Ask Her at Christmas Read Online Free Page A

spit it out. “Monica and I, we’ve been dating for a while—”
    Caitlin held up a finger to stop him. “Casually. You’ve given me the play-by-play after every date, remember? She’s rarely in Chicago. A couple shows, a couple galas, always big snazzy events. Never a simple pizza at home on the couch.”
    Another problem with having a female best friend? Her mind was like a steel trap for every personal detail he every spilled. The guys he hung out with never remembered that crap. “Monica prefers to be out and about. And she only flies back here when she has social and business obligations. With such a full calendar, she needs an escort more than she needs movie night in sweatpants.”
    “You’ve seen her maybe a dozen times in six months. Wait a minute. Didn’t you meet her at some charity gala with your dad? Was this whole thing a setup from the start?”
    Maybe. Probably. That thought had bumped around his head for a few days now. It pissed him off to be treated like a pawn, but didn’t change the end result. “The point is, I know she’s not an axe murderer, or a raging alcoholic. She’s beautiful, and we enjoy spending evenings together. Monica travels so much for her family’s business I’ll barely notice we’re married. Nothing much will change.”
    “That isn’t a marriage. You practically sound like a gigolo.”
    Even though he sort of felt like one, Kyle didn’t like Caitlin drawing the comparison. “Hey, I haven’t done more than peck her on the cheek.” He didn’t think Monica was a prude. And he sure liked sex as much as the next guy. Her hotness was unquestionable. But they’d never clicked on that level. Probably because every date with her did feel more like a networking event.
    “And again, I ask why? Why do it?”
    He set down his coffee and scooped up a handful of snow. The art of packing the perfect snowball would distract him from all the churned-up mishmash of feelings that erupted whenever he thought about his decision to propose.
    “You know about Dad’s lung cancer diagnosis. Sure, he’s getting chemo and radiation, but it isn’t a cure. It means instead of dying in two months, we might get a whopping two years with him. He wants me to do this. He expects me to step up and finally do my part for LTS Industries.” The lump in his throat made it hard to talk, so he tossed back a burning gulp of coffee to wash it down. “It would finally make him proud of me.”
    Caitlin tipped her head sideways to rest against his. A few soft-as-a-cloud strands of hair brushed against his cheek. “Oh, Kyle.”
    So much empathy weighed down those two words he literally felt them press against his heart like a hug. She knew how he’d striven for his father’s approval for years, to no avail. So far, he’d had about as much luck in that department as he would trying to hold back the entire defensive line of the Chicago Bears with his pinkie.
    “Yeah. Think about it. For my entire life, he’s called me a disappointment. Even once I joined the company, he called me a brainiac desk jockey. And that was on a good day.”
    Righteous wrath popped her head back up and sparked her eyes. “For goodness’ sake, you are the brains. The security side of LTS practically folded before you came along and rejuvenated it. You head up the whole department.”
    The security division had come into LTS via his dad’s third marriage, or rather, thanks to the machinations of his dad’s divorce lawyer. Dad saw it as payment due for putting up with a wife who left him after only a year for her personal trainer. But it left a bad taste in Kyle’s mouth that continued to this day. “Yeah, well, ex-fighter pilots respect gumption and action. If a job doesn’t rev your adrenaline, it isn’t worth doing. Writing lines of computer code to make a security system unbreakable doesn’t impress Dad.”
    Caitlin sipped her cocoa. “So why not have Craig do it? Marry the favorite son off instead?”
    Craig was