Charlotte Ashwood - Escaping Christmas

Eager to escape her memories of Christmas past

Angie has left snow and mistletoe far behind to spend the holidays in exotic Kuala Lumpur. The last thing she’s looking for is romance, but it’s hard to ignore Alex Farhadi, the sexy, mysterious man next door. Unable to resist their mutual desire, Angie allows herself to indulge in a passionate vacation affair. She has every intention of returning to Boston—alone. But as her time with Alex runs out, Angie can’t imagine facing the New Year without him.…

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This book is dedicated to my husband. For giving me a safe place from which to write, for your encouragement and for babysitting the kids while I ran off to write in coffee shops. Thank you my love.

Charlotte always wanted to write romantic stories. She's a sucker for a happy ending and spent a good deal of her time in law school matchmaking for her friends and acquaintances.

She's married to her dream man and they have three children. When she's not busy writing, Charlotte likes to travel with her family and experience different cultures.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Angie stepped out of the elevator, staring eagerly at the take-out container of Baskin-Robbins ice cream in her hand, and promptly tripped over her own feet. For a fraction of a second she registered the fact that her ice cream was not going to survive the fall before she bumped into something hard.

“Oomph!”

“I’ve got you.” A sexy voice reached down and caressed her as she felt strong, muscular arms breaking her fall.

“My ice cream!”Angie couldn’t hide her relief as she caught the container before it hit the ground. What was that scent? She inched closer so she could get another whiff. Hmm, smelled like spice. There was a woodsy aroma there, too. And he definitely smelled like a man. She inhaled again and almost jumped when he let out a sexy chuckle.

“I promise you, I wash regularly. I’ve even been known to take a shower on occasion.”

Her face flushed with embarrassment, Angie stiffened and realized she was still in his arms. She took a step back and felt strangely bereft when his arms fell away. “I’m sorry, I’m quite clumsy,” she said, looking anywhere but at her rescuer, trying to figure out why her pulse was racing.

“Hey, no sweat. It was entirely my pleasure.”

She lifted her head then and stared into the sparkling brown eyes of her next-door neighbor. She frowned. They had met a couple of times around the elevator, and something about this man, with his roguish good looks and curly black hair, had always rubbed her the wrong way. Probably because she kept wondering what it would be like to kiss him, and images of him naked kept flashing up at unwanted times. She needed to extricate herself from this situation if she didn’t want him to see that those images had begun flashing once more.

“Well, thanks, anyway. I need to go.” She fidgeted with her purse strings while carefully holding on to the container of ice cream. Realizing how ungracious she sounded, Angie sighed, and before she could stop herself she blurted out, “I don’t mind sharing this.” She lifted the container slightly.

His eyes widened, and for a second he looked like he was going to say yes, but then they clouded with regret.

“I would love to, but I need to be somewhere else. I’ll take a rain check.”

That was when she took in the fact that he was dressed in a tailored shirt and what appeared to be designer jeans. He looked ready for a night out. The tightness in Angela’s stomach eased a little, and she couldn’t hide her relief. She’d regretted her impulsive offer almost as soon as she’d made it.

“No problem. Thanks for saving my ice cream.” She turned to leave.

“Wait!”

Damn. She’d almost escaped. Slowly she turned back to face him, one eyebrow lifted in inquiry.

“What’s your name?”

“Angie Scot.”

He closed the gap between them. “I’m Alex Farhadi.”

He stretched out a hand and waited till she reluctantly placed hers in his. Her skin tingled where their palms touched.

“I meant what I said about taking a rain check,” he said slowly, looking straight into her eyes.

Angie gazed into his eyes and felt her stomach give a slow flip. That was not a good sign. First the tingle, now a flip? She was beginning to get warning signals, the big, blinking, neon-colored kind. His eyes were doing funny things to her, too. They were deep pools of caramel, and he was looking at her intently, as though she were the only woman in the world. Of course, she was the only other person standing there, just outside the elevator. At that reminder, she blinked and realized her hand was still enveloped by his much larger one. She tugged gently, and he let go immediately, but her hand still retained the warmth of his.

“I’ll be seeing you around, then.” He flashed a smile at her.

Not if she saw him first, she decided. But she just shrugged and nodded. “Sure.”

She felt his eyes on her as she turned and walked the short distance to her door. While she searched her purse for her keys, she risked a glance behind her and was slightly disappointed to find he was no longer there. She had not heard the elevator, and she knew it was because she had been preoccupied by lingering thoughts of a pair of brown eyes. Well, not exactly brown. More like liquid gold. Even now, she was thinking about them, and that irritated her to no end. She had not come to Kuala Lumpur to think about men, no matter how gorgeous they were. She finally located her keys and let herself into her apartment. Who needed men when one had ice cream?

Several days later Angie walked into the Starbucks just around the corner from her apartment building. The cool air in the café was a welcome relief from the hot sun outside. Even though it was only 10:00 a.m. the heat was almost unbearable. It was the first time she had ventured outside her apartment in three days. She had spent the time writing, thinking about her life and trying not to think about her brown-eyed neighbor. She had not seen him again, but he’d made his presence known. A container of ice cream had been delivered to her door with an A scrawled in a rough man-script on a tiny card.

It was a small gesture, yet it had had a profound effect on her. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had done something nice for her. Well, apart from Elizabeth, her mother-in-law, but she had a guilty conscience to assuage.

“What can I get you, ma’am?”

She blinked at the smiling barista and her mind went blank. After a few seconds of scanning the menu, she went with the first thing that caught her eye. “Hi, I’ll have a caramel latte.”

Now why on earth had she ordered that, she wondered to herself. She didn’t even like lattes, for crying out loud…and caramel? She knew who she had to blame for that choice.