Title Page

When You Least Expect It

Haley Cass

Copyright

Copyright © 2020 Haley Cass

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 9781234567890
ISBN-10: 1477123456

Cover design by: Art Painter
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

First and foremost, thank you to Regina for being endlessly patient while I obsessed with this for months. To Kate, Elizabeth, Sam, Isadora, and Shelley, this story would be in such worse shape without you all reading it and screaming about it/at me throughout the process of creation. And finally, this wouldn't exist without Monica - because you challenged me that I couldn't write a love story in twenty thousand words and clearly... you were onto something.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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Afterword

About The Author

Books By This Author

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i

Caroline Parker has never been a believer in Christmas magic.

Growing up, her brother Todd had blown the whole Santa secret wide open so early she couldn’t even remember believing in it. They usually had relatives come to stay with them, meaning that Caroline ended up sleeping on an air mattress in her brother, Jared’s, room – who still snored to this day. When her grandparents had been alive, they hadn’t even been allowed to sleep in or relax, because they had to be in a mad dash to get ready for Christmas morning mass.

That’s not to mention that her first girlfriend had broken up with her the day they started Christmas vacation. Happy holidays.

And now, as a divorce attorney, she gets to see firsthand how the holidays wreck families. Just like clockwork, divorce rates spike by a third every single year, making it her busiest season. All of the financial stressors and forced time together – tidings of comfort and joy, indeed.

The list goes on and on.

Needless to say, she doesn’t expect her life to change on Christmas Eve.

***

She knows she shouldn’t stop for coffee.

But, damn it, she’s only just left the office, even though due to the holiday she was supposed to have it off. She’d thought she would have all morning to lounge around and relax before being able to leisurely make her way to her parents’ house for the annual holiday dinner at five.

And perhaps she has a bad habit of running slightly late – but this year it isn’t her fault!

Instead of her relaxed day, she’d been dealing with what was one of the ugliest divorces she’s ever had the pleasure of litigating. Becoming one of the city’s top divorce attorneys didn’t happen to people who refused to work during emergency meetings, though, no matter the day.

Really, it was Christmas. So, what did she expect? She’d naively thought that because Amanda had broken up with her – read: cheated on and left her – two weeks ago, her holiday bad luck for the year was used up. Clearly, she should never underestimate the evils of this time of the year.

She grimaces as her foot is suddenly soaked in a cold, wet puddle that she hadn’t noticed from an earlier snowstorm that is now melting – so much for a white Christmas.

“Season’s greetings, in-fucking-deed,” she mutters as she shakes her foot out and opens the door to the café, that one last thing going wrong today making the decision for her. Coffee or bust.

Of course, it’s decorated to the nines with garlands and Christmas lights and there’s I’ll Be Home For Christmas playing over the speaker. The large specials board is decked out with an admittedly well drawn Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on the side, making it look like he’s speaking the specials aloud.

The gaudy decorations make her grimace.

Still. She didn’t even have lunch and, honestly, she’s already going to be late for dinner – a cardinal offense to her mom, just her Christmas luck – so, she may as well get herself something to help get through the amount of ribbing she is about to get from her brothers.

It’s already starting; she has texts from Jared and Brian informing her that their mother is going to carve her rather than the roast when she arrives. Ugh, good lord, she hasn’t even considered how many questions and comments she’s going to get about her breakup.

If she is going to be carved and interrogated, then she is going to go down fully caffeinated.

“Can I get a –” The rest of her order falls away in surprise as the barista turns around. Ash blonde hair that’s tied into a high ponytail swishes over a slim shoulder and a pair of distinctive stone gray eyes meet her own.

The very last place she expects to see Hannah Dalton is serving coffee in a hipster-y café in downtown Boston.

Then again, it isn’t like she’s thought about Hannah in the last year. Much. Not since she left Wilkens & Granger LLP, given that she’d only known her as her previous coworker’s wife and all.

Needless to say, she hadn’t kept in touch with Michael Dalton – formally known as her arch nemesis – since he’d beaten her out to become partner. Based on his gender, family connections, and taking most of the credit for the work she’d done on a shared case.

But because of their connection through work, she knows exactly what Michael gets paid. And it is far too much for his wife to be working in a coffee shop on Christmas Eve while she has a daughter at home.

None of your business.

Caroline shakes her head when she realizes she’s staring. “Uh, sorry. Can I get an extra-large caramel macchiato?” She pauses, thinking about her mom’s wrath. “And a large chai latte.”

