About the Authors
USA Today Bestselling author TAWNY WEBER has been writing sassy, sexy romances since her first Mills & Boon was published in 2007. A fan of Johnny Depp, cupcakes and colour coordination, she spends a lot of her time shopping for cute shoes, scrapbooking and hanging out on Facebook.
Readers can check out Tawnys books at her website, www.TawnyWeber.com. There, they can also join her Red Hot Readers Club for goodies like free reads, chapter excerpts, recipes, contests and much more.
ANNIE ONEIL spent most of her childhood with her leg draped over the family rocking chair and a book in her hand. Novels, baking and writing too much teenage angst poetry ate up most of her youth. Now Annie splits her time between corralling her husband into helping her with their cows, baking, reading, barrel racing (not really!) and spending some very happy hours at her computer, writing.
OLIVIA MILES lives in Chicago with her husband, young daughter, and two ridiculously pampered pups. As a city girl with a fondness for small-town charm, she enjoys incorporating both ways of life into her stories. Not a day goes by that Olivia doesnt feel grateful for being able to pursue her passion, and sometimes she does have to pinch herself when she remembers shes found her own Happily Ever After. Olivia loves hearing from readers. Visit her website, www.oliviamilesbooks.com.
The Night Before Christmas
Naughty Christmas Nights
Tawny Webber
The Nightshift Before Christmas
Annie ONeil
Twas the Week Before Christmas
Olivia Miles
www.millsandboon.co.uk
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Naughty Christmas Nights © 2013 Tawny Webber The Nightshift Before Christmas © 2016 Annie ONeil Twas the Week Before Christmas © 2013 Megan Leavell
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a Licensed Device) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Version: 2018-08-29
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Authors
Title Page
Copyright
Naughty Christmas Nights
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
The Nightshift Before Christmas
Back Cover Text
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EPILOGUE
Twas the Week Before Christmas
Back Cover Text
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
About the Publisher
Naughty Christmas Nights
Tawny Weber
To my awesome brothers, Ron and Kevin!
I love you guys.
Prologue
HOLIDAYS SUCKED.
Gage Milano had no issue with the idea of a holiday. Celebrations were great. Kinda like parties, which he rocked. Or remembering and commemorating events, which showed respect. Gage was all for respect.
But holidays?
Holidays meant family.
Obligation.
That freaking heritage crap.
Gage looked up from his plate. Crystal glinted, china gleamed. Ornate flower arrangements in fall tones lined the center of the rosewood table big enough to seat two dozen people. Which was twenty-one more than were sitting here now.
Stupid.
There was a perfectly sized, comfortable table in the breakfast room. But no. Couldnt eat Thanksgiving dinner in the breakfast room. Not because it wasnt fancy enough. Nope. Gage figured it was because his father was still trying to drive home the fact that in the Milano dynasty, he still had the biggest...table.
Marcus Milano was all about who was biggest. Best. Holding the most control. Something he loved, probably more than his sons. Hed taught Gage and Devon to be fierce competitors. From playing T-ball to pitching deals, hed set the bar high and dared both his sons to accept nothing but a win. Unfortunately, with two of them, that meant one of them was always losing. Something Marcus always found a way to capitalize on.
As if hearing Gages thoughts and ready to prove them right, Marcus looked up from his perfectly sliced turkey and portion-controlled serving of carbs to bellow down the table.
Gage. New venture for you to take on.
Ahh, dinnertime demands. The Milano version of conversation.
No room. Gage scooped up a forkful of chestnut dressing and shot his father a cool smile. Im in meetings with my own clients next week, then Im on vacation.
Make room, Marcus barked. I want this account.
Ahh, the joys of being under the cozy family umbrella. Gage might be thirty years old, have a rep as a marketing genius, be the VP of a Fortune 500 company and own his own marketing start-up, which was quickly racking up enough success that hed be forced to make some decisions soon.
But in his fathers mind he was still at the old mans beck and call. There to do the guys bidding.
It wasnt that Gage didnt appreciate the opportunities Milano had afforded him. But dammit, the companys success was as much because of him as anyone else. When he and Devon had come on board six years previous, itd been sinking under the economic collapse. Between Devons restructuring and Gages marketing, theyd turned it around.
The old guy didnt see it that way, though. To him, he was Milano and his sons simply adjuncts.
Gage glared down the table. Pointless, since his father was nearsighted and too far away to notice. Not that hed care if he could. Marcus Milano had built his rep on not giving a damn. So Gage shifted his anger across the table at his brother.
Devon, his black hair and blue eyes the spitting image of their father, only grinned.
Youre the king of the sales pitch, little brother. You know how we depend on you for these special projects.
Devon was also the king of bullshit.
I dont have time, Gage repeated, his words delivered through the teeth of his own smile. Ive been going full speed ahead for six quarters with no break. When I signed that multimillion-dollar deal last month for the electronics division, we all agreed I was off the books until the end of the year.
Five weeks away from Milano. Time to chill, to relax. Hightail it to the Caribbean, where he could lie on the beach, chug the booze and check out the babes. And think.
Think about his future.
Think about leaving Milano.
Weigh the risks of going out on his own.
The old man had built a multipronged business with its fingers in various consumer pies. Milano made everything from tech to textiles. Devon was R & D, Research & Development. He came up with the ideas, put together whatever new product he thought would reel in more coin for the very full Milano coffers.
Gage was marketing. He could sell anything. Water to a drowning man. Silicone to a centerfold. Reality to the paranoid.
He knew people. What made them tick, what turned them on.
A trait that served him well, in business and in pleasure.
A trait that told him that getting away from this dinnertime trap was going to be one helluva feat.
Off the books except in an emergency, Marcus said around his mouthful of oyster stuffing. This is an emergency.
An emergency is pictures of Devon doing a donkey being displayed on the cover of People magazine. An emergency is the accounting department being caught using our computer system to embezzle from a foreign government or your last wife showing up pregnant, claiming the baby is yours. Whatever new product you want to peddle isnt a marketing emergency.