Her Pretend Christmas Date: A Lesbian Christmas Romance Read online

  Her Pretend Christmas Date

  Alexa Woods

  © 2020 Alexa Woods

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Also by Alexa Woods

  About Alexa Woods

  Description

  What happens when a fake Christmas date turns into the real deal?

  Laney

  Laney Sterling has worked her butt off to succeed in the cut-throat photography industry and has no plans of slowing down for anyone or anything. Too bad, her mom didn’t get the memo and regularly bombards Laney with requests for grandbabies. When her mom promises to stop nagging for a year if Laney brings a date to her brother’s Christmas wedding, Laney agrees. A fake date, one night of deception for a year of peace? Yes, please!

  Morgun

  Morgun Hewat knows exactly who Laney Sterling is— the bitch who stole Morgun’s dream job. OK, so stole is an exaggeration, and if Morgun is honest, Laney isn’t a bitch, but a tough, hard-working, and gorgeous woman. Not that Laney is attracted to Morgan. No, not at all. The only reason Morgun agrees to be Laney’s fake date is to get a foot up in the photography industry. Nothing more.

  A win-win situation. A practical deal. Zero emotions involved. Until the actual date. Because when sparks fly between the two women, Morgun has to decide how hard she’s willing to work to melt the walls around Laney’s heart. As for Laney, for once, she’s not so sure that choosing her career over love is the right choice.

  Will a Christmas miracle happen and bring these two women together?

  Don’t miss this fun, feel-good, steamy, lesbian Christmas novel!

  Chapter 1

  Laney

  “I’m going to die a shrivelled up old woman before either of my children give me grandchildren.”

  “Mom! I’m barely thirty. And Jason is thirty-two. We have lots of time yet.”

  “Shrivelled! If I’m not, you will be soon enough. Thirty isn’t the new twenty. All these new age women, that’s who’s ruining it for the rest of the world! They’re the ones that make having a baby at forty or even fifty popular so that everyone wants to do it. What about their poor parents? They have absolutely no consideration for them! They’ll be dead before their children have offspring. You’re going to wind up an ancient old spinster just to spite me. I know it.”

  “Mom!” Laney Sterling pushed away the pumpkin pie she’d been working on. Suddenly, she had no appetite, even though her mom’s pie was her favorite.

  “What?” Helena huffed. She set her arms on the table and eyed Laney with a piercing mom look. The kind that could shrivel a person in their seat.

  “This isn’t the eighteen hundreds,” Laney sighed. “Don’t you know that the word ‘spinster’ is seriously last century?”

  “Last century or not, it’s fitting,” Laney’s mom replied, punctuating her words with little stabs of her fork in the air.

  “It’s not fitting. I turned thirty just two months ago. Give me a break! I have a career. I’m happy with it. I don’t want a girlfriend, and I certainly don’t want children anytime soon.”

  “A career!” Helena screeched. “That’s what everyone says now. You know that being a stay at home mother is a full-time job. Worse than a full-time job! No one ever gives mothers any credit.”

  “I know. That’s why I don’t want to be one.” Laney grabbed her half-finished plate and raced towards the kitchen. Unfortunately, her mom followed like a braying hound from hell nipping at her heels.

  “What would be so wrong with dating? You could have a career and date. You’re actually in the unique position that maybe your partner would want to stay home with your children while you worked. She could even have the babies.”

  “Jesus, Mom. Nothing like using someone else’s ovaries and womb for your own purposes.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that!” Helena snatched the plate out of Laney’s hand, scraped the leftover pie into the garbage, and rinsed both plates under the tap. “I just mean that maybe it’s the part about having them that you’re so afraid of. I know you don’t want to stop taking people’s pictures and all that, but maybe someone else could make you happy and would want children, and you’d love her enough to have them with her.”

  “Mom! Please. I don’t just take people’s pictures. I have a good career. I make good money. I love what I do, and I worked crazy hard to get where I am. I got good breaks when I needed them. I made a name for myself, and I don’t want to just quit on that.”

  “Like I said. She has the babies. She stays at home.”

  “Can we please not talk about this anymore? Why don’t you ever harp at Jason to pop out a kid? He’s the one getting married in a week. You never once said a thing about him getting married at Christmas and how much extra stress that is for everyone. Look. You’re already baking pumpkin pies!”

  Helena ignored the barb about the timing of Jason’s wedding. “Because Jason isn’t my daughter and Natasha would think I’m a crazy mother-in-law if I told her that she needed to start having babies before I wither up.”

  “You are already completely gray…”

  “And whose fault would that be? Hmm?”

