. “There’s my baby now.” He stood up and drew Corona into his arms before brushing a sweetheart kiss against her upturned face. “Glad you could make it. I hope this isn’t a dry run of
what you’re planning to do to me at the altar,” he joked with just a tinge of seriousness.

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Corona joked back with a playful wink.

K. D. Hardaway, a trailblazing celebrity reporter with womanly curves and high volume, corkscrew curls, popped up out of her seat and thrust out her hand. “The lady of the hour. We’re so happy that you could finally join us. I personally have been dying to meet you.”

Corona went to accept the woman’s handshake, but at the last minute, the exuberant woman abandoned the idea and instead threw her arms around her like they were long lost friends.

“You know the whole world is hating on you now, right?” the woman informed her.

Corona didn’t but she supposed that she should be grateful for the update. When she pulled back, K.D. kept a tight hold of her right hand. “Let’s see the rock, honey.
Bam!
” The reporter dipped her knees and dramatically flung her head back. “Well, all right now! Ha!” She turned toward her lone cameraman. “Ed, we don’t need a close-up on this one. I think the folks down in Texas are busy trying to get the glare of this diamond out of their eyes right now.”

Corona smiled sheepishly while Rowan swung his arm around her shoulders and thrust out his chest. “Nothing but the best for my Chloe.” He pried her hand from the reporter and then pressed a kiss just above her ring. “Honest to God, she’s the best thing that has ever happened to me,” he boasted.

K.D.’s perfectly arched brows damn near stretched to the top of her hairline as she gave them snaps in a Z-formation. “Well, all right now!”

Rowan laughed and pulled Corona even closer.

“So the entertainment world has their new power couple,” K.D. announced, winking into the camera. “It’s all good with me. It’s about time someone knocked Will and Jada off their throne.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Corona said, shaking her head. “My work is behind the cameras.”

“Exactly! That’s where all the power is, girlfriend. Don’t play.” She held up her hand, signaling for a high five.

Corona gave Rowan a look that asked whether this chick was for real or a caricature of every sister-girl role that she had ever seen in rom-com movies rolled into one.

He responded with a quick shrug.

“Don’t leave me hanging, girlfriend.”

Corona finally threw her hand up against K.D.’s which caused her entire arm of silver bracelets to start jiggling like crazy while she cheesed with a smile that could rival The Joker’s.

“So while we still have a few minutes, why don’t you tell our audience how you two met? Was it love or lust at first sight? Give us the dirt.”

Corona opened her mouth to answer, but Rowan quickly cut her off.

“I’m not ashamed to say that I felt something the first time I laid eyes on her. Chloe was like a ray of sunshine, and that’s saying a lot in this business.”

K.D. shifted back to Corona. “Is that how you felt, too? Wait. What am I saying? Who wouldn’t have fallen head over heels for this gorgeous hunk, huh?”

“Well … “ Corona hesitated with a nervous look over at Rowan.

“You got to be kidding me.” K.D.’s traveling brows had now blended into her curly hair.

Corona opened her mouth, only to be cut off once again by her overeager fiancé, who undoubtedly wanted to put a nicer spin on the story.

“Actually, it was probably
not
one of my best nights when we met,” Rowan laughed and then tossed a wink toward the camera.

“Oh?” The reporter edged closer, sensing a juicy story was coming her way.

“Yeah, I guess you can say that I was being a bit of a bad boy at a bar,” Rowan answered sheepishly. “As everyone out there in TV land knows, I went through quite an ugly breakup last year.”

K.D. nodded her head sympathetically, just like Corona imagined everyone else at home was doing right now. The entertainment world had been riveted for the past two years over Rowan’s love affair with Hollywood’s hottest sex kitten, Danica Foxx. Glossy tabloid magazines had made a fortune planting their faces on every cover in the western hemisphere. But, predictably, with all the media scrutiny, a couple that hot was bound to implode.

And they did. Quite spectacularly. Danica cheated on him. All that was missing was a set of golf clubs and a small library of lurid text messages to complete Rowan’s humiliation. But it was Danica’s announcement two days later that she was engaged to the movie star whom she did the cheating with that crushed Rowan.

“Anyway, I was sort of drowning my sorrows at the bottom of a Jack Daniel’s bottle, tossing back one shot after another when I looked up and there she was.”

Rowan turned and smiled at Corona. “An angel. A vision in white.”

Corona rolled her eyes at the way he was spinning their story.

“Sounds like you made quite an impression,” K.D. said.

“Yea, me.” Corona twirled her finger in the air with a breezy laugh before thinking better of it. Realizing that she needed to clean up her act a bit, she tried to explain. “You don’t understand. By the time me and my assistant, Margo, had made our way to the bar, Rowan and his new buddy Jack Daniels weren’t getting along so well.”

Rowan tossed the camera another wink.

