Authors: Kristen Ashley
It started the
very next morning after the night he’d made love to her.
He woke her by
running a finger lightly down her spine, her eyelids fluttered open
to see him sitting on the side of the bed watching her with sexy,
hooded eyes.
He was fully
dressed wearing a grey suit with a vermillion shirt and a matching
vermillion tie that had grey and blue designs patterned on it.
“What time is
it?” she grumbled sleepily.
He bent and
kissed her shoulder. “Time enough for you to get to your own bed
before the children wake,” he muttered against her skin.
That got her
attention. She whirled and sat bolt upright and in a frenzy, threw
the covers back. Dodging his body, she jumped out of the bed. She
located her panties, tugged them on quickly and, without a backward
glance, began to dart out of the room.
It occurred to
her belatedly she should mark the occasion with something, lest he
get the wrong idea. She stopped halfway to the door and turned
back.
“Don’t read
anything into last night, that was last night and now is… well,
now,” she finished lamely.
He stood
slowly and surveyed her with a curiously intense expression.
“Nothing’s
changed,” she warned.
He watched her
a moment and then the intensity faded from his eyes and warmth
filled them.
Warmth from
Douglas was something else Julia wasn’t used to and something she
found excruciatingly hard to resist.
When he spoke,
his voice was amused, “I figured that.”
She ignored
his warmth, his tone, gave one curt nod and escaped.
He was gone
most of the day on business. It was the day before Christmas Eve
and the children were already beginning to let their excitement
override their common sense. It took all her time to finish up her
Christmas chores, break up their arguments and deal with what would
essentially be three days without Mrs. K (who would be coming for
Christmas dinner, but as a guest).
Douglas
arrived home for supper and joined them, having shed his jacket and
tie. Then, after the pudding dishes were whisked away by Mrs. K,
Julia settled in the lounge with the children to watch a Christmas
DVD when Douglas strolled in, holding a sheaf of typed papers that
had black scrawling all over them.
She looked
closely at the papers and saw it was her business plan.
His eyes met
hers. “If you have a moment, Julia, I’d like to discuss this with
you.”
She stared at
the papers, unable to mask her horror.
“You’ve marked
all over it,” she whispered.
“Ten minutes,”
he said, his tone gentle.
From the marks
she figured it would take ten hours but like a doomed man heading
to the gallows, she followed him to his study.
He sat at his
desk and she stood opposite.
“It’ll be hard
for you to see from there,” he commented, quirking an arrogant
brow.
She glared at
him, already beside herself with curiosity that was mingled with
hesitation warring with the feeling that she did not want to spend
any more time alone with him than was absolutely necessary.
She didn’t
trust him, not one bit.
But curiosity
won out and with an undignified sigh, she walked around the desk
and stood at his side.
He immediately
began to explain his notes, using his Mont Blanc pen to indicate
bold scratching and what they meant to her passages, patiently
explaining what he wrote and why.
She found,
against her will, that she was fascinated by what he had to say. He
was very clever, thorough and intuitive. Despite herself, she
leaned forward, bending at the hips to rest her elbows on his
desk.
Finally,
unable to hide her enthusiasm, she became fully engrossed, leaned
into him, grabbed the pen out of his hand and started to write her
own notes around his as he talked. Their heads were bent together
over the document barely an inch apart.
When they came
to the last page, she underlined (twice) a particularly salient
concluding point and, lost in the pleasure of the work, turned her
head to smile at him.
“This is
brilliant,” she complimented him, unable to stop herself.
“It was very
good before I started,” he replied, his eyes hooded but her mind
was still fully consumed by the document.
“Thank you,”
she replied, dismissing a compliment that, since it came from
Douglas (who she knew had a very astute head for business), was
very dear indeed.
Before she
could turn her head away, he caught her chin in his hand and leaned
forward, pressing his lips against hers in sweet, but hard,
kiss.
Her body
instantly froze but she had no time to have any further reaction as
a sound came from the door.
