Her Little White Lie (BWWM Romance)

HER LITTLE

WHITE LIE

A  BWWM Holiday Romance By..

CJ HOWARD

Summary

“A Little White Lie Never Hurt Anybody...”

Holiday season is fast approaching and Grace is dreading it. With no immediate family she is going to be expected by her boss to work on Christmas day.

So she tells a little white lie to get out of it. She gets her white best friend Mikey to pretend to be her fiance and announces she will be spending Christmas with him.

The plan works and Grace is given time off. However, as the interracial couple spend more time with each other, one of them begins to develop romantic feelings for the other. Could this little white lie be a lie that tears their friendship apart?

Copyright Notice

CJ Howard
Her Little White Lie  © 2014, CJ Howard
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

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*

ALSO BY CJ HOWARD

SEDUCED BY MR BIG STUFF

Harvey Mann has it all. Good looking, Wealthy, Intelligent and he can have any woman he wants.
Well almost any woman that is...
Stacey fails to see what other women see in him. She sees him as an arrogant player who is totally in love with himself. He is the type of man she was warned by her mother to stay away from.
However, fate eventually brings her and Harvey closer and Stacey begins to discover his more sensitive side which leads her into discovering exactly how Harvey got the nickname of “Mr Big Stuff”....
Is Stacey set to become yet another notch on Mr Big Stuff's bed post or is there something more to this relationship? Furthermore, has Mr Big Stuff finally met a woman who can actually challenge him?

START READING THIS NOW!

Contents

Chapter1

Chapter2

Chapter3

Chapter4

Chapter5

Chapter6

Chapter7

Chapter8

Chapter9

1

“Hey, what are you guys up to now?” I asked them.

It was 6 am. I arrived, tired and freezing, at the hotel and made my way down to the locker room. The Chipm
u
nks, as I call them, were already up to no good. Known as The Chipm
u
nks because they were off-the-scale
and
mischievous whenever they were on a shift together. But as individuals, Ramon and Damion were pretty nice guys.

“Shh, Grace.” Ramon put a finger to his lips. “We're breaking into Rico's locker.”

I knew I shouldn't have stayed around to ask questions, but my shift wasn't due to start for another fifteen minutes.

“You know he can press charges, right?” I
asked
them. “And what are you two hoping to find anyway?” I took off my coat but it was too damned cold in that locker room for me to lose the hat and scarf just yet.

“We got to wondering,” Damion said, “how come that quiet dude, with that slicked back Ricky Martin hair, got him so many pairs of expensive shoes. They all shiny, they got them leather soles and shit. And damn, he on the same wage as us. Where he find the money?”

“Maybe he's got two jobs,” I said. “Maybe he doesn't spend all his cash on women and booze like you guys.”

“Correction, Grace,” Ramon cleared his throat. “That's
fine
women and
expensive
booze.”

“My point exactly.”

I was about to leave but Damion managed to pry open the locker. He started drawing in breath and not releasing it, his voice all high pitched and surprised like he just won an Oscar. I looked inside Rico's locker too. There were two pairs of five inch pumps; one patent red, one with crystal buckles. A pair of suspender belts, Chanel No. 5 and three pairs of black, silky stockings.

Weeks later Rico left the hotel after expressing his disgust over the break-in and the fact that management didn't fire the Chipm
u
nks. Turns out Rico is now Ronda and he works at another hotel across town as a chambermaid. I also heard the tips were better.

But a chambermaid was how I first started out at Great West International Hotel. I was sixteen and it was only supposed to be temporary so I could save up and put myself through college. I left Boston hoping for a fresh start and thinking I'd have better opportunities in New York. But having to be out there on my own, fending for myself and trying to make ends meet, I never made it to college.

I worked hard and got promoted, stepping up a rank each time and, after six years, I was offered a job on reception. Front of house, baby. But I'm still down with my 'behind the scenes' buddies. When I was a chambermaid we used to make fun of the front-line crew and they looked down their noses at us.