“Our first meeting happened because I felt sorry for him for not being able to sit on a barstool,” Corona continued, finally starting to laugh at the memory. “Margo and I had a fun-filled evening lugging Mr. Blockbuster here back to his hotel. The whole time he kept telling me how perfect I was for a part in his next film. It was so cliché. Trust me.”

“Cliché or not, clearly whatever you did worked,” the reporter concluded.

“Not really,” Rowan laughed. “They dumped me on my bed—”

“More like he passed out,” Corona corrected.

“And when I woke the next morning, I was convinced I’d only dreamt her up.” He laughed and leaned over to give her another kiss. “Imagine my surprise when I saw her on the movie set later that evening talking to another star on the film. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was convinced that it had to be fate.”

“And I thought that I must have made someone mad in a past life,” Corona joked.

K.D. continued to look astonished. “You’re kidding me?”

“See why I’m marrying her? Anyone else in this town would’ve called the tabloids and made a quick buck.”

Sharp as a tack, K.D. cut in, “But it still proved to be beneficial to her. After all, she did sign you to the Banks Artists Agency, did she not?”

“Only after I tracked her down and begged her to represent me,” he said slyly.

“Really?”

“Well, what else could I do? She refused to go out with me.”

The reporter turned her incredulous eyes back toward Corona. “You’re kidding. You actually told the number one box office star in the world that you wouldn’t go out with him?”

Corona’s apple cheeks darkened with embarrassment. “No. I told the drunken guy that threw up in my shoes that I didn’t want to go out with him. I can forgive a lot of things, but ruining a pair of my favorite Jimmy Choos took divine intervention to forgive.”

Rowan smiled. “But the more she resisted, the more I just had to have her.”

“Ahh. So you’re a man who loves a challenge,” K.D. said.

“You can definitely say that,” he said, pressing another kiss to the back of Corona’s hand and then leaning over and stealing a slow kiss for all of America to see. When he finally pulled back, he declared, “I’m the happiest man in the world right now.”

O
ver eight hundred miles south, in Thomason, Georgia, Lyfe Alton cocked his head up at the thirteen-inch television in Parker’s Service Station and tried to keep his drive-thru dinner down while he watched Corona Mae and superstar Rowan James smile and laugh in front of the cameras. Behind him, the small gas station’s door opened and jingled its bell.

“What in the hell is taking you so long in here?” Hennessey thundered, strutting up behind his younger brother and then smacking his heavy hand against his back. When Lyfe didn’t respond, he turned his head up at the television set to see what had caught his brother’s attention. “Hey! Ain’t that—”

“Yes,” Lyfe droned and then folded his arms.

Hennessey twisted up his face. “And ain’t that—”

“Yes,” Lyfe clipped out again, hoping his brother
would catch a hint and shut the hell up. Of course he didn’t.

“Well, what in the hell are they talking about?” Hennessey asked and then glanced around until he saw the station’s owner behind the counter. “Yo, Parker. Can you turn this up?”

Lyfe closed his eyes and then drew in a long, steady breath. “C’mon. Let’s just go ahead and go.” He turned, but Hennessey’s gigantic hand locked on his shoulder and held him in place.

“Wait. Wait. Hold up.”

Behind the counter, old man Parker found his remote control and turned up the television set …

“Wow. I really am impressed,” the reporter with the wild hair said. She paused for a beat to allow the cameraman to zoom in on the engaged couple glancing lovingly at each other. “So let’s get to the nitty-gritty. When is the big day?”

“Christmas Day,” Rowan said, beaming. “Believe it or not, I’ve always dreamed of getting married on that day.”

“So did I,” Lyfe argued back at the screen. When he realized what he’d said aloud, he turned to his older brother. “Are you about ready to go?”

“Shh,” Hennessey said. “I’m trying to hear this.”

“Well, ain’t that about—”

“Parker, turn it up some more,” his brother shouted. “Motor mouth here won’t shut the hell up.”

Lyfe snapped his jaw shut while his two brows crashed together.
Now if that doesn’t beat all.
Grudgingly, he turned his head back toward the screen just as the station’s doorbell jingled again.

“Afternoon, Parker,” a familiar lyrical voice floated in.

Lyfe and Hennessey craned their necks around to watch willowy and leggy Tess stroll into the station.

Old man Parker lifted up the bill of his trucker’s hat and tossed the woman that was young enough to be his great-granddaughter a wink. “How you doing today, Miss Tess?”

“Oh, I’m doing fine,” she sighed, adding an extra
humph!
to her hips as she sashayed over to the counter. “I’m just looking for something to get into. You know how it is.” She handed over a pile of lottery tickets. “Daddy wants you to check his numbers.”

“Sure. No problem,” Parker said, jumping right to work.

Lyfe snickered. He had a feeling that if Tess asked the man to jump off the roof of the building while singing
Old McDonald
he would do it. The man was that smitten—just like most men that had the fortune or misfortune to cross her path were.