Celebrate a Holiday Eve

By M. Garnet

Alli had gone to a party one night, had great sex with a rich man who practiced a pagan religion—then was tossed aside. She knows there’s more to her life than that one night on Halloween, so when she receives a priceless antique from a nameless source right before Christmas, it has to be from him. She’ll show him—she’ll travel to his home in Ireland, throw the gift back in his face and refuse any offer he makes. She’ll show him. Unless...unless he reaches for her, unless he holds her, unless he kisses her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Jan 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781771113892

Book preview

Do I really want a Christmas present? Wouldn’t it be more fun to have a personal present from a Pagan King who celebrates in his ancient religion on the same Eve? How about Celebrate A Holiday Eve?

Alli had gone to a party one night, had great sex with a rich man who practiced a pagan religion—then was tossed aside. She knows there’s more to her life than that one night on Halloween, so when she receives a priceless antique from a nameless source right before Christmas, it has to be from him. She’ll show him—she’ll travel to his home in Ireland, throw the gift back in his face and refuse any offer he makes. She’ll show him. Unless…unless he reaches for her, unless he holds her, unless he kisses her.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Celebrate a Holiday Eve

Copyright © 2012 M. Garnet

ISBN: 978-1-77111-389-2

Cover art by Martine Jardin

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

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Smashwords Edition

Celebrate a Holiday Eve

Another Trading Party

By

M. Garnet

To Sandy who spent some pleasant time just bouncing ideas and led me to the fact that I had to follow up on Bandia’s Parties. Thanks Sandy.

Chapter One

Parties, stupid Christmas parties. Alli sat at her desk, one of the thirty desks in rows in the large room that didn’t allow any privacy, and listened to the talk around her. Normally she was able to block out the sounds in this high ceiling office space, but when it was near a holiday, the talk became louder and seemed to seep into her ears, no matter what she did to try to isolate her space.

She’d made it through the turkey candles and horns-of-plenty flower vases for Thanksgiving, but she wasn’t sure she could suffer through Christmas decorations on the many desks around her. It reminded her that her time was running out, it was getting closer to December 25. Mid Winter’s Eve—one of the celebrations that the old Celtics held that coincided with the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ.

Suddenly she got up, grabbed her purse and just left. This was something you did not do in this office. She didn’t put anything way, she didn’t say anything to anyone, and she didn’t punch out. She just took the express elevator down. A shudder went through her as the same sense of déjà vu she had about Halloween came over her.

She thought back to the first day of work after the Halloween fiasco. She was standing right here, on this sidewalk, with her friend Beth, who was just now coming out of the doors, looking both ways and then hurrying towards her.

Alli, shit, are you okay? I threw everything on your desk into your top drawers. You know you can’t leave everything out like that.

Alli was standing, frozen, looking at the vehicles moving past, expecting to see a large grey limo, but all she saw were cabs and delivery trucks. Alli, whose nickname stood for Ashling Hedra, was confused. Nothing was right in her life anymore, not since the Halloween Trading Party mess—a party that was part of everyone’s life who worked for the large company that owned the building. She stood in front looking at the large OC on the brass plate at the side on the door.

Alli was still frozen, not even aware that Beth was hailing a cab and gently getting her into the seat. She was thinking of the large man that approached her that day and gave her a message that changed her life, as much as what had happened at the party had changed her. She was actually standing in her own living room before the loud voice of Beth finally penetrated her fog.

What the hell is all of this? Beth’s voice was loud and full of disbelief as she rotated in the room, looking at all the paper pasted to everything, walls, windows, even the sides of the TV.

Research—come in the kitchen and I’ll explain. Alli led the way, pulling a couple of bottles of water.

They settled down opposite each other at the small kitchen table and Alli took a deep breath. Well, it all started with Halloween. Let me show you something.

Alli stood up and pulled up her shirt above her bra, and even pulled her bra up a little from the bottom of her left breast.

Wow. Beth let out her breath with the word. That is amazing, but primitive and unusual.

Alli couldn’t see the entire tattoo as it was tucked in under her left breast, but she had it memorized—she’d looked at it often in the mirror. It was in dark ink, almost black. It was a circle around a star, but it wasn’t that simple. It