Julia tore her
chin out of his hand and shot upright.
Lizzie was
standing at the door.
“Sorry,” their
niece started to retreat then came back in a rush of two steps, a
tentative grin settling on her face. She grabbed the doorknob and
declared helpfully, “I’ll just close the –”
“Lizzie-babe,
there’s no need,” Julia said but the door already closed with a
snap.
In a
dither (an actual
dither
), Julia
grabbed the papers and started to move away. She halted, twirled
and stammered, “Um, thanks Douglas… for this… it’s
good.”
He had come to
his feet and was watching her, his eyes actually dancing
mischievously.
Dancing.
Mischievously.
At his
expression, she wanted to scream or throw herself into his arms.
Instead she forced herself to start to leave again and noticed she
still had his pen so she rushed back and held it out to him.
“Keep it,” he
said, not looking at the pen, instead looking in her eyes.
“But it’s an
expensive pen.”
He shrugged.
“I have others.”
She ignored
him, placed it carefully on the desk and fled the room.
The next
day, Christmas Eve, she had no time to worry about Douglas as she
was too worried about the children. Tammy and Gav always made
Christmas a very special day for the kids and Julia wanted to be on
her guard just in case they lapsed into the same melancholy that
she felt edging every moment of her day.
They
seemed to cope well with Willie and even Lizzie doing their best to
stay jolly and Patricia helped by calling and making everyone
laugh. They sat around most of the day, watching Christmas DVDs and
eating. Julia made them homemade pizza for dinner, Douglas joined
them finally and they all ate the pizza while watching Gavin’s
favourite movie,
White Christmas
.
It took a
great deal of time settling them into bed and Julia didn’t want to
start her Santa preparations until she was certain that Ruby was
well asleep. The girl got up three times, coming down to check
things out, rubbing her eyes in pretence and saying she was
thirsty, she heard a noise and then trying the thirsty route again.
The final time, Douglas came out of his study and took her up
himself, which was a stroke of pure genius as Ruby was unlikely to
leave a bed that Douglas firmly tucked her into.
Finally safe
to start, Julia began collecting the extra Christmas presents,
stocking stuffers and the boxes her mother had sent that she had
hidden in her rooms and Mrs. K had secreted away in various places
in the house. She thought about preparing Christmas herself but it
would take forever and she had a long day tomorrow. Surely the
children would be up early and she had a lot of cooking to do as
she had invited Mr. and Mrs. K, Ronnie and Nick to Christmas Dinner
(Carter had gone to his daughter’s place in Devon for the
holiday).
Douglas had
not said a word about his servants being invited to dinner, merely
nodded his head when she suggested it and said distractedly,
“You’ve the running of the house, Julia.”
Nick had no
qualms about it, of course, but the Kilpatricks and Ronnie seemed
somewhat shy, although also delighted about the idea.
She went to
search for Douglas as he was her only hope of getting the presents
sorted and getting to bed at a halfway decent hour. She could not
find him anywhere and realised with chagrin that he’d most likely
already retired.
With leaded
feet, she approached the door to his rooms and then knocked softly,
not wanting to awaken the children.
She gasped
when it was thrown open almost immediately.
He stood there
wearing his jeans and the khaki v-neck sweater he’d worn that day
but his feet were bare.
His eyes
warmed immediately when he saw her.
“Julia,” was
all he said.
Not wanting
him to get the wrong impression, she rushed in with an explanation.
“I was hoping you’d help me play Santa.”
His damned
eyebrow lifted.
She gave him a
mutinous look.
“Ruby still
believes and we have to get the stockings stuffed and Santa’s
presents laid out…” she looked at his feet, “you’ll need your
shoes.”
He looked at
his feet then at her and didn’t say a word.
She lost her
nerve, deciding instantly she could do it alone even if it took all
night, and blurted, “It’s okay if you don’t want to help, I’ll do
it myself.” And she whirled and escaped, going as fast as her feet
could take her.
