Carole Mortimer - A Dream Christmas

‘I would if I could but His Highness wants me to work work. He has this list of things he wants me to take care of.’

Morgan cocked her head. ‘Like?’

‘Decorating his apartment, organising his Christmas cocktail party, finding my replacement.’ Riley folded her arms. ‘Well, I refuse to do it.’

Riley didn’t see the mischievous light that came into Morgan’s eyes, didn’t see the hope that flared within them. She was too busy feeling aggrieved to notice that Morgan had turned contemplative and … sneaky. ‘Well, if you do it time will go faster. The days will drag if you do nothing at all and you hate doing nothing.’

‘I have an apartment to pack up and I have a ticket to fly home on Christmas morning.’

Morgan looked horrified. ‘On Christmas morning? Noooo, Riley … why?’

‘What else am I going to be doing? My family is all in Botswana for Christmas this year.’

‘I hate the thought of you spending the happiest day of the year in the air.’

Actually, it was the best way to spend Christmas if you were single and your family had left your childhood home to spend the holidays in another country with their oldest son.

That was if she could, somehow, persuade James to let her go so that she could catch her flight.

‘You suck,’ Morgan said as she stood up. She leaned over and kissed her cheek. ‘Do what James asks. It will make the time fly and keep you busy and—’

Riley frowned at Morgan’s hesitation. ‘What?’ she demanded.

‘Well, you have given him a lot of grief over the years, Ri … with your overspending and your intransigence when it comes to your designs. No other CEO would’ve given you so much freedom, leeway. He’s been remarkably good, for a control freak, about allowing you to do your own thing. And you get paid well.’

Riley thought of her fat bank account and readily accepted that she could be a bit diva-ish when it came to her art. ‘So you think I should do this?’

Morgan shrugged. ‘It’s up to you but maybe it would be a way for the two of you to find your way back to … friendship.’ Morgan held up her hand at Riley’s expression. ‘Maybe your time has passed but you’ve known him all your life. Maybe you should try to be friends again, reclaim that at least.’

Riley folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. She didn’t trust Morgan’s earnest expression. ‘You’re just trying to throw us together in the hope that we end up in bed again.’

Morgan’s eyes widened and she placed her hand on her heart in mock outrage. ‘You wound me.’

‘I wound you, my ass. Get out of my office, Moreau, and go and practice your manipulation skills on Noah.’

‘I don’t need to manipulate him; I just get naked.’ Morgan kissed Riley on the cheek.

Riley returned her hug. ‘Lucky you. I miss sex.’ She sighed.

Morgan patted her on the back. ‘Just get naked in front of James; I promise he’ll get the hint.’

Riley pushed Morgan through the door. ‘Out! Now!’

What part of ‘Let it go’ did Morgan not understand?

ACCORDING TO THE Moreau family, her Christmas windows were her best yet, Riley remembered as she walked through the lobby of the MI building, her feet dragging after the long, long day. The Christmas season, as far as Riley was concerned, had officially started and, instead of feeling the excited anticipation she always did, all she wanted to do was to fall flat down on her bed and sleep for a week.

Riley wound her scarf around her neck, pulled on a woollen cap and buttoned her coat, preparing to step into the frigid air outside. It was nearly midnight and they’d had a record crowd for the unveiling of her windows earlier. In between rotating her neck looking for James—who hadn’t been at the unveiling, again—she’d watched Lorelei sing her heart out. Hannah had been gracious and everyone had oohed and aahed over her displays. But now, at this late hour, the gawkers and guests were gone, the road had reopened and the stage had been removed. Riley, who had supervised the returning of the street and pavement to normal, was running on fresh air and emotion.

Holy smokes, it was cold, she thought as she stepped onto the pavement, hunching her shoulders. She should get home but instead she walked around the corner, heading towards the jewellery store, wanting to see her windows as the customers and tourists would—not as the artist but as the viewer. If she got a visceral punch, that flood of pleasure, then she’d know that she’d adequately translated the vision in her head.

But it wasn’t the windows, as spectacular as they were, that momentarily stopped her heart, that had her gasping for breath. It was the blond head in front of the first window, one hand on the glass pane, looking—really looking—at the old-fashioned turn-of-the-century Christmas scene she’d created in the first window. As she quietly approached him she could see his broad smile, his enjoyment of what she’d done.

She’d always thought that she needed James’s words of praise for her work but she didn’t, she realised; she just needed to see this look on his face. Just once.

‘Like it?’ she softly asked.

James’s head whipped around and his smile broadened when he saw her. ‘Like it? No. Love it, absolutely. It’s fantastic, Ri.’

Ri … something he hadn’t called her in far too long. James held out his bare hand and Riley placed hers in it and didn’t resist when he tugged her closer and tucked her under his arm. They both turned to look at the first display. ‘Why a display of Moreau family Christmases over the years?’

‘The interest in Morgan’s wedding, the continued interest in your family from the press and people in general.’ Riley laid her head on his shoulder, happy to rest there in the strength of his arms. Just for a moment and then she’d be strong again. ‘I read an account in Marie Moreau’s diary of the first Christmas she spent with Jasper in that tin shack at his first claim, just before he struck it big with that rich diamond pipe. They were dirt poor but it was a happy day. Her next Christmas—’ Morgan gestured to the window showing a lusciously dressed nineteenth-century couple and their smart friends sitting by a huge tree drinking champagne ‘—was very different. Very rich. Marie writes that Jasper gave her another whacking diamond and impregnated her that Christmas Eve. Apparently they did it in front of that tree …’

‘Hopefully, when all the guests were gone,’ James said, with a rumble of laughter in his voice. ‘Did she really write that down? With descriptions and all?’

Riley rolled her eyes at the hope in his voice. ‘There was nothing graphic in her description, you pervert. Anyway, that sparked the idea of doing a series of windows depicting how the Moreau family spent Christmas. Hannah gave me permission and allowed me to trawl through the photo albums.’

‘You actually asked permission? Amazing!’ James teased.

Riley gave him a shoulder bump as they moved to the next window. An animatronic version of a four-year-old James sitting in front of a tall Christmas tree at Bon Chance, a massive toy train in his lap. His baby sister, still in a nappy, sat next to him chewing a teething ring. ‘I remember that train.’

‘You were a pretty cute kid, Moreau. What happened?’ she quipped.

‘I’m still cute.’ He grinned with smug confidence.

James moved her to the next window—a Christmas spent at their house in Aspen, the snowcapped mountains an exact representation of the view from their steel and wood cabin. The scene was straight from her memory, her first Christmas abroad with the Moreaus at fifteen, when James had taught her to ski.

‘I owe you for all the hours you spent teaching me to ski when you could’ve been chasing those ski-bunnies.’