Her mother will soften slightly at that – Tricia Parker has a secret love for chai lattes. She’ll say something about how Caroline can’t butter her up, but it will be through a smile. And, hopefully, will soften even more at the spa weekend she’s going to give her as a Christmas gift.

Being the youngest child and the only girl with three brothers still has some perks, even at thirty-four.

Hannah nods and gazes at her for a beat longer than Caroline expects, eyes wide, before she shakes her own head – Caroline guesses she isn’t the only one surprised by the turn of events. “It’ll be nine eighty-five.”

Caroline gives her a twenty, before slipping the remainder into the tip cup as Hannah turns to start making her drinks. Which is nice, because it gives her the opportunity to do what she really wants to do – stare unrepentantly.

Hannah’s eyebrows furrow slightly in concentration as she performs some sort of barista magic and Caroline’s dark eyes watch her closely.

There’s a smattering of freckles over the bridge of her button nose, her pink lips pout in thought, and she’s wearing a gray button up shirt under her black apron that has the top few buttons undone enough that she could see the outline of her collarbones.

Yep, she hasn’t actually seen Hannah in just about a year, since the last Christmas party at W&G, but she is still as gorgeous as ever. Unfairly so, because even the visor emblazoned with The Bean Dream on it does nothing to detract from it.

Hannah shakes back her hair and looks at her, catching Caroline staring. She can feel her cheeks heat slightly but oh well.

She offers a small smile. “So, how have you been?”

Perfect white teeth dig into a full bottom lip, eyes searching Caroline’s. Searching for what, she has no idea but she does wonder, before Hannah dips her gaze back to the macchiato. “As well as can be expected.” She rolls her eyes. “No, a little better than that.”

It’s only in that moment that she remembers: last year’s holiday party, right before she’d left W&G. And Michael had been caught with his pants down – literally – with his secretary about halfway through the evening. Shit.

She clears her throat, wondering what exactly she should say about it, even as the divorce attorney in her wondered – what kind of crap settlement had Hannah gotten that left her working here?

“Sorry, I…” Totally forgot what must have been a super humiliating, terrible experience for you?

Hannah waves her hand as she shakes her head. “It’s – well. It is what it is.” She blows out a sigh, and the little hairs that have escaped her ponytail to settle around her visor move with it. “How are you doing? You went to another firm, right?”

Whew. “Yeah. McGregor and Associates. After…”

Normally, Caroline is not a tongue-tied person, nor is she someone who doesn’t finish her sentences. But what she wants to say is after your son of a bitch husband and/or ex-husband bad mouthed me for years and stole my promotion and, well, she and Hannah don’t exactly have that kind of rapport.

She lets out a relieved breath when her phone rings, even though it’s most definitely her mother calling to yell about her tardiness. Saved by the bell.

Perfect timing too, as Hannah swiftly caps both drinks. Both cups, she now notices and wants to roll her eyes at, have fake cartoon Christmas lights on them. Of course. Why wouldn’t they? Can’t drink coffee out of the normal cup during the holidays.

She holds up her phone, as both excuse and apology. “My mom. I should…”

Hannah doesn’t slide her drinks over just yet but she nods. “Yeah, of course! Take it. I’ll just – label the drinks real quick.”

Her mom is already talking when she answers and Caroline grimaces. Oh yeah, it is going to be a fun dinner. She cradles the phone under her ear as she reaches to take a drink in each hand.

Merry Christmas, she mouths at Hannah before she waves with a drink in her grip – which looks awkward. But it’s too late to stop herself.

It makes Hannah quirk her a smile, a nervous looking one though, she thinks, before she offers a little one back.

Weird. So weird.

***

“I’m here! Sorry, sorry.” She pants as she runs into the dining room, grateful for the perpetually slightly-too-warm temperature of her parents’ house in Mission Hill warding off the chill from outside.

All eyes are on her – two parents, three brothers, two sisters-in-law, four nieces, and two nephews, all seated at two tables stuffed into the small dining room – as she places the chai latte next to her mom and swiftly bends down to kiss her cheek. “Sorry, ma.”

“Auntie Caroline’s finally here! We can eat!” Her youngest nephew, Connor, shouts and she shoots him a playful shhh.

“I had to go in for an emergency meeting with a client,” she explains, even though she’d already texted her dad as much hours ago.

