Carole Mortimer: A Dream Christmas

Max had deliberately chosen to spend his Christmases skiing the last ten years, since Janice had married Tom and moved to the States, and he had been only too glad to do so. Very occasionally he had taken a woman with him, but more often than not he had preferred to go alone, well away from all the festivities and anyone who knew him.

Sophie Carter didn’t seem to have any choice but to spend Christmas alone, possibly without any presents to open up on Christmas morning either, except maybe something from friends?

It made Max feel guilty at the amount of expensive gifts she had gone out and chosen for Janice and Amy today. Totally illogically, he realised; it wasn’t up to him to provide a happy Christmas or presents for every waif and stray who crossed his path. Even if he wanted to.

Which he didn’t, he told himself firmly.

Max had been eighteen and Janice sixteen when their parents were killed in a car crash on Christmas Eve, hit by a drunk driver on their way home from doing some last-minute shopping for presents.

After that Max had only gone through the motions of Christmas for Janice’s sake, and had been perfectly happy not to have to once his sister was married and living in New York.

He certainly didn’t want to involve himself in the preparations for this Christmas any more than he needed to either.

‘Yes, very funny,’ he finally answered Sophie tersely. ‘As you said yesterday that you’re using public transport, you may as well get off home now; you can wrap the presents up tomorrow.’

Sophie had no idea what Max Hamilton had been thinking about for the past few minutes as he’d scowled darkly but, whatever it was, they weren’t pleasant thoughts. He also seemed to have rethought his offer to help her giftwrap his sister’s and niece’s Christmas presents.

‘Fine,’ she accepted just as abruptly. ‘Maybe you could just write out a dozen or so labels for Janice and Amy tonight, ready to go on the gifts tomorrow?’

‘Of course.’ He nodded, his expression arrogantly remote, now looking every inch the billionaire CEO he was.

‘I’ll just …’ Sophie broke off what she had been about to say as his mobile began to ring. ‘I’ll leave you to get that.’

Max took the mobile from the pocket of his jeans and answered the call.

Leaving Sophie in something of a quandary as to whether or not she should just leave him to it. It seemed a little rude to just leave without saying goodbye, and yet she also felt as if he had already dismissed her. And not very politely at that!

As he didn’t seem to be being polite to whoever had telephoned him either

‘We’ve already talked about this, Cynthia, and the answer is still no.’

Cynthia?

‘No, I do not want you to come over this evening so we can talk about it!’ he snapped decisively. ‘Why not? Because I already have someone here with me, that’s why!’

That ‘someone’ being Sophie?

Which was hardly fair, or completely truthful either, when Max seemed to be implying that she was here on a personal basis rather than a business one.

‘That sort of language is not in the least attractive, Cynthia. Goodbye to you too.’ Max closed the mobile’s cover with a decisive snap before putting it back in his jeans pocket. ‘Well?’ His brow was lowered and there was a scowl between his glittering green eyes as he turned to look challengingly across the room at Sophie, displeasure burning off him in waves.

Displeasure Sophie had no interest in having turned against her now that the hapless Cynthia had made an undignified exit!

‘Well what?’ She feigned an innocent expression.

An innocence that didn’t fool Max in the slightest, if the contemptuous curl of his top lip was any indication. ‘You seemed to have something to say on most subjects yesterday, so why not this one?’ he bit out scornfully.

The phrase ‘spoiling for a fight’ came to mind.

‘I don’t think it’s my place to have an opinion on the way in which you conduct your private life, Mr Hamilton.’ Sophie gave a dismissive shrug.

‘That didn’t seem to prevent you from doing exactly that yesterday,’ he drawled mockingly.

No, it hadn’t. And he had done very little so far in their acquaintance to dispel any of those preconceived ideas she’d had of him being a selfish and self-obsessed individual, after accidentally overhearing his conversation with Sally two days ago. This latest conversation with a woman called Cynthia hadn’t exactly endeared him to her either.

‘My opinions are my own, I hope, Mr Hamilton,’ she countered calmly.

His eyes narrowed to glittering green slits. ‘I asked you to call me Max.’

She nodded. ‘And I told you I would prefer to keep our association on professional terms.’

Max ran a frustrated hand through his hair, knowing his anger was directed towards Cynthia, and her inability to accept that things were over between the two of them, rather than at Sophie.

Hell, he and Cynthia had only been out together three or four times, and it had been pure coincidence that the two of them happened to be going to the same ski resort over the Christmas holidays. At least Max had thought it was, until Cynthia had revealed otherwise during their telephone conversations yesterday. He had certainly never given her, or any other woman, the idea that he was interested in settling down with them.

The slightly reproving expression now on Sophie Carter’s face told him that she thought otherwise. And Max certainly didn’t appreciate feeling as if he needed to defend himself, and his actions, to her.

‘Exactly how do you expect to be able to continue doing that when you’re going to be in my apartment over most of Christmas?’ he taunted challengingly.

Sophie had been asking herself the same question since their conversation the evening before. But only in as far as she was an outsider looking in. ‘Quite easily. I’ll be busy in the kitchen most of the time, and you and your family will be in the rest of your apartment.’

‘And what about your own meals?’

‘They will also be eaten in the kitchen, once I’ve finished serving you and your family.’

Max really wasn’t happy with the idea of Sophie waiting on them, let alone sitting in his kitchen eating her meals on her own. He doubted his sister would be too happy with that arrangement either, if she knew Sophie’s circumstances, which he had no doubt she would within a day of meeting Sophie. Janice’s years living in America had made her more open and friendly than her previous English reserve. Than Max’s own English reserve.

‘We’ll see,’ he answered non-committally now. He’d had more than enough arguments already this evening, this latest telephone conversation with Cynthia having left a nasty taste in his mouth.

As well as convincing Sophie that he was even more of a selfish bastard than she had already thought he was.

If that was even possible …

‘WHAT THE HELL—?’

Sophie turned from where she had just taken a baking tray out of the oven at the sound of his harshly broken-off statement, only to instantly lower her gaze again as she saw that her boss was once again dressed in one of those perfectly tailored designer label suits, charcoal this time, his shirt a pale grey, as was the matching tie. His hair was tousled.

As if he had just got out of bed …

‘I made gingerbread angels and snowmen for when Amy arrives tomorrow,’ she supplied abruptly, thankful that her cheeks were already warm from baking, so that hopefully Max wouldn’t notice that she was also blushing from the turn her thoughts had just taken from merely looking at him.

The two of them hadn’t exactly parted well the previous evening, but even so Sophie had found herself thinking about Max—she now thought of him that way in her head, even if she refused to use that same familiarity to his face!—far too much once she had returned to Sally’s flat.