The Spirit of Christmas

“Like what?” Mary Paige looked as if she might bolt for the door at any second.

Her reaction to him struck Brennan as odd. Most women found him charming. Okay, not charming, but intriguing. After all, he wasn’t half-bad to look at, had money in the bank and treated them like ladies. What was this chick’s problem? Hadn’t he helped her from her fall, picked up her lipstick and held the door for her? He hadn’t been an ogre. But she’d been treating him like he had horns. It was almost as if she didn’t want to participate in the gig because she’d have to spend time with him.

So he was a bit grumpy this morning. And not totally on board with the whole Spirit of Christmas idea. Was that good reason to act like he was the Antichrist?

Or maybe just anti-Christmas?

Perhaps that was it. The woman was a bona fide Christmas jingle-bell ringer. Probably decorated her whole house with flashing lights and little red-nosed reindeer statues.

“Why not take Miss Gentry down for a cup of that new eggnog coffee they’re brewing at CC’s? Show her your sweet side, grandson o’ mine,” Malcolm said.

It wasn’t a suggestion…it was an order—iron buffered with gentility. His grandfather may have been slurping down the Froot Loops lately, but he was still his grandfather, the man who’d nearly single-handedly built Henry’s into a reputable, reliable chain of department stores with net worth that kept Wall Street’s eye on them. So if Malcolm Henry said “Jump,” folks asked, “How high?” But Brennan wasn’t folks. He was the heir to the throne with the key almost in his pocket. Wasn’t it time he stopped dancing to his grandfather’s tune? “I’m sure Miss Gentry has other business—”

“Yes, I do,” she agreed quickly.

Her eagerness to avoid him stopped him. The woman didn’t even want to go to coffee with him? Good Lord, when was the last time a woman had turned him down? Hardly ever. From the time he’d been knee-high, everyone had jumped to do his bidding, to be his friend, to have some of the limelight given to the Henry name shine on them. But this little accountant didn’t want a thing to do with him…and that made her more interesting than her willingness to hand back the check.

“Maybe we should get better acquainted.” He stood and politely pulled her chair back as she rose.

Her hair swished in front of his nose, releasing a light scent of innocence and simplicity that tumbled him briefly into childhood. He breathed deeply, then exhaled into the silky strands. And he felt her tense in awareness.

Something flared between them, causing an almost uncontrollable urge for naughtiness to overtake him. The wisp of an idea curled into his brain, featuring Mary Paige in silk stockings and a red-and-white Santa-styled push-up bra. Her ass would be spectacular in a garter and thong. And her smile. So warm and promising.

Ellen’s phone went off, drawing everyone’s attention to the BlackBerry jittering on the table. He popped the picture of Mary Paige playing the sexy ingenue from his mind with his handy dandy pin of reality. For heaven’s sake, the woman was wearing some girdle thing that was about as sexy as corn bread.

Mary Paige stepped back, almost brushing against him. “I’m sorry. I’m not playing games with you, Mr. Henry. I’m merely convinced I’m not the right girl to be your holiday spirit. I’ve a lot on my plate, and while the money would be nice, I think it best if I bow out.”

“Coward,” Brennan murmured in her ear before he could catch himself. He had no clue why he’d issued the challenge. What did he care if she stomped out of the office, handed over the check and the whole stupid holiday stunt crashed and burned? He didn’t. But something inside him had balked at watching Miss Mary Sunshine slip through his fingers.

He felt her response—the slight outrage, the nervousness at his presence invading her space and a little bit of the right kind of interest—just before she moved away.

“Okay, maybe just coffee,” she said.

“Splendid,” his grandfather crowed, leaning forward to toss a file onto the table. “Ellen and I have some work to do while you two talk about a partnership that will make this the best season for Henry Department Stores in its history…a season of kindness.”

Brennan ignored his grandfather’s donning of Christmas-colored glasses and gestured toward the door, allowing Mary Paige to slide through before following. He couldn’t stop himself from watching her really nice backside.

She spun around as the boardroom door closed and caught him looking. Her face went pink again and she pointed a finger at him. “If you think I’m sleeping with you, you’re nuts. This is a business meeting.”

