Once Upon a Christmas Eve Read online

  Tommi was still focused on what he’d said about his parents. And his wife. From the sounds of it, he’d been abandoned in one way or another by the very people who could well have mattered to him the most.

  She also had the feeling she now understood why he’d been so adamant about a man’s obligation to his offspring. His father had also abandoned his mother and left her to raise him alone.

  “You said you grew up in lots of places,” she quietly reminded him. “What kind of work did your mother do?”

  Of all the things she could have asked, Max hadn’t seen that one coming. The women who’d prodded him about his past inevitably asked about his ex.

  “She cleaned.”

  “Cleaned?”

  “Hotel rooms during the day. Offices at night. For a while, she cleaned private houses. It depended on what kind of agency hired her.”

  “Why did you move so much?”

  “Because she was looking for a way out.” He realized that now, though he hadn’t at the time. “We moved to Las Vegas because she heard the casino hotels paid more.” It had been the same for Tahoe. “When that didn’t work—” for reasons he’d never known and never asked “—we moved…somewhere else,” he concluded, because he really didn’t want to think about the homeless shelters they’d stayed in on occasion, too.

  What he would never forget, though, was what he’d glimpsed of how others had lived. When she’d been afraid to leave him alone, his mom had snuck him inside some of the casino hotel rooms and the houses she’d cleaned while the owners were away. No doubt that was what had gotten her fired on more than one occasion.

  It was what he wasn’t saying that Tommi heard. His mother hadn’t had many options. She worked hard and for not much money. She’d done what she had to do.

  She’d been looking for a way out, he’d said.

  “Was she very young?” she asked, realizing that she might well have been.

  The same distance she’d sensed in him the other day suddenly threatened to lock into place. “She was sixteen when she had me. She had to drop out of school.”

  “And the woman you married?” she ventured, wanting to change the direction of his thoughts even as her own remained on his mom. Sixteen was still a child. And she’d been alone with a child of her own. “You said she left?”

  “We shouldn’t have married in the first place.”

  Though he offered the admission grudgingly, it was easier to talk about his ex. He figured he owed Tommi at least as much as she’d given him, anyway. It couldn’t have been easy for her to confide that what had happened with her child’s father should never have happened at all. He was painfully familiar with that sort of guilt-inducing hindsight, but at least he wasn’t having to live with any life-changing consequences.

  “We were young. After Mom died, I didn’t have anybody and Jenna didn’t seem to, either. Three months after our trip to the justice of the peace, her old boyfriend decided he wanted her back.” She hadn’t needed Max anymore. End of story. “It was as much my fault it didn’t work as it was hers.”

  “You’re very generous,” Tommi murmured.

  “I’m not being generous.” He wasn’t about to take that sort of credit. Not from her. He didn’t deserve it. “Marrying her had just been a way to make sure she stayed with me. Obviously, that rationale proved flawed.”

  His cynicism didn’t surprise Tommi. Neither did the way he brushed right over the admission of how very alone he must have felt, and how badly he’d wanted a connection to someone—to someone who was family.

  It was no wonder he didn’t like the holidays. The people who would have made them special were gone.

  “How old were you when you lost your mom?”

  “Eighteen. Look,” he muttered. He’d gone far enough. He had no desire to revisit the months he’d taken care of his mom after she’d come down with pneumonia and become too sick to work. Or, with how he’d struggled after she’d died to find places to live while he put himself through school. He especially didn’t like the inexplicable feeling that considering all that was exactly what he should do, though he had no idea what purpose it could possibly serve.

  “It’s raining. We should get this stuff inside and finish working out the agreement. I know you want to get back to the guy you want to hire as soon as you can.”

  It finally had started to rain, heavily enough that Tommi flipped up the hood of her jacket as she grabbed the now-empty storage tub. She wasn’t sure if she felt chastised by the abrupt way he’d closed the door on something he clearly hadn’t intended to share, or bad for the pain those memories must have once caused.

  He wasn’t a man who invited sympathy. Still, as he collapsed the ladder and they headed for the alley and the bistro’s back door, she knew how lost she would feel without the familial connections that sometimes drove her crazy. Because of that, it wasn’t hard to imagine how awful it would be to live without a connection to any family at all.

  She pushed back her hood as they walked inside. “I’ll take that,” she said, reaching for the ladder.

  “Just tell me where you want it.”

  “I need it so I can put this back up on the shelf.”

  She’d lifted the red plastic container.

  He promptly took it from her.

  “I’ve got it. Just tell me where you want it.”

  His tone might have sounded casual if not for the faintly clipped edge to it. Just as conscious of the subtle restiveness in his manner, she motioned quickly to the small utility room. As he turned into the neatly organized space, she backed into the deserted and thoroughly scrubbed kitchen.

  The only sounds in the room were the rattle of the ladder bumping the mop bucket Mario had used last night when they’d cleaned up. The scents of cleaner and bleach still lingered. Grabbing a clean white hand towel from the stack on a metal rack, she held it out to Max the moment he turned from the little room.

  What she wanted to do was tell him she hadn’t meant to pry as deeply as she had. Fairly certain he’d rather she let it go, she sought more comfortable ground herself.