  Laney ignored that and leaned her hip on the kitchen counter next to the dishwasher, just so her mom couldn’t open it without telling her to move. She wasn’t exactly on point with the gray hair and neither was her mom. It certainly wasn’t Laney’s fault. Or Jason’s. Their mom had been completely gray before she even finished college.

  “Can I point out what a seriously gross double standard you have?”

  “I’ll give you seriously gross!” Helena charged past Laney with the dishes in hand. “Move your butt.”

  Laney bit down on her lip and laughed inwardly. Outwardly, she didn’t make a sound. She scooched over a couple inches away from the dishwasher. She watched while her mom stacked the plates onto the bottom rack in precise rows. Everything she did was always so neat and tidy.

  When she’d asked Laney to come over to discuss something about Jason’s wedding, she should have known she was walking into a trap. Helena had also promised pumpkin pie, and it wasn’t anywhere near Thanksgiving anymore. In fact, it was the middle of December.

  Helena s
lapped the dishwasher closed and straightened. “Promise me you’ll bring a date to your brother’s wedding.”

  “Sorry. Nope. I already marked down that I’m flying solo.”

  “Someone else will cancel! It won’t matter. The dinner is a buffet style and they don’t have a seating plan. Just promise me that you’ll try. I’m worried about you. You haven’t dated anyone in years!”

  “Career. Busy. Trying to make it in a super competitive industry. Remember?”

  “Yes, I remember. How could I forget? Your photos are all over the place. Magazines. Billboards. Bus stops. Everyone knows who Laney Sterling is, but that’s not giving me grandkids any faster, is it?”

  “Mom, I know what you’re getting at. You’re worried that I’m going to spend all my life working and miss out on the best years and my chance to find someone and be happy. You’re worried that I’m going to stay single until it’s too late and then I’ll have tons of regrets. It’s not too late. There is no such thing as too late.”

  “Your ovaries say otherwise.”

  “My ovaries are just fine. Anyway, I could always get a younger partner in my dotage and force the bearing and raising of children on her then, right?”

  Helena ground her teeth. “You always have to mistake what I’m saying. Twist it.”

  “No, Mom, come on…” Laney begged, seeing now that her mom wasn’t just joking anymore. She was upset. She hated to see her mom look exhausted. She hated to see the defeat in her eyes. Laney pivoted and took one of her mom’s hands in her own. “I know you’re worried about me, but I’m going to be fine. I promise. I’m happy being single. I don’t have time for a partner, even if she did want to have kids. But it’s coming. I’ll find someone and I’ll get married and have a family. I won’t be so busy that I have all these regrets at the end of everything. I swear to you.”

  “I don’t have to worry about your brother. He’s been with Natasha for years. They’re getting married. They’re planning on starting a family soon. I know that he’s happy.”

  “Mom, I know you were a stay at home mom. I loved that. I loved that you were always here. I loved that we had a snack after school and a hot supper every night. I loved that you made us eat breakfast in the morning. You were always there to help us with anything we needed. You played with us. You taught us so much. You were the best mom in the history of moms. I can’t imagine growing up any other way, I really mean that. But I also am serious about what I’m going to say next too. I’m not belittling the choices you made. I’m very, very grateful that you made them. I’m just saying that it’s not for everyone.”

  “How can you say being a mother isn’t for everyone? You’re a woman!”

  “Ugh. Here we go again.” Laney dropped her mom’s hand and turned away.

  She stalked off into the living room to grab her purse and keys. They’d had this argument a million times in the past few years. It was like the big three-oh was seriously threatening to her mom. Like she thought Laney was a bomb just ticking down to ovary implosion or something. She couldn’t stay and talk about this, because her mom wasn’t going to listen to anything she had to say. They were just going to end up in a fight, and she seriously hated fighting with her.

  Most of all, she hated that she felt like her mom was disappointed in her.

  “Laney! Laney!” Helena screamed out the front door as Laney charged to her car. “If you bring a date to your brother’s wedding, I promise I won’t mention any of this again for at least a year.”

  “A whole freaking year?” Laney spun around and gaped.

  Helena nodded solemnly. Her mom might be many things, but she felt that lying was just about the worst affront in the whole entire world. If she had her word on that, then it would be worth trying to scrounge someone up.

  “Yes. A year.”

  “Fine,” Laney ground out. “Bringing someone will be worth the peace.”

  “You can’t bring a fake date. It has to be someone you’re truly interested in. A real date!”

  Her mom must think that real dates grew on trees. Like Laney would just reach up and pick one off and beg her to come to her freaking brother’s freaking wedding so her freaking mom would stop freaking begging her to get freaking married and have freaking children.

  “Fine.” Laney turned and kept her head down until she got to her black sedan at the end of the driveway, but then she forced herself to turn and wave at her mom and blow her a kiss.

