She shivered. ‘It’s chilly in here. Ideal storage. I didn’t even know it existed. Was it here?’
‘Yes. It had one slate shelf and I had the others put in, and it’s got a vent to the outside and faces north, which keeps it cool.’
‘Which is why it feels like a fridge.’
He smiled. ‘Indeed. Perfect for the days when fridges didn’t exist. So—there you are. Feel free to indulge us with anything you can find.’
‘Oh, I will.’
She ran her eye over it all again, mentally planning the menu, then shut the door behind them and sat back down at the table to write a list.
‘Do you really want Brussels sprouts?’
‘Definitely. Christmas isn’t Christmas without sprouts.’
‘And burnt holly.’
‘And burnt holly,’ he said with a grin.
She bit down on the smile and added sprouts to the list, then looked up as he set a glass of wine down on the table in front of her.
‘Here, Cookie. To get you into the festive spirit.’
‘Thank you. And talking of Cookie, are you about to cook, by any chance, or was that a hint for me?’
‘I’ve done it. There’s a pizza in the oven and some salad, and we could have fruit or icecream to follow. I thought I’d let you off the hook, seeing as you’ll be doing quite enough tomorrow.’
‘How noble of you.’ She sipped her wine and glanced at her list. ‘Is the goose stuffed already?’
‘So I was told. Ready to go straight in the oven. It says four hours.’
‘I thought you didn’t know how to cook it?’ she asked drily, and he smiled, his eyes dancing with mischief.
‘I didn’t want to do you out of the pleasure—and this way you get all the glory.’
‘What glory?’
‘The glory of basking in my adoration,’ he murmured, and she wasn’t sure but there seemed to be a mildly flirtatious tone in his voice.
She held his eyes for a startled moment, then gave a slightly strained little laugh and looked away. ‘Always assuming I don’t burn it.’
‘You won’t. I’ll make sure of that. Right, let’s label that present with a new tag, and you go and stick them under the tree and I’ll dish up.’
But what to write? His pen hovered for a moment over the tag he’d found. Did it matter? The child couldn’t read.
‘To Josh from Sebastian’ would do.
But he put love in there, just because it seemed right. Weirdly right.
‘OK, that’s done, we need to eat or the pizza will be ruined.’
He slid the box across the table to her, pushed back his chair and made himself busy. So busy he didn’t have time to think about what he’d written.
Or why.
She put the presents under the tree while he dished up, and then after they’d eaten and cleared away they peeled sprouts and potatoes and parsnips and carrots, until finally he called a halt.
‘Enough,’ he said firmly, took the knife out of her hand, replaced it with her wine glass and ushered her through to the sitting room.
The fire was low, the embers glowing, and they sat there with just the faint glow of the fairy lights and the occasional spark from the fire, his arm stretched out along the back of the sofa, his head turned towards her as they talked about the timetable for tomorrow.
If he moved his fingers just a millimetre—
‘Tell me about the renovations,’ she said then, and shifted, settling further into the corner, and he reached for his glass and pulled his arm back a little, out of temptation, and as he told her about the house and what he’d had done to it, he watched her and wondered just how much he was going to miss her when she left...
* * *
Josh woke early.
He always did, but she’d sat up with Sebastian talking about the house and the building work and what his plans were for the gardens until the fire had died away to ash and her eyes were drooping.
He’d hung the little stocking up on the beam, off to one side so the chocolate didn’t melt, and then he’d taken himself off to his study while she’d come up to bed.
She’d heard him come up later, but not much later, and she’d turned on her side then and fallen sound asleep until Josh’s cheerful chatter had woken her.
Bless his darling heart, she loved him so much but she could have done with another half hour. She prised open her eyes and he beamed at her and stood up in the travel cot, holding up his arms.
‘Happy Christmas, Josh,’ she said softly, gathering him up and hugging him tight. He gave her a big, sloppy kiss, and she laughed and kissed him back and tickled him, then she changed his nappy and took him down to the kitchen.
To her amazement the lights were blazing, the kettle was on and there was a wonderful smell of baking.
And it was after seven! How did that happen?
‘Biscuit, Mummy,’ Josh said, just as Sebastian came back into the kitchen.
He was wearing checked pyjama trousers and a jumper, his hair was rumpled and he definitely hadn’t shaved, but he’d never looked so good, and her heart squeezed.
No! Don’t fall in love with him again!
But then Josh ran over to him and he scooped him up and hugged him, tolerated the sloppy kiss with amazing grace and even kissed him back. ‘Happy Christmas, Tiger,’ he said, ruffling his hair, and Josh growled at him and made him laugh.
He growled back, and Josh giggled and squirmed down and ran back to her. ‘Biscuit, Mummy! Bastian want biscuit too.’
‘Ah. Sebastian’s actually cooking croissants and pain au chocolat,’ he confessed, his eyes flicking to hers in apology.
She smiled. ‘It’s Christmas. And they smell amazing.’
‘They are. And they’ll be burnt if I don’t take them out. Coffee or tea?’
‘Both. Tea first. I’ll make it. What do you want?’
