by Holly Rayner
“Of course,” she said. “May I check your coat?” It was the moment of reckoning. As I slipped off my coat and handed it to her I watched the change in her facial expression. It wasn’t the least bit subtle and I wouldn’t say she was the least bit amused.
“Thank you,” I told her as I handed my coat over. I’d often heard the word “gaping” used, but I don’t believe I’d ever actually seen anyone “gape” before. She was definitely gaping at my outfit. Had it not been a joke, I may have been offended. Actually, since she didn’t know it was a joke, I was a little bit offended.
She swallowed hard and said, “Follow me, please.” I did as she asked slipping the hat that went with the costume out of my purse and onto my head as we walked across the crowded restaurant. All eyes were on me and I made a point of making eye-contact with a few of the appalled looking patrons and smiling. It was a hilarious experience. The serious little dinners they were having in their designer clothes were suddenly interrupted, by an elf. Some of them looked as if they thought it was the end of the world. People needed to learn how to have more fun. As she led me to a table in a far corner of the room right next to one of the big windows, I finally saw him. My confidence waned a bit when I realized my mystery man was the gorgeous man I’d seen get off the elevator that one day, and I hadn’t been able to get him out of my mind since. At least I knew now that his voice matched his looks. He was looking at me with a controlled expression. I had no idea what he was thinking. The hostess turned towards me and her gape turned into pure shock when she realized I’d put on the hat. She turned back to my “date” that had stood up to greet me like a perfect gentleman.
“Mr. Winters, is there anything else you need?” she asked. When I thought about it later, I decided that she’d been wondering if I was a crazy person and perhaps she should have me shown out. But at that moment all I heard was “Mr. Winters.” It was echoing inside my head. This was Aaron Winters, CEO of Winters Inc. He was a billionaire business mogul… and he was my employer, my real employer.
“Everything is fine, thank you Shelby.” That was the voice, it was definitely him. Oh geez, I wondered, what have I done?
When the hostess was gone, Aaron looked me over and I could at last see an expression in his eyes. It was confusion. He was wondering what I was doing and at that moment I was sure that Jeffrey had been right, he wasn’t pleased.
“Hello Robyn,” he said, obviously ever the gentleman.
“Hello… Mr. Winters,” I said as he pulled out my chair.
“You can call me Aaron,” he said. He pushed my chair in and went back around to take his own. He kept staring at me as if he didn’t know what to say. I may have been staring as well. First, I was shocked at whom he was and second …he was drop dead gorgeous. I swear Adonis didn’t even come close to describing this man. I hate to use the word “perfect” but there was no other description for him.
“Would you like a glass of wine?” he asked.
“Sure, I’d love some wine,” I told him. He picked up the bottle out of the brass canister it was chilling in and poured us each a glass of white wine. My mouth was completely dry and I picked it up and took a sip… it was almost as dry as me. Aaron still hadn’t cracked a smile and the butterflies in my stomach had grown into pterodactyls. I finally just blurted out what was on my mind.
“I was playing a joke,” he still looked confused, but he offered me a weak smile and a soft chuckle. “I was hoping you would think it was funny.”
He looked around at the others in the restaurant before speaking.
“It’s just a little… uncomfortable, all the attention. You definitely stand out in here.”
I glanced around too. He was right; we were getting a lot of strange looks. It wouldn’t have bothered me, but it obviously did bother him. For some reason, I wished that he would lighten up, just a little bit. I finally gave in however, mostly because he was my boss. Besides, I was hoping if he was more comfortable he would relax and we could get to know each other.
“I brought the other dress,” I told him. “I can change if you’d like.”
“I’d like that, yes,” was all he said.
I was unfazed by the stares of the other patrons as I walked across the restaurant once more. The only thing I was feeling was disappointed that this beautiful, brilliant man didn’t seem to have any humor at all. I thought that humor was one of the most important things in life. Some days, mine was all that had gotten me through. I considered walking out and just going home for a fraction of a second, after all, this wasn’t a real date. But he was Aaron Winters, and he was beautiful and no matter what that said about me, it was enough to make me want to stay and give him another shot.
I quickly changed in the restroom and ran my fingers through my hair. I reapplied my lipstick while I was there and then I stuffed the elf costume into my bag and headed back out to our table. I watched the expressions change again as I walked back by, but none more so than my “date’s.”
Aaron stood up when I was about three feet from the table. This time his expression was easy to read. He was pleased with what he saw… very pleased. He pulled my chair out for me again and once he’d taken his seat again he said, “You look stunning.”
