by Alyssa Dean
“Of course I do. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Amanda was immensely disappointed in him. He was just like other executive types she’d run into—so absorbed in their work that they didn’t have time to spend on the important things in life. “No, it isn’t. I’m here to discuss your office Christmas party.”
“But what about these Christmas presents? You can do that, too, can’t you?”
There was a hint of desperation in his eyes. Amanda hesitated. He did look as if he needed help... She needed the business and it wouldn’t hurt to...
It certainly would hurt. Brandy would be horrified. “No,” said Amanda. “That’s not really something A&B Executive Services does.”
“It isn’t?”
“No, it isn’t,” Amanda said firmly. “Besides, Christmas presents are something people should really handle themselves.”
“Yeah?” He blinked a couple of times as if unclear on the concept. “What if they don’t have time? Couldn’t you just—” he made a vague, sweeping motion with one hand “—do it?”
Amanda hesitated. He looked so helpless... They desperately needed the business and...
And buying other people’s Christmas presents had to be on Brandy’s list of “getting too involved.” Amanda gave him a small, cool smile. “I don’t think so. Now, if we could get back to discussing your Christmas function....”
“My Christmas function.” Josh stretched back in his chair and studied her. “Okay. Let’s talk about that.”
Amanda suddenly felt uneasy. There was something about the glint in his brown eyes that made her nervous. “Well, um, your secretary told me that you were having difficulty finding a place to host a Christmas party. She’s right. I couldn’t find a place, either, so I suggested you do it here. With a little work we could make the place look festive. Serve drinks...hors d’oeuvres. We could have a different theme for each floor ... get in a string quartet...”
“That sounds interesting.” Josh tapped his fingers together. “Tell me, Amanda... I can call you Amanda, can’t I? Or do I have call you Ms. Kringleton?”
“Amanda is fine.”
“Okay, Amanda. Exactly how many of these sorts of functions have you organized?”
“Me, personally? Quite a few actually. I...”
“I meant A&B Executive Services.”
“Not a great deal,” Amanda admitted after a pause. “We’ve only been in the business a few months, and...”
“Ah,” said Josh. “I see.”
Amanda looked into his face and got the distinct impression that he did see. He might not bear a strong resemblance to an efficient corporate executive, but she began to feel that he was not a man who should be underestimated.
Josh picked up a pencil and stroked it across his bottom lip. “It’s a difficult business to break into, isn’t it?”
Amanda watched the eraser end of the pencil move across his mouth and sucked in her own bottom lip. “It, uh, can be.”
“Uh-huh. What you really need to get business is a track record, and to get a track record, you need business. Right?”
Amanda considered lying, caught the sparkle in his eye, and didn’t. “Yes,” she said.
“Arranging the Larkland Christmas party might be just the sort of thing you need, hmm?”
“It would certainly help.”
“I would think so,” said Josh. He was silent as he studied her. Then he spoke again in a silky smooth voice. “How about if we make a deal, Amanda?”
Amanda eyed him suspiciously. She was pretty sure she knew what was coming. “A deal?”
“Yeah.” He dropped the pencil and leaned forward, forearms resting against the end of the desk. “You handle this Christmas present thing for me, and you can have the Larkland Christmas party business.”
Amanda swallowed. “That sounds a little like blackmail, Mr. Larkland.”
“Josh.” He grinned. “And it isn’t blackmail at all. I believe it falls more under the heading of extortion. However, I’m desperate, I have a feeling you are, too, and this way we could help each other.” He blinked in his deceptively innocent fashion. “And I’m not suggesting you do it for free. I’ll pay for your time.”
“Are you sure you can afford it?” Amanda retorted. “Considering how many relatives you have...”
“Oh, good,” said Josh. “You do have a sense of humor. I was starting to wonder.”
Amanda watched his lips move into that slow, sexy smile and felt herself melt. It was a bad sign. Josh Larkland was the epitome of the work-absorbed executive. He was twisting her arm to get her to do something she didn’t want to do, and she still liked him.
“Don’t worry about the money,” Josh added. “I can afford it. And this is an opportunity you can’t afford to pass up. There’ll be a lot of people at the Larkland Christmas thing—important people who I’m sure spend enormous sums on arranging... arrangements.” He grinned. “If you do a good job, you could end up with enough business to keep you going for a while.”
He was right about that. And maybe it wasn’t such a big deal. All she had to do was handle his Christmas shopping. How hard could that be? Brandy might not like it, but she would be pleased that Amanda had landed a job that they’d get paid for—and that it didn’t involve icing. “All right,” she said. “I suppose I could pick up a few things.”
“And gift wrap them?”
“And gift wrap them.”
“How about Christmas cards? Can you send those?”
Amanda felt as if she were sinking into quicksand. “I suppose I could...”
Josh gestured at a stack of envelopes on the corner of his desk. “And you’d have to go through all these invitations and send some sort of response. Something that says no without sounding as if it means ‘There’s no way in hell.’”
“Oh,” said Amanda. She eyed the mound. “Well, um, okay, I guess I...”
“Good.” Josh settled back into his chair with a satisfied smile. “You’re hired.”
