by Lizzie Shane
ALL HE WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS
by Lizzie Shane
A Bouquet Catchers Holiday Novel
Copyright © 2017 Lizzie Shane
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights reserved under copyright above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All He Wants For Christmas
Be careful what you wish for…
Heartthrob Ty Walker always gets what he wants. So when he announces on a press tour that he’s ready to give up his playboy ways and start a family, he’s confident the universe will provide him with the fairy tale future he’s envisioned—and completely unprepared to come home a week before Christmas to find an eleven-year-old girl sitting on his doorstep with a note claiming she’s his daughter.
Ty has never been on close terms with responsibility, but even his oh-so-capable assistant can’t wave her magic wand and fix this one for him—not when she’s about to fly home for the holidays for a family wedding.
Taking her movie star boss and his potential daughter home for Christmas isn’t on any of Andi Cooper’s carefully crafted agendas. She knows Ty is nothing more than an overgrown child who uses his heart-melting smile to get away with murder and she’s immune to that smile…until she sees it on the face of a vulnerable little girl.
Clement, Minnesota, here they come.
But when they arrive in her small town, Andi begins to see a different side of her boss. Could there be more to the playboy than she thought? Could he actually become a good father? And could a movie star really be interested in his glamour-less assistant?
Could they actually become the family he was wishing for all along?
Chapter One
“Our guest today needs no introduction— though some of you might not recognize him with his shirt on—”
The audience, composed primarily of middle-aged housewives, screamed like the Beatles had just landed and Andi barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. No wonder his ego was the size of Jupiter.
“You may remember him from his work on Days of our Lives, or as your favorite sexy cop on Task Force One, but he’s here today promoting his new Christmas movie, Mistletoe Mayhem. Please help me welcome—though I know I don’t have to ask you to get excited for this one—TY WALKER!”
Right on cue, Ty appeared at the upstage door, his lips tipped up in a sexy little half grin—and the audience members lost their minds. There was screaming. There was fainting. One security guard even had to move quickly to intercept a woman trying to rush the couches as he approached the talk show hostess—who was at least somewhat more composed than her audience.
Melinda Mayhue had a reputation for relishing gossip—and a fine masculine form—that had made her new daytime talk show an instant success. Andi had worried that the show was too small and too new for Ty to be promoting his film, but he’d just shaken his head and told her to book it.
And now, as he bent down to hug his hostess’s curvy form and Melinda rolled her eyes in exaggerated bliss for the cameras, Andi had to admit it had been a good call. The studio had pushed for the Jimmys of late night—and Ty had done those as well—but those audiences were more mixed, whereas the daytime crowds were almost entirely women.
Ty knew his target demographic.
He finished hugging Melinda, but before he moved to take his seat on the couch, he turned toward the audience—and their frenzy reached previously undiscovered decibels. Andi winced, tempted to plug her ears, but then Ty raised his hands to calm the mania. “Beautifuls,” he said softly, forcing them to be quiet so they could hear him. “Take it down, my beautifuls,” he coaxed, until the room was perfectly silent.
Andi hadn’t worked for him before he was cast on Task Force One, so she didn’t know if Ty had always called every woman he met ‘beautiful’ and the writers had seen an opportunity and written it into his character or if it was part of the original script and he’d seen how women reacted to it and decided to make it his catch phrase. If she had to bet, her money was on the latter.
Ty may be a giant hunk of man meat, but he wasn’t stupid. Especially when it came to his brand.
“You can have anything you want, my beautifuls,” he promised the audience, in a low, sexy rumble.
“Take it off!” One woman shouted from the back—and Ty laughed.
“Oh. Oh… you mean this is what you want?” He reached for the hem of his shirt, and the cameramen scrambled to zoom in, getting the best possible angle as Ty slowly, so slowly, revealed the abs that had launched a thousand ships.
Or at least a thousand memes.
Andi had started as Ty’s social media manager and she’d always been highly conscious of the line between promoting her client and objectifying him. Until Ty had taken over his own brand—unapologetically objectifying himself to the delight of his female fans.
The screaming split her ears and Andi decided she really needed to start bringing noise canceling headphones to these appearances.
Laughing, Ty dropped his shirt and retreated back to the couch where Melinda was drooling along with everyone else. “And that’s all we have time for today,” she joked as Ty sat down and he laughed again, flashing even white teeth.
“And here I thought we were going to talk about my movie.” Ty leaned back on the couch, lazy, relaxed, a man who loved nothing more than basking in the spotlight. He was certainly good at it.
His gaze scanned the room—calculated to make it look like he was gazing into the eyes of each and every audience member, but Andi knew he was looking for her where she stood just to the left of the cameras. She mouthed, “Thank you,” to get her show pony back on script.
He met Melinda’s eyes with another soulful stare. “Thank you for having me today.”
