Unwrapping Mr. Roth Read Free

while to get here.”
    “Well, that explains the delay, but how do I merit special treatment?”
    Nick leaned down and opened a drawer. “Because you are special. And, of course, it doesn’t hurt you’re lovely to look at. That’ll serve me well.”
    “Are you kidding me? I don’t generally like to be mentioned in the same breath as the word serve .”
    “I don’t kid about much of anything. Who has time for it?” He closed the drawer and dropped a file folder onto the top of his blotter. “What’s the point beating around the bush?”
    She gripped her chair arms tightly and gaped at the man, not sure if she should stand and storm out or tell him off.
    He was giving her that same sultry stare as before, and her brain was at war with her body.
    That come-hither stare of his made her want to straddle him where he sat—proprieties be damned—but she was at a job interview because she needed money. She needed to be professional, even if he wasn’t going to be.
    She cleared her throat. “Just out of curiosity, what is the position I’m interviewing for?”
    “Can I call you Gill? Isn’t that what your friends call you?”
    She furrowed her brow. “How do you know that?” For all she knew, a couple of her peers had interviewed earlier in the day, but she couldn’t imagine any good reasons she’d be brought up in an interview.
    “I know it for the same reason you’re in my office and not in the cubicle maze down the hall where everyone else gets interviewed.”
    “And that reason is?”
    He shrugged and passed his hands over his ears. The points were pronounced again.
    “Wait—”
    “You were staring earlier. It seems the glamour doesn’t work well on you.”
    “Th-the glamour ?” she stammered.
    “The magic that obscures my appearance.”
    She nodded and swallowed hard. “Oh. Right. Magic.”
    Sure thing, bub.
    She clutched her purse to her chest and grabbed her coat from the chair arm. “Well, thank you for your time. I don’t think this is going to be a good fit for me.” She walked quickly to the heavy wooden door beside the curtained windows behind the desk and pulled it open, assuming it led to the strip mall’s back lot.
    A gale-force wind knocked her onto her ass. A blizzard raging outside was blowing precipitation around forcefully, and she would have sworn she saw a dwarf in pointy-toed shoes being tossed around.
    “There’s someone out there!” she shouted. “And it’s snowing! Why the hell is it snowing?”
    It’d been fifty-five degrees outside when she’d trotted up to Agnes’s counter, and there hadn’t been a drop of rain or a flake of snow anywhere in the forecast.
    The dwarf grabbed a hold of a column in the walkway nearby and held on until he could try again.
    Nick slipped in front of her and pushed the door closed against the howling wind. Then he knelt down and met her at eye level.
    She pointed at the door, wide-eyed and wordless.
    “Welcome to the North Pole, Miss Wright.”
    She tittered, rolled up one sleeve of her sweater, and pinched the flesh of her forearm.
    Nothing changed, except for the fact that had freakin’ hurt, and all she had to show for the pinch was a new bruise.
    Nick pulled her up by the waist and guided her to a chair.
    She dropped onto it the moment the backs of her knees touched the cushion, and whimpered unintelligibly. “Snow…out there…and ears point…”
    “Would you like a cup of coffee, Miss Wright? Or something sweet, perhaps?”
    She gave her head a shake and forced a swallow down her tight throat. “I—I don’t understand what’s happening.”
    He dropped a manila folder onto her lap along with a pen embossed with Santa Incorporated. “I haven’t had to use those in twenty years. Better to be safe than sorry.”
    She looked down at the file and opened the cover to find about twenty pages of legal garbage. The best she could tell, anyway. Her head was a mess and eyes were crossing, but she was pretty sure it was some sort