  “You’re wet,” she said, looking from the rain beaded on his squall jacket to the droplets clinging to his dark hair.

  Max watched her lift the towel a little higher, saw a tentative smile enter her eyes.

  “The papers are out on the bar. Dry off and I’ll get you some coffee.”

  That little smile held apology and what almost looked like concern. Bracing himself against the appealing curve of her mouth, he took what she held. “Don’t go to the trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble. I have everything ready. All I need to do is pour the water into the pot. Besides, it was cold out there. This will warm you.”

  She knew he liked French press. So that was what she had set out to prepare for him.

  “I have a couple servings of pear torte left,” she told him, unzipping her jacket. She had one of bread pudding, too, though she wasn’t about to offer him that. “Do you want some with your coffee?”

  “You don’t have to wait on me, Tommi. Or feed me. And regular coffee would have been fine.”

  “But you like this kind better,” she reminded him.

  That was beside the point. “Tommi, don’t.” He didn’t want her doing anything special for him. He didn’t want her feeling sorry about his aversion for a holiday he hadn’t celebrated since he was seventeen. He didn’t want her looking at him with all that concern, or making him want to know if her mouth was as soft as it looked. He didn’t want to remember the incredible silkiness of her hair, her skin or how perfect she’d felt in his arms.

  Mostly, he didn’t want the restlessness that came with wondering what she’d feel like naked and moving beneath him.

  He pushed his fingers through his damp hair, his body tight with the unfamiliar and building frustration he had to jam down every time he was with her.

  “You don’t need to take care of me the way you do everyone else around here. You have enough to d
o as it is,” he muttered, trying hard not to sound as defensive as he suddenly felt. “Let’s just get this agreement ironed out. Or, better yet,” he decided, since his effort seemed to be failing, “call me tomorrow and we can go over the rest of it on the phone. We should have everything wrapped up by the end of the week.”

  She set the small pot back on the workstation. As she did, the faint click of metal bumping metal merged with the no-nonsense ring of his cell phone.

  Tommi watched him pull it from his pocket. After a quick glance to see who was calling, he palmed it and let the call go to voice mail.

  “If you’d rather I call, of course I’ll do that.” His edginess had escalated. She could practically feel it humming along her skin.

  That feeling lingered as he gave her a tight smile, and an even tighter nod.

  “Tomorrow, then,” he said—and left her with the strange feeling that he hadn’t closed her out, so much as he’d closed himself in.

  Chapter Seven

  Max leaned against the edge of his wide, ebony desk, his jaw tight and his arms crossed over his loosened silk tie. On the other side of his expansive office with its built-in bar and insanely expensive modern art, Scott adjusted the lens on the telescope in front of the wall of windows. Their 40th floor offices afforded sweeping views of Puget Sound and the islands and peninsula beyond, but he wouldn’t be able to see much through the fog and drizzle.

  His brawny, fair-haired partner wasn’t interested in the view, anyway. He was just trying to let him know he took the problem less seriously than Max did.

  “I know you want to open that office the first of March, Max. And I know it could take a while to work in the right people. What’s the big deal if we push it to June? Or even wait a year?” he asked, abandoning the non-view to poke through the files stacked on the conference table. “We’ve been doing great working out of here and Chicago.”

  “The ‘big deal’ is that we could be doing even better if we were bigger.”

  “And to get bigger means one of us is going to have even less time than he does now. Since you already sleep in your suit, that means it’s my time getting cut into.”

  “Since you only work three days a week that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  The tips of Scott’s ears reddened as he looked up. “I just spent ten days in Singapore closing the HuntCom deal.”

  “And the two weeks before that in the Florida Keys.”

  “Is it my fault you don’t take vacations?”

  “You spent the first of November on some game shoot. That left you all of three days in Chicago and five here last month.”

  “You’re keeping track of my time?”

  It was all Max could do to keep his resentment in check. “We have clients, Scott. Somebody has to take the meetings.”

  His jaw worked as he took a deep breath. They’d been through this before. In the past year, past two, probably, Scott had taken “down time” to a whole new level.

  “You agreed to expand,” he pointed out, ever so tightly.

  “Well, I changed my mind. I don’t want to move to New York.”

  Because of Tommi, Max thought. “Fine,” he said. “I will.”

  “That still leaves everything here to me!” He checked his own tone. “Maybe I don’t want to work that hard.”

  Clearly ready to move on, Scott returned his attention to the files. “Let’s just get to what we need to do here, okay? Bring me up to speed on the Westland and SymTech relocations.” He nudged at another file, checked the tab. “And The Corner Bistro.” Picking the file up, he smiled. “Let’s start with this one.”

  Max’s frustration with his partner suddenly collided with agitation of an entirely different sort. He’d done his best not to think about the woman with the warm brown eyes who scraped at his raw spots and drew him with her smile. She had called on Monday, as they’d agreed, but he hadn’t seen her since he’d helped her hang her lights. Now, every time he saw Christmas lights, he thought of her. And Christmas lights were everywhere.

