A Gentleman for Christmas Read online

  A GENTLEMAN FOR CHRISTMAS

  by

  PRESCOTT LANE

  Copyright © 2018 Prescott Lane

  Kindle Edition

  Cover design © Michele Catalano Creative

  Cover image from Shutterstock by AS Inc

  Editing by Nikki Rushbrook

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Also by Prescott Lane

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  JAX

  “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”

  Otherwise known as the original bros before hoes commandment.

  I’m not advocating calling women hoes. It’s an expression, so put away your Encyclopedia of Political Correctness.

  There are rules in life. The Ten Commandments were just the beginning. We have rules for everything. How to drive. How to dress. How to walk across the fucking street. So why not rules for love? That’s how all this started—a set of rules between my buddies and me.

  The Bro Code.

  Obviously, bros before hoes is rule one. We vowed never to let a girl come between us, which meant if one of us liked a girl, she was forever off limits.

  Little did I know our teenage pact would launch my multi-million dollar career. A little tweaking here and some socially acceptable rewording there and The Gentleman’s Handbook was born.

  I’ve written books and given seminars on everything from how to find love, to how to propose, to how to have a successful long-distance relationship. You name it, and I’ve got rules for it. Personally, I’ve never been much of a rule follower, but that’s my little secret.

  The funny thing is I’ve never been in love. Well, there is this one girl, but we won’t talk about her. It does no good to think about someone you can’t have and never will.

  My lack of emotional commitment hasn’t slowed down my career one bit. Currently, I have two books on the New York Times Best Sellers List. My seminars sell out like a Drake concert.

  I always find it interesting that the rules started between a group of male friends, but it’s mostly women that come to hear me speak. Occasionally, you see the poor sap boyfriend who was dragged along to listen, but for the most part it’s all women.

  This time of the year is no exception. December first until January first is important for guys. Holidays are big for a lot of couples. If you don’t know what you’re doing for your lady, you better figure it out and fast. In fact, my rule is that you should be paying attention all year long.

  Trust me on this. If you remember something she mentioned she liked three months ago and surprise her with it at Christmas, she’ll spread her legs before Santa even has time to slide down the chimney. Let’s be honest, that is always at least part of the goal for guys.

  So my current work in progress tackles Christmas. A how-to guide for the holidays.

  The Gentleman’s Rules for Christmas.

  CHAPTER ONE

  JAX

  How can something that feels so right at night feel so wrong the next morning?

  I broke my own rule. Sleeping with an ex is never a good idea. Don’t give me any of that closure bullshit. You break up with someone for a reason. Going back for one more round between the sheets isn’t going to help anyone move on. And last night was round twelve or so for us.

  Fuck me!

  We broke up over a year ago, but once a month or so she calls me under the guise of needing to talk, some broken appliance, needing a man for something and before you know it, I have her pinned against the wall, pounding my dick inside of her. That’s what she needs a man for.

  I don’t stay the night. We don’t talk about getting back together. It’s just sex, but I know it’s the reason that she hasn’t moved on. I know she thinks that we will get back together, so I’m not doing her any favors by continuing to sleep with her. I have to cut this off. Last night at her place, that was it.

  I stare up at my ceiling, thankful that at least we aren’t having the awkward morning after. I came home. I’ve got some serious sexual remorse going on. Like I said, it felt good at the time, but not so much right now.

  I’m not an asshole. Well, I try not to be, but this is an asshole thing I’m doing. Time to go cold turkey—at least with her. It will only take me saying I can’t come over one time for her to get the message. It doesn’t need to be a big thing, so next time she calls I won’t go over there. It’s time I follow my own rules.

  Gentleman’s Rule—Don’t fuck an ex unless you want to fuck them up.

  I roll out of my bed, pulling on some shorts and hitting the button on the remote control to raise the window shades, the Gulf of Mexico calling me. I’ve lived in Waterscape, Florida, my whole life, but just bought my place on the beach last month.

  Growing up, I dreamed of owning a place like this. When I was a kid, I lived several miles inland in a duplex with my mom. It was nice, but nothing like waking up to the water every day. I bought this place over a year ago, but it’s taken that long to make it livable. For all the time and money I put into it, I could’ve built a new house, but there’s something special about this spot. Hanging out with my friends and looking down the beach at this place, I made a promise that one day I’d own it, and now I do. I own it outright. No mortgage on this baby.

  I’ve got no excuse for the lack of furniture, though, except that I’ve only lived here a month. My bedroom, the living room, and home gym are the only rooms furnished. What more does a man really need? The rest of the rooms are bare. The dining room has a rug, but that’s it. The pool has one lounge chair beside it. It’s all a work in progress.

  I press another button on the remote, opening the windows, letting the gulf breeze in. Even though it’s less than a week before Christmas, it’s not cold here. There’s a crispness to the air, but we won’t be getting any blizzards. There might be some surfing Santas, but they’ll be in board shorts, not Santa suits.

