Christmas with a Billionaire: Billionaire under the Mistletoe / Snowed in with Her Boss / A Diamond for Christmas

A modern-day Ebenezer Scrooge came to mind. The Scrooge who had yet to learn the true meaning of Christmas.

Did that mean that there might be some hope for Max Hamilton too—if he was also shown the true meaning of Christmas?

‘It’s been my experience that everything can be bought for the right price, Sally,’ he drawled cynically, almost as an answer to Sophie’s unvoiced question.

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘I knew I could rely on you!’

‘As no doubt I can rely on that huge bonus you’re going to put in my next pay cheque if I manage to pull this off,’ Sally came back drily.

‘What was that for?’ Sally sounded astonished now.

‘In honour of the season?’

‘Okay …’

Sophie waited until she heard a door close, no doubt the connecting door between her cousin’s office and Max Hamilton’s, before finally entering Sally’s office, easily noting the slightly dazed and flushed look on her cousin’s face as she sat behind her desk.

‘Did he just kiss you?’

‘I—Yes …’ Sally gave a rueful shake of her head as she touched her fingertips to her cheek.

Sophie instantly added liberty-taker to her list of Max Hamilton’s faults. Unless he thought, as Sally was engaged, it was safe to kiss her? The revolving door through which the women came, and as instantly went, in Max Hamilton’s life would seem to imply he had a problem with committing to one woman.

‘Did you hear any of that?’ Sally mused ruefully.

‘Only the highlights,’ Sophie answered drily. ‘And I don’t count that kiss as being amongst them!’ she added disapprovingly as she perched her denim-clad bottom on the edge of her cousin’s desk.

‘It was only on the cheek, so no big deal.’ Sally stood up to collect her coat and shoulder bag, ready for the two of them to head out to their lunch.

‘I’m not sure Josh would see it that way.’

Sally smiled affectionately at the mention of her fiancé and her thoughts turned to their planned wedding for next summer. ‘I’m more worried about how I’m supposed to have Christmas delivered to Max’s apartment by Friday, as well as a cook, than I am about Josh being in the least jealous of a grateful peck on the cheek from my boss.’

Sophie found herself thinking about her cousin’s dilemma, and five-year-old Amy’s Christmas too, as the two of them ate lunch together in the busy Italian bistro just down the road from Hamilton Tower. Max Hamilton obviously had absolutely no idea how to go about providing Christmas for his sister and the no doubt emotionally bewildered Amy.

‘I’ll do it,’ Sophie announced decisively as they waited for their bill to be delivered to the table.

Sally frowned as she looked up from searching for her purse in her handbag. ‘Do what?’

‘Organise and have Christmas delivered to your boss’s apartment.

‘And I’ll also cook for him and his family over the holidays.’

Her cousin stilled, her eyes wide. ‘Are you being serious?’

‘Why not?’ Sophie shrugged. ‘You obviously don’t really have the time to organise it, and I have nothing but time at the moment,’ she added gruffly. ‘Besides, it might be fun to organise a Christmas that apparently has an unlimited budget. You don’t look too sure about the idea?’ she prompted uncertainly as she saw her cousin’s frown.

‘Not because I don’t think you can do it, because I know you can,’ Sally assured her quickly. ‘It’s just—Did I ever tell you what a disaster it was a couple of years ago, when I allowed my friend Cathy, who had just been made redundant and needed the money, to stand in for me at the office while I went away on holiday?’

Sophie frowned in thought for a moment and then her brow cleared as she began to laugh. ‘As I recall, didn’t you tell me Cathy made a play for Max Hamilton that he took exception to?’

Sally rolled her eyes. ‘She didn’t just make a play for him—she very quickly decided that she wanted to be Mrs Max Hamilton. To the extent that she used to lie in wait for him when he arrived at the office every morning, her clothes becoming more and more daring in an effort to attract his attention! I almost got fired over it.’ She grimaced at the memory.

