Christmas With a Billionaire: Billionaire Under the Mistletoe\Snowed in With Her Boss\A Diamond for Christmas (7 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

S
OPHIE
WAS
SITTING
on the edge of the sofa, still struggling to pull her trousers back on and fasten them by the time Max had located and flicked on the light switch. He stood looking searchingly around the room for whatever it was that had attacked him, green eyes narrowing as he located the black cat sitting on the back of one of the armchairs. The cat’s back arched as he gave a disapproving hiss in the direction of their late-night visitor.

‘Bad cat, Henry,’ Sophie scolded, fully dressed again now as she moved to shoo him off the chair and he ran and hid beneath the coffee table.

‘Henry is a
cat
?’ Max exploded disbelievingly.

Sophie froze as she realised her mistake. A mistake that could cost her dearly. Could cost Sally dearly too, if Max made the connection between them at last.

‘Sophie?’ Max prompted harshly.

She gave a pained wince, feeling the colour drain from her cheeks as she slowly turned to face Max and instantly saw that the indulgent lover of a few minutes ago had been replaced with the cold and arrogant Max Hamilton, billionaire CEO and owner of Hamilton Enterprises.

‘I’m waiting for an answer, Sophie.’ The softness of his tone sounded even more dangerous than his previously harsh one.

She moistened her lips before speaking. ‘I’m...I’m cat-sitting for...for a friend while she’s away over Christmas.’

‘That wasn’t what I asked!’ There was no sign of so much as a crack in Max’s icy veneer.

Sophie swallowed before confirming heavily, ‘Yes, Henry is a cat.’

‘And you deliberately let me think—’

‘I never lied to you.’

‘You lied by omission!’

‘You
assumed
Henry was a man.’

‘And you allowed me to continue to assume it.’

‘Yes.’ She sighed at the cold accusation in his tone.

‘Why?’

‘I just... I thought it best... It just seemed the wisest thing to do, in the circumstances!’

Those arctic green eyes narrowed to icy slits. ‘And what circumstances are those? Damn it; why couldn’t you have just told me that Henry was a cat and be done with—’ He broke off, becoming very still as he now eyed Sophie speculatively. ‘What’s your friend’s name?’ he prompted softly.

Yep, there was definitely going to be trouble, Sophie acknowledged with another wince, in all probability for both Sally and herself.

‘Answer me, Sophie!’ Max snapped harshly.

‘This is all my fault. Sally had absolutely nothing to do with it.’ She rushed into speech. ‘She— We— I thought it best if you didn’t know of the connection, then if anything went wrong, if I made a mess of things, there would be no comeback on Sally.’

Max continued to look at her coldly. ‘What connection would that be?’

Trust Max to have latched onto that part of her statement!

Just one glance at the cold implacability of Max’s expression and those icily glittering green eyes was enough to warn Sophie against even attempting to continue to deceive him about her family connection to Sally. Any further prevarication really wasn’t an option when he was already so angry. And it could result in her getting Sally fired from her job as Max’s PA. If that hadn’t happened already, as far as Max was concerned.

Her gaze lowered from meeting his piercing green one. ‘Sally is my cousin.’

‘Your cousin?’ he repeated softly.

‘She and my Aunt Rachel and Uncle William are the only relatives I have, yes,’ Sophie confirmed huskily.

‘In that case, why didn’t you go to Canada and spend Christmas with them?’

‘I wasn’t... I didn’t feel up to travelling all that way yet, let alone— I offered to look after Henry instead,’ she stated firmly.

Max continued to look at the top of Sophie’s bent head for several long seconds before he turned away abruptly. He moved to stand in front of one of the windows, his clenched fists thrust into the pockets of his trousers as he absorbed, and tried to make sense of, this conversation.

Sophie was the cousin of his PA, Sally.

She was cat-sitting her cousin’s pet while Sally and her parents were in Canada meeting her fiancé’s family.

Leaving Sophie to ‘deliver Christmas’ to Max’s apartment.

His shoulders tensed as he slowly turned. ‘You either overheard my conversation with Sally that day in her office, or Sally repeated it to you.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

‘Sally would never do that,’ she assured him heatedly. ‘I—I was meeting Sally for lunch that day and I overheard the two of you talking. I thought it best to wait outside in the hallway till you’d finished,’ she admitted gruffly.

