The Boss's Mistletoe Maneuvers

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  He’d been jilted. Left. Abandoned in somebody else’s house.

  And that left him with a very bad feeling about what this meant.

  * * *

  Kim waited by the curb after calling for a cab. Nearly out of breath from hustling to get her act together, she was sloppily dressed in a pair of old jeans, a turtleneck sweater and boots she had found in the closet.

  Sore, tired and anxious, she limped back and forth along the sidewalk. The man of her dreams lay on the floor of her mother’s living room, surrounded by the cookies he’d brought her. There should have been a law against leaving a man like that, but her first waking instinct had been to flee.

  They had broken the house’s spell, smashed it to smithereens. And she wanted to run right back inside and do it again, have Monroe again, feel his breath on her face and his naked body against hers.

  Breaking old rules had never been so glorious, and at the same time confusing. She hadn’t made love to him in order to plan for a future of bedrooms and kitchens. She looked for companionship and warmth on a chilly night, a temporary relationship worthy of blasting away the past. Well, she had found those things. Too much of those things.

  She was doing the walking-away routine. As hard as that was and as bad as she felt about it, she had to leave. Monroe might be one hell of a guy, but leaving him now meant he wouldn’t have the chance to leave her later or be afforded the opportunity to break her heart. Monroe would cause trouble in her future if she stuck around, because she really, really liked him. She wanted him badly. More than ever. She needed iron willpower in order to remain on the street.

  What would he do when he woke up in a strange house, alone? Curse? Get angry?

  She wasn’t going to see that reaction now or in the future. In the aftermath of shared confidences, confessions and a night of raw animal sex, being in the same business, in the same building, would be out of the question. No way would she be able to hide her hunger for Chaz Monroe after tonight. If she caved on this point, she’d be setting herself up for a fall.

  She felt as though she’d had a taste of the fall already. Her chest hurt. The inner fires still raged.

  When the cab pulled up, Kim took one more glance at the dark house before giving the driver her destination and some special instructions. Then she climbed into the backseat. With Monroe off-limits from now on, she’d at least have a keepsake. A trophy to remember this night by...as if she could ever forget it.

  It’s okay. I’ll be all right.

  The hurt of leaving Monroe would stop eventually. With her mother’s hold broken, she was free to sell this house and enjoy the things she had shunned. Acknowledgment of that gave her a sense of freedom.

  Having made the decision to part company with Monroe and get on with her life, she’d be embracing the phrase starting over. Monroe had helped with that. “Thank you,” Kim whispered as the cab headed for the city.

  Halfway there, her tears began to pool.

  Damn if she didn’t miss him already.

  * * *

  Chaz didn’t want to focus on the phrase that came to mind as he sat down on a step in Kim’s mother’s house.

  The little vixen used me?

  After years of dating, he’d been jilted after the best night of his life. By the only woman he wanted in his life.

  How did that happen?

  Could he have been wrong about her? Wrong about how fully she’d enjoyed the sex and his company? No one had that kind of ability to fake the pleasure of round after round of mind-blowing physical connection. No, Kim had thoroughly enjoyed what they’d done. She’d participated, wanting that union as much as he had. Tears had stained her cheeks once or twice, and that had damn near broken his heart.

  What about the blanket she’d covered him with? Was that the action of someone who had faked her way through an entire evening, possibly with an ulterior motive or secret agenda?

  Can’t see that.

  So, if she had gotten as much pleasure out of their evening together as he did, why had she gone, and where?

  Chaz glanced at his watch. Two o’clock in the morning.

  In a few hours, he had a meeting with some bankers to discuss the possibilities of a future sale, a meeting that had been set up before he stepped foot inside the agency, and before he’d first caught sight of Kim’s enviable backside in the corridor. Her disappearance sidelined the opportunity to tell her about his plans for the future sale of the company. Likely she had left him believing it imperative for one of them to go. The way she left, without a word, presented only one scenario. Kim was saying goodbye to all of it—the job and him.

  “Well, that sucks,” he muttered, looking around the room where they had merged. An appropriate term for what they had done, as many times as they’d done it, since they hadn’t taken the time or the precision necessary for it to have been called making love.

  Making love would have meant something more than casual sex. The thing that came after all the lust had been explored, involving slow exploration and much softer kisses.

  Tonight had been about casual sex between consenting adults. Right?

  All of a sudden, he wasn’t so sure.

  His spirit took a dive.

  He wanted her back.

  Kim McKinley had one-upped him again in a game he had no longer planned to play. Regretting that, Chaz looked to the front door, then to his clothes on the floor.

  So, okay, he had tried and lost. He had lost her. He’d live. Monroes were champion survivors. Buying and selling businesses hardened his anti-relationship stamina, and he had every intention of learning to deal with the consequences.

  In need of air, he picked up his pants and dressed. Opening the front door, hoping Kim might be on the porch, his stomach took a tumble when she wasn’t.

  But he paused in the doorway, heat shooting up the back of his neck. He grinned. Something about that porch seemed different, and that difference told him this wasn’t over.

