A Fairytale Christmas
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#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs sweeps you away with this beloved story of a fairytale holiday romance…
Ace reporter Jack Riley loves his job, or at least he did until Madeleine Langston took over as publisher for the Courier. The perfect blonde ice queen is a daunting presence in the newsroom?and an irresistible distraction, despite Jack’s determination to avoid her as often as possible. Even if it means boycotting her fancy Christmas party.
Then a chance encounter with a stranger transforms Jack from a scruffy journalist into a debonair Texan in a tux, and he suddenly finds himself at the center of Madeleine’s attention. As they embark on a fairy-tale evening together, Jack realizes that Madeleine isn’t the woman he thought she was…but unfortunately, she no longer recognizes him in his new “Prince Charming” attire! Will Madeleine still be able to love the man behind the suit when she discovers who he really is?
Previously published as Cinderfella.
A Fairytale Christmas
Susan Wiggs
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter One
“Hey, Riley! You going to the ball?”
“Come on, Brad,” Derek said. “Riley thinks a ball has to say ‘Wilson’ on it to be any good.”
Jack Riley looked up from a Zenlike contemplation of his aged high-top sneakers, which he had propped on a stack of files on his desk. The world’s smallest Christmas tree, hung with decorations made by kids at the shelter, perched atop his computer monitor.
For all Jack cared, the cluttered newsroom, the ringing phones, the glaring fluorescent lights and the two yammering preppies could vanish in a puff of smoke.
“Look at the boy, Brad. Like, old Riley’s got nothing to wear.” Derek Crenshaw took nauseating pride in his cashmere sweaters from Brooks Brothers—supplied by overindulgent parents.
“Gimme a break,” Riley said, scratching his gray CUNY sweatshirt. “I got a clean set of sweats in my gym bag.”
Guffaws burst from his companions. The preppies, playing at being ace reporters, were so easily amused, Jack thought, folding his long legs under his desk and snatching a pencil from behind his ear. He pushed his thick-lensed glasses up on his nose. For a moment, his gaze rested on the engraved invitation that lay atop the rubble on his desk. Somewhere, a mile under, lay a brand-new ink blotter purchased with scraped-together pennies by a grateful young boy he had once helped.
Jack squinted through his horn-rims at the cream stock card. “Miss Madeleine Langston requests the pleasure of your company…. Nine o’clock … at the Dakota … Black tie only …”
“Black tie,” Jack muttered, lowering the bill of his Yankees cap. Miss Madeleine Langston was no doubt praying Mr. Jack Riley would drop off the face of the earth. Why the hell had she invited him, anyway? Pity? Guilt? Or did the young heiress have a yen for slumming with nobodies from Brooklyn?
“Hey, Riley!” Derek said, advancing on him with a Sharpie marker. “Maybe I could, like, you know, draw a black tie on the front of your shirt.”
“Hey, Derek,” Jack said, effortlessly mimicking his co-worker’s southern California accent. “Maybe I could, like, break your kneecaps and toss you in a shallow grave.”
Brad and a few of the mailroom boys again burst into laughter.
“Working hard, gentlemen?” The blade-sharp question knifed through the merriment.
Jack looked across the newsroom, and there she was.
The ice maiden. The crystal goddess. The bane of his existence.
His publisher.
“Er, Jack was just finishing up,” Derek said hastily, capping the marker and dropping a manila legal file on the danger zone of Jack’s desk.
Madeleine Langston effortlessly negotiated a path through the maze of desks. She moved as if the layout of the bright glass-walled newsroom was imprinted on her brain like circuits on a computer chip.
After her father’s death six months before, she had inherited the Courier. Everyone had expected her to retire gracefully to the Hamptons and let the income roll in. For a while, she had. Then, just three weeks ago, she had fired the inept managing editor and appointed herself publisher. Apparently she was having trouble finding someone to reflect her standards of perfection, so for the time being, and to the dismay of all the staff, she had taken on the duties herself.
