CHAPTER ONE
Most people travelingaround Christmas time are headed home to spend the holiday with loved ones.
And then there’s me—reading the email I received from my new client for the fifty-seventh time in twenty-four hours.
The flight attendants announce it’s time to fasten seatbelts and put tray tables up as we prepare to land, and I’m busy thumbing through the set of instructions I’ve received.
Upon landing in Silver Hollow’s small regional airport, proceed to baggage claim. There I should find a man in a Rockies ball cap holding up a sign that saysIvy Davis.
His name is Mark, and he’ll be driving me from the airport to the Taylor estate, where I’ll be spending the next seventy-two hours.
Business hasn’t exactly been booming in the interior design industry, and after three clients cancelled on me in a row, desperate times call for desperate measures.
In the past, it was one of the busiest times of the year—email after email with repeat clients asking me to redo their living rooms before relatives visit or some hotel mogul requesting I create a winter wonderland for their premises.
This year, it’s been nothing but polite cancellations and a depressingly empty calendar.
Then the offer came.
A private client reaching out about a mountain estate. The sum of money being offered was so ridiculous I had to double—and then triple—check it wasn’t some scammer.
But everything checked out.
I was being hired by real estate mogul and billionaire Noah Taylor. Much more private than most billionaires, little was known about him other than the fact he went into the real estate business with his brother and the two made bank.
He didn’t even have a social media account (I know because I looked). The best I could find was the company’s business profiles, which revealed nothing personal.
The contract was attached, and I was told once I signed, I’d receive half the payment upfront. The other half once the job was complete.
Needless to say, I signed that thing on my phone in the grocery store checkout line, a bottle of red wine, brie cheese, and crackers in my cart.
It seemed like the universe finally wanted to throw me a bone, and I was not about to pretend to be upset about it.
The plane touches the ground and soon we’re coasting to our parking spot among an army of other planes full of eager holiday travelers.
There’s practically a stampede just to get off the plane. I let the others go first, then grab my bag from the overhead bin and head straight to baggage claim.
Thankfully, since Silver Hollow’s airport is so small, I don’t have to walk far. But that doesn’t make baggage claim any less of a zoo—everywhere you look, people rush in different directions, determined to make it to their carousel to grab their things.
I’m more concerned with finding this Mark guy. As my gaze searches the crowds, he suddenly appears off to the side.
It helps that he’s more than a head taller than most people, with broad shoulders and a solid build, his sherpa jacket dusted with snow and his messy dark hair shoved under a ball cap. I’m no sports person, but I recognize the Colorado Rockies logo imprinted on it. He’s clutching a sign that readsIVY DAVISin messy block letters.
It almost feels like I’m six again being picked up from school by a parent as I pivot in his direction.
…except, admittedly, he’s much cuter.
I roll my suitcase toward him, boots squeaking against the epoxy flooring. A small, almost shy smile comes to my face as I grow closer, and his gaze settles on me like he’s recognizing I’m who he’s been waiting for.
He doesn’t smile back and there’s no warmth to be found in his dark brown eyes, but he does step toward me and take my suitcase off my hands.
“Ivy?” he asks in a deep voice.
“That’s me. You must be… Mark?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m parked right out the sliding doors.”
We fall into step as we leave the chaos of the airport baggage claim behind and cross the arrivals drop off lane. He leads me to the concrete parking garage right across the way, pressing the button on his SUV remote to pop the trunk door.