I smiled, “Thank you, and thank you for the outfit. It’s beautiful, just not quite what I might pick for myself.”
“It looks like it was made for you,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you have picked it?”
“I’m just not one to go along with the “norms” of society as I’m sure you can tell by the fact that I wore an elf costume to dinner.” I was smiling, he was still not. He was looking at me like he was trying to figure me out. It shouldn’t have been that hard. I was just a girl who enjoyed having fun. Aaron wasn’t looking like fun was something he did often to me.
I was saved from Aaron’s gaze by the waiter who came to take our order, until I realized that I hadn’t even looked at the menu. Aaron asked me if I minded if he ordered for me or if it would be like the dress and I’d pull a hamburger out of my handbag. He was making an attempt at humor and I felt encouraged suddenly, and strangely… proud of him. He at least possessed a sarcastic wit.
“You go ahead,” I told him. “I’ll eat pretty much anything.”
I listened as he told the waiter we would both like to have the Charcoal grilled Miyazaki wagyu. I had no idea what that was so I quickly glanced at my menu. It offered no explanations. It just said that it came with, “Salsify Dauphinois, Bluefoot Mushrooms, Arrow leaf Spinach and ‘Sauce Bordelaise,’” and that it was a hundred and twenty five dollars a plate. So as not to embarrass him, I waited for the waiter to leave before I asked my next question.
“At the risk of sounding like an ignorant diner… what did you just order for me?” The corners of his mouth twitched. My outfit didn’t amuse him but my ignorance of fancy dishes apparently did.
“It’s Japanese black beef with a side of potatoes and the salsify is a European root vegetable. It’s very tasty the way they prepare it here. I’m sure the rest you recognized.”
I appreciated that he didn’t find me ignorant enough to explain spinach and mushrooms to me.
“Thank you,” I said. “That does sound good.”
We made small talk about my day and my experiences with the kids and the elderly while we waited for our meals. The only time he seemed bothered by my chatter was when I veered off into how much I loved Christmas, or things I liked to do myself. Then he would shut down and I’d have to think of a way to start the whole conversation all over again. Jeffrey had been right, this man did not like Christmas.
When dinner arrived, I couldn’t deny that it looked delicious on the plate and my assessment was confirmed with the first bite. The portions were small, but everything was so rich and satisfying that you didn’t need a lot of it to be completely satiated. We were about halfway through our meal when we hit a lull in our conversation. I hadn’t meant to pry, but suddenly I heard myself asking, “I was wondering what
it was about Christmas that you didn’t like?”
He raised an eyebrow. He does that a lot. He paused for a long minute and then said, “How do you know that I don’t like Christmas?”
“I asked Jeffrey why you didn’t hand out the gifts yourself. They’re so generous. That’s all he told me, was that you didn’t really care for the season.”
He looked like he was thinking of how to phrase it.
“I’m just cynical, I guess. It’s so commercialized these days.”
I had to admit that was true about it being commercialized but I said, “I don’t worry about what society thinks of it, kind of like I don’t worry about what they think of me. When I was a little girl I saw “A Christmas Carol.” My favorite line, even then was when Ebenezer Scrooge said, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” I try to live by that as much as I can.”
I wished that I could read his looks. If I had to chance a guess I’d say that he was trying to decide if he believed me or not. It was true, I had no one to impress but myself. I loved Christmas, but I didn’t stop there. I loved being alive and every morning, rain or shine, I started the day by reminding myself of that fact.
“Does your family celebrate Christmas?” I asked him.
Instead of really answering my question, he said, “I go away every year at Christmas time. I go to one of the Islands, some place warm. I leave on Christmas Eve and come back a few days later. I’d go earlier but I feel it prudent that I attend the company holiday party. I don’t care for the cold either.”
“Prudent, huh?” I asked with a half-smile. “Some people look forward to the holiday party all year. You don’t find it fun at all?”
“Not really,” he said, simply. “What about you? How will you be spending your holidays?”
I thought about opening up to him, but I didn’t think he’d understand since he was so unwilling to open up to me. I simply said, “With my family, of course.”
After dinner we shared a piece of the best cheesecake in the whole wide world. By the end of the night I was torn by my feelings for him. He was gracious and charming and I’d found out earlier today… very generous. But, he was also so serious about everything it seemed, even Christmas. He didn’t even smile at the cheesecake. The other thing was that I could definitely stare at him all day and all night. He was the most desirable man I’d ever laid eyes on even when he was being serious. When he relaxed just a tiny bit and smiled… I felt my insides melting.