“YOU CAN’T POSSIBLY be related to all these people,” Amanda argued.
She stared at the list of sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins in stunned disbelief. “There are over twenty people on this list. You can’t be related to all of them,” she said, dropping the list onto her lap. She had been seated in the uncomfortable and only chair in his office for the past hour and would have given anything to get up and stretch her legs.
“Twenty?” Josh thought about it. “Did I mention Mable?”
“No.”
“Well, make it twenty-one. And yes, I am related to most of them, except for Mable of course.” He frowned. “It’s my mother’s fault. She married Harold without giving any consideration to the problems that was going to cause me at Christmas.”
“I imagine she had other things on her mind at the time,” Amanda murmured, trying to surreptitiously stretch one leg, then the other. Ah, that felt better!
“I suppose,” Josh agreed, and Amanda found herself wondering if he had the slightest idea what any of those things might have been. After an hour with him, she’d concluded that Josh Larkland was the most clued-out man she’d ever met ... and perhaps the most irresistible. His aura of helplessness, along with his physical attractiveness and incredible charm, would stop any woman in her tracks.
So why didn’t he have a woman around to handle his shopping for him?
That’s none of your business, Amanda scolded herself. She was not getting personally involved with this guy. Still, she couldn’t help wondering...
She focused her attention back on his list of relatives. “At least most of these people are women. I can get them gift baskets filled with soap and perfume and...”
“Perfume?” Josh shook his head. “Perfume is out.”
“Why?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “It just is, that’s all. I want something more...personal.”
“Personal?” That was the last thing Amanda had expected to hear. “You want me to get these people somet
hing personal?”
“That’s right,” said Josh. “I think it would be more... thoughtful.”
“Thoughtful.” Amanda struggled to hold back a giggle. “Thoughtful is not when you coerce someone else to do your shopping for you.”
Josh grinned right back at her. “Hey, extortion takes a lot of thought. Especially when you’ve never done it before.”
“Right.” Darn, he was cute. It was almost a shame that he wasn’t a creep on the make. Amanda shoved aside the thought and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. “Personal thoughtful presents, hmm. Okay. Well, suppose you tell me something about these people.”
“Like what?”
“Something that would help,” Amanda explained. “What they do. What they like.” Josh still looked blank. “Why don’t we start with your sisters? How old are they?”
“How old?” Josh’s forehead furrowed while he considered it. “I don’t know exactly. A lot older than me.”
Amanda wasn’t certain if his idea of “a lot” was two or twenty-two. “Would that make them over forty?”
“Not all of them.” He stared into the space over her head. “Marilla might be. There was some sort of party in the summer that had to do with forty. I think it was Marilla’s birthday...unless it was for her husband. He’s really old. Or was it was Frank and Louise’s anniversary?”
At this rate she’d be over forty by the time Josh figured it out. Amanda decided to abandon the age angle. “Let’s forget that. How about what they do.”
“What they do?” Josh looked as puzzled by that as he had been by their age.
“For a living,” Amanda prompted. “What do your sisters do for a living?”
“Well...um...Shelby does something with children.”
“A teacher?” Amanda guessed.
“Either that or a hairdresser,” said Josh. “I can never remember. Charmaine works in a bank or a hospital, and Marilla has something to do with animals. She shows them or trains them or...” He shook his head. “I’m not positive. I just know she likes cats.”
At last—a decent suggestion. Amanda wrote “cats” beside Marilla’s name. It wasn’t a bad hint. She could always find some kind of cat ornament. “How about Marilla’s husband—” she scanned her list “—Tom?”
“Tom? Oh, he likes cats, too.”
Amanda decided she’d heard enough about Marilla and Tom. “What about your other sisters—Shelby and Charmaine? What do they like?”
“I have no idea,” said Josh.
No one could know this little about his family. “You must know,” Amanda insisted. “Just think. When they get together, what do they talk about?”
Josh shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing in particular. Except for Marilla and Tom. They talk about cats.”
Amanda was beginning to form a pretty weird picture of his family, all sitting mutely while this Tom and Marilla lectured on about felines. “Let’s try someone else.” She scanned her list again. “How about your aunts, Mimi and Louise. Tell me about them.”
“There isn’t anything to tell! They’re my aunts, that’s all. And I don’t know how old they are!”
Of course he didn’t. As a matter of fact, Amanda was starting to wonder if he even knew what his relatives looked like. “What about your mother? Do you know anything about her?”
Josh’s cheekbones reddened. “Of course I know something about her! She’s my mother. Her name is Edwina Davidson. She’s been married twice—first to my father. Then to Harold.”
Amanda frowned. “I need more than that.” She sat up straighter in the uncomfortable chair.
“I don’t know anything more than that!” Amanda rolled her eyes and Josh scowled. “Don’t look so disapproving. I don’t think people should know a whole bunch of personal information about their relatives. It’s too...”
“Personal?” Amanda guessed.
“Exactly!”
Amanda looked down at the list resting on her lap, then back up at him. “I can’t do this.”
“What do you mean, you can’t do it? You...”
“No, I can’t! I don’t think anyone could. It’s utterly impossible.”
