They were not in the same tax bracket. Not even close.

“Let me find you a place to sit,” he said. “It’s too nice an evening to be rushing around.”

She sensed he didn’t do a lot of rushing. There was something relaxed and laid-back about him.

And gorgeous. Let’s not forget gorgeous. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Would you like a drink?”

After which he’d likely vanish as quickly as he could. It was nothing personal, she knew. She just wasn’t the sort of woman to keep a man like this interested for long, though she spared a second to wish that for once she could act like her mother’s daughter. That for once she could simply go after whatever she wanted.

Because what she wanted was a chance beneath the mistletoe, if only for a moment…“So why aren’t you out there having fun? Drinking or dancing, or…” As was its habit, her tongue ran away from her brain. “Or making the most of that mistletoe?”

His eyes lit with good humor, and that dimple flashed. “Maybe I don’t have someone to make the most of it with.” He glanced out at the party, and behind his back she smacked herself in the head. Making the most of that mistletoe? Had she really said that?

When he looked at her again, she forced a smile.

“So, about that drink.”

“Yes, thanks. Anything,” she said, allowing his escape.

But not hers. She was doing this. No matter what. She was going to forget about Perfect Stranger Guy and make nice here if it killed her, no matter how much she really hated these silly get-togethers her mother was always having thrown in her own honor. Tonight, it was to celebrate her latest catch, her fourth-or was it her fifth?-fiancé, and Sandra had insisted her daughter be present.

Well, here Dani was, even though she actually could be having her own celebration because she’d finally gotten promoted today, from mammal keeper to head mammal keeper. Yay her. But her celebratory carton of ice cream would have to wait, and with Perfect Stranger Guy heading to the bar for her drink, she limped through the lobby to make her appearance.

The building was new, all steel and glass, with a wall of windows looking out onto the tarmac, lined with million-dollar jets. Beyond that, an incredible view of the LA nighttime skyline. The place belonged to Sky High Air, a luxury jet service to the stinking rich, and these days her mother was indeed as stinking rich as they came, a far cry from the trailer park they’d started out in.

As Dani hobbled along, trying to look like she fit in, she took in more than her fair share of curious glances. Yeah yeah, so she didn’t have a spare pair of Choos in her trunk and her hair was out of control, so what. She was here to support her mother, not to have a bad high-school flashback.

But just like high school, the few guys who glanced her way looked right through her like…like she was a nobody.

Nice to know that she was still registered so high on the desirable scale.

Except not.

Okay, maybe the shoes and hair mattered, at least to these people, who’d probably never had a bad hair day in their collective pampered life. Feeling more than a little off her axis, and a whole lot clumsy and unattractive, she forged ahead. She could do this. She could smile and make merry, and as a reward, later, she’d plow through that carton of Ben & Jerry’s.

Determined. That’s what her epitaph would read. Ahead of her, her mother appeared out of a circle of people, moving with all the elegance and grace that she hadn’t passed on to Dani. As one of the most wealthy, powerful women in the area, Sandra Peterson had a reputation to uphold, and she knew it. After all, she’d married up the ladder, several times, trading husbands for upward rungs as she’d gone.

Well, Dani had gotten that determination from somewhere.

As usual, Sandra’s dark hair had been carefully coiffed, and unlike Dani’s, remained firmly in place, framing a gorgeous, well-preserved face. The smile seemed real enough, which surprised Dani, considering Sandra had been telling people her daughter was just a little crazy-her mother’s way of accepting their differences in lifestyle.

Her mother was flanked by her stepsiblings from a previous marriage to some Italian count. Tony and Eliza were in their twenties, both dressed to the hilt, with noses tilted to nosebleed heights. Since they’d inherited God only knew how much from their father and rarely spoke to mere mortals including, maybe especially including, Dani, she looked at her mother first. “Hello, Mother.”

“Darling.” And to her surprise, Dani received an air kiss in the region of each of her cheeks.

Tony and Eliza smiled, though Dani could only call it such because they bared their teeth. Maybe their purse strings were too tight, choking them. Or maybe they really disliked her as much as she imagined they did. Most likely it was lingering concern over their trust funds, which were so huge they couldn’t have spent all their money in their lifetimes. Or in their children’s lifetimes.