But I loved to be at reception, I met all kinds of people every day and when it wasn’t too busy, I got to do the thing I loved the best. Reading.

I could totally lose myself in a book and forget where I am. It gets me into lots of trouble, especially when my mind starts w
a
ndering to all those far off places I read about.

It was in the run up to that particular Christmas, that something compelled me to read all the Holiday stories I could find:
A Christmas Carol
,
Miracle on 34th Street
,
Little Women
. You name it, I read it. Only trouble with that was it got me feeling nostalgic.

How I could have felt nostalgic over Christmas, I have no idea. You see, I had
not had
a traditional Christmas Day. I had no idea how to celebrate the holidays because I never got the chance.

Mom died when I was real little and Dad worked all hours to feed me and my brother Tommy. My Dad was dead set against the whole family Christmas bit. He didn't even like it in a small way. I guess it had a lot to do with him not believing any more, you know, since Mom passed and everything. So he never bought us Christmas stockings or dressed up as Santa and he never came to the nativity pageant at our school.

I suppose that rubbed off on Tommy and me and if it didn't, we made a good job of pretending to be the only kids in our school to not like Christmas. When Dad died, our Uncle Zeek moved up north to stay until we became old enough to look after ourselves. He must have been the only atheist in the whole of Bible belt country, because when he moved into our house in Boston there was just no way we'd be putting up a tree or stringing popcorn around it, either.

Since coming to New York and living on my own, I found myself incapable of finding the holiday spirit and, as I'd never been used to it, I still never bothered with Christmas. But after reading those books I wondered, what would it be like?  What would it be to stay up late, hang stockings up, leave a glass of milk and a cookie out and wake up the next morning and find presents under a tree that I got to decorate? And what if I had Christmas dinner with a family, ate a roast bird with dressing and pumpkin pie for dessert? What if?

“Grace!”

My supervisor was standing beside me at the Reception Desk. I didn't know for how long, for but her hands were on her hips and her glasses were sliding half way down her nose.

“Are you day dreaming again, Grace Danvers? What if I had been a guest?”

“I'm sorry, Miss Poole, it won't happen again.”

“I'll have to stop you keeping a book under the desk, it really is getting too much.”

“I know, Miss Poole and I'm really sorry. You wanted me?”

“Yes, I'm just finalizing the holiday schedule and confirming you'll be working Christmas Day as usual.”

“Christmas Day?”

“Yes, you remember Christmas Day, Grace. Every year, December 25th, without fail.”

“Er, no, Miss Poole, I'm doing the traditional Christmas Day this holiday so I'm not free.”

“You're not?”

Now let me just freeze frame. You know and I know that was a lie. I don't know why I said it.

Whether it was to wipe that grin off Miss Poole's face or if I genuinely believed that this year I could have a normal Christmas, I don't know.

She looked at me like I was a freak, turned to walk away, and then came back.

“This leaves me in a very awkward situation, Grace,” she said. “Everyone has a family and everyone wants to be with them on the holidays. The schedule goes crazy and I'm left pulling my hair out trying to arrange cover. A hotel like this can't run itself.”

“I know, Miss Poole, but I've worked every Christmas since I’ve been here and this year I've got family commitments, I'm sorry.” The lies just poured out.

She went to walk away and then returned once more.

“Incidentally,” she screwed up her eyes real tight like she was trying to thread a needle. “Since when did you acquire a family?”

“It's my boyfriend's family.”

She raised an eyebrow, expecting me to justify what I was saying.

“My fiancé actually.”

That needle still wasn't threaded.

“His mother is a devout Catholic and she insists on midnight mass and everyone around the table for the Christmas.” I lifted my hands to show how helpless I was in the situation. Luckily, the wonderful Mr. Iglesias, who moved into one of the suites every holiday while visiting family, came to reception.

