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

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 …

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_4710552c-b0b0-511c-a6e6-d8e40039157c)

‘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.

She had wondered, too, about the woman, Cynthia, who had telephoned him and been rebuffed so coldly. Had she misjudged him over that? Perhaps this woman Cynthia had deserved the coldness of Max’s brush-off? After all, Sophie knew nothing about his relationship with Cynthia; she could be a stalker for all she knew.

Sophie had half decided that she owed Max an apology today. And yet seeing him again, hearing his voice—and once again experiencing the shiver it gave down the length of her spine—she now thought better of it. She was far too aware of everything about Max Hamilton already and needed to keep him firmly at arm’s length, rather than try to become friends with him. If any woman could ever actually be friends with such a physically immediate man.

Sophie doubted she could.

Although she found his continued silence now more than a little puzzling.

She looked across at Max searchingly, noting the grimness of his expression. His face was pale and there were lines around his eyes and mouth; his jaw was tightly clenched.

‘Max?’ she queried uncertainly, not sure if he’d just had a bad day at work—after all, he was minus his PA now that Sally had arrived safely in Canada!—or if she had done something to upset him since he came home?

But considering he had only been in the apartment for a few minutes, she had no idea quite what that could have been.

Even if she did say so herself, the decorations had been tastefully finished, and the presents were all gaily wrapped and placed beneath the brightly lit tree in the sitting room.

But Max had known she was going to do that this morning, had left the written labels in the kitchen for his sister and niece as Sophie had asked him to do, so that she could put them on the parcels today.

Some of the food had been delivered today too, the things that weren’t perishable, but she had already put them away in the cupboards, so there was no clutter in here to annoy him either.

The only thing she could think of that might possibly have annoyed or irritated him was that she was once again still here when he returned from work. But, after today, she was going to be here most of the time over Christmas anyway.

Max gave himself a mental shake, aware that Sophie could have no idea why he had reacted in the way that he had to the smell of her cooking. ‘I … It’s just that I haven’t smelt baking like this since my mother …’ He broke off, mouth thinning into a tight line. ‘Well, in a long time,’ he completed abruptly.

Sophie eyed him quizzically for several seconds before prompting huskily, ‘How long?’

Since his parents had died that bleak Christmas sixteen years ago!

Since his own and Janice’s world had been shot to hell by some drunk driver who hadn’t bothered to stop at the red traffic light and had driven straight into his parents’ car, killing them both instantly.

He deliberately hadn’t thought about his mother’s baking for years; the way the house would be filled with the smell of it for days before Christmas. And she had always, always, even when he and Janice were both in their teens, made gingerbread angels and snowmen for them to eat in the week leading up to Christmas.

Entering his apartment and being instantly assailed by that same smell had brought back all the nostalgic memories of those happier Christmases, as well as the more painful ones since.

He had forgotten—chosen to forget?—the days of his mother baking cakes and puddings ready for Christmas. The joy of helping her wrap up the family’s Christmas gifts. The excitement of the whole family decorating the tree.

And in just a few short days Sophie Carter, with her Christmas preparations, had succeeded in bringing it all back to him with painful clarity.

It wasn’t her fault, of course, just a sequence of unfortunate circumstances, Janice and Tom’s marital difficulties having been the start of them.

Max drew in a deep breath before crossing the kitchen in two long strides. ‘These look delicious—Ouch!’ He let out a protest as Sophie smacked his hand away from taking one of the cooling gingerbread snowmen. ‘What was that for?’

‘They haven’t been decorated yet,’ she reproved. ‘And you haven’t answered my question,’ she added intuitively as she looked up at him questioningly.

Sophie looked extremely cute with her hair tied up with a black band, the freckles endearing across her cheeks and nose, with a light dusting of flour on the top of the latter, and wearing a red Santa pinafore to protect her red shirt and black jeans while she was baking.

Cute?

Max didn’t do cute!

He liked his women sophisticated, as well as tall and beautiful.

And Sophie Carter was none of those things.

Cute, but certainly not tall or sophisticated, and her face was intriguing—arresting?—rather than classically beautiful.

It had to be this family Christmas thing that was messing with his head, as well as the rest of his well-ordered life, because right now Max couldn’t think of anything he would enjoy more than kissing that dusting of flour off the tip of Sophie’s pert little nose, before laying siege to the sensuously pouting lips beneath. And to hell with the consequences!