Or their children’s children’s lifetimes…

Once, a year back or so, Dani had suggested the two unemployed socialites go into philanthropy. They’d stared at her blankly, mouths open so wide Dani had practically seen the hamsters running on their wheels inside their brains.

Give away money? they’d asked in horror, having never once in their lives been strapped for cash. Why would they give money away…?

When their father had gotten cancer and had revealed he planned on leaving Dani a share of his estate, people had been shocked. But then he’d died without finalizing his new will. The probate court had given everyone eighteen months to make a claim against the estate, something Dani had never even considered doing. She made her own way in the world, always had. But until the eighteen months were up, people were waiting for her to make a move, whispering about her, thinking she was odd to say the least for not wanting the money.

When she greeted her stepsiblings, their lips barely curved, not a single laugh line or wrinkle in evidence, making them a walking Don’t ad for Botox.

Meanwhile, Sandra was giving Dani and her appearance the eagle eye. “Go ahead, Mother. Have your say.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d come, seeing as you hate me these days.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Soon as I got rich, you disowned me.”

If that wasn’t a twisting of the facts to suit the woman. But then again, her mother was the master of twisting things to suit herself. “I simply asked you to stop controlling me with your newfound money. And then you reacted by disowning me.”

“Controlling you with my money?” Sandra shook her head and sipped her champagne. “Honestly.”

“That was honesty.”

“Okay, yes, fine. I’m guilty. I admit it. For you, my daughter, I wanted the right clothes, the right college, the right job-”

“There’s nothing wrong with my clothes-”

Her mother sniffed. “That dress is at least four years old. Not to mention off the rack.”

Five years old, but who was counting. She was just grateful to still fit in it. “And Cal Poly was a great college.”

“Please. With your grades, you should have gone to Harvard.”

“They didn’t have a zoology program.”

“Yes. And I know how important it is for you to play with your elephants.”

Ah, there it was. Dani pinched the bridge of her nose and drew a deep breath. She was a mammal keeper. Head mammal keeper now, which still meant a pathetic salary but she didn’t care. She was doing what she loved, what she’d always dreamed of, and she wouldn’t apologize. “Look, have a great evening. I think I’ll just go.” And for once she was going to make an exit on her own terms. Turning, she ran smack into a solid brick wall.

Or the chest of a man.

He was holding two drinks, or had been holding, along with a sort of lazy wicked smile that spoke of a confidence such as she’d never experienced, and as she plowed into him, the champagne flew out of the expensive-looking flutes and right on her, splashing down the front of her off-the-rack, five-year-old little black dress.

Her mother gasped.

Dani’s Perfect Stranger Guy swore and began to apologize, setting down the flutes, gesturing to a waiting server for assistance, but she backed away.

She didn’t need assistance. She needed a lobotomy for thinking she could come here and even partially fit in. Waving good-bye to her mother, nodding to the man she could happily look at forever but hoped to never see again, she moved away, more carefully this time, searching for her most direct escape route.

The iced champagne down her front made breathing difficult. Or maybe that was just humiliation choking her. Pulling her soaked dress away from her torso, she grabbed her own flute from a passing server and tossed it down the hatch as she hobbled on. There. Maybe that would help bolster her spirits.

And maybe Santa would really visit this year.

Just ahead, in front of the coat check where she’d left her coat, two women glanced at her, then back at each other, exchanging a look.

It didn’t matter what the Paris Hilton clones thought, she told herself. She was far more than anyone here saw. She knew it, and repeating it to herself, she passed them by without stopping to get her coat, forcing her head high, smile in place. It wouldn’t have fooled the mammals she trained, and it wouldn’t have fooled a single one of her friends, but it would fool people here in the Land of Fake Smiles.

At the front doors, her fake smile faded as she stumbled to a halt.

It was raining. Not just raining, but pouring, huge buckets of water falling out of the sky, hitting the pavement with such velocity the drops bounced back up again, nearly to her knees.