“Ahh!
La Bonita
, Grace.
Buenos tardes
.” His cheeks were round and his smile was so warm.

“Mr. Iglesias, you out for your afternoon stroll?” I asked, taking his room key from him.

I always had time for Mr. Iglesias and he always had time for me. He called me
La Princesa Negrita
, The Black Princess. It had a ring to it. We'd been friends six years.  He wore a brown fedora and a thick, beige wool coat with a cherry-colored scarf tucked in at the neck. He carried a walking stick too, but he always seemed to walk fine to me.

“So, you have some special plans for Christmas Day?” he said, nodding towards Miss Poole, who was still hovering around. “I'm glad to hear it. And with a good worker such as you, always sacrificing her holidays, it would be a shame if the hotel would deny you one year,” here he held up a chubby forefinger, “to celebrate with your family.”

“Oh, we value our workers,” Miss Poole said. “Of course Grace will have the time off. I just need to go and make a few adjustments.” She patted her schedule. The needle must have been threaded because her eyes were back to normal size and, if I wasn't mistaken, she even smiled at me.

Mr. Iglesias winked and tipped his hat before heading for the revolving doors across the large marble foyer. The doormen loved Mr. Iglesias because he was a good tipper. In fact, all the staff loved him for that. But for me, he was the darling old gentleman whom I had the good fortune to spend some quiet moments and intelligent conversation with. I learned all about his farm in

Argentina. He told me about the gauchos, about the wars and, because of him, I was almost fluent in Spanish, which is what helped clinch the receptionist job for me.

It was six thirty in the evening and my shift was almost up. If I came off work in the early evening, then Mikey would come by the staff entrance of the hotel to meet me. My best friend, Mikey, was from my home town in Boston. He worked in construction and had a job not far from the hotel. He'd been at that site over a year and we had this arrangement to meet and take the subway together. Otherwise I'd see Mikey weekends or evenings or just whenever there was time. Sometimes we'd text each other or speak on the phone, just to see how the other one is doing. Mikey never said much but he had a good sense of humor and he always knew how to make me laugh.

Mikey and I had been friends since school in Boston. He was a year older than me. He had seven brothers and sisters and came from a very Catholic, Irish family, all with varying shades of red hair. Mikey was what I'd call a strawberry blond but he hated that term. We lost touch when he went off to college for a few years so he could waste time and end up becoming a builder – like his father. It was the last thing his father ever wanted him to be.

“Son,” he used to say about his work, “the winters are cold and the summers are hot and when it rains it rains.” Loosely translated, what he meant was, no matter what the weather you'd be outdoors, working your butt off, walking the scaffolding on a skyscraper, and carrying loads on your back, when you could be inside an air-conditioned office. But Mikey didn't listen to his father.

Since he worked at that site, all I ever heard was Mikey complaining he got sunstroke and when it got to winter, he complained that his balls had frozen.

It was four years ago that Mikey walked back into my life. I just bumped into him outside a market in New York. I had no idea he'd moved here and he didn't know I was here either. The great thing was, we'd taken up being best friends again like we were never apart.

I grabbed my thick coat from the locker room and I noticed Miss Poole hovering around the staff entrance. She was cautioning Damion about his scuffed shoes but at the same time she seemed to be looking over the top of her glasses at me. Through the glass door of the staff entrance I saw Mikey. He was blowing into his hands and rubbing them together. All of a sudden I had a plan. I held open my purse for Security to check inside as usual, but Duke always just waved me through. I slipped out and before the door could close behind me, I called,
“
Mikey, oh Mikey!” He turned around, puzzled and I rushed to kiss him, full on the lips. I figured ten seconds ought to do it.

“What are you-” Mikey said when he could breathe again. My back was to the door but I knew Miss Poole would be watching.

“Say nothing but act like you know me terribly well,” I whispered to Mikey, still grabbing his cheeks between my hands.

“I do know you terribly well,” he mumbled through a squashed face.