‘Same. Tea, then coffee. I’ll put a jug on for later.’
How domesticated, she thought, getting out the mugs and making the tea while he rescued the pastries and found plates and butter and jam, and she poured the tea and he sat Josh down and pulled up his pyjama sleeves so he didn’t get plastered in butter.
We’re like an old married couple, she thought, just getting breakfast together on Christmas morning, and in a minute we’ll go through to the sitting room and open Josh’s presents and play with him, and the goose will cook and...
She cut herself off.
This was a one-off. They weren’t married. They were never getting married. And she needed to stop dreaming.
* * *
The train set was a hit.
They moved a table out of the way, and Sebastian got down on the floor with Josh and helped him set up the track, and she sat with her feet tucked up under her bottom, still in her pyjamas, cradling a cup of coffee and watching them.
Josh had opened his stocking, with the little cars and a packet of chocolate buttons and a satsuma she’d taken from the fruit bowl, and Sebastian had lit the fire and thrown the peel on it and it smelled Christmassy and wonderful.
So wonderful.
Her eyes filled. What had happened to him to make him change so much, to become so driven, so remote, so focused on something she couldn’t understand that their love had withered and died?
He wasn’t like that now. Or not today, at least. He’d been pretty crabby out in the lane in the snow, but since then he’d made a real effort.
Or maybe it was just because of Josh, to make him happy. That seemed really important to him, but was there more to it than that?
He’d written ‘love from Sebastian’ on the gift tag.
Just a figure of speech, the thing everyone always writes? Or because he meant it?
She had no i
dea, she just knew, watching him, listening to the two of them talking, that he’d really taken her little boy to his heart, and she found it unbearably touching.
‘Right. Time to put the goose in,’ he said, and she yanked herself out of her thoughts and put the cup down.
‘I’ll do it.’
‘No. It’s heavy. I’ll put it in. You can do the tricky stuff later.’
He went out, taking their mugs, and came back a few minutes later with a refill and a handful of satsumas.
‘Is that an attempt to compensate for the croissants?’ she said drily, and he chuckled and lobbed one over to her, dropping down onto the other sofa and turning so he could watch Josh over the back.
‘He chatters away, doesn’t he?’
‘Oh, yes. He didn’t talk very early, but boys don’t, I don’t think. And they stop talking again in their teens, of course, and just start grunting.’
He frowned again, looking thoughtful for a moment. ‘I’m sure I didn’t grunt. Nor did my brothers, as far as I’m aware.’
‘My brother did. He was monosyllabic for years. It made a refreshing change from all the arguments.’
‘How is he? We lost touch when—well, then.’
She ignored his hesitation. ‘Fine. He’s working in Norwich. He’s a surveyor. He’s stopped grunting now and he’s quite civilised. He’s married with two children and a dog.’
He looked away. ‘Lucky Jack.’
‘He is. He’s very happy.’
‘I’m glad. Give him my regards.’
‘I will. How are your brothers?’
‘Better now they’ve grown up. They both work for me. Andy’s an accountant, and Matt’s a sales director.’
‘Don’t they mind answering to you?’
He laughed softly. ‘It makes for interesting board meetings sometimes,’ he confessed, and she laughed too.
‘I’m sure. Talking of families, I ought to ring my parents. They’ll want to say Happy Christmas to Josh.’
‘How about doing it from my computer with the webcam, so they can see you?’
‘Can we? That would be brilliant!’
‘Well, since they know you’re here, you might as well. Do it in my study.’
She looked down at herself, suddenly aware of what she was wearing. ‘I might get dressed first. Just so they don’t think we’re hanging out all day in PJs.’
And then she looked up, and his eyes were on her, filled with a dark emotion she didn’t want to try to understand, and she took Josh upstairs, protesting all the way, and washed and dressed him.
She needed a shower, really, and her hair washed, but she didn’t like to let Josh run riot and she could hear water running in Sebastian’s room, so she told him to stay there and look at a book, shot into the bathroom and showered and came out to find the door open and no sign of him.
‘Josh? Josh, where are you?’
She ran out onto the landing, clutching the towel together, and slammed straight into Sebastian’s chest. His bare, wet chest. His hands came up and steadied her, and she stared, mesmerised, as a dribble of water ran down through the light scatter of hair across his pecs and disappeared into the towel at his hips.
‘If you’re looking for Josh, he’s in my room.’
His voice, low and gravelly, cut through her thoughts and she sucked in a breath. What was she doing?
He let go of her shoulders and stepped back, and she hitched her towel up and blushed. ‘He is?’
‘Yes. Don’t worry. He came to find me. You take your time, we’re fine.’
‘Are you sure? Because I really need to—’ She waved a hand vaguely at her towel, and his eyes tracked over it and he smiled slightly.
‘Yes. You do.’
She glanced down, and saw it was gaping. Dear God, could it get any worse?
Blushing furiously and clutching it together, she went back into her room and closed the door, leant back against it and shut her eyes, humiliation washing over her. How could she have gone out there with her towel flapping open and revealing—well, everything, pretty much!
