The Billionaire's Christmas Wish

A sharp ping! signaled the arrival of the elevator. Jerking free, she took a hurried step back. Then another, struggling to catch her breath.

She needed to escape while she could. “I’ll see you tomorrow for our meeting.”

“And another game of cards?”

“Cards?” Her brain was a huge mudslide of buried thoughts and emotions at the moment, and so it took her a second for the words to make sense. “Oh. You don’t have to be here for that, if you don’t want to.”

The less contact she had with him the better. At least it was looking that way. What had she been thinking?

She hadn’t been.

Evidently neither had he, if his response to her living-in-those-moments comment was any indication. It had certainly veered away from the professional and into the personal.

Her lack of dating life had shown its ugly face. She’d lapped up the attention like a lovesick teenager.

“I’d like to be, if it’s okay. It gives me a chance to measure her abilities as well.”

Two people stepped off the elevator, one of them giving Theo a wave that asked him to wait before heading toward them.

Madison did not want to hang around. Her face was already burning. Someone was sure to notice, since she had the worst poker face in history. Theo seemed to be thinking the same thing. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Call me when you know a time.”

“Okay.”

And with that, she fled down the hall in the opposite direction of the approaching staff members. It would take her longer to get back to her little cubicle this way, but she didn’t care. Right now, all she was worried about was how she was going to face Ivy’s father tomorrow. Or keep herself from doing something else stupid. Like hurtling down a road that led from professional courtesy toward unprofessional crush.

CHAPTER THREE (#u315878af-7fed-5531-aa1f-944b83dd7ee1)

“WE WOULD LIKE to congratulate Naomi Collins on moving in with Finn Morgan. He is one lucky devil.”

Madison, who’d been talking to Naomi about Ivy, saw the woman’s eyes widen in surprise as the voice continued over the hospital PA system.

“Oh, my God,” the physical therapist muttered. “Is that Finn?”

Madison’s lips curled in a smile. She knew Finn and Naomi were an item, but had had no idea their relationship had progressed to this point. “It certainly sounds like him.”

“He said he wanted to keep it under wraps.”

That made her laugh. “Well, he’s evidently changed his mind.”

“So it would appear. That man has some explaining to do.” Naomi didn’t sound angry, though. She sounded...in love. Completely and madly in love.

And the fact that Finn was announcing to the world that they had moved in together? It was dreamy in a way Madison had never experienced. The quick fumbling in the back of her prom date’s car had been anything but a dream. It had left her feeling empty and confused. And the guy had never called her for another date, something that had hurt almost as much as her mother’s abandonment. She’d been wary of relationships ever since.

So why was Theo affecting her the way he was?

She glanced at Naomi. She didn’t seem empty. Or confused. She seemed very, very sure of what she wanted. And what she wanted was Finn.

And that, my dear, was love. The kind that real dreams were made of. The kind she’d never found.

“Congratulations, honey.” She gave her new friend a quick hug. “If anyone deserves this, you do.”

Naomi waved a hand in front of her face. “Stop or you’ll make me cry. Or he’ll make me cry. Or someone will.”

“I’d go find him if I were you, before he adds to his story and says something really embarrassing.”

“Good idea.” She gave Madison’s arm a quick squeeze. “Can we continue this another time?”

“Of course. Go.”

With that, Naomi hurried down the corridor in the direction of the elevators.

Madison watched her go until she disappeared into a small group of people.

What would it be like to find someone like Finn and settle down?

She wasn’t likely to ever settle down, wasn’t sure she even knew how to stay in one place longer than a few months or a year. Even her job changed repeatedly. Well, not the job itself. Just where she practiced it. She seemed to gravitate toward the hardest of the hard cases. Her last hospital had been different in that regard. She’d been there for two years. And now she wasn’t. But she’d left there expecting to go back. Hadn’t she?

Or had coming to England put something into motion that felt both familiar and unsettling? Like pulling up her tent stakes and wandering to a new city with new faces and new challenges.

Was she really bored so easily?

Or was she too afraid to get attached, expecting what was familiar to be yanked away from her at any moment?

Like her prom date? Or her mother’s love? Or all those foster homes she’d lived in?

One thing was for sure. No one would be announcing she’d moved in with them over a hospital intercom. She’d made sure of it.