  Corny? Yes. Cheesy? Totally. Never leaving mad? Worth it.

  Her mom taught them a long time ago to not leave the house angry. A person never knew what could happen out there on the road and no one wanted a fight or heated words to be the last memory someone had of them.

  Laney always considered herself fairly resourceful. Creative. Innovative. Her personality, her drive, her natural talents, were part of the reason she was so successful. She could employ that creativity and innovation to other areas, couldn’t she? Dating sites or a dating app?

  Whatever. She was above going to the bar and trying to con someone into going to her brother’s wedding. The only way she was going to find someone in a week was to pick some dating sites, sign up, and just go for it.

  A whole year of peace would be worth the humiliation a thousand times over.

  Chapter 2

  Morgun

  “This is not going to work. I don’t need a social life. I’m perfectly happy working myself to death and being incredibly lonely on nights that all my friends are busy with their significant others. It’s okay. I can die all alone, without a family to love. I’ll be fine.” Morgun Hewat could always hope that her best friend would just drop the whole dating thing, but it was clear she wasn’t going to be swayed.

  Chelsea rolled her blue-gray eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re never going to meet someone if you don’t even try.”

  “I have tried. It didn’t work out.”

  “You broke up with Cheryl over a year ago. It was a mutual parting because you guys never really clicked. You’ve never really clicked with anyone. You’re twenty-six and you’ve never fallen in love.”

  “Yes, I have!” Morgun protested. She could feel her face heating up.

  “No, you haven’t. Don’t argue with me. We’ve been friends since seventh grade. I know you. I can see that just about everyone you’ve ever dated hasn’t been right for you.”

  “Okay, that’s not true!”

  Chelsea let it drop. Both women were sitting in front of Morgun’s laptop on the desk in her living room. As usual, it was cluttered with work paraphernalia so that only a little square of the desk space was usable. Chelsea had come over for girls’ night, brought a bottle of wine, and promptly declared that no, they weren’t going to watch some sappy romance movie or go out and shop. They were going to find Morgun a date.

  She had been talking to Chelsea for months about maybe giving an app or an online dating site a try, but it was more to placate her friend than anything else. Chelsea met Dave, her boyfriend of three months, online, and they were doing really good. So good that it made Morgun aware that she was lonely.

  She’d buried herself in work to the point where she didn’t even have time to date, but watching Chelsea find someone perfect for her, watching her best friend fall in love, made her long for something more than her empty apartment and endless hours of work. Plus, it was almost Christmas. So, in a moment of weakness, she’d let Chelsea make a profile for her on some online dating site. As soon as it was done, Morgun wanted to undo it. She was having serious second thoughts about the whole process.

  Meeting someone the traditional way, at a bar or something, was out of the question. Morgun always hated the trying. The trying to meet someone. The trying to pretend she wasn’t crazy nervous on the first date. Trying to make it work when it clearly wasn’t. Her whole life she’d felt like she’d been trying and not getting anywhere. When Chelsea suggested making her a profile a few weeks ago, Morgun caved because she knew she’d never hear
the end of it otherwise.

  Chelsea had indeed made her a profile and shown her how to use the site, but since then, she’d purposefully avoided going on and checking her messages or looking through profiles. It all seemed like a lot of work for something that just wouldn’t work out. Maybe that was why people died alone. Maybe that was how people became workaholics and hermits. Because dating really sucked.

  Chelsea flicked on the laptop and brought up the dating site. She logged in with Morgun’s information and shook her head when she saw that none of the messages in the inbox had even been opened. Instead of giving Morgun a lecture, Chelsea just populated the search with what she saw as Morgun’s ideal type, or at least age range, and the fact that she was looking for a female partner, and hit search.

  Morgun cringed. She had no idea how narrowing it down that way would lead to someone she’d be interested in. They were going to be doing this all freaking night when what she really wanted to do was watch a movie and drink a few glasses of wine and not talk about her woefully lacking love life.

  “Oh my God, no way!”

  Morgun’s hand shot out as a picture slid past on the screen. She angled the laptop in her direction and clicked on the photo and leaned in to get a better view. It wasn’t a good photo—grainy, low light, features intentionally obscured—but there was no mistaking the dark, glossy hair, the sharp, stunning features, or the piercing dark eyes. A wave of shock rolled through her like soundwaves travel through a person standing too close to one of those huge speakers at a club. She could feel it clatter up her backbone.

  “Who’s that?” Chelsea asked, popping her gum annoyingly. She leaned further into Morgun in an effort to get a better look. “Do you know her?”

  “Know her? This is the…I won’t use the b-word to describe her, because that’s really impolite, but this is the…woman who got the job instead of me.”