Jennifer Labrecque - Mistletoe Madness

He traced the line of her bare shoulder, his touch sending tingles through her. “Umm.Terrifying. All these years I thought I could make the decision not to care about people, not to let them close to my heart. And then you came along and I found out free choice doesn’t exist when it comes to love. The only control we have over it is what we decide to do about it.”

“Excuse me, but did you just bumble your way around a declaration of love?”

“Ladies first. Did you just snark your way through an admission of being idiot-brained?”

“I think I may have.”

“Coward.”

“I am not a coward. Ducking out of work and ditching dinner wasn’t cowardice, it was an inept attempt at self-preservation. Okay, I have a feeling you’re going to shamelessly use this against me, but, yes, I do love you. Satisfied?”

“I’m getting there.” She suddenly saw what made much more sense than where she’d been going all along. Cole obviously wasn’t on the best terms with this family. He spent Christmas with his sister but not his father or his mother. He’d worked at Connoisseur for almost a year, and never in that time had she heard of his father revisiting Mr. Creighton. “Your father didn’t get you the job at Connoisseur, did he?”

He shifted to his back, one arm beneath his head, seemingly at ease except for his wary eyes. “What makes you say that? And what difference does it make?”

“All this time I thought you’d just waltzed into a job the rest of us had to work our butts off to get.”

“Yours came back. And very nicely, if I do say so.”

“Oh, no, you’re not going to sidetrack me. Your father didn’t get you the job, but he was there and he did meet with Mr. Creighton.” She considered the type of man who would let his new wife-or, as was apparently the case, wives-allow his children to feel unwanted. “He didn’t want you to have this job, did he? That’s why he met with Mr. Creighton-to try to keep you from getting the job-isn’t it?”

He sighed. “No, he didn’t want me to have the job. And, yes, he’d told me if I insisted on working in publishing, it could at least be for a publication that he thought worthy. He had connections and he’d make sure I had a position with the Wall Street Journal or a job as a foreign correspondent if I wanted the travel aspect. I didn’t want to work for the Journal. So he paid Douglas Creighton a visit to try to dissuade him from hiring me. Luckily Creighton thinks every man succeeds or fails on his own merit.”

“You let us all think…”

“No. You thought what you wanted to think.”

“But you could’ve told us…”

“No. I learned a long time ago, people either know me and like me for who I am or they don’t.”

“Your stepmothers?”

“Yep. And stepfathers.”

She recalled his attitude toward Parker Longrehn. He wouldn’t give Parker the satisfaction of knowing he could affect his life. There were many more layers to laid-back, devil-may-care Cole Mitchell than she’d ever suspected. Or maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe she’d suspected it but hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. Maybe she’d hidden behind resenting his job because it had kept her safe from the attraction she’d felt from their first encounter. If she didn’t like him, then she couldn’t possibly fall in love with him, right?

Except she had.

“I would insist on dragging you along to Connie’s house, except her munchkin has the chicken pox. Since we seem to be stuck with one another for Christmas, why don’t we go to Corfu?”

“What? Why?”

“Because it’s there and we can. I want to go there with you. Christmas in Corfu has a nice ring, doesn’t it?”

“But…” She couldn’t come up with the rest, she just knew it didn’t feel right. “I hadn’t planned to go to Corfu.”

“Neither had I. But then again, I didn’t plan to fall in love with you, but it strikes me as a very good thing.”

“I love to travel. But, you know, it’s always scheduled. Anticipated.Part of business. I’m not packed. It’d cost a fortune. And who would watch for Mrs. Abramonoff’s pears?”

He smiled, and if she hadn’t been watching so closely she might’ve missed the flash of disappointment in his eyes. He leaned over and kissed her on her nose. “It’s fine, babe. I don’t really care where we are as long as I’m with you. And at the risk of coming across as an insensitive man, I’m kind of hungry. I missed lunch today and my dinner date stood me up.” He grinned at her. “Mind if I heat up that chicken soup? Considering you’re ill, I’ll be glad to bring you a bowl in bed.”

“Works for me.”

Cole padded out of her bedroom and she heard him rustling around in the kitchen. She should be ecstatic…well, she would be ecstatic if she hadn’t seen that quickly masked moment of disappointment in his eyes.

She had a lifetime of warm holiday memories surrounded by a family that adored her. Cole had been shuffled from one parent to another, and wanted by neither. Had anyone ever asked him what he’d like to do for Christmas? She’d bet her last dollar that had never happened. But he, who never got too close to anyone, had just told her what he wanted, and she’d shot it down for a host of ridiculous reasons that all went back to one thing-she didn’t know how to have fun outside of work.

But by God she was about to learn. It was time for her to start building a Christmas tradition of her own and time for his Christmas tradition to take a step up.

She stood and pulled on her pink chenille robe-he’d seen her in it and out of it, so what the heck. She padded into the kitchen and found him testing the soup in a pan on the stove.

She wrapped her arms around him from behind and pressed a kiss to his naked back. He turned and nuzzled the sensitive spot beneath her ear. A delicate shiver chased over her skin. Of course, she seemed to have a multitude of sensitive spots with him.

“Sorry it’s taking so long, but a microwave ruins the noodles,” he said.

“Well, this sucks, but I’m sick.”

He leaned back and peered at her. “What’s the matter?”

“I’ve got the travel bug.”

“What?”

“Someone mentioned Christmas in Corfu, and at first I thought it was crazy. But now I’ve caught the travel bug and I think there’s only one cure for it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

He picked her up and swung her around in a circle, looking for all the world like an elated little boy who’d just been presented a gift from a Santa he didn’t believe in anymore.

Which reminded her…“When you came earlier, you had a present. Was that for me?” It wasn’t as if she had a whole lot of gifts to look forward to.

Cole grinned at her. “It was your last Secret Santa gift. I volunteered to bring it over and check on you. It gave me a good reason to come by.”

“Okay. At least it got you over here. Let me fire up my laptop and we’ll book our tickets while we eat.”

“Aren’t you going to open your present?”

“Yeah.Later. I want to get the tickets booked first.”

He picked up the box on the counter wrapped in Santa Claus paper topped with a big red bow and handed it to her. “Go ahead and open it now. Might as well get it out of the way.”

She tore off the wrapping and lifted the box top. Nestled in white tissue paper was a pair of sheer red bikini panties…with a sprig of mistletoe embroidered on the front.

She looked up, laughing. “You. You’re my Secret Santa.”

He spread his hands, palms up. “Hey, you don’t always have a sprig of mistletoe handy when you need it.”

“I believe I’ll have to pack this along with my massage oil for Corfu.”

“Why don’t you come sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what else you’d like for Christmas.”

“Well, Santa, I’ve been a very good girl all year-except maybe I’ve been a little testy with this guy at work.” She nuzzled his neck. “But I can’t lie, Santa. I think I’m about to be very naughty and I think I deserve to get Cole in my stocking this year.”