“Remember to make Chloe’s a virgin,” Dev said.

“Got it.” Luke caught a sweet look between his brother and Chloe, who palmed her barely swelling stomach, and his heart squeezed again. Well, damn. His brother had lucked out in the love department, too, and the woman he loved was pregnant with his baby. It’s not that Luke hadn’t been in love. He’d been in love thousands of times. He had a way with women. In fact, seducing women was his one and true talent. But he’d never experienced the bone-deep forever love Rocky felt for Jayce or Dev felt for Chloe. Although he’d felt a glimmer of something different, something special a couple of months back with Rachel Lacey. He thought about their one ill-fated kiss, the sizzle that had damned near singed his senses, then immediately shoved that mystifying woman from his mind. Rachel had been a mistake and she wasn’t even a possibility. The woman had skipped town and had moved on to wherever. Rachel was history. Jayce rapped Luke on the shoulder as he strode toward the kitchen.

“Right. Candy Cane Cocktails for six—one virgin. Let’s do this. I assume I’ll need candy canes,” he said to Jayce as they sailed through the dining room. “What else?”

“Crème de menthe. Cranberry juice. Here’s the recipe Daisy gave me.” Jayce slapped a folded page from a magazine into Luke’s hand as they breached the state-of-the-art kitchen. “I located Rachel Lacey.”

Luke stopped cold. His brain zapped. His heart jerked. “I thought you gave up.”

“I only told you that so you’d stop hounding me for an update twice a day.”

“I didn’t—”

“You did.”

Jayce had years of experience in law enforcement, first as a cop with the NYPD, then as a successful private investigator. Now he ran a cyber detective agency and Luke had hired him to find Rachel Lacey. Two freaking months ago.

“The reason she was so hard to track,” Jayce said, “is because when it comes to hiring someone to create a false identity, Rachel can afford the best.”

“What are you talking about? Rachel lived on a shoestring.” She’d dressed in frumpy clothes and she’d driven a beat-up car. When she’d lost her job at the day care center, Luke had hired her as a waitress. She was desperate for the work, desperate for money. She’d said so. “I need the money, Luke.” Her shy, anxious gaze haunted him … sort of like that sizzling kiss.

“Maybe you should sit down.”

Heart thudding, Luke dragged a hand through his shaggy hair. “Is she dead?”

“No.”

“Dying?”

“No.”

“Hurt?”

“She’s alive and well in Bel Air, California. Her name is Reagan Deveraux. She’s a trust fund baby. An heiress. As of tomorrow, her twenty-fifth birthday, she’ll be a millionaire.”

Luke blinked then snorted. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Jayce shook his head.

Luke gawked. “That’s screwy. That’s … impossible. You’ve got the wrong girl, Jayce.”

The PI plucked his iPhone from the pocket of his leather jacket, thumbed through bells and whistles, and then showed Luke an image of Reagan Deveraux.

Holy … It was Rachel, but it wasn’t.

Luke leaned back against the kitchen counter, willing starch into his legs and air into his lungs. “What the hell? Why the ruse?”

“I don’t know.”

“She lived in Sugar Creek for almost a year,” Luke said. “She was a member of the Cupcake Lovers. A beloved teaching assistant at Sugar Tots. She was shy and awkward and freaking mousy. That chick in the picture, that’s not mousy, that’s … that’s…”

“Hot. I know.” Jayce raised a brow then thumbed something else on the screen. “I can’t tell you why Deveraux pretended to be someone she wasn’t, but I can fill you in on her background. I downloaded the report. Here. You can read—”

“No, you read it.” Luke pushed off the counter, nabbed a cocktail shaker from the cabinet. “I’ll make Gram’s cocktails.” Trying to read all that information … the letters would dance and swim in front of Luke’s eyes and he’d end up staring at the screen looking like an idiot while he tried to get the words right in his head. Jayce didn’t know Luke was dyslexic. No one knew. His family thought he’d beaten his reading disability when he was a kid. He’d just learned to hide it, to fake it, really, really well. Only one person—Rachel—had seen through his polished ploy and he had no idea how. It’s not something they’d ever discussed. But in his gut he knew she knew.

“I’ll hit the highlights,” Jayce said, scrolling through his screen.