“What sort of emergency meeting does a divorce lawyer have to get to?” Her brother, Todd, grumbles not-so-quietly, even as his wife, Margot, elbows him.

Apologetic yet light mood easily dropping in the face of her brother’s grumpiness – cops and lawyers were just not made to get along – she keeps a tight smile on her face and pointedly ignores him.

“It took you so long that Melissa claimed your seat at the adult table,” Brian, her oldest brother, informs her with a teasing smile, gesturing to his twelve-year-old daughter sitting next to him.

Melissa sticks her tongue out. “Now you’re stuck at the kids table.”

Caroline sticks hers out back and places her macchiato next to the empty setting at said kids table. “Joke’s on you, this is my preferred table.”

She braces her hands lightly on her two nephew’s heads as she settles down between them, squeezing herself into the spot that is definitely not meant for an adult sized person. “Sorry for making you wait. I have gifts that are so going to make up for it,” she promises them with a wink.

Buying forgiveness: one of the perks of being the cool, single aunt.

Five minutes into dinner, her mom clears her throat loudly, pulling Caroline’s attention away from her niece. “Caroline, I have to ask you…”

She leans back from her table, and a fork of mashed potatoes halted as she turns to look at her mom. There’s a smile on her face that tells Caroline she is about to be teased, even before it happens.

Satisfied that she has everyone’s attention, her mother lifts her chai latte up. “Who is Hannah and why is her phone number on my drink, asking for me to call her? Is this related to why your girlfriend isn’t joining us tonight?”

As everyone breaks out into teasing laughter, the fork slips from Caroline’s hands and clatters back to her plate.

What the hell?

***

As the clock strikes midnight and Christmas Eve officially turns to Christmas, Caroline sits on the couch in her own condo, staring at the cup.

Her mom hadn’t been seeing things, as was the first thought she’d had earlier.

Nope, right there on the cup, ten digits are scrawled right underneath Call me. Please. – Hannah Dalton

She isn’t going to call – nothing good ever comes of something that starts on this particular day and she knows it.

***

Coincidentally, the first time she ever met Hannah Dalton was at a holiday party.

It was her first Christmas with the firm and she’d walked into the rented venue with more excitement than a company party warranted. But damn, was she feeling really fucking happy with herself, after having been scouted by Wilkens & Granger only a year out of law school, after working at a much smaller firm.

It was a typical boys club in the higher up circles, the same as many old school firms still were. But Caroline wasn’t daunted by that fact and mostly everyone seemed pretty decent to work with. She’d been actively assured by multiple people that she could bring her “girlfriend or partner or wife” with her to the party.

Not that she had one to bring, given that her girlfriend had broken up with her. A week and a half before Christmas. She scowled – of course.

Anyway. It was a good party. W&G pulled out all the catering and decoration stops, holiday music blasting from the speakers. And Caroline found herself behind the refreshments table, with a deadly combination of not having eaten all day and a serious weakness for cookies.

“Are you enjoying those?” A soft voice asked from her left, surprising her.

Caroline turned quickly and presently choked on the cookie she’d been chewing. The most stunning blonde with gunmetal gray eyes that captivated her on the spot stood a few inches away with a small smile on her lips, as she gestured at the collection of frosted sugar cookies on Caroline’s plate.

She’s a few inches taller than Caroline, in a floor-length pale gold dress that shimmers and makes her seem like she herself is glowing. She’s completely spellbinding, it’s the only word that comes to mind.

After a few moments of embarrassing gaping, she managed to swallow the food in her mouth before she coughed. “I’m – yeah, they’re actually amazing. And this is coming from someone who normally doesn’t love sugar cookies in spite of,” she lowered her voice conspiratorially, “A serious love affair with both sugar and cookies.”

A charming flush worked over the woman’s cheeks. “I won’t tell anyone. But as the person who made them, I’m feeling pretty pleased.”

Staring with what she knew was akin to amazement, she looked from the woman to her plate and back. “You made these? I assumed it was all catered…”

The small smile morphed into a bigger, beaming one and with it, Caroline’s stomach dipped into butterflies. An answering grin tugged at her own lips.

“Most of it is, actually. But I’m on the event council for the firm and I just figured… why not contribute a bit?”

“You’re contributing terrible things to my self-control.”

“I think this time of year is just about when everyone’s self-control takes a dive.” The blonde shot back with a mock-whisper.