‘And in the meantime you eavesdropped on a private conversation!’ Max’s top lip curled back contemptuously.

‘Not intentionally! I just— I had arrived at Sally’s office a little early for lunch and the two of you were talking and I didn’t want to interrupt. I couldn’t help overhearing what you were discussing and—’

‘I should take a breath, Sophie,’ he advised scathingly.

She gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘Sally had nothing to do with the decision not to tell you of our family connection; that really was all my idea. Sally was short of time and I had nothing else to do over Christmas except look after Henry, and so I offered to organise Christmas for you and your family.’

‘To “deliver Christmas” was how you described it that first day, if I remember correctly,’ Max rasped harshly. ‘A direct quote from part of my conversation in Sally’s office that day. Which is no doubt the reason you were so damned contemptuous towards me when we first met.’

‘I thought you were just a Bah Humbug. I had no idea then of the reason why you’ve avoided celebrating Christmas for so many years,’ she defended uncomfortably.

But she had realised the reason now, Max accepted, after Janice’s indiscreet comments about their parents both dying at Christmas sixteen years ago.

None of which changed their current situation in the slightest.

‘Perhaps in future that will teach you not to make snap judgements about peo—’ Max broke off his scathing comment to look at Sophie searchingly. ‘You said that Sally and her parents are your only relatives?’

She gave a puzzled frown. ‘Yes.’

Max remembered that Sally had taken a week’s compassionate leave during the summer so that she could spend some time with her cousin, whose mother had just died after a long and painful illness. And then there had been another day off following that week, so that Sally could attend her aunt’s funeral.

And Sophie’s unfinished comment just now regarding her desire not to travel
yet
.

Was it possible that her aunt had been Sophie’s mother?

‘When did your own parents die, Sophie?’ he prompted huskily.

She frowned. ‘I don’t see...’

‘Humour me,’ Max bit out abruptly.

‘My father died fifteen years ago, and my mother...my mother died six months ago,’ she acknowledged huskily, her gaze not meeting his even though her chin rose challengingly. ‘It’s because she was so ill for so long that I didn’t finish my original college course.’

Max was angry with Sophie for not telling him of her connection to Sally. And even more furious with her for allowing him to believe that Henry was a man.

At the same time he couldn’t help but feel compassion for her recent loss. Because it was recent; losing a beloved parent was an ache, a hollowness that could never be truly filled. And he, of all people, should know how it felt to lose your parents, and to spend that first Christmas without them. Especially so when it had been just Sophie and her mother for so many years.

There were also his own strange, as yet inexplicable desires, feelings even, for Sophie. Feelings he was just too angry at the moment to even try to comprehend. Feelings that made him even angrier about this situation, if anything.

One thing he did know, no matter how cross he might be with Sophie right now—he had no intention of leaving her here to spend Christmas alone with that hissing, spitting fur ball!

He drew in a deep breath. ‘Does Sally have a travel basket for Henry?’

Sophie looked startled. ‘Sorry?’

‘You may well have cause to be before this Christmas is over,’ Max warned grimly. ‘But all I’m interested in knowing for now is whether or not you have a basket we can put that monster into—’ he shot Henry a quelling glance as he saw the black cat had slunk out from beneath the coffee table and was now eyeing him balefully ‘—while we drive back to my apartment.’

Sophie wasn’t just startled now; she was dumbstruck. Was Max seriously suggesting that she should not only continue to spend the rest of Christmas with him and his family at his apartment, but that she should also bring along the belligerent Henry to join them, too?

Because he wanted her to spend Christmas with him?

Doubtful, after this recent conversation.

It was more likely to be because she had been hired to ‘deliver Christmas’ to him and his family and Max still expected her to do exactly that.

‘The snow is falling heavier than ever, Sophie,’ Max rasped at her continued silence. ‘Which means we have to leave soon if we’re going to get back at all.’

It was the latter, of course, Sophie accepted heavily. She really shouldn’t harbour any illusions of it being anything else, despite their earlier intimacy.

She might have fallen in love with Max in just a few short days, but he certainly didn’t feel anything approaching that emotion for her.

And he never would...

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘W
HO
WOULD
HAVE
thought that a five-year-old could make a lapdog—or, in this case, cat—out of the fur ball?’ Max mused as he entered the kitchen of his apartment. He’d just spent several minutes in the sitting room watching Amy carry Henry around in her arms as if he were a baby while the cat looked up at her adoringly. ‘He’s a disgrace to the feline race!’