“It can’t be that impossible,” Josh argued. “Lots of other people do it. And it’s not as if I’m asking you to design a voice-response subrelay. I just want you to get a few presents...”
“Personal presents,” Amanda corrected. “For people I haven’t met and you don’t know anything about.”
They stared at each other. “Then I guess you’ll just have to meet them,” said Josh.
Amanda couldn’t believe her ears. “Excuse me?”
“You’re the one making the big fuss about knowing them,” Josh observed. “I’d be perfectly happy if you’d get them something personal without ever meeting them. However, since you’re going to be so difficult about it, I guess the only thing to do is to arrange for you to meet them.”
Amanda didn’t know what he had in mind, but she was positive she wasn’t going to like it. “No,” she said. “I am not going to do that. I absolutely refuse to walk up to over twenty strangers and ask them what they want for Christmas. For one thing, I doubt that they would tell me, and for another, they’d probably have me arrested.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” said Josh. “Elves don’t get sent to jail. It would just annoy Santa and no one wants to risk that.” She scowled and he held up a hand. “But I’m not suggesting you do that. I don’t want my relatives to know about you. I’m supposed to be doing this present thing myself.”
“I guessed that,” Amanda muttered under her breath.
Josh ignored her. “What you need to do is meet them...casually. Then you could ask them all kinds of personal questions without them getting suspicious. Sort of like a...a secret-agent elf.” He drummed his fingers on his desktop. “Now, how can we arrange that?”
“We can’t,” said Amanda. “Maybe we should forget this. I—”
Josh interrupted her. “I’ve got it,” he exclaimed. He got up out of his chair and began to pace in front of the windows. “Aunt Mimi.”
“Aunt Mimi?”
“Yes. She’s having the whole crowd. Everyone will be there. You can meet them all.” He peered at Amanda. “You are free tonight, aren’t you?”
Amanda nodded her head, wondering what she was getting herself into. “Great. Then you can go to Aunt Mimi’s party.”
3
“AUNT MIMI’S PARTY?” Brandy repeated incredulously.
She put a hand over her mouth and giggled into it. “This guy actually expected you to go to a family party with him so you could find out personal things about his relatives?”
“That’s right.” Amanda sat in her kitchen, still a little stunned after her meeting with Josh. “He even hinted that I could go by myself. He said there would be so many people there that no one would notice that they didn’t know me and that he wasn’t there.”
Brandy shook with laughter. “And I thought I’d met them all! What did you say?”
“I talked him out of it!” Amanda felt rather proud of this accomplishment. “After all, they are his relatives. If I have to go, he should have to go, as well.”
Brandy’s eyes widened. “You’re not really going to do this, are you?”
Amanda shrugged. “I have to. If I’m going to get presents for these people, I have to meet them. It’s the only way I’m going to find out anything about them.” She checked her watch and rose out of her chair. If she hurried, she could have a quick shower. Then there was her hair... “Josh doesn’t seem to know much more than their names.”
“‘Josh,’” Brandy repeated. She followed Amanda down the hall. “Listen, Amanda, I’m not so sure this is a good idea.”
“Why not?” asked Amanda. She went into her bedroom, opened her closet and studied the contents. Josh hadn’t been much help in the wardrobe department. “I don’t know what anyone wears,” he’d said when she’d asked how formal this gathering was. “They just look...clean.�
�
“I just don’t,” Brandy insisted. She plunked herself on the edge of Amanda’s bed. “For one thing, he doesn’t sound like the kind of man any woman in her right mind would get near. And for another, he’s a client. This morning you were horrified at the idea of me cozying up with a potential client just to improve business. Now you’re going to do it.”
“I am not cozying up with him!” Amanda objected. Not that she’d mind cozying up with Josh. He was certainly handsome and...
Amanda caught herself. Brandy was right. Josh wasn’t the sort of man any woman in her right mind would date. Besides, she wasn’t positive Josh would know how to cozy up with someone.
She giggled at the thought, then yanked a cherry red knit dress out of the closet. “If anyone is cozying up, it’s probably you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” Amanda turned around. “There are a dozen roses on my kitchen table, along with a card addressed to you.”
“Oh, those.” Brandy rolled her eyes. “I got those for not cozying up with someone. Mr. Denton sent them.”
“Mr. Denton?”
“That character who attacked me this morning,” Brandy explained. “He sent those along with a card that said ‘I’m terribly sorry.’”
“That was nice of him.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” Brandy considered it for a moment, then shrugged it off. “He’s probably just worried I’ll call the police...or his wife.”
“It was still a nice gesture.” Amanda held up the dress. “What do you think of this?”
“It’s fine.” Brandy’s forehead creased in concern. “Are you sure you want to go out with this guy? We don’t know much about him. He could be a psychopath or something.”
“Josh?” Amanda shook her head. “You don’t have to worry about that. And I’m not really going out with him. It’s more like I’m...I’m attending a business function.”
“Business?” Brandy snorted. “We’re in the executive services business, dear, not the executive dating services business.”
“It’s not a date!”
“I still don’t like it,” Brandy said stubbornly. “Maybe I should hang around so I can check him out.” She glanced at her watch. “What time is he picking you up?”