Luke nabbed ice cubes, cranberry juice, and the liquor. Bracing for the details on Reagan Deveraux, he mixed up the holiday cocktail without one glance at the recipe. He’d been a crack bartender for years. He could wing it.

“Her father, now deceased, was a tycoon. Her mother, a B-list Hollywood actress, has remarried three times since. Seems to have a type.”

“Stinking rich?”

“You got it. An only child, Reagan was raised in a privileged environment,” Jayce went on. “Private schools, lavish vacations. Rich and smart. College educated, with a master’s in education.”

The more Jayce revealed about the trust fund baby, the more Luke felt like a fool. When he thought about the strife Rachel had caused between him and his cousin, Sam.… When he thought about the way she’d abandoned the Cupcake Lovers in the midst of their big recipe book publishing deal … the way his sister and the other Cupcake Lovers had fretted over her disappearance … the nights Luke had wrestled with guilt and worry …

“Dammit!” Luke exploded just as Rocky poked her head into the kitchen.

“Everything all right in here?” she asked.

“Just mixing up some Christmas cheer,” Jayce said.

“Fa-la-freaking-la,” Luke said then passed the chilled shaker to his sister. “Fill martini glasses with this and garnish the rims with candy canes.”

“Where are you going?” Rocky asked as he stalked toward the back door.

“To solve a mystery.”

TWO

Bel Air, California

December 24

Reagan Deveraux nibbled on a Godiva truffle bar, hoping sweets would offset her sour mood. Later she’d indulge in cupcakes—delectable homemade mocha fudge with peppermint buttercream icing or maybe dark chocolate with an espresso ganache. For now the gourmet candy she’d filched from her mother’s Tiffany decanter would have to do. Unfortunately, Rae was three-quarters through the creamy bar and the mood-elevating effects had yet to kick in.

She eyed the ritzy candy jar.

In order to get through the next couple of hours, she might have to chase this truffle bar with that chocolate salted almond bar.

On the other hand she wasn’t sure her waistline could bear it, especially since she was definitely set on making and treating herself to those decadent cupcakes. She’d even bought a special bottle of Red Velvet wine as her beverage of choice. A sinful combination, but what the heck? It was, after all, her birthday.

Her twenty-fifth birthday—a legal and financial milestone.

As of today, Rae was a millionaire.

Whoop-de-flipping-do.

Finishing off the truffle, she sighed and shifted from the snow white leather club chair to the snow white leather sofa in yet another attempt to find comfort in her mother’s luxurious Bel Air home. The furnishings were sparse and expensive. The decorative accessories tasteful, bordering on sterile. Not one area of casual clutter. Even the holiday decorations were meticulously arranged.

Classical music played softly in the background, compliments of a new stereo system, hidden away somewhere—otherwise Rae would’ve dialed up a livelier playlist. Instead, she endured the stuffy music while scrolling through real estate listings on her iPhone and fantasizing about cupcakes and better times.

She’d spent the past year living a simple life in Sugar Creek, Vermont. Then the last two months driving across country sorting through jumbled emotions and bracing for the future. She’d only been back in California and living under her mother’s roof for three days, and it was two days too long.

Anxious, she glanced toward the grand stairway, wishing her mother and stepfather would dress a little faster. Rae had been ready for an hour. The sooner they got this evening’s pretentious holiday dinner over, the better.

“Bah humbug.”

There. She said it. She’d been thinking it all day. Rae had never been a big fan of Christmas. Mostly because it had never lived up to her expectations. As an only child of a celebrity socialite who preferred the limelight to home life, Rae had spent a good majority of her childhood keeping company with her very own TV. Holiday programming highlighted the importance of family and friends, the spirit of giving, and the magic of believing.

Rae had never lacked for presents, but there’d been no festive activities with family. No gathering around the piano to sing carols. No sleigh rides, no tree trimming, no baking of holiday cookies. Oh, there’d been decorations, but her mother had hired a company to trick out whichever mansion they were living in at the time. And there’d been parties, but they’d been the Hollywood kind or the business-related kind, depending on which man her mother had been married to, and certainly none were the kind that welcomed kids.

Christmas Eve had always been Olivia Deveraux’s night on the town, bouncing from one glitzy party to another. Never mind that Christmas Eve was also her daughter’s birthday. Surely the fact that Rae got presents that day in addition to Christmas morning was celebration enough.