A Cinderella Story: Maid Under the Mistletoe / My Fair Billionaire / Second Chance with the CEO

“Some men you can’t shut up,” she argued. “If it’s not a table you’re working on, what is it?”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“You know, in theory, a job like that sounds wonderful.” She took a sip of wine. “But I do better with a schedule all laid out in front of me. I like knowing that website updates are due on Monday and newsletters have to go out on Tuesday, like that.”

“I don’t like schedules.”

She watched him carefully, and his internal radar went on alert. When a woman got that particular look in her eye—curiosity—it never ended well for a man.

“Well,” she said softly, “if you haven’t decided on a project yet, you could give me some help with the Santa certificate.”

“What do you mean?” He heard the wariness in his own voice.

“I mean, you could draw Christmassy things around the borders, make it look beautiful.” She paused and when she spoke again, the words came so softly they were almost lost in the hiss and snap of the fire in front of them. “You used to paint.”

And in spite of those flames less than three feet from him, Sam went cold right down to the bone. “I used to.”

She nodded. “I saw some of your paintings online. They were beautiful.”

He took a long drink of wine, hoping to ease the hard knot lodged in his throat. It didn’t help. She’d looked him up online. Seen his paintings. Had she seen the rest, as well? Newspaper articles on the accident? Pictures of his dead wife and son? Pictures of him at their funeral, desperate, grieving, throwing a punch at a photographer? God he hated that private pain was treated as public entertainment.

“That was a long time ago,” he spoke and silently congratulated himself on squeezing the words from a dry, tight throat.

“Almost six years.”

He snapped a hard look at her. “Yeah. I know. What is it you’re looking for here? Digging for information? Pointless. The world already knows the whole story.”

“Talking,” she told him. “Not digging.”

“Well,” he said, pushing to his feet, “I’m done talking.”

“Big surprise,” Joy said, shaking her head slowly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Damn it, had he really just been thinking that spending time with her was a good thing? He looked down into those summer-blue eyes and saw irritation sparking there. Well, what the hell did she have to be mad about? It wasn’t her life being picked over.

“It means, I knew you wouldn’t want to talk about any of this.”

“Yet, you brought it up anyway.” Hell, Kaye knew the whole story about Sam’s life and the tragedy he’d survived, but at least she never threw it at him. “What the hell? Did some reporter call you asking for a behind-the-scenes exclusive? Haven’t they done enough articles on me yet? Or maybe you want to write a tell-all book, is that it?”

“Wow.” That irritation in her eyes sparked from mild to barely suppressed fury in an instant. “You really think I would do that? To you? I would never sell out a friend.”

“Oh,” he snapped, refusing to be moved by the statement, “we’re friends now?”

“We could be, if you would stop looking at everyone around you like a potential enemy.”

“I told you I didn’t come here for friends,” he reminded her. Damn it, the fire was heating the air. That had to be why breathing was so hard. Why his chest felt tight.

“You’ve made that clear.” Joy took a breath that he couldn’t seem to manage, and he watched as the fury in her eyes softened to a glimmer. “Look, I only said something because it seemed ridiculous to pretend I didn’t know who you were.”

He rubbed the heel of his hand at the center of his chest, trying to ease the ball of ice lodged there. “Fine. Don’t pretend. Just ignore it.”

“What good will that do?” She set her wine down on the table and stood up to face him. “I’m sorry but—”

“Don’t. God, don’t say you’re sorry. I’ve had more than enough of that, thanks. I don’t want your sympathy.” He pushed one hand through his hair and felt the heat of the fire on his back.

This place had been his refuge. He’d buried his past back east and come here to get away from not only the press, but also the constant barrage of memories assaulting him at every familiar scene. He’d left his family because their pity had been thick enough to choke him. He’d left himself behind when he came to the mountains. The man he’d once been. The man who’d been so wrapped up in creating beauty that he hadn’t noticed the beauty in his own life until it had been snatched away.

“Well, you’ve got it anyway,” Joy told him and reached out to lay one hand on his forearm.

Her touch fired everything in him, heat erupting with a rush that jolted his body to life in a way he hadn’t experienced in too many long, empty years. And he resented the hell out of it.

He pulled away from her, and his voice dripped ice as he said, “Whatever it is you’re after, you should know I don’t want another woman in my life. Another child. Another loss.”

Her gaze never left his, and those big blue pools of sympathy and irritation threatened to drown him.

“Everybody loses, Sam,” she said quietly. “Houses, jobs, people they love. You can’t insulate yourself from that. Protect yourself from pain. It’s how you respond to the losses you experience that defines who you are.”

He sneered at her. She had no idea. “And you don’t like how I responded? Is that it? Well, get in line.”

“Loss doesn’t go away just because you’re hiding from it.”

Darkness beyond the windows seemed to creep closer, as if it were finding a way to slip right inside him. This room with its bright wood and soft lights and fire-lit shadows felt as if it were the last stand against the dark, and the light was losing.

Sam took a deep breath, looked down at her and said tightly, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Her head tipped to one side and blond curls fell against her neck. “You think you’re the only one with pain?”

Of course not. But his own was too deep, too ingrained to allow him to give a flying damn what someone else might be suffering. “Just drop it. I’m done with this.”

“Oh no. This you don’t get to ignore. You think I don’t know loss?” She moved in closer, tipped her head back and sent a steely-blue stare into his eyes. “My parents died when I was eight. I grew up in foster homes because I wasn’t young enough or cute enough to be adopted.”

“Damn it, Joy—” He’d seen pain reflected in his own eyes often enough to recognize the ghosts of it in hers. And he felt like the bastard he was for practically insisting that she dredge up her own past to do battle with his.

“As a foster kid I was never ‘real’ in any of the families I lived with. Always the outsider. Never fitting in. I didn’t have friends, either, so I went out and made some.”

“Good for you.”

“Not finished. I had to build everything I have for myself by myself. I wanted to belong. I wanted family, you know?”

He started to speak, but she held up one hand for silence, and damned if it didn’t work on him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as he watched her dip into the past to defend her present.

“I met Holly’s father when I was designing his website. He was exciting and he loved me, and I thought it was forever—it lasted until I told him about Holly.”

And though Sam felt bad, hearing it, watching it, knowing she’d had a tough time of it, he couldn’t help but ask, “Yeah? Did he die? Did he take Holly away from you, so that you knew you’d never see her again?”

She huffed out a breath. “No, but—”

“Then you don’t know,” Sam interrupted, not caring now if he sounded like an unfeeling jerk. He wouldn’t feel bad for the child she’d once been. She was the one who had dragged the ugly past into the present. “You can’t possibly know, and I’m not going to stand here defending myself and my choices to you.”