Not that he’d been exactly covered. Had he always looked that good naked?
Yes. Always. He was more solid now, but he’d always looked good. Tall, broad, muscular, without an ounce of spare flesh on him.
And she really, really didn’t need to be thinking about that now! She pushed away from the door, dried herself quickly and wrestled her still-damp body into jeans and a jumper.
Her hair needed careful combing and drying, but it wasn’t going to get it.
Or was it? There was a knock on the door and it opened a crack.
‘There’s a hairdryer in the top drawer of the bedside table. I’m taking Josh downstairs. There’s no rush. We’re going to play with the train set.’
She sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed. Well, it would give her time to dry her hair properly and put on some make-up. And gather herself together a little. Her composure was scattered in all directions, and she was ready to die of humiliation.
Too right she’d take her time. She was in no hurry to face him again!
* * *
Her towel had slipped.
Not far enough. Just enough to taunt him, not enough to see anything. He’d gone back into his room, found Josh under the bed giggling and got dressed before Georgie had time to come looking for him again and caused another incident.
And Josh was more than happy to come downstairs and play with his trains. So was Sebastian. Only too happy, because it reminded him of all the reasons why getting involved with Georgie again would be such a mistake.
She’d walked out on him once, but they’d been the only ones who could get hurt in that situation, and he knew he’d been at least partly responsible. OK, maybe largely responsible, but not solely. He wasn’t taking all the blame for her lack of sticking power.
But this time, Josh would be involved. And he was so open, so trusting, so vulnerable. Two was a bad time for your world to fall apart. He knew that, in some deep, inaccessible but intrinsic part of him that still ached with loss.
Wounds that deep never really healed. And that was another reason to keep his distance.
So he played with Josh until she came down, and then he went into the kitchen and started putting the lunch together.
She followed him, Josh in tow. ‘You said I could hook up with my parents,’ she reminded him, and he nodded, put the timer on for the potatoes and took her to the study, connected her up and left them to it. Five minutes later they were back.
‘I thought I was supposed to be cooking?’ she said, but he shook his head.
‘Don’t worry about it. It actually looks pretty straightforward and the instructions are idiot-proof.’
‘Are you sure? I thought that was the deal?’
‘There’s no deal,’ he said shortly. ‘Go and play with your son. It’s Christmas. He needs you, not me. I’ll do this.’
In fact there wasn’t that much to do, to his regret. He parboiled the potatoes and parsnips, put them in a roasting pan with some of the goose fat and put them in the oven, moving the goose to the bottom oven to continue cooking slowly.
And then there was nothing to do for an hour.
Well, he had two choices. He could spend his Christmas Day sitting alone in the kitchen, or he could go back into the sitting room with Georgie and Josh and try not to remember what he’d seen under her towel...
The sitting room won, hands down.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GEORGIE SAT BACK and sighed happily.
‘Sebastian, for someone who claims not to know how to cook a goose, that was an amazing lunch. Thank you so much.’
His shoulders twitched in that little shrug of his that she was getting so used to. ‘
Good ingredients. I can’t take any credit.’
That was rubbish and they both knew it, but he’d always been modest about his achievements. For such a high achiever, it was a strange trait, and rather endearing. She smiled at him.
‘Nevertheless, it was delicious and I’m washing up.’
‘No. The dishwasher’s washing up. And the sun’s out and it’s warmer, so let’s not waste the day in here. Has Josh got anything he can wear outside?’
‘Yes. Wellies and overalls, in the car, and I brought my wellies, too—hey, we could make snow angels!’
He chuckled. ‘I think you’ll find if we put him down in the snow, he’ll vanish without trace, unless we can find a bit where it’s not so deep. Right, let’s go!’
So they abandoned the devastated kitchen, wrapped themselves up and headed out into the garden. Sebastian hoisted Josh up onto his shoulders and the little boy anchored his chubby fingers into Sebastian’s hair, his happy grin almost splitting his face in half.
‘Wait, let me take a photo,’ she said, and pulled out her phone. They posed dutifully, and she carried on, snapping off several shots of them as he turned and walked through the archway into the sunlit garden.
And it was glorious. He was right, it would have been criminal to miss it. The wind had died away completely and the sun shone with real warmth, sparkling on the snow and blinding them with its brilliance.
She scooped up a handful of snow and let Josh touch it, probing it with his finger. He was wary, but fascinated, and Sebastian lifted him down on the grass in the little orchard where the snow wasn’t so deep and lowered him carefully into it, and Josh watched his feet disappear and giggled.
Then Sebastian turned and looked at her, and she knew what was coming.
She saw it in his eyes, saw the way he carefully gathered up a great big handful of snow and showed Josh how to squash it into a snowball.
‘No. Sebastian, no! I mean it—!’
It got her right in the middle of the chest.
‘Oh, you rat!’ she squealed indignantly, and he just picked up her giggling son and laughed, his head tilted back, his mouth open, his face tipped up to the sun as Josh laughed with him, and if she could have bottled it, she would.
SNOWED IN WITH THE BILLIONAIRE Page 10