Until last week, she had stayed off the city-room turf, preferring her sterile corner office one floor up. This was only the second time Jack had seen her up close. She was terrifyingly gorgeous. He liked her much better as a brittle voice on the telephone.
Because he knew it would annoy her, he put his feet back up on his desk, crossed his ankles and linked his fingers behind his head. He peered at her from beneath the brim of his cap.
Madeleine Langston advanced like a guided missile. She was, Jack decided, the only woman in Manhattan who could wear an ivory wool suit all day and not get a single wrinkle in it. Probably because she had no body heat. None at all.
What she did have was looks, brains and money. In deadly excess. She made him want to cross his fingers to ward off evil. Worse, she made him want to make love to her until she cried out for mercy—or for more.
She stopped in front of his desk. He had a perfect view of her face: dainty cheekbones and a nose that was probably used as a model at plastic-surgery conventions; eyes as blue as the bottom of a swimming pool; pale blond hair done into some sort of painfully neat macramé arrangement.
She brought a French-manicured fingernail to her full lower lip and held it there just for a moment in case of the unlikely event that she had not gotten his attention. She eyed the lopsided miniature Christmas tree; clearly it was as alien to her as moon rock.
If she was waiting for him to stand and remove his cap, she would miss her party tonight.
“The waste-management finance scandal?” she inquired. Her upper-crust East Coast accent rang with the tones of generations of selective breeding and years at Marymount and Vassar.
Jack gave her his most crooked, irritating smile and stroked the week-old bristle on his chin. “Why don’t you hurry up and hire a managing editor to ride herd over us wayward boys?”
“This is my paper, Mr. Riley, and I’ll ‘ride herd’ over whomever I please.”
“Sounds kinky, Miz Langston,” he muttered. Leaning forward, he jerked a file from the stack under his feet and held it out to her.
Platinum-and-pearl rings flashed as she opened the file. An empty potato-chip bag drifted to the floor. She made an admirable effort to ignore it. Her gaze snapped over the typed copy.
She gave the barest of nods, then said, “And the school, er, health controversy?”
Jack chuckled. “You mean the debate about whether or not we should hand out rubbers to high schoolers?” He savored the delicate coral blush on her cheeks. “Yeah, it’s ready.” Keeping his gaze trained on the boss lady, he tapped on his keyboard. The printer beside his desk ejected a copy of the story.
Her refined nostrils flared subtly. “Mr. Riley, how has such a charming man managed to live so long without sustaining serious bodily injury?”
He grinned and toyed with the short, curly ponytail at the nape of his neck. “Guess I’m just quick on my feet, sweetheart.”
Her look of disdain would have done Katharine Hepburn proud. “I see.” She took the hard copy, still warm from the printer, and added it to her stack.
To his relief, she turned her ice-dagger gaze on Brad and Derek. “Wh
at about you gentlemen? Have you made your deadlines, for a change?”
They stared at her like a pair of dieters eyeing a box of Godiva chocolates. Idiots, thought Jack. He knew they had a standing bet to see who could get her into bed first. As if either one had a chance. Who would want to, except maybe a polar explorer with a suit that could withstand subzero temperatures?
Jack Riley, that’s who, he thought in self-disgust. She was everything he should despise in a woman, but perversely, he found her the sexiest thing he had ever seen. He wanted her. Bad. Wanted to melt the ice around her with his own heat.
“Sure thing, Miss Langston,” Brad said, looking like the soul of efficiency.
“Yep,” Derek agreed.
“Excellent.” Madeleine turned to go. Before Jack could get comfortable again, she pivoted back, her three-hundred-dollar shoes clicking on the linoleum floor. “Oh, and gentlemen? Will I see you at the Dakota tonight?”
“Of course,” Derek and Brad said in unison. Their cashmere sweaters and Top-Siders personified the ersatz newsroom-clone look. They would be swell in their tuxes. Just swell.