His reconnaissance skills with regard to the opposite sex weren’t usually this rusty. While many in New Orleans thought him a playboy, he truly didn’t sleep around that much. He was no walking hormone even as visions of Mary Paige in sexy Santa lingerie had him tilting that way. “Since when is going for coffee code for sex? Jump to conclusions much?”

“So what were you looking at?”

“Whatever you’re wearing that keeps showing under your skirt. Is that a pair of Spanx?”

Her eyes widened right before a vivid red swept up her neck. She jerked at the skirt riding high on her thighs. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe…”

She turned and stalked ahead of him, holding her purse as if it were the last parachute on a plane.

He followed not because he had to, but because something inside him wanted to follow her.

Which didn’t make a damn lick of sense.

CHAPTER FOUR

MALCOLM HENRY, JR. sat in his big office chair and smiled.

He couldn’t have scripted a better meeting between his grandson and that adorable girl. Brennan had taken notice earlier than Malcolm had expected and it tickled him to no end. He was tired of watching a parade of beautiful empty girls wind through his grandson’s life, and he wondered if this Mary Paige could work magic in the life of the person he held dearest.

Not that it had been his original intention—he wasn’t a matchmaker and would never meddle in his grandson’s love life. But when life handed you peaches, you made pie. And as he’d watched the pretty Mary Paige climb into his Bentley with such apprehension, he wondered if fate had pulled a fast one and delivered the very person who might help Brennan find the true meaning of Christmas.

Hell, the true meaning of life.

A real peach.

Malcolm sneezed and it scared the dog curled in his lap.

“Sorry, girl,” he said, scratching under Izzy’s chin. She closed her alert eyes and if a dog could sigh, well, then Izzy sighed. “Such a wonderful creature, aren’t you?”

She didn’t bother to open her eyes. That meant she agreed.

A knock at his office door had him spinning from the view of Poydras Street to face his assistant, Anton “Gator” Perot, who’d been his bodyguard, driver and right-hand man for the past twenty years. Malcolm trusted Gator like he trusted no other. Raised on the bayou backwaters by a grandmother from the Houma tribe, Gator had pulled himself up from near poverty by sheer cunning, guts and smarts. He’d landed in Malcolm’s doorway after refusing to take a job with the Garciano family—a true show of character that paid off when Al Garciano was tossed in the slammer for racketeering.

“I have the pictures from last night on this disk,” Gator said, setting a plastic case on Malcolm’s desk. “Want me to give them to Ellen or send them to the Picayune?”

Malcolm sighed. “Not yet. I’m still waiting to see if Miss Gentry will sign on.”

His assistant raised his eyebrows as he eased into one of the red leather chairs across from Malcolm. “She did look at the check, didn’t she? Two million’s hard to say no to. Don’t think I’ve met a broad who would turn down shoe money like that.”

“This one’s a bit different.”

“Do-gooders usually are.”

“Is that what you think she is? A do-gooder?”

Gator shrugged. “Never would have pinned you for one, either, but turns out you shoulda named that mutt Max.”

“Max? Izzy’s a girl.”

“You know from that cartoon about the Grinch. Remember his dog’s named Max.”

The Grinch, huh? Well, Malcolm supposed it could be said his old shriveled heart had grown three sizes. Or, more accurately, it had repaired itself with a new mission in life.

Six months, three weeks and four days ago, Malcolm had stepped out of the Bentley, heading into the board-of-directors meeting, when a crippling pain struck him. He’d literally dropped to his knees, putting out a hand to a passerby who sidestepped him in panic. Gator had already pulled away from the curb, and there was no one there to help him. He collapsed on the dirty Poydras sidewalk, unable to talk or even breathe.

Someone had called 911 and a doctor dining in a hotel restaurant had seen him from across the street, left his eggs Benedict and administered first aid. By the time Malcolm had reached the hospital, he’d coded twice. The E.R. doctor was on record as stating there wasn’t a prayer’s chance in hell Malcolm would make it.

After a drawn-out surgery where he was nearly declared dead, Malcolm had awoken alone in ICU…and had remained there by himself for four days. When he’d been moved to a private room, he went a whole week seeing no one but his physical therapist, the doctors, nurses and Gator. Brennan had come by once to get him to sign power-of-attorney papers so he could run the company while Malcolm recovered.