Sophie couldn’t help but laugh as she turned, her face flushed, from taking warmed mince pies from the oven, ready for an afternoon snack.

The last twenty-four hours had gone more smoothly than she could ever have hoped for, following that awful scene between herself and Max at Sally’s flat yesterday evening.

Present opening this morning had been fun. How could it not be, in the company of a five-year-old who still believed in Father Christmas?

To Sophie’s surprise, she had received gifts not only from Janice and Tom, and a separate one from Amy, but there had also been a present under the tree for her from Max. A beautiful pashmina in shades of russet and brown, which she had been convinced Janice must have chosen for him until the other woman assured her that she hadn’t.

Sophie’s heart had given a leap at the thought of Max having gone out to buy a present for her. A pleasure that had been instantly dampened by the blandness of his expression when she had given him her heartfelt thanks for the gift, and he had distractedly thanked her for his own present of the book from her.

Sophie had kept herself busy in the kitchen all morning and Christmas lunch had been a great success. The turkey had been cooked to perfection, along with an assortment of roasted vegetables, with Christmas and chocolate pudding to follow—the latter was for Amy—accompanied by Sophie’s own special brandy cream and ice cream.

Sophie had still been a little uncomfortable as the family once again insisted that she had to sit down and join them for the meal. She was so very aware, still, of the gulf that now yawned between herself and Max.

But she needn’t have worried because Max had gone out of his way to be polite to her today.

Too polite, if Sophie was honest with herself. She much preferred the rude irascible Max to this polite stranger.

She eyed him warily now. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘I think the two of us should talk, don’t you?’ He leant back against the kitchen table, arms folded in front of his powerful chest as he studied her from between narrowed lids. He looked very handsome in a black silk shirt and faded blue jeans, his dark hair as tousled as ever.

Sophie gave him a nervous glance as she placed the mince pies onto a plate. ‘If this is about me not telling you of my family connection to Sally...’

‘It isn’t. Although I’m interested to know why you made that decision.’ His eyes had narrowed questioningly.

Sophie chewed on her bottom lip. ‘Sally mentioned that you once had a problem with a friend of hers who took over as your PA while Sally was away on holiday.’

‘Cathy Lawrence,’ he muttered with feeling.

‘Yes.’ She winced at those obvious feelings of disgust. ‘I was the one who persuaded Sally into not revealing our own family connection. Just in case I messed up too,’ she added awkwardly.

His eyes darkened with amusement. ‘The difference being that I would have welcomed you throwing yourself at me every chance you got.’

‘Instead of which, I threw you.’ Her cheeks burned with remembered embarrassment. ‘Onto the kitchen floor,’ she reminded him with a wince.

Max shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘I deserved it.’

‘But...’

‘Stop worrying, Sophie; I assure you, there will be no repercussions on Sally for any of this. The opposite, in fact,’ he added huskily. ‘This Christmas has been more than I could ever have hoped for. It’s been magical,’ Max continued softly. ‘And that’s mainly due to you.’

‘Me?’ Sophie echoed softly. ‘I didn’t do anything that you didn’t pay me to do.’

Max’s mouth tightened. ‘We both know you’ve gone way above and beyond what I asked for,’ he corrected huskily. ‘In fact, none of this—’ his glance encompassed the whole of his apartment; the sound of his niece’s laughter heard from the next room, the decorations, the wonderful, and deeply nostalgic, smells of the Christmas food cooking ‘—would have been possible without you.’

‘I’m sure you would have managed well enough without me, hired someone else to...’

‘That’s the whole point, Sophie.’ Max straightened as he looked down at her intensely. ‘I’ve realised this last few days that I don’t want anyone else. That managing is exactly what I’ve been doing for so many years. Without you.’

She shot him a nervous glance from beneath lowered lashes. ‘I don’t understand.’

He smiled at her with sympathy; after the shock and, yes, he admitted it, anger of realising that Sophie had hidden from him that she was Sally’s cousin it had taken him twenty-four hours of soul-searching to reach his own conclusions as to why he felt so angry. He couldn’t expect Sophie to understand how he felt after just a couple of minutes of conversation. Or expect her to feel the same way about him as he now felt about her.