  My cell phone vibrates on the nightstand, and I say a silent prayer that I’m not being put to the test with my ex already. A relieved smile comes to my face when I see it’s a different woman, Maci, one of my closest friends and married to my other friend, Malcolm.

  There was a crew of five of us that have all hung out since we were little. Maci and Malcolm started dating by the time they were pre-teens and have been together ever since. They got married right out of college and have twins, a boy and a girl.

  “Jax, oh thank God you answered,” Maci says in the panicked tone that only a young mother can have. “The twins have the stomach flu. They’ve been sick all night. It’s coming out of both ends.”

  “Okay, I got it,” I say, trying to erase that image from my mind.

  “Let me talk to him,” I hear Malcolm say in the
background. There’s some shuffling noise and then Malcolm’s on the line. “It’s chaos over here, man.”

  “Uncle Jax’s duties do not include bodily fluids,” I tease, but he knows damn well I’d clean his kids’ shit up for him if he needed me to.

  “Maci and I got that. It’s . . .” he pauses. “Luke and Skylar.”

  Luke and Skylar round out our quintuplet of friendship. Growing up, Skylar and I lived next to each other in the duplex. We shared a bedroom wall until we both went off to college. We shared a lot more than that. Skylar and I had the closest friendship of all of us until I fucked it up. She and Luke went to prom together, and he followed her off to college. They’ve been dating ever since, about ten years now.

  “Skylar broke up with him,” Malcolm says. “Apparently, he . . .”

  “Malcolm!” Maci yells in the background.

  “Daddy duty calls,” he says. “I’m giving the phone back to Maci.”

  Skylar and Luke broke up? The only couple I know that’s been together longer than them are Malcolm and Maci, and of course, they’re married, and Skylar and Luke aren’t. But still, it’s been ten years!

  Skylar’s single? That shouldn’t make my heart jump. As my friend’s ex-girlfriend, she’s still off limits to me.

  “I need you to get Skylar from the airport,” Maci says, breathless. “I was supposed to drive to Pensacola myself, but I can’t leave Malcolm with two sick kids. Can you do it?”

  “She’s coming today? I thought she and Luke were coming for New Years?”

  “Change of plans,” Maci says. I hear her draw a deep breath. “Skylar broke up with Luke a few weeks ago, on her birthday. She didn’t want me to say anything to anyone. I didn’t even tell Malcolm.”

  “Luke didn’t tell me,” I say. “I haven’t heard from him in a month or so.”

  “It’s bad,” Maci says. “But you know Skylar. She was trying to muscle on like a good little soldier.”

  Yep, that’s the Skylar I know. Sweet, smart, sassy, not to mention sexy as hell, but in a pure, wholesome way—long brown hair, big blue eyes, pale skin with the most kissable lips you’ve ever seen and that one dimple on her right cheek that pops out when she smiles.

  “I finally convinced her to come home. Spend Christmas here,” Maci says. “But now the kids are sick. We were in the emergency room all night. Could you please pick her up this afternoon?”

  “Text me her flight information,” I say. “I got her.”

  Hanging up, I stare at my phone. I got her. If only that were true.

  She’s the one girl I don’t have. The one girl I can never have.

  Bros before hoes.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SKYLAR

  Just make it to Maci. Just make it to Maci. Then you can have a good, old-fashioned cry with your best girlfriend. I must repeat that to myself a thousand times on my flight from Chicago to Florida. I wasn’t planning on coming home for Christmas. I wasn’t supposed to be home until New Years. No one but Malcolm and Maci know I’m coming now. I’ll call my mom when I land. Everything happened so fast that all I could think about was getting out of the city. As soon as the plane touches down, I feel the tears welling in my eyes, knowing Maci is waiting to greet me with open arms.

  It’s only been a few months since I’ve seen her, but there’s nothing like good friends when times are tough. Maci is the best. She’s not only my friend, but she and I have a small business together—a handmade natural soap company we named after me, since Maci joked about already having a big company named after her. We are in a few small boutique stores. I handle branding and publicity, she oversees our small manufacturing operation in Florida, and we work together on the creative aspects. It’s difficult to manage sometimes since we don’t live in the same city, so every few months, I travel to Florida for business. I wish this trip was for business, but it’s not. It’s for heartbreak.

  The plane reaches the gate, and everyone leaps up from their seats like it’s a race. From the look of the overhead compartments filled with gifts wrapped in various Christmas paper, they’re probably all traveling for the holidays.

  I wait for a break in line then stand up, reaching to get my carry-on bag. At five feet five inches, I’m not tall, but I’m not short. Still, getting the bag down from over my head isn’t easy. There are two men in front of me, and three behind me, and not one offers to help when they see me struggling, instead looking more annoyed that it’s taking me so long. They’ll be waiting for a cold day in hell if they’re waiting for me to apologize for my lack of upper body strength.

