Billionaire Under The Mistletoe

He eyed her after taking a sip of his wine. ‘Aren’t you a little old to still be at college?’

The question was so unexpected that Sophie choked on the wine she had been sipping.

‘Careful!’ He moved with that smooth animal grace as he swiftly made his way round the breakfast bar before slapping her on the back.

Sophie glowered up at him as that slap caused her to spit out the rest of the wine. With her eyes streaming from choking and her nose leaking the excess wine, she must look oh-so-very elegant! ‘I’m not sure whether I should thank you for that or not …’ she croaked breathlessly.

‘Just trying to help.’ He grinned down at her unrepentantly as he pulled the white silk handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and presented it to her with a flourish.

Sophie muttered under her breath as she took the handkerchief and mopped up the tears from her cheeks before giving her nose a noisy blow.

‘Sorry?’

She glared up at him. ‘I said I can probably do without help like that.’

‘Would you rather I had let you continue to choke?’ Max held back another smile as he moved to sit back on the bar stool opposite, his expression deliberately innocent as he looked across at her enquiringly.

‘I would rather—Oh, never mind,’ Sophie dismissed impatiently. ‘A minute ago you thought I was underage. I’ll return this to you once I’ve laundered it.’ She pocketed the used handkerchief. ‘And then you say I’m too old to still be at college. Maybe I’m doing an advanced course?’

‘Are you?’ Surprisingly, Max found he was enjoying himself; Sophie Carter certainly wasn’t boring!

As he so often found that he was bored when in the company of the beautiful women he habitually dated?

Well, yes, if Max was honest, he invariably found, no matter how beautiful or desirable and accomplished a woman was in bed, that when it came to actual conversation those women usually bored him almost to the point of falling asleep in their company.

Sophie Carter wasn’t classically beautiful, but her skin was creamy smooth and the tight red shoulder-length curls, which should have clashed garishly with her red jumper but somehow didn’t, were somehow endearing, and those brown eyes were huge enough for a man to drown in. Plus there were those lusciously sensual lips …

Oh, for goodness’ sake. She was only here in his apartment to ensure that Janice and Amy had a good Christmas. Well, as good as it could be, considering that his sister and brother-in-law were currently at loggerheads over something.

Max had no intention of getting caught in the middle of that argument, whatever it was; he knew from experience how volatile his younger sister could be. He had leapt to Janice’s defence too many times when they were both in their teens, only to find that he was the one left sporting a black eye or a split lip, while Janice had made up with whichever one of her boyfriends she had previously fallen out with.

‘I only started catering college in September,’ Sophie replied softly, long lashes lowered over those huge brown eyes.

‘What were you doing before that?’

She looked up at him, those deep brown eyes flashing her resentment at the question. ‘What does that have to do with what I’m doing now?’

Nothing at all. Except that Max knew that for some reason Sophie Carter didn’t want to tell him.

Maybe she had been married and was now divorced and branching out on her own? Or maybe she had needed to work for a few years in order to save up the money to put herself through college? Or—

‘Perhaps you could tell me a little about your sister and niece, so that I have some idea what presents to buy them when I go shopping tomorrow?’ Sophie’s eyes were still slightly red from when she had choked on the wine, her nose too, and her lips were slightly puffy.

Max found his gaze lingering a little too long on those puffy lips.

‘Mr Hamilton?’

‘Call me Max,’ he invited distractedly.

‘I would prefer to keep our relationship on a purely professional footing,’ she answered him primly.

And Max was rapidly coming to the realisation that he would much rather they didn’t, that he found Sophie Carter extremely intriguing!

A knee-jerk reaction to having realised Cynthia Maitland’s unwanted expectations of him?

Possibly.

Although he somehow doubted it.

As a self-made billionaire, Max had long ago become accustomed to, and irritated by, the pound signs that gleamed in a woman’s eyes whenever she looked at him.

The only thing gleaming in Sophie Carter’s expressive eyes when she looked at him was disapproval. For men in general? Or was it something specific about him, in particular, she didn’t like or approve of?

And why the hell should it matter to him, one way or the other, what Sophie Carter did or didn’t think of him?

It didn’t was the answer to that question.

He shrugged. ‘Janice likes silk scarves. And Amy is into horses rather than dolls. Or at least she was the last time I spoke to her.’

‘Your sister’s colouring?’

‘Janice is tall, with the same colouring as mine. Except she’s beautiful, of course,’ he added drily.

Sophie’s gaze dropped from meeting that probing green one as she inwardly acknowledged that Max Hamilton was extremely beautiful, in a purely alpha male and masculine way, of course. That overlong ebony hair was silky soft, his face all hard and masculine angles, his body appearing even more so beneath that perfectly tailored suit and white silk shirt.