A flirty remark was on the tip of her tongue when Michael – who had behaved like a total jackass from day one: going from hitting on her, to barely veiled homophobic comments when she’d told him she was gay, to bitterly fighting her for cases every day since – came walking toward them.

She rolled her eyes, good mood already soured, and prepared to step between this woman and this asshole. Because she was positive there was going to be some sort of snide remark about sexuality or a crude one about the mistletoe, especially based on the angry glare in his eyes.

Without taking his eyes off of her, he stepped up way too close to the blonde. “Hannah, dear, what are you doing with Caroline?”

The plate almost slipped from her hand in shock. Hannah, aka likely the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen, was married to Michael Dalton?

Those mesmerizing eyes widened in surprise at her name. “You’re Caroline?”

It shouldn’t matter what Michael Dalton went home to his wife and said about her. But she could only imagine the litany of comments he had behind her back, given what he said to her face. And, damn it, it did bother her.

Her smile turned purposefully icy as she addressed him. “Your wife isn’t allowed to make her own friends?”

“Right. Friends,” he sneered, eyes narrowing as he wrapped an arm around Hannah’s waist, who stepped dutifully against him.

Yikes and nope.

A whole slew of comments wanted to come out directed toward him but she held them back, as she typically did. Not worth it.

“Happy holidays,” she instead forced out, rolling her eyes. She figured Michael was the type of person who got annoyed at happy holidays vs Merry Christmas.

She flicked her eyes to Hannah, who seemed so easy to read only moments ago, and was now giving her a very guarded look. Of course, the universe saw it fit that this physically perfect woman was 1. Married to Michael and 2. Seemed to be not so perfect on the inside. No doubt sharing the same kind of shitty opinions as her husband.

Another small thing to add to her Christmas grievance list: the most gorgeous woman she’s ever felt any sort of instant vibe with, and it turns out she’s married to her nemesis.

Turning to walk away, she tossed the cookies in the trash.

***

She isn’t going to call, she tells herself again the next morning as she stares at the ceiling while lying in bed.

Hannah… well, she’s seen her more times than she can count over the seven years she and Michael worked together. More parties, different events, the odd day that Hannah was at the office to drop something off. And while she’s never been rude or derisive the way Michael often was, she wasn’t friendly, either. Not after that first time, anyway.

There’s really no evidence she’s seen for her to think anything substantial about Hannah, other than that her libido likes her. And Caroline has never acted solely on the decisions that her libido wanted, knowing that they will often be bad for her heart.

She calls Kris, her best friend since college, to share the news as she gets ready to go to Jared’s house.

And Kris, predictably, finds it all both hilarious and shocking. “Mrs. Bitch Office Hottie gave you her number?!”

“I guess it’s ex-Mrs. Bitch Office Hottie now,” she corrects, clipping her hair back the brown wavy strands falling to her shoulders. As soon as it was going to get.

“I honestly don’t know what to say… except, you can’t call her.” Kris informs her.

“I’m not!” She hesitates, frowning. “But. Why not? I thought that you thought my moratorium on dating was stupid?”

Actually, fucking ridiculous were the actual words Kris had used when Caroline had seen her a few weeks ago and had told her the news.

“It is stupid, because you are a gorgeous, successful, brilliant woman and thirty-four is too young to give up on love just because you’ve had a few pitfalls.”

“A few pitfalls,” she deadpans.

She thinks back over the last ten years – she can’t even remember the amount of people she's dated. But out of the three women she’s had a relationship with for longer than three months – all less than a year, though – they’d crashed and burned. And typically in ways she never saw coming. Which somehow made it suck even more.

Even Amanda, when dumping her a few weeks ago, did so by unceremoniously telling Caroline she wasn’t going to move in with her after all, and had met someone new that she just “connected” with, she’d decided that was it. She needed a break from trying to find someone.

“If you have a moratorium on dating, you’re always going to be lonely.” Kris acutely points out.

Because, the thing is, as much as she likes to pretend she isn’t, as much as she puts on that brave face whenever her mom asks when she’s bringing someone home, Caroline is lonely. She never thought she would get to her mid-thirties and suddenly look around to see that two out of three of her brothers are married, all three of them have kids, and all of her friends are at the very least in long term relationships, too.

It’s lonely to see what feels like everyone put together this piece of their lives that Caroline wishes she could find the secret ingredient for, herself. To her family, friends, and co-workers, she hides it very well, this yearning to find it. But Kris knows better.

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