Madeleine Langston’s gaze fixed on Jack. Damn, she was a good-looking woman. What a waste of a great set of j—
“Well?” she asked, interrupting his thought. “Are you coming?”
Jack decided it was too easy to take advantage of her choice of words, so he relented. “Naw,” he said, laughing with his eyes at her look of relief. “I’ve got a date with the Urban Animals.”
She raised a pruned eyebrow. “Urban Animals?”
“A group of punked-up ice skaters in Central Park.”
“Oh. You’ll be missed.”
Jack could contain his laughter no longer. God, she was a pain in the ass. Only their second face-to-face meeting and they were already in hate. He loved to razz her. “You know,” he said, “I might just be able to tear myself away….”
Her wide, beautiful eyes flashed a message of distress. For an ice goddess, she was a damned poor liar, and her habit of blushing made her seem almost human.
“Don’t worry, Princess,” he said consolingly, dropping the invitation into the overflowing wastebasket beside his desk. “Prince Charming has other plans.”
Chapter Two
Wearing the perfect dress, Madeleine Langston stood in the perfect suite in the Dakota. In the center of the room stood a perfect designer Christmas tree. She heard the perfect strains of the swing band, watched the perfect poise of the guests and nibbled one of the perfect hors d’oeuvres.
“Madeleine, darling!” William Wornich, the gossip columnist of the Courier, leaned forward to kiss the air beside her cheek. “Wonderful party. It’s perfect, a perfect fairy-tale ball.”
“Thank you, William. Isn’t it just?”
Acrid smoke from his cigar made her eyes smart. Damn. She would have to take her contacts out, and she was practically blind without them.
Unrepentant, Wornich stood back and held her at arm’s length. “And that dress! Too cunning. Wherever did you get it?”
She gave him a practiced smile. “Darling, you’d never believe it if I told you.” It had been her grandmother’s: a vintage 1940s affair of black silk taffeta set off with cascades of bugle beads at the shoulders and hem. The perfect dancing dress. The problem was, there was no one here with whom she wanted to dance.
Oh, Daddy. The thought of him came unbidden, as evocative as the spice of wassail or the scent of pine boughs. The lavish apartment in the Dakota had belonged to him, and next week it would be sold. It was strange being back here, strange seeing the people he had known. He himself had planned the party, months in advance, never knowing he wouldn’t be around to play the host.
There was one advantage to being back at the apartment that was full of achingly sweet memories. Having the party here meant she could leave. She could escape.
“Madeleine, dear,” Wornich said with a sly wink and a fresh puff of smoke, “I must ask you. I know you’re hosting this in memory of your father, but what’s the real purpose of the party? Husband hunting?”
She was so inured to the question that she didn’t bother to take offense. After Daddy’s death, everyone had expected her to find a husband who could take over the helm of the Courier. Or a tycoon who would buy her out.
Madeleine had chosen a completely different route. She had demanded that the board of trustees appoint her publisher. Lately she had worked herself into exhaustion as managing editor. No one could figure out why.
Madeleine Langston knew why. She had to find a way to define herself, to look in the mirror and see a person who did things. Important things. Useful things. Things that made her human.
“Don’t be foolish, William,” she said breezily, blinking away smoke. “All the men I meet are either after my money, my status, or they’re scared to death of me.”
“All of them, darling?”
“All of them.”
As William flitted off to alight amongst a group of book critics, Madeleine ducked into the powder room to remove her contacts. The cigar smoke had made them unbearable. No matter. Her nearsightedness would just serve to blur the dullness of the company.
She stared into the mirror and thought about her exchange with William Wornich.
“All of them, darling?”
“All of them.”
She finally admitted to herself that there was one exception—Jack Riley.
The thought of him brought a shiver of disgust to Madeleine. Although she barely knew him, she was already certain that Jack Riley was everything she detested in a man. He was crude, unkempt, irreverent and arrogant.
He was also the most talented and dependable writer on her staff.