The only encouragement he had was that he knew Sophie responded to him on a physical level, at least. The rest would have to be worked at.

Which was a pretty scary thought for a man who had never in his life felt the least inclination to work at a relationship with a woman before now.

Before Sophie.

He smiled slightly. ‘I love the book you bought me for Christmas, by the way. I’ve been meaning to buy it for months, I just never got around to it, was always too busy doing something else.’

‘I’m glad you like it.’ She still eyed him warily. ‘As you can see, I love my pashmina.’ She was wearing it about her neck right now, the russet and brown colours looking wonderful against the red of her hair.

‘I’m glad.’ Max nodded. ‘Sophie...’ He gave a grimace as he paused impatiently.

‘Yes?’

Max straightened his shoulders determinedly. ‘I may as well come straight out with it and just tell you how I feel.’

‘How you feel about what?’ Sophie looked completely bewildered by his intensity.

She might look even more bewildered in a moment, but it was a risk Max had to take. That he was determined to take. ‘Everything you’ve said and thought about me was correct. I’ve avoided celebrating Christmas for years because of my parents’ deaths on Christmas Eve sixteen years ago. I found it an irritation; I even resented having to organise Christmas here this year for Janice and Amy. And I have a reputation when it comes to women. Have never so much as contemplated a serious relationship with one.’

‘Max...’

‘Until now,’ he completed firmly. ‘Until you,’ he added huskily as he reached out to take both her hands in his. ‘Sophie—’ He drew in a deep steadying breath. ‘Being with you these past few days, feeling my apartment become a home rather than just a place for me to sleep. Laughing with you, arguing with you, kissing you...’

‘Oh, please don’t!’ She groaned her embarrassment.

He gave a wide smile. ‘I love kissing you and touching you, Sophie. Just as I love laughing and arguing with you. In fact, I love it all so much, I love
you
so much, I want to go on doing it for the rest of my life.’

Sophie had ceased breathing as she gazed up at Max searchingly, wonderingly, sure she must be dreaming. Or that she had somehow fallen over and bumped her head and was imagining all of this. Because Max—Max Hamilton, billionaire CEO and owner of Hamilton Enterprises, a man who had avoided emotional involvement for all of his adult life—couldn’t possibly have just told her that he loved her. Could he?

She gave a disbelieving shake of her head. ‘You were so angry with me last night.’

‘I was angry with myself,’ he corrected. ‘And totally confused by the depth of that anger. It’s taken me until now to admit why that was. Sophie, I’m no good at this sort of thing, have no idea how to go about courting you, wooing you, winning you, let alone persuading you into loving me as I love you.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘But I would dearly like you—in fact, I’m begging you—to give me a chance to at least try.’

Sophie couldn’t speak, could still barely breathe, as she felt the hot tears gather in her eyes. Tears of happiness, not sorrow. Because, miracle of miracles, Max had just told her that he loved her.

Max loved her!

It was too huge, too immense, too intense for her to be able to fully take it in.

‘Sophie, please,’ Max groaned throatily at her continued silence. ‘At least tell me you’ll give me that chance. I couldn’t bear it if— These past few days, being here with you, coming home to you, have shown me that it, and you as my wife, are what I want for the rest of my life.’ He stared down at her intently.

‘You want to marry me?’ she gasped breathlessly.

‘Of course I want to marry you.’ Max looked down at her sternly. ‘What did you think I meant by courting, wooing and winning you?’

‘I didn’t think— Didn’t know— Oh, yes, Max, I’ll marry you!’ She threw her arms about his neck as she launched herself into his arms. ‘I love you too, Max. I love you so very much.’ She beamed up at him. ‘I didn’t dare to hope, to dream, that you would ever feel the same way about me.’

Max looked down at her searchingly, his face lighting up with joy as he saw the truth of that love shining in the warmth of her eyes and her expressive face.

Miracles did happen, Max realised emotionally.

And Sophie was his own personal miracle.

A miracle he fully intended to love and cherish for the rest of his life.

* * *

E
XACTLY
A
YEAR
LATER
, Sophie’s main Christmas present to Max was to tell him that in approximately seven months’ time they would be bringing yet another miracle to the happiness of their married life together. That she was expecting a cousin for Amy and her six-month-old brother, Barney...

* * * * *