“Oh honey, we’ll have you any day you want.” Melinda’s dirty chuckle was almost drowned out by the whoos from the audience. She half-interviewed, half-flirted her way through the first segment and Ty flirted back for all he was worth—and that was a lot.
Confident that Ty was performing well, completely in his element, Andi brought up the day’s schedule on her phone. This was their last taping, but he still had the EW online interview. And the stylists coming in to gild the lily for the premiere tonight. But once she loaded him into the limo tonight, Andi’s work would be done. And then—hallelujah—Christmas break when Ty Walker could manage his own life for a change.
Andi had mixed feelings about going home for Christmas but in spite of that she couldn’t wait for the holidays. Mostly because she’d pretty much reached her saturation point on over-the-top sex appeal courtesy of Ty Sexy-Is-My-Middle-Name Walker.
She’d originally been hired by the network three years ago when it had become apparent that Ty was going to be the breakout star of Task Force One. Other actors in the cast had bigger names and bigger roles—at least initially—but Ty had become the poster boy for the cop show at alarming speed, catapulting it to the top of the ratings. The network decided he needed his own dedicated social media person, so Andi was hired for the job—and discovered that Ty Walker didn’t just need a social media manager, he needed a keeper.
He was an artist with a capital A and a natural born star—which translated as “incapable of punctuality
or organization.” He had an agent and a business manager, but she’d become his de facto personal assistant long before he’d declared he wanted to take over his own social media profiles.
The network had initially tried to discourage him from DIYing his public image, but then he’d started posting shirtless pictures of himself, his followers had quadrupled in a matter of days, the show’s ratings had gone through the roof, and Andi had been fired as social media manager.
But while Ty wanted to run his own web presence, he still desperately needed her to run his life. So her job title had changed, she’d stopped working for the network and started working directly for him—and gotten a thirty-five percent raise in the process. Win-win.
Or so it had seemed. But there was only so much of the Sexiest Man Alive routine any woman could be expected to take—especially if that man knew he was the sexiest man alive and spent his entire life wallowing in that knowledge.
“It was the first picture I’ve ever done where I played a dad,” he was saying to Melinda Mayhue now—and Andi groaned internally.
Not this again. He’d been trotting out this line for the entire press tour and she knew it was making panties drop across the country, but it was like nails on a chalkboard to her—because she knew exactly how full of shit he was.
“It really made me think about having a family of my own,” he went on—and the entire audience sighed adoringly en masse as their ovaries lurched in tandem. “Especially at this time of year, a lot of us find ourselves thinking about family and I have to say I really think I’m ready to meet that special someone, get married, and be a father.”
Andi didn’t bother to hide her rolling eyes. She’d believe that when she saw it.
“You won’t lack for volunteers to help you with that,” Melinda teased—looking more than willing to be Volunteer Number One. “What kind of things do you look for in a woman?”
“A sense of humor,” he said immediately. “Someone I can be goofy with. Someone who won’t take life too seriously. Life’s too short, right? You’ve gotta laugh where you can and I definitely want someone I can laugh with. Someone bold and outgoing, definitely spontaneous, life can’t be planned—”
Essentially the anti-Andi. She didn’t miss the fact as he extolled the virtues of his dream woman that she was everything Andi wasn’t. Not that she wanted to be his ideal. The man was all surface, no substance. He might be insanely attractive and surprisingly talented and absolutely brilliant at playing the part of every woman’s dream man—but in real life he was also a self-absorbed diva who’d always been handed everything he wanted on a silver platter.
She knew men like that. Handsome, charming, spoiled men used to getting everything they wanted. Men like her ex-husband. And there was no way she was riding that ride again.
Several audience members shouted out propositions—some of which would have to be bleeped to pacify the FCC—and Melinda laughingly went to commercial as things started to get out of hand, promising to be right back with more Ty Walker.
As soon as they were clear, a pack of lower level producers and interns rushed into the risers to try to calm the audience so they could get another segment with Ty in before a riot broke out. Ty leaned in and chatted with Melinda, who was blushing and fanning herself with her notecards as she found herself at the epicenter of his focus.
Okay, yes, he was gorgeous. Tall, dark and handsome had been invented for the man. His skin was the color of rich caramel—and every straight woman in America wanted to give it a lick. His dark hair was shaved close to his head—a look he’d worn ever since he landed the role on Task Force One and one that no one could deny worked for him. He had the face of a male model, the body of an athlete, and eyes of startling pale blue that were even more striking against his rich skin. Clear, almost translucent blue—like pools a woman could get lost in. And his “beautifuls” were all more than willing to lose themselves.
But all of that wasn’t what made him the heartthrob he was. It wasn’t even his deep, sexy voice. No. It was the way he used it all. The way he used his looks, his voice, his eyes. He knew how to give a woman his full attention. Knew how to give her a look that would make her womb quiver and her knees go weak.
And he knew how to do that to an entire roomful of women at the same time and take that talent straight to the bank.