  The silky-skinned little siren might have fled, yes. But she’d taken the Christmas tree with her.

  * * *

  Kim woke exhausted and achingly sore in every muscle after two full days of recuperation time from her evening with Monroe. The sense of being perpetually on the edge of a state of anxiousness refused to leave her. Her heart continued to race. Her ears rang.

  Not her ears. The cell phone on her table by the bed made the racket.

  After rolling onto her side, she checked the caller ID, holding the phone aloft while it continued to screech. The screen said the call came from a private number. Letting it go to voice mail, she tossed the phone to the foot of the bed and stretched out on her back. She had nowhere special to be on day three of her plan to not only eradicate the sadness of the past, but to obliterate it, too.

  Her fingers slid sideways to the empty spot next to her on the mattress, then recoiled. He wasn’t there. No one was. Funny how real dreams could be.

  Her project for today was to make another attempt at forgetting Chaz Monroe, which had so far proved difficult. She’d spent another mostly sleepless night thinking about what to do next and trying to erase all thoughts of him. Each time she closed her eyes, he was there, strong, handsome and tenacious. Last night, six cups of strong black tea had been necessary to keep her eyes open and the memory of him controlled.

  Her body now paid for the lack of sleep, as well as the antics of her hours spent with Monroe on a hardwood floor, by offering up protests, bruises and stiffness whenever she moved. Monroe had deliciously involved every part of her body, over and over, until she thought she might perish in a state of pure, blissful pleasure. Being manhandled by him had been outrageously satisfying.

  But that was in the past.

  Today was all about new beginnings that didn’t include Monroe or his advertising agency. Thi
s was about her, moving on.

  And what was the best way to take a break from reality?

  Shop.

  She planned to pile on new sensations, spend some of her savings and revel in the freedom of a new mind-set.

  Today was the first day of the rest of her...

  She sat straight up.

  Somebody knocked at the door.

  Scrambling out of bed, wincing with each movement of her tender thighs, Kim limped to the door. The visitor had to be a neighbor, or Sam would have let her know. Maybe it was Brenda, who had her own key, and therefore didn’t really have to knock, except out of politeness and to prevent Kim from having a heart attack.

  Through the peephole she saw Brenda, chic and festive in a dark green suit.

  Kim opened the door. “I don’t actually want a gossip hour today, Bren, unless you’ve heard of a decent job opportunity through the grapevine and brought breakfast along. I’m starved.”

  Brenda gave her a pained look, pursed her mouth and stepped aside.

  Traitorous Brenda wasn’t alone.

  Surprised, Kim stepped back with her heart hammering.

  “I have a line of gossip I think will interest you,” Monroe said in the husky voice that always made her knees weak and made them weak now.

  Kim blinked, and looked to Brenda.

  “It’s news you truly might like,” Brenda seconded. “You can kick me later for delivering it this way.”

  Though she tried hard not to look at Monroe, the strength of his presence drew her like a suicidal moth to an impenetrable flame.

  Sixteen

  Monroe stood on her doorstep, looking like every woman’s idea of a prebreakfast treat.

  Dressed to impress in soft gray pants, black leather jacket and another blue shirt that matched his eyes to perfection, he stared back, his expression a mixture of stoicism and worry.

  After denying herself the luxury of purposefully giving in to her thoughts about him for the last couple days, Kim’s first instinct was to jump his bones. From a distance of three feet, he smelled like heaven.

  Her inner alarm system went to full alert. She said firmly, “You understand the meaning of the term vacation?”

  “I’ll explain if given the chance,” he said.

  “Do I actually have to be here?” Brenda interjected. “I have a meeting in twenty minutes. You two can work this out without me.”

  “You brought him here,” Kim reminded her friend. “This one’s on you.”

  “Wrong,” Brenda argued with a shake of her head. “It’s quite possibly all about you, and I’m merely the middleman again.”

  “I’m in my pajamas, Bren.”

  “I didn’t notice,” Monroe said lightly, lying through his teeth. His eyes continued to roam over every inch of her anatomy, from her head to her bare feet.

  She crossed her arms to cover herself, hoping to delay the quick-rising crave factor from reaching her breasts.

  “I’ve been calling you for the past fifteen minutes, to warn you that we were on our way,” Brenda said.

  Kim glanced over her shoulder as if she could see her cell phone through the wall. “From another cell?”

  Brenda nodded. “Mine’s at the office. We left in a hurry.”

  “How was I supposed to know you were calling?”

  Brenda threw up her hands. “I don’t know. Psychically?”

  Brenda was usually connected to her phone at the hip, so for her not to have it meant that Monroe had dragged her here. As what, a buffer or a mediator?

  Kim confronted Monroe with narrowed eyes. “You can’t come in.”

  “I’m having a déjà-vu moment in this hallway,” he remarked, “when I thought we were beyond that.”

  His meaning wasn’t lost on her. Yes, they were beyond it, if their recent nakedness and exchange of body fluids meant he had a free pass to bother her anytime he wanted to.