CHAPTER FIVE
~
AARON
I looked across the table at this woman that I didn’t know enough to say hello to in an elevator a couple of weeks ago but now suddenly found myself completely enchanted with. She was like no other woman I’d ever met. She kept bringing up Christmas which both frustrated the hell out of me and intrigued me. It frustrated me because I’d given it up so long ago and never looked back. She was trying to get me to question that. Of course she didn’t know why I’d given it up, but I had a feeling this woman would say that I had handled it wrong. If anyone else told me that I’d tell them to go to hell, but somehow as I looked into Robyn’s pretty blue eyes I knew I would never tell her that. I got the impression she wasn’t just being nosy when she asked why I didn’t like Christmas… she truly loved it that much and couldn’t fathom why anyone else would not.
The thing I liked most about her, beyond her beauty… was the fact that she was blindsided by her boss; the CEO of the company she worked for was her date and she didn’t seem the slightest bit intimidated. She hadn’t tried to kiss up to me or cowl down to me, she’d treated me like any other human being and that, I appreciated tremendously.
“So what about eggnog?” she asked. She wouldn’t let up on the Christmas kick. She was trying to insist that there was something I liked about Christmas, no matter how much I insisted there wasn’t.
“I don’t care for it,” I said.
“Peppermint candy canes?”
“I’ve never had one.”
“The smell of pine?”
“My housekeeper uses pine-sol.” She wrinkled her nose and made a face at me when I said that. It made me laugh, in spite of myself.
“Think of it this way Robyn, you’ve read Dr. Seuss, right?”
She seemed amused that I would be considering quoting Dr. Seuss but she said, “Of course, everyone has.”
“Christmas is like green eggs and ham to me. I don’t like it here nor there, I don’t like it anywhere.”
She laughed and said, “I’d be willing to bet that’s the oddest analogy a brilliant CEO has ever come up with for anything.”
“You’d be surprised,” I told her. “Besides, I’ve been more lucky than brilliant I’m afraid.”
“I doubt that,” she said. “Winters Inc. is a conglomerate because you made it that way. It takes a lot more than luck to do that. Maybe you got lucky in the family department and one of them was willing to finance the start-up, but I suspect you took it from there.”
“I got a small inheritance when I was twenty-one. That’s what I used as my start up capitol.”
“And eight years later your company is a household name. What about when you were a boy, didn’t you believe in Santa Claus and all that?”
“Of course I did,” I replied.
“So, what happened?”
“I realized he was a fraud, like everyone else did.” The sentence came out more bitterly than I’d intended, and I could see from Robyn’s expression that she wanted to know more. Thankfully, she refrained, and for a moment I thought I could see a trace of pity… or was it sadness in her eyes.
“Are you ready to go or would you like more coffee?” She made a face at me again. I knew she wanted me to open up more, but it was a subject I didn’t care to talk about with anyone.
“I’m ready,” she said.
We picked up our coats on our way out and I walked her to the limousine.
“I’ve got it, Jeffrey,” I told him. He got in behind the wheel and closed his door. I looked at Robyn in the moonlight and I was overcome with an urge to kiss her. I didn’t know what it was about this woman, but she’d definitely gotten under my skin. From the day I’d seen her getting on the elevator I had been thinking about her. I asked Max and he told me who she was and then I’d seen her name on the auction list. We’d been doing the auction for five years and I’d never bid before. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing a CEO should do. That night I went there on impulse, and even more impulsively I began to bid. I felt like I had to have her, if only for a day.
Once I had her, I hadn’t known what to do with her. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a fantasy list, but that would never do on a first date and with an employee to boot. I had made the false assumption that she’d be intimidated by me, so I set up the whole costume and delivering presents first to get a feel of what kind of person she was. Jeffrey had checked in with me periodically and had nothing but glowing reviews. They had bonded right away and here I was a little afraid that now after our dinner conversation, that she would think of me as a Scrooge and not want to see me again. It was a new experience for me that someone liked my chauffeur better than they liked me.
“I had fun, Aaron. It was a great day all the way around. Thank you for everything,” she said.
“I had a good time too, thank you, Robyn.”
I didn’t kiss her; it was too soon no matter how badly I wanted to. I watched her get into the car and I closed the door behind her. Suddenly her window came down and she said, “Aaron?”
“Yes?”
“I was thinking. It’s such a shame that you haven’t done anything festive in years. There’s a lot more to the Christmas season than presents and parties you know. You just need to explore it a little further. I was wondering if you might do me a favor.”
I was very interested to find out what kind of favor she might want from me. I didn’t want to commit to anything without hearing what it was however.
