Christmas Bride for the Boss

by Kate Hardy

  ‘We need a picture with you, too,’ Sienna said.

  She crouched down on the other side of Sienna to take a photograph of the three of them together. And just for a moment they looked like a family...

  But that wasn’t part of the deal.

  And even if she was in the market for a relationship—which she wasn’t—Jamie Wallis wasn’t Mr Right. It was way too complicated.

  As if Jamie, too, was slightly discomfited by that picture, he shepherded them over to the food stalls and distracted Sienna with hot chocolate and a hot dog. And when the firework display started, he actually lifted Sienna onto his shoulders so she could see the display better.

  Sophie could hear the oohs and ahhs of people around them as the fireworks burst into the sky; it was a magical display, but there was something even more magical going on right next to her, with Jamie finally starting to act like a father instead of a reserved guardian.

  Sienna chatted all the way home, still holding both their hands, clearly thrilled about the fireworks.

  ‘Will you stay for a coffee or a glass of wine?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘Coffee, please,’ Sophie said, ‘as I’m driving. Do you want me to make the coffee while you get Sienna into bed?’

  ‘That’d be good. Thanks.’

  Once she’d made the coffee, Sophie could hear him reading the bedtime story. His resonant and slightly posh voice reminded her of a Shakespearean actor she’d had a crush on for years. Sienna was clearly enjoying every second of it because Sophie could hear delighted giggles.

  How much this house had changed in the last week.

  Though they still had a long way to go.

  She’d just sent the photo of Jamie and Sienna to Cindy when Jamie came into the living room. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Tonight was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, because of you.’

  ‘What was so difficult about going to a fireworks display?’ she asked.

  ‘Fran loved fireworks,’ he said simply.

  And she’d brought up all the memories. Brought back all the loss. Guilt flooded through her. ‘I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have pushed you to go if I’d known.’

  ‘For Sienna’s sake, I’m glad you did. Plus it was time I faced it. I can’t keep depriving her of all the things Fran loved, just because it’s hard for me.’

  It amazed Sophie that he had such insight—but she was glad for Sienna’s sake that he could see it.

  He raised his cup of coffee at her. ‘And thank you for this, too.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘So I was wondering...how did you and Eva start the business?’

  ‘Event planning and travel agencies aren’t so far apart,’ she said. ‘I’d worked for an events company during the university holidays and they offered me a job when I graduated; it was the same for Eva with the travel agency side. And then I think we both got to the point where we realised we were stuck and we had next to no chance of getting promoted unless we moved to a different company. We were talking one night and realised how much the two businesses had in common. We’d both saved money, planning to buy a flat, but we put the money into the business instead. And I’m glad we did.’ She paused. ‘What about you?’

  He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. ‘My family’s in the hotel trade, so it was always on the cards that I’d either work for them or set up on my own in a similar line of business. I was working for my parents when a former stately home came up for sale. There was a lot of land with it, including a wood, and it was the perfect place to develop as a resort offering activity holidays. I’d inherited money from my grandparents, so Fran and I talked about it and decided we’d go for it. We bought the property and got planning permission to build log cabins in the grounds. We built a pool and developed cycle trails and nature trails through the woods, and there’s a lake where people can go fishing. And from there we developed a couple more.’

  ‘I’ve stayed at one of your resorts,’ Sophie said. ‘We went for a hen weekend.’

  ‘Not your cup of tea?’ he asked.

  ‘Going for a long walk in the woods in torrential rain is maybe not the most fun thing I’ve ever done,’ she said. ‘But I did appreciate your spa area afterwards.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ He smiled. ‘That was Fran’s idea. She said not everyone liked doing outdoor stuff and we needed something for rainy days as well, so we’ve got a roster of tutors and we run specialist creative courses—everything from photography and art to creative writing and crafts, cake decorating and pottery. And we listen to what our guests suggest, too. If there’s a trend in their comments, that’s something we know we need to add or change.’