She knew she shouldn’t let him irritate her, but he had an annoying way of getting under her skin. That horrible half-grown beard and ponytail, those sly taunts designed to make her feel like a fraud, that cocky, go-to-hell attitude. He had the air of a man who bit off life in great, sloppy chunks and had no patience with those who were cautious and timid.
Like her.
Her visit to the city room earlier had been a disaster. She had gone down to mingle with the writers, perhaps become one of the gang. What a joke, thinking she could mingle. She came off like a cold fish every time. None of them seemed to realize she was simply shy. Least of all the insufferable Mr. Riley, who was anything but shy. He didn’t even know her. Had only seen her on one other occasion. So why did he seem to have it in for her?
Trying to dismiss thoughts of him, she removed her contact lenses and put them in her beaded evening bag, then leaned forward to peer at her slightly hazy image in the pink-tinted mirror. She should have fixed her lipstick before taking out the lenses.
Exhaling a sigh, she decided the world would have to face Madeleine Langston without fresh lipstick. She stepped from the powder room and into the white-lightning glare of a camera flash. Her smile was automatic as someone snapped her picture for the society pages; her conversation was fluent as she discussed her father’s legacy in publishing. None of the elegant company would ever guess how utterly awkward she felt.
Or how unbearably lonely. It was nearly Christmas, and she would be spending the holiday with her cat. It was too pathetic.
Once again, her errant thoughts wandered to Jack Riley. He wasn’t bored. At this moment, he was probably dressed in something scandalously tight, made of black leather, and careening on ice skates around the pond in Central Park.
* * *
Bored, that’s what he was.
Jack glared at the files on his desk. Derek and Brad owed him big this time. He had finished proofing their work for them. Their boring, pedestrian work. He himself hadn’t done a juicy story in weeks. What was wrong with Manhattan these days? Where was all the murder and mayhem when a guy needed it?
Jack locked his desk, turned off his computer and left the office, ducking under a dried-up sprig of mistletoe. In the long, gleaming corridor, he encountered one of the cleaning ladies.
He grinned and looked down at his well-lived-in sweats. “You won’t see me turning into a pumpkin yet, Cora.”
“Yeah, but have you checked your car lately?”
“A car? On my salary?” he asked. He’d long since sold his over-the-hill Mercury Marquis. Six years ago, he’d driven it to Manhattan from Muleshoe, Texas. He’d had nothing but a journalism degree from UT and a pocketful of dreams. “I’m taking the subway, sweetheart.”
“Be careful, Jack.”
He had cause to remember her admonition when, five minutes later, he turned down Lexington and saw two large thugs in the process of mugging a small, rotund man.
You’re a New Yorker now, pal, he told himself, even as he broke into a run toward the shadowy figures. You’re supposed to look the other way. But deep inside his Texas-born-and-bred chest beat the heart of a man who despised violence and injustice.
His size-twelve feet carried him swiftly over the littered, frozen street. One lowlife had the little man shoved up against the rough brick wall of a building. The other groped inside the victim’s pockets.
Jack launched himself into a body slam. Stringy hair slapped him in the face. The breath left his target in a whoosh. Curling his fist into the back of a leather collar, Jack sent the man sprawling into a mound of midwinter slush. He fell easily—probably weak from being strung out on drugs—and crashed into a heap of damp cardboard boxes.
A fist smashed into Jack’s stomach. His mercilessly conditioned muscles tightened at the contact. Even as he grunted, more in annoyance than pain, he clipped his assailant on the jaw with a lightning uppercut. The man howled and fled, clutching his face. His oily companion dragged himself up.
Jack stood ready, his feet planted, his body taut and his nerves alive with the dark hum of adrenaline. The mugger sized him up for about three seconds, then stumbled off after his companion.
Jack started to pursue them. But one glance at the pale, sweating face of the victim stopped him.
He was a munchkin man, impeccably dressed in a topcoat, holding a brass-headed cane. He had a neatly clipped mustache and goatee. His hands, clutching the cane, shook.