Hearing soft footsteps, Adora turned toward the man she assumed was her new employer.

"Bishop Nicholas?" Adora asked as the door shut softly behind her. The bellman, who had grown increasingly nervous as they approached the suite, hadn’t waited for a tip. He had dropped her off and then fled.

A man with silver hair and wearing a dark Armani suit paused for a moment in a shaft of sunlight that had sneaked in back of the velvet drapes and then started for her. His long legs ate up the distance between them. And with every step, his stunning features grew clearer. Her first incoherent thought was that he was the most radiantly beautiful creature she had ever seen.

"Only in my public life. Please, call me Kris. Kris Kringle. It’s a bit of a joke." He offered his hand and a long unblinking gaze along with a half-smile.

Up close, his eyes were a shade of silver blue that she had never seen. They invited her to step into them and drown.

"That would be Kris with a K?" she asked accepting his hand and allowing their fingers to touch briefly. Adora felt a bit stunned and as though the earth had spun off its axis. If he were looking for a reaction to his touch, he got one. She didn’t gasp or swoon, but Adora felt the sudden flush of color that rode in her cheeks. If he was paying attention, even in the dim light he would also notice that her pulse was gratifyingly unsteady -- presuming that he was hoping she’d be disconcerted by sudden attraction for a stranger -- and a very strange stranger to that.

"Naturally with a K. It makes for excellent visual alliteration."

Adora reluctantly dropped his hand and took a half-step back. She forced herself to form a more complete -- and hopefully more realistic-- impression.

On second glance, her would-be employer’s face was rugged and experienced rather than beautiful. And it wasn’t so much youthful as ageless and very mobile. His voice was as flexible as his face, though at the moment better controlled and directed at her with some as yet unrevealed purpose.

His hair was silvered and long enough to touch his shoulders, but it didn’t have the texture of grayed hair, but rather the gossamer quality of a baby’s tresses. She was willing to bet that this was the same shade of hair he had been born with. It was impossible to guess his age.

The brows above the startling silver-blue eyes were dark, a sharp contrast to the locks that framed his face, and they swooped backward giving him an eternally quizzical expression. The body beneath the striking face was lean, well dressed, and moved quickly and efficiently, eminding Adora of a cat, one of the lean hunting types.

His voice wasn’t feline though, she thought as he spoke again. That was pure dark magic -- sugarplums and chocolate and every type of delicious sin. Combined with the unblinking stare, it made her feel like she was slipping into a hot spring on a snowy February night. She didn’t know how it could be when she was usually immune to male charms but Adora admitted, at least to herself, that this man was exerting some sort of psychic gravitational pull on her mind and body. Charisma. She had met people who had it before, though never to this degree.

Her second thought was that he was the most unlikely looking Santa she could imagine. There had to be some mistake.

If she was guilty of staring a bit too hard, then so was he. She would like to think that it was because he was equally stunned and attracted by her person, but doubted that was the cause. She had been ill for several months -- perhaps a last present from Derek, the lying rat bastard -- and though she had put a lot of the lost weight back on, Adora knew that the only thing really striking about her was her golden paleness. Unfortunately, illness hadn’t made her appear fragile and cuddly -- the hollows under her cheeks could almost qualify as caves, and her limbs were boney and angular. Instead of a waif, she looked a bit like an anorexic Valkyrie.

"But of course you aren’t. And I’m not fond of lying myself." Kris smiled fully, making himself twice as charming. He added gently: "I don’t mean to be rude either, but you’re staring awfully hard. Have I got something caught in my teeth?"

"I’m looking for wings or halo," she said defensively, embarrassed at her lapse in manners and hoping he wouldn’t notice her tripping pulse. "Is it a great effort to hide your saintliness from the world? Or do you just have a good tailor?"

"Wrong legendary creature. I never claimed to be an angel, only a saint. If you recall your childhood literature, you will note that my appearance supposedly ran more to red suits and reindeer."

"So you’re sticking to that story? You are Santa Claus."

"Oh yes -- absolutely. And that’s the one I want you to tell. Didn’t your agent explain? I asked Pennywyse to be explicit about the project." His smile was hard to resist. It made even the unreasonable seem possible -- even probable. Perhaps this project would work as a book on tape. If he read his own book, he could hypnotize the audience into believing him.

"Pennywyse?" she asked, unable to focus on very little accept his voice.

"My assistant. He called you agent and arranged for you to come here."

"Ah." Pennywyse was one who had given Ben the wrong number. She supposed that she owed the man. Adora sighed and heard herself saying out loud: "They’ll throw me in the nuthouse, you know. If I do this."

Kris shook his head and smiled slightly.

"No, they’ll want to throw me in the nuthouse. You’ll just be branded as an exploitative, publicity-hungry kook who took advantage of a mentally ill person."

"Which is much better," she said dryly, though she was both gladdened and surprised that he understood and admitted to the likely consequences of their actions. He might be crazy, but he wasn’t stupid. So one point for Kris with a K.