  ‘Again, not so far away from what we do at Plans & Planes,’ Sophie said. ‘So how many resorts do you have now?’

  ‘Four in England, one in Italy, one in the South of France where we offer a short course in perfume-making—that was one of Fran’s last ideas. And we were thinking of developing one in the Caribbean, but...’ He tailed off and shook his head. ‘Not after Fran died. I couldn’t bear to go back.’

  She could see the pain in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked. This must be difficult for you.’

  He grimaced. ‘I’m being maudlin. I’ll shut up.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘talking about her will help.’

  ‘Nothing helps,’ he said, and she could see the loneliness in his face.

  How could she just let him sit there and suffer?

  So she walked over to the sofa, sat down beside him and wrapped her arms round him.

  She knew the hug was a mistake as soon as she’d done it. She could smell the citrusy scent of his shower gel and feel the steady thud of his heart against her. And this surge of sheer attraction, tempting her to jam her mouth over his and let him lose himself in her, forget his pain for a while...

  This was insane.

  It had to stop.

  Now.

  She dropped her hands pulled away. ‘Sorry. I overstepped the boundaries. I just thought you could do with a hug.’

  ‘I did. Thank you,’ he said.

  Though she noticed that his pupils were huge. And she had a nasty feeling that her own were in a similar state. She couldn’t even put it down to low lighting because she’d left the overhead light on. ‘I, um, I’d better get going.’

  ‘Thank you for today,’ he said. ‘For everything you’ve done. I appreciate it.’

  ‘No problem. I’ll see you Monday.’

  Panic skittered across his face. ‘Sophie, I know it’s pushy of me to ask, but... I don’t have a clue what to do with Sienna tomorrow. There’s only so much story-telling and colouring we can do in a day.’

  ‘You could always do something messy,’ she suggested.

  ‘Messy?’

  ‘Glitter. Glue. Paint.’

  He looked horrified.

  She frowned. ‘Didn’t you do that sort of thing as a kid?’

  ‘No. My mother didn’t like mess.’

  And you either followed in your parents’ footsteps or you rebelled. From what she’d read in Cindy’s file, clearly Jamie had chosen to walk the same path as his mother.

  Her thoughts must have shown on her face, because he said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with liking a tidy house.’ She could even hear the slight defensiveness in his tone.

  ‘And there’s nothing wrong with a bit of mess, either,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t take that long to clear up.’ She’d call into the shops on the way here tomorrow, to get the art supplies she knew he didn’t have. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow at eleven.’

  And she left without finishing her coffee, and before she did anything really crazy—like sliding her arms round his neck and kissing him stupid.

  * * *

  Jamie hadn’t fel
t this mixed up in a long time. Since Sophie had put her arms round him like that, it felt as if part of him had been locked away and the key was rusty but starting to turn in the lock.

  How close he’d been to leaning forward and kissing her. Finding out if that perfect Cupid’s bow of a mouth tasted as sweet as it looked. If she’d kept her arms round him for one more second, he knew he would’ve wrapped his own arms round her in return and kissed her until they were both dizzy.

  It was just as well she’d pulled away.

  He didn’t want to feel, to lay himself open to risking the devastation of losing someone close again, the way he’d lost Fran. Plus his guilt told him he didn’t deserve that kind of closeness.

  But part of him longed to see the daylight again. To see the world in full colour.

  And when Sophie Firth had wrapped her arms around him, the world had felt bright again. Real. Warm. Living.

  He was going to have to be really, really careful. Take cold showers. Mentally tattoo a note on his hand to keep his distance. For all their sakes.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ON SUNDAY MORNING, Sophie visited a nearby toyshop to buy art supplies, then drove to Jamie’s house.

  ‘Sunday morning is art morning in my niece Hattie’s house,’ she announced to Sienna. ‘So I thought we could do the same. I brought us some paint, paper, brushes and stuff.’