He found her
in the back hallway, dragging a huge bag filled with wrapped
presents. Without a word, he reached around her and hefted it up as
if it weighed no more than a pencil, turned and walked away.
She noticed he
was wearing shoes.
She ran to her
rooms to get more.
Once they had
all the stuff in the library where the tree was and where the
children had decided they wanted Christmas, he stood there
dubiously eyeing the bags and boxes filled to overflowing and the
vast piles of presents already under the tree.
“This is
ridiculous,” Douglas stated correctly. It looked like Santa and his
whole workshop of elves had exploded in the room.
“Mom and I
wanted to make sure that –” Julia started to explain as she took
the stockings from the mantel.
“I
understand,” he murmured, interrupting her, and she fell silent
because he sounded like he understood, very much.
As she worked,
she began to realise he seemed at odds as to what to do. He likely
never played Santa before and she gently gave him directions which
he carried out without hesitation.
Feeling
strange that they were doing this joyful business in complete
silence, she asked, “What were your Christmases like?”
“What do you
mean?” He was putting an orange in the toe of each stocking.
“Did you have
stockings like this or pillowcases at the end of your bed?” she
inquired, suddenly very curious about what his childhood was
like.
Tamsin never
spoke of her childhood, at least not to Julia. Julia knew that
Tamsin worked herself into exhaustion putting every ounce of magic
into Christmas that she could stuff into it and she figured Tammy
was holding up a tradition (even if it was hard to envision Monique
stuffing a stocking, it wasn’t hard to envision her ordering Mrs. K
to do so).
“Neither,”
Douglas replied and Julia’s hand stilled in the process of
following him along the stockings tipping into them the American
Christmas chocolates her mother had sent.
“Neither?” she
stared at him confused.
Douglas didn’t
answer.
Julia tried
again. “Did you open your presents Christmas Eve or Christmas
morning?”
Finished with
the oranges, he started to sort the presents in a box marked
“Stocking Stuffers”.
“We received
our present at dinner.”
His tone
invited no further questioning but she was too stunned by this
strange piece of information to let it slide. What did he mean,
“present”, in singular, and whoever heard of a child getting one
present at dinner?
Thinking he
didn’t understand her question, she clarified, “No, I mean when you
were children.”
He continued
his work, seeming engrossed in it.
“At dinner,”
was all he said.
An uneasy
feeling stole through her. Even Monique (who was, thankfully,
taking the holiday with friends in Munich) could not be so cold as
to give her children one present at Christmas dinner.
She pressed
on. “What was your favourite present ever?”
“My father
gave me some stock in Microsoft. I made a fortune on it.”
She gasped,
she couldn’t stop herself. “When you were a child, your parents
gave you stock for your Christmas present?”
Douglas
shrugged, completely calm, he began to stuff the sorted presents in
the stockings. “Every year. Practical and long-lasting.”
These words
slammed into Julia like sledgehammers.
Christmas
presents were not meant to be practical and long-lasting. They were
meant to be impractical and no parent was allowed to get angry if
the child broke them or lost interest in them before New Year’s. It
was Christmas Law.
She had no
idea if those sentiments were Douglas’s, his mother’s or his
father’s.
Julia had met
Douglas’s father, a charming man who was always absently kind to
Julia and who adored his daughter obviously. Julia always felt that
Tamsin hadn’t returned his adoration. That, for some reason, there
was an intangible unpleasantness underlying this and she was always
too uncomfortable (considering her own relationship with her
father) to ask her sister-in-law about it.
For Douglas’s
part, he and his father seemed to tolerate each other but were
obviously not close. Julia had always put it down to Douglas’s
reserve and what she thought was the way of aristocratic families.
She’d never much thought of it. Maxwell Ashton had been a far sight
friendlier than Monique but he had died a few years after Tammy and
Gav’s wedding and Julia had never really come to know him.