  Pushing his hands into his pockets, feeling restless, he paced toward the tall curve of polished marble anchoring one end of his credenza. “She’s fine with everything except the clause about wages and insurance. I reminded her that our agreement with our investors is for a certain percentage of profit. For our company to do business with her, the clause has to stay. She agreed.” Ever so reluctantly, he remembered. “So legal messengered the final contract over to her yesterday. It’s pretty much the standard agreement for a silent partnership we have with the other restaurants in the portfolio.”

  “I wish you hadn’t sent the contract out. I could have taken it to her myself.”

  Remaining silent, Max kept his back to where he could hear Scott flipping through her file.

  “I called her when I got back last night,” his partner continued, sounding faintly distracted by what he was perusing. “I told her I wanted to talk about her expansion, but she said she’s really busy right now. Something about private dinner parties she needs to prepare for. I think I’ll stop by, anyway. Just tell her I’m checking to make sure she’s okay with everything, you know?”

  Mention of the private dinner parties she had booked had Max frowning at the large oval of rock. He didn’t care what Tommi had said about her energy coming back soon. She needed it now. He could only imagine how exhausted she’d be by the time the holidays were over.

  “We need to take good care of her. Really good care,” Scott emphasized, oblivious to his partner’s silence. “That girl is a goldmine.”

  Max turned, his frown firmly in place. “What are you talking about? Her operation is the smallest we’ve ever taken on.”

  “It’s her connections, man.” With his golden-boy grin, Scott tossed the file onto the table. “I’ve only met her once. A little over a month ago at some event for the Hunt Foundation.

  “Harry was telling me he’d heard great things about our operation and started asking all kinds of personal questions. He’s kind of eccentric, you know,” he added with an easy chuckle, “so I just went along with what he asked and pretty soon he’d had her brought over. He introduced her as his surrogate niece and a member of his board of directors. After she left, he hinted pretty heavily that there could be a position on his board for me if I got serious about her.”

  He shook his head, grinning. “Guess he’s looking to make an honest woman out of her before she has her kid. He didn’t mention that she was in a family way,” he stressed, sounding as if he figured the guy had deliberately withheld that bit of information. “But, hey. She’s easy enough on the eyes.” He set aside the file he apparently intended to take with him. “And I imagine she has one hell of a trust fund.”

  Glancing back, looking like an ad for weekend wear, he planted his hands on the hips of his casual slacks.

  His smile did a slow fade.

  “What?” he asked.

  With questions piling up like cars in a chain collision, Max didn’t bother to question the protectiveness that had risen straight up his back. His expression ominous, his tone more so, his eyes narrowed to slits of blue ice.

  “Tommi knows Harry Hunt?”

  “I just said she did. She’s on his board—”

  “I got that.” He’d also understood that Harry had introduced her as a surrogate niece, whatever that meant. What he didn’t understand was why Tommi would have come to them if she had ties to the Hunts. “And I finally get why you’re after her. I just don’t believe what I’m hearing. You just want to use her?”

  Scott held up his hands, palms out, his expression appeasing. “Let’s not put it that way,” he countered easily. “Men marry women all the time for what they can do for them and their careers. Who knows what doors she can open for me?” He held his hands wide. “And for you,” he pointed out, ever generous. “The company will benefit, too. If all this works out and we start getting business from Harry’s Forbes-list buddies, you’ll have all the expansion you can handle. Just hi
re more help.”

  Max wasn’t sure if the man was looking for support, approval or a blessing. Whichever it was, he wasn’t getting it from him. The fact that he didn’t seem to think Max would be at all put off by his ploy felt like an insult.

  “You know what, Layman?” Disgust fairly dripped from Max’s tone. “I’ve overlooked little things like you working half as hard for half our profits—”

  “Hey,” the beefier man cut in. “It’s not half as hard. Just because you’ve had to cover a few meetings for me lately—”

  “I’m not going to debate your math skills,” Max shot back. “If you can’t make a meeting, you figure out how to explain it to the client. I’m done covering for you.”

  Clearly trying to defuse him, obviously thinking it was only his work habits ticking off his partner, Scott’s easygoing smile resurfaced. “Come on, man. You know you’ll do what you have to do to make all this work. You love this company too much to let me mess it up.”

  The good-natured, every-guy’s-buddy attitude worked well with everyone else. It used to work with Max, too, mostly because Max didn’t tend to sweat the small stuff in their working relationship. But the small stuff had become bigger with his partner’s blatant disregard for his responsibilities.

  It had become huge with what he had revealed about the reasons he’d staked his claim on Tommi.

  The deceptive calm remained in Max’s voice. It was the steel threading it that added the threatening edge. “I care about it.” The company was as much his life as Tommi’s bistro was hers. “But I meant what I said. If you have a meeting, you show up. You pull your weight. And as far as Tommi Fairchild is concerned, the last thing she needs is you or anyone else trying to manipulate her. Stay away from her bistro.”

  At the purely masculine warning, good nature failed. “Hey, buddy. You need to remember who owned this company first. You wouldn’t be a partner here if I hadn’t hired you on. My end of these deals is to implement any physical changes we’re paying for. I’ll oversee her expansion. Whatever I want with her personally is none of your business.”