  Kim felt the flush spread up her neck and into her cheeks. Her sore thighs were heating up, as if she were more than willing to go another round on any surface with the man across from her.

  Managing to tear her gaze from him, Kim looked to her friend. “Go on. You wanted to tell me something important enough to bring him along?”

  Brenda nodded. “His plans were to sell the agency after getting it up and running and more profitable. That’s what his family does. They buy and sell businesses, and they’ve made a fortune doing so.”

  Brenda tossed a glance Monroe’s way before continuing. He remained mute.

  “If he sells the agency, you’ll still have the opportunity to be promoted, and he will be gone, so no worries there about pesky rumors or anything else. It looks like all this is in your favor,” Brenda said. “I trespassed on your vacation time to tell you this so you won’t plan on leaving the agency, or town. You don’t have to. Not now. Plus, I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, so the boss decided to come along when I did.”

  Kim’s gaze bounced back to Monroe. “Is this true?”

  He nodded. “Yes, it is.”

  “You never planned on owning the agency for long, or being there long-term?”

  “That was the initial plan,” he replied. “I was going to tell you about this the other night, but we got distracted.”

  Distracted? Seriously? That’s what he called it?

  “This is the news you said you’d postpone until later?” Kim asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You didn’t think it was important enough to bring up right away?”

  “There were other issues to deal with first.”

  Admittedly, the news should have made her feel better. She should have jumped for joy. She didn’t have to leave the job she loved. She just had to make it work, or prolong the vacation until Monroe sold the place. Instead of feeling relief, though, her stomach churned.

  Chaz Monroe would be gone.

  The last few days of her life passed before her eyes. Monroe hadn’t really taken the VP spot but had simply gone undercover in his own business to help it along on the road to full financial recovery. She didn’t have to worry about him in the future, as far as work went, because he wasn’t going to be there to give her hot flashes each time they passed in the corridors.

  And the part of this situation that had bitten her in the backside—the contractual issue—was ebbing away due to having confronted her mother’s ghosts.

  She was nothing like her mother. Not even a bit. She had a lot to look forward to.

  Monroe’s news was good, all right, though it also left them both on uneven ground. If he left the agency and wanted to see her, there’d be no more excuses to stay away from him. In truly shedding her mother’s fears, there’d be no need to stay away from him. If he left the agency, she might want to see him, often, and would be free to do so, if that one small fear didn’t remain about being left behind after giving her love to a man.

  “Kim?” Brenda said.

  Does that meet with your approval?” he asked. “I’ll soon be out of your hair, and you can pursue the promotion any way you’d like to.”

  Out of her hair?

  Her stomach constricted. The words were like a blow.

  His comment didn’t sound as though it came from a man ready to pursue a relationship with her.

  She’d been fantasizing about him for nothing?

  Kim closed her eyes. Fool.

  Maybe he’d already gotten what he wanted from her, with no plans for furthering their connection. A male victory. A conquest.

  His expression had become guarded. He hadn’t made the slightest move in her direction, or agreed with Brenda’s suggestion that she leave them alone to work this out.

  Because there was nothing to work out?

  Kim staggered b
ack a few inches, struck by the pathetic degree of her own vulnerability. I haven’t learned anything.

  “Fine,” she said softly. “Good.”

  Then she closed the door in Monroe’s face.

  She leaned against the frame, gathering her wits, bolstering her courage to be the new Kim McKinley she had only three days ago set out to be, while sensing Monroe’s presence through the closed door.

  “I take it she wasn’t happy with the news,” he said in the hallway.

  “She was in her pajamas,” Brenda remarked, as if that fact explained everything.

  “Well, I’m done here. I’ve given up trying to determine what might make her happy,” Monroe said. “I went out of my way to reconcile, with every intention of helping her out, but I’m no idiot. She’s on her own. Come on. I’ll walk back to the office with you. Sorry you came along without a coat. It’s cold outside, so you can use mine.”

  “Hell, Monroe,” Brenda said. “You can be downright chivalrous when you want to. If you weren’t in love with my best friend, I might want to date you.”

  “Love?” Monroe said. “I think you must be a true romantic, Brenda.”

  “Your eyes lingered.”

  “I’m a man, and she was in her pajamas.”

  “You can’t fool anybody, Monroe, except maybe yourself.”

  Their voices faded, but the comments rang in Kim’s ears like an echo. Love? How little Brenda knew about what had happened, and about Monroe’s subsequent victory.

  He had given up, thrown in the towel. Why did his proclamation send icy chills through her overheated system?

  The other night, everything she dared to want had been within her grasp, yet she hadn’t reached for it, needing to be strong on her own terms. Now some of those happy endings were no longer viable, and only the stuff of dreams.

  She was sick to death of what-ifs and games and hypothetical problem solving. Monroe had given up without a word to her about their night together and how he felt about it, personally. He’d needed to accompany Brenda here; there was a chance he wouldn’t have come on his own.

  He hadn’t agreed with Brenda about loving her, or mentioned anything other than wanting to help her to get the promotion she deserved.