  Usually the first thing I do after a flight is use the airport bathroom, but today I head straight through the terminal. I don’t need to catch a glimpse of myself in any mirrors, knowing my eyes are still puffy, and my hair is still in a messy bun and not in the cute way.

  I told Maci not to park and come in, just to meet me outside baggage claim, which was stupid because all I brought is one carry-on, and I’m not even sure what’s inside. I was in such a state when I packed it. I hate this. I’m not this girl. I was doing fine with the breakup. I really was, trucking on like I always do, not missing a beat. I was the picture-perfect version of a healthy, newly single gal, until last night. Freaking last night.

  Pulling out my phone, I turn off airplane mode, waiting for it to come back to life. Luke has been blowing up my phone, so I should leave it off, but I need to check to see if Maci has messaged me that she’s running late or anything. The thing starts dinging like a pissed off alarm clock, and I frantically reach for the vibrate button.

  Blowing out a deep breath, I look up, right into his deep blue eyes. My legs stop. Someone bumps into me from behind. He flashes me the smile that I know so well. The one I saw every day growing up. I don’t want to cry in front of him. Not him. What’s he doing here?

  His smile slowly fades, and I realize I’m standing right at the security line. The one with the ominous message that reads once you cross it, there’s no going back. How appropriate!

  He stands there for a second in his jeans, white t-shirt, and brown leather jacket, holding a bouquet of flowers. If this were a movie, this would be the scene where the girl runs to her man in the airport, leaps in his arms, and they kiss as he twirls her around. The problem with that is I’m not his girl, and he’s not my man. We used to be best friends. Now, not so much.

  Instead, I take a step back and throw up all over my favorite winter boots. They’re waterproof and made for the snow. Wonder if they can withstand vomit, too?

  That’s when the tears come. I don’t know about you, but throwing up and crying go hand in hand for me. I’m tired, embarrassed, mortified that some airport worker is going to have to clean up my bodily fluids, horrified that other travelers now must side-step the contents of my stomach. If there was ever a time to crawl into a hole, it’s now. I hear the security guy yelling and look up, finding Jax marching right toward me.

  “Arrest me,” Jax yells at the poor TSA guy as he crosses the line of doom. The man who writes about rules doesn’t like to follow them. “I got you,” he whispers to me, handing me the flowers then bending down, braving my vomit. He unties my boots and slips them off my feet. “You really know how to say hello to a guy,” he says, giving me a little wink.

  “Sir, this is your last warning,” the TSA guy yells.

  Jax rolls his eyes, placing his hand at the small of my back and leading me to a bench on the right side of the line. “Stay here,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”

  He disappears, and I place the flowers on the bench beside me, looking down at my socks on the gray floor of the airport. I’m aware of people laughing, Christmas carols in the background, but I just stare at my feet, feeling numb. I sometimes hear women say how sick they are of men. Well, I guess for me that’s true. Luke has literally made me sick. Did I even pack my toothbrush? Do I have a mint? I’m not sure what’s more disgusting: the taste in my mouth or the disgust in my heart for the entire male population.r />
  I can’t remember the last time Jax and I spent any real time alone together. High school, I guess. He was my best friend. He probably knows me better than Luke. In fact, I’m sure he does, but Jax broke my heart long before Luke did. I had a huge crush on Jax. It’s hard not to—dark hair, blue eyes, and muscles to write home about, plus he’s smart and funny. He’s the full package, except that he’s an asshole.

  Senior year, after months of flirting, I asked him to take me to prom. Yep, I asked him, thinking that was very modern and bold of me. He turned me down. Actually, that wasn’t the bad part. He told me he wasn’t going because he didn’t want to ask his mom for the money to rent the tuxedo, tickets, dinner and everything else that goes along with it. I understood. My parents were both teachers, and he was raised by a single mom. We weren’t like Maci, Malcolm, and Luke, who all lived in the gated subdivision together where designer labels were par for the course.

  Maybe that’s why Jax and I bonded so quickly. We got each other. Or I thought we did until he showed up at prom, tuxedo and all, with another girl. It crushed me. He and I haven’t been the same since. We maintain a friendship mostly because we have the same circle of friends. If it weren’t for that, I don’t think I would’ve spoken to him again after that big of a diss.

  What the hell is he doing here now?

  Checking my phone, I see Maci’s messages about the twins being sick, explaining that she’s sending Jax, and how sorry she is. She’s got the biggest heart. Of course, her kids come first. I ignore the rest of the messages, all of which are from Luke.

  Lowering my suitcase to the floor, I kneel beside it, unzipping the front pocket, hunting for my toiletries, hoping to find my toothbrush and toothpaste. The only things I find are some socks, my flat iron, and a random deck of cards. Good Lord, I was really spaced out when I packed.

  Next, I unzip the main compartment, flipping open the lid. Throwing things about, I dig to the bottom. “Um.” Jax clears his throat, holding up a pair of black G-string panties that I must’ve tossed a little too far.