  The little girl looked thrilled. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. I thought we could make firework pictures. I used to do this when I worked at the nursery school, and it’s really fun.’ She smiled at Jamie. ‘While Sienna and I set up the playroom, your job is to fish some cardboard tubes out of the recycling bin, Jamie.’

  ‘But won’t they be—well, all messy?’ he asked.

  Not as messy as what she planned to make him do, she thought, hiding a smile. ‘It’s the recycling bin,’ she reminded him. ‘They’re clean when they go in and so are the tins and plastic.’

  She shepherded Sienna into the playroom, fished a large square of plastic sheeting out of her bag and spread it over the table to protect it, then got Sienna to put on a long-sleeved apron. ‘Now it doesn’t matter if we get a bit messy—that’s what aprons are for,’ she said. She put a large sheet of paper on the table in front of Sienna. ‘Would you like to choose two colours of paint?’

  ‘Pink,’ Sienna said immediately—just as Sophie’s niece would have done, and Sophie had to hide her grin. ‘And yellow.’

  Sophie squeezed pink and yellow paint from the bottles onto paper plates.

  ‘And now for the clever bit,’ she said when Jamie returned with the cardboard tubes. ‘Where are the scissors, Sienna?’

  ‘In the drawer.’ Sienna gestured to the cupboard where her toys and colouring pencils were kept.

  ‘Thank you.’ Sophie retrieved the scissors, made cuts halfway down the first tube, spaced a centimetre apart, then spread the fronds out to make a kind of fan. ‘So what we do now is dip the cardboard in the paint, press it on the paper and lift it up again.’

  Sienna followed her directions. ‘Oh—it looks just like the fireworks in the sky last night!’

  ‘I think Daddy should do some, too,’ Sophie said, unable to resist.

  ‘Ah—no. I need to get some work done,’ he said.

  ‘You can spare us ten minutes.’ No way was she letting him wriggle out of this. ‘Would you like to use the same paint, Jamie, or a different colour?’

  ‘The same paint’s fine,’ he said, giving her a speaking look, but to her relief he knelt down by Sienna’s table and duly made some firework patterns on another piece of paper.

  ‘And we can use different sized fans to make different sized fireworks,’ she said, cutting some more of the cardboard rolls.

  Sienna was delighted, and even more thrilled when Sophie produced glitter from the bag.

  ‘This is how we make the picture sparkle,’ Sophie said. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jamie flinching at the idea of glitter everywhere. She managed to get his attention, then mouthed, ‘That’s what a vacuum cleaner’s for.’

  And to his credit he made more pictures with Sienna, chatting to her about her favourite fireworks from last night and even sprinkling glitter on top of the paint with her. Sophie didn’t say a word, but she was thrilled that he wasn’t using his normal excuse of work to rush away. He was actually spending quality time with this daughter.

  They went from making firework pictures to painting with brushes, and Jamie delighted Sienna by painting the outline of a cat for her to paint in. ‘I didn’t know you could draw kitties, Daddy!’

  He looked as if he’d just surprised himself, too. Sophie sat back on her haunches, watching them with a smile. It was lovely to see Jamie really interacting with Sienna, the way her brother always had with Hattie and Sam, especially as she knew from talking to Cindy that he was way out of his comfort zone with messy play. And when Sienna—with paint and glitter on her hands—leaned across the table, saying, ‘I love you, Daddy,’ and left paint and glitter smeared all over his white shirt, Sophie held her breath. Would this be his breaking point? A man who liked order and control would find this particularly hard to deal with.

  But, instead of being snippy about the mess she’d made of his shirt, he simply said, ‘I love you, too, Sienna,’ and kissed her.

  And right at that moment, Sophie thought, I could love you, too...

  She shook herself.

  That wasn’t going to happen.

  She was rubbish at relationships, and Jamie’s life was already complicated enough without adding her into the mix.