Sophie gave her cousin’s hand a reassuring pat. ‘Well, you can rest assured that I’m not in the least interested in attracting Max Hamilton’s attention, romantically or otherwise. With any luck, he will barely even know I’m there. Besides, there’s absolutely no reason why he needs to know the two of us are even related. We have different surnames, and he suggested you contact an agency, so why not let him just continue to think that’s what you did? That way, if anything should go wrong there won’t be any comeback on you.’

Sally chewed on her bottom lip, obviously tempted by the idea, but still feeling cautious after the disaster with her friend Cathy. ‘What about Henry?’

Sophie grinned at the mention of her cousin’s beloved cat. ‘I’ll be going back to your flat to sleep at night, and I can easily pop back during the day to feed him and whatever.’

‘You really are serious, aren’t you?’ Sally murmured wonderingly.

‘I really am.’ Sophie nodded.

The more she thought about it, the more Sophie found she liked the idea of ‘delivering’ Max Hamilton’s Christmas …

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_0b601266-6213-5b0f-ae76-3d19db224bc6)

‘WHAT THE HELL—?’ Max came to an abrupt halt as he stepped inside the entrance hall of his apartment and noticed first the stepladder and then the young red-haired woman perched on top of it. She seemed to be attaching something to one of the paintings.

The young woman, who seemed just as startled to see him, turned sharply, letting out a panicked squeak as the ladder wobbled precariously beneath her, causing her to lose her balance completely.

The squeak became an all-out cry of distress as the ladder continued to wobble before tipping over, leaving her with her arms windmilling ineffectively, her expression one of shocked horror as she hurtled towards the marble floor.

Max acted instinctively, instantly dropping his briefcase before stepping forward to hold out his arms in the hope of arresting her unexpected fall. He let out a loud ‘oomph’ as she landed hard against his chest, before taking him down with her.

Sophie was too stunned to be able to so much as think for several long seconds. And when her head finally cleared she didn’t know whether to laugh in relief at her lucky escape from contact with the hard marble tiles or groan in embarrassment as she realised that she was currently sprawled inelegantly across her new employer.

So much for her reassurances to Sally that Max Hamilton would barely know she was there.

It didn’t help that Max Hamilton smelt absolutely divine: a hint of sandalwood and spices, with a tang of lemon. No doubt from his cologne or aftershave.

Or that his breathtakingly sexy voice was now so close to her ear that his breath stirred the curls there as he spoke. It affected her just as much as it had yesterday. So much so that she had fallen off the stepladder the minute she’d heard him speak …

‘Ouch,’ he muttered beneath her now. ‘I think I have a bruised backside at the very least.’

The wild red of Sophie’s curls currently covered most of her face, something she was exceedingly grateful for as she felt the blush that now warmed her cheeks. She felt flustered, sprawled across Max Hamilton’s chest, her thighs and legs also intimately entangled with his.

It didn’t help that an image of that perfectly taut backside also instantly flashed into her mind. She had once seen a photograph in one of the gossip magazines of Sally’s boss on a yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean, his only covering a pair of body-hugging black swimming trucks.

‘Who are you? And exactly what are you doing in my apartment?’ he now demanded irritably.

Obviously the bruising had done nothing to improve his temper.

Sophie struggled to disentangle herself, wrapping her arms about her drawn-up knees as she now sat on the tiled floor beside Max Hamilton. A Max Hamilton who was every bit as gorgeous as he had appeared in the photographs, despite the fact that he was eyeing her with narrow-eyed suspicion as he sat up beside her.

His overlong hair wasn’t just dark; it was ebony, taking on a blue-black sheen beneath the overhead lighting. And his handsome face was so much more appealing in the animated flesh—straight dark brows over long-lashed and luminous green eyes, sculptured cheekbones visible beneath the tautness of his tanned flesh, with perfectly chiselled and sensuously kissable lips above a square and determined jaw.