The Boss's Christmas Seduction: Unlocking her Innocence / Million Dollar Christmas Proposal / Not Just the Boss's Plaything. Lucy Monroe

humbly. She paused in front of a fifteen-foot-tall conifer with a model shape and dense branches that skirted it almost to the ground. ‘That’s definitely the one.’

      Vito marked it with the paint and set down the tin to ram his chilled hands into the pockets of his jacket, standing tall and braced into the wind clawing his black hair back from his darkly handsome features. ‘That was quick.’

      ‘It’s a classic … oh my goodness, it’s snowing!’ Ava carolled, hurrying into the clearing open to the sky to raise her hands to the fat white flakes floating slowly down.

      Vito watched her chase snowflakes, her bright blue eyes intent against her breeze-stung complexion, her vibrant copper hair anchored below a cream woollen hat. She had no thought of what she might look like, no concern that he might laugh at her. She was as uninhibited in her enjoyment as a child, her enchantment etched in her face with an innocence she had yet to lose. Seeing that vulnerability disturbed him, put him in mind of the fact that even her family had rejected her. It was the belated acknowledgement that her family lived only down the road that prompted him to say, ‘I think it’s time you visited your family.’