  ‘I need to go,’ she said when Sienna had had her fill of painting. ‘I’ll clear up all the art stuff first.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll clear up,’ Jamie said, surprising her. ‘Stay for lunch. Even if it is only going to be cheese on toast.’

  She blinked. ‘You’re offering to cook for me?’

  ‘I can cook,’ he said.

  She thought back to the supermarket ready meals she’d seen in the fridge. ‘I’m not sure I believe you.’

  ‘Here’s the deal,’ he said. ‘If I burn lunch, I clear up. If I don’t, you clear up.’ He mouthed, ‘And you clean the paint out of my shirt.’

  ‘Deal,’ she said. ‘Sienna and I will lay the table while you make the cheese on toast.’

  And it was perfect.

  ‘Now do you believe me?’ he asked with a grin.

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Strictly speaking, cheese on toast isn’t actually cooking. It’s just putting bread and cheese under the grill.’

  ‘It still counts,’ he insisted. ‘Doesn’t it, Sienna?’

  The little girl nodded. ‘But only if I make it with you next time.’

  ‘I think you might have a negotiator in the making there,’ Sophie said.

  After lunch, she cleared away. ‘I need to go now,’ she said with a smile. ‘But it’s a nice day. Maybe you could both go to the park.’ When panic skittered across Jamie’s face, she said, ‘Sienna, do you want to go upstairs and find a nice warm jumper?’ Once the little girl was out of earshot, she said to Jamie, ‘It’ll be fine. You’ve got this.’

  ‘How do you know I can do it?’

  ‘Because I do,’ she said. ‘This is like dropping you into a pool full of cetapods and expecting you to swim. You won’t know if the cetapods are whales or sharks until you swim up to them. But when you do, you’ll realise they’re all whales.’

  ‘What if they turn out to be sharks?’ he asked.

  ‘Then you call me, and I’ll come and fish you out before the sharks eat you. Now go and change your shirt so I can get the paint out of that one.’

  ‘Bossy,’ he said, but he did what she’d asked.

  Even though Sophie was supposed to be working a
t home, she spent most of the afternoon thinking about Jamie and wondering how he was coping. But when he didn’t call, she knew he didn’t need her.

  Which was meant to be a good thing.

  Though it left her feeling slightly melancholy—and then cross with herself for being so ridiculous. Jamie Wallis was off limits. And the unexpected feelings she’d started having towards him were simply because she was spending so much time with him. Propinquity. She knew he thought of her solely as Sienna’s temporary nanny and his business partner.

  ‘So don’t even start to begin hoping that things might be different,’ she told herself sharply. ‘Because they’re not. You keep it professional. No emotions.’

  * * *

  In the park, Jamie couldn’t stop thinking about Sophie. What was it she’d said? Go for a walk, talk about what you see, ask Sienna about her favourite dogs.

  It was the first time he’d ever taken Sienna to the park on his own; before Fran’s death, they’d gone as a family, and afterwards he’d left it to Cindy, because trying to pretend that everything was normal had just been unbearable.

  But this... Since Sophie had pushed him out of his comfort zone this morning, he was going to give this a try. He walked round the park with Sienna, holding her hand and letting her chat to him. And then, when he could see that the play area wasn’t too crowded and hear that the shrieking was at bearable level, he pushed her on the swings and even went down the big slide with her. He smiled nicely at the other families in the play area and tried to ignore the ache of missing Fran.

  And then he felt a flood of guilt when he realised that the figure next to him in his head wasn’t Fran: she was Sophie. Which wasn’t anywhere near their arrangement. He needed to forget the idea of this right now, because he wasn’t going to get a second chance to mess up.

  But the thought wouldn’t quite shift.

  Whenever his skin had accidentally made contact with hers, he’d noticed a faint blush on her cheeks, or her pupils had grown larger. He had a feeling that she was just as aware of him as he was of her.

  What if...?

  A tingle ran down his spine and he shook himself mentally. No. It had to stay strictly business between them. And he needed to get his self-control back. Fast.