It was all fake, all fantasy, all for show, but if he was perfectly happy to be every woman’s ideal man only until it came time to commit, well, none of his fans seemed to care. They wanted the fantasy. And they loved that he never tied himself to one woman for more than a week at a time.
Almost as much as they loved the idea of being the one to reform him and have his babies.
Melinda brought them back from commercial and they began talking about Ty’s dating history—since Melinda was nothing if not an unabashed gossip. Ty said all the right things—about never finding The One and looking for a real connection and having only the greatest respect for his many, many, many exes.
When the segment ended, he thanked Melinda and retreated backstage—much to the dismay of the studio audience—and Andi followed, thanking the segment producer who fell in at her side.
Once backstage, she caught Ty’s eye and tipped her head toward the segment producer as a reminder. He immediately approached to thank the producer for having him, turning on the charm, and Andi backed away to make it look like she hadn’t been coaching him and to text Alan to bring the car around.
She watched from several feet away as the once-professional producer turned into a fluttering, simpering fangirl and pressed her business card into Ty’s hand, whispering something to him that undoubtedly stretched the bounds of her job description. He smiled, that slow, sexy smile that made knees go weak from Seattle to Savannah, and actually chucked the forty-something producer under the chin like she was a little girl, leaving her smiling and sighing in his wake, calling after him to call her.
He probably would.
And they’d spend one night together during which Ty would fulfill all her fantasies and then he’d never see her again—and somehow she’d walk away with such a besotted grin on her face she wouldn’t even mind being another notch in his bedpost.
That was his magic.
For a man who got around as much as Ty Walker, it was a testament to his charm that he didn’t have a single jealous ex chasing him around. Or a laundry list of venereal diseases.
It would have been impressive if it weren’t so annoying. There was only so long a woman could be personal assistant to the biggest man-whore in Hollywood without secretly wishing erectile dysfunction on his smug, pretty ass.
“Is the car here?” he asked casually, not looking back though he undoubtedly knew the entire backstage staff of the talk show was gazing after him with unrequited lust in their eyes.
“Waiting outside.”
He nodded as if he expected nothing less—Andi was nothing if not efficient. Spontaneous? No. Efficient? Hell yes. He started toward the exit and she fell into step beside him.
“I’m curious,” she began conversationally. “When they put your picture next to the word player in the dictionary, was there a photo shoot or did they just use one of your publicity headshots?”
He grinned shamelessly. “Come on now, beautiful. Don’t be jealous.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Jealous? Or beautiful?” She arched a brow at the latter and he grinned, unrepentant. “Why not? You are beautiful. Uptight as all hell, but still beautiful. Just think how hot you’d be if you could somehow remove that stick from your ass.”
“My stick is fine right where it is.”
Ty chuckled as they walked through the doors onto the lot and renewed screaming drew her attention to a handful of fans waiting between the stage door and the SUV. He raised his hands to calm them and wandered over to take selfies and sign autographs – including one on the sizeable chest of a woman who’d come armed with a Sharpi
e.
Then he strolled over to where Andi waited by the car, for all the world like he hadn’t just been scribbling on some random woman’s boob, and hopped inside.
“What’s next?” he asked cheerfully, reaching for a bottled water from the cooler on the floor while she climbed in beside him.
“The EW online crew is meeting us at your house. They’re calling it At Home with Ty Walker.”
“Let me guess, a few photos of me at home in my shower, at home in my pool, at home in my personal workout room flexing my abs…”
“You’re the one who just lifted up your shirt and practically did a Magic Mike routine on national television.”
“I’m not complaining,” he said. “Just trying to get into character.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You’re an artist.”
He flashed his I-know-exactly-how-hot-I-am grin. “Damn straight, sexy.”
“Sexy?”
“You said not to call you beautiful. I’m experimenting.” The God’s-gift-to-women act dropped for a moment as he downed half the bottle of water, his throat working as he swallowed.
Andi averted her eyes as something hot tightened in her abdomen. She needed to get laid. It had been years—literally years—and her libido was staging a revolt. That was the only reason why he looked so good to her right now. Well. That and the fact that he was, objectively speaking, the sexiest man on the planet. But soooo not her type.
She just needed to keep reminding herself of that.
“The reporter’s name is Stephanie. You met her briefly at the Golden Globes two years ago when you were presenting.”
“Stephanie… Stephanie…”
“Trying to remember if you slept with her?”
He shrugged, unembarrassed. “I’ve known a lot of beautiful women in my time.”
So many that he couldn’t even remember which entertainment reporters he’d banged backstage at the Golden Globes. Charming.
Andi focused on her work—texting confirmations to the EW reporter and photographer for the afternoon’s interview, scrolling through the appointments for the rest of the day to make sure everything Ty needed to be red carpet ready for the premiere tonight was in place. She ran a tight ship—which made it possible for Ty Walker to be the giant kid he was and he paid her well for that privilege.