The Billionaire's Christmas Bundle Of Joy - A Secret Baby Romance, Page 3

  Footfalls outside the door immediately thrust her from her dizzying thoughts. She righted herself and looked wildly toward the door. Mia felt like she’d leaped off a cliff, like she’d thrown all caution to the wind, and she wasn’t sure what she would get in return. She held her breath.

  The door handle turned and James appeared before her, tucking his cellphone back into his pocket. His eyes passed through the room before landing upon Mia herself. His jaw dropped and silence hung between them.

  For a moment, Mia felt that familiar sense of dread. She had done the wrong thing. Her smile began to teeter off.

  But then, James began to laugh. He bowed his head, placed his hands on his stomach, and emitted what might well have been the greatest, most human belly laugh Mia had ever heard.

  She found herself falling into laughter, as well. It was raucous and contagious. They sauntered toward each other, and James placed his quaking hand on her shoulder once more. She felt comfortable with it there, like he belonged beside her.

  Tears were streaming down James’ face before he could find the words. “Oh—oh my gosh, Mia. Oh my gosh.” He shook his head, sighing. “I’m sorry. I haven’t laughed that hard in years. You really got me. I can’t believe how good you got me.”

  Mia gave him a sheepish grin. She couldn’t believe it had worked so well. “I wanted to demonstrate Christmas cheer, once and for all. You can feel it, can’t you?”

  James let out another chuckle. “I think I can, Mia. I think I can.” Around them, the lights twinkled, reflecting off the tinsel. “And I don’t think I’ve seen anyone look quite so right in a Santa hat, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  “Compliment very happily accepted,” Mia grinned.

  James sighed, trying to regain his composure. “Wow. Well. This is quite a day for me, Mia. I just got off the phone with Chicago. Frankly, for the first time in what seems like years, I have the rest of the evening off. I mean. My sports car isn’t going to take me anywhere. The plane is canceled. And nobody’s even here for me to yell at. Except for you.” He winked at her.

  Mia giggled. “A night off, you say? How ever will you fill your time?”

  “The thought makes me nervous, if I’m being honest,” he stated. “I mean, I could sit at my tinseled desk and take notes for my meetings tomorrow, but I think that might be a waste of time.” He paused, tracing his thoughts. “I mean…what would you do if you had your first day off in years?”

  Mia bit her lip, feeling excitement fuel through her. The CEO’s reaction to her well-timed Christmas stunt had buoyed her, made her much more sure of herself in his presence. She felt she could say or do anything without remorse.

  “If I was snowed in on my first day off in years,” she began, “Then I think I would pretend today was Christmas.” She shrugged her shoulders, her eyes bright.

  “You’d celebrate Christmas on April 10?” James asked, incredulous. “You really are a something else, aren’t you?”

  Mia raised a single finger into the air. “Don’t judge me before you see what I can cook up for you. This is my proposition: you allow me, Mia Daniels, to create for you a Christmas party, complete with all the holiday trimmings. I am prepared to promise that you will enjoy yourself.”

  “Is that that news anchor cockiness I hear?” James asked her, his tone teasing.

  “We all have it, don’t we?”

  “I suppose so,” he admitted, tossing his weight from one foot to the other. “All right, Mia Daniels. You want to prepare a Christmas party? That’s really, one hundred percent what you would do with your first day off?”

  Mia nodded with certainty. She spread her arms wide, her excitement trapping him. “You won’t regret this decision for a moment,” she affirmed. “If I know anything about Christmas, it’s that the joy of it can exist at any time of the year.”

  Impulsively, Mia wrapped her arms around James and gave him a brief, friendly hug, before darting from the office, toward the stairwell. The memory of the way his strong, agile body had felt in her arms stuck with her for just a moment too long, even as she tried to shake it off; her Christmas strategy was alive in her mind.

  FOUR

  Mia found herself in the cafeteria downstairs, her stomach grumbling. No good Christmas celebration had ever revved to a start without proper holiday cookies. She remembered back at the children’s home, where the staff had laid them out an hour or so before the Christmas celebration, the frosting gleaming beneath the lights. The children hadn’t been allowed to touch them as they decorated the dining hall, hanging lights and tinsel and the occasional mistletoe (which was, incidentally, never used, given their age and general repulsion toward romance).

  Mia opened the kitchen cabinets, searching. Most of the cameramen stored snacks for between takes, knowing they didn’t have to watch their waistlines the way the on-camera crew did. She reached high on the top shelf, her fingers closing around a box of Oreos. She breathed a sigh of relief and snuck one in her mouth, allowing her blood sugar to rise. Focus, Mia, she told herself. The Oreo crumbled in her mouth, emitting black crumbs which stuck to her carefully applied lip gloss. She scraped them off hurriedly, not wanting James to see.

  She continued rummaging through the cabinets, finding other snacks, and gathering them together on the countertop. She whistled Christmas songs as she searched: “Jingle Bell Rock,” “O Christmas Tree,” and other tunes that seemed to swell through her unintentionally.

  In the final cabinet, nearest to the refrigerator, she stopped abruptly, shocked. There, tucked away behind a stack of paper bags, were several bottles of red wine, left over from the staff Christmas party, four months ago.

  Mia clapped her hands, her eyes tracing back toward the window. The snow was still piling higher, and she had found the perfect anecdote to the winter blues: growing cozy together, assisted with wine and good conversation. Perhaps she could discover a few secrets about the closed-off James Chance along the way.

  She snapped a paper bag from the pile and began loading it with wine, cookies, salty snacks, and two red plastic cups. She raced back up the steps, tapping lightly down the hallway to the opened door.

  James’ office was like a portal to another world, causing her to break out into an immediate smile. The CEO had swept the drapes back from the large windows, revealing the stunning Portland winter wonderland.

  Mia dropped the paper bag on his desk, making eye contact with James for only a moment before moving toward the window and placing her fingers on the pane. “I crave this kind of feeling,” she whispered. “All year long I yearn for it.”

  James appeared beside her, holding a bottle of wine. It glinted with the light of the Christmas lights. “I see you found something.”

  “I did,” she breathed, snapping from her reverie. “Would you like a glass?”

  But James had already grabbed pocketknife from a drawer in his desk and begun to crank the corkscrew part of it into the stopper. He gave her a devilish smile. “I picked out this wine for the Christmas party, but I wasn’t even able to attend. I believe I was stuck in Orlando at the time.”

  “Orlando’s no place to be at Christmas,” Mia whispered. “All that heat. No sense of coziness. How did you manage?”

  “Oh, I was fine. Like I said, I give no weight to Christmas. But boy, did I miss out on this wine.” With a pop, he removed the cork and gave her a brief grin. “Big pour or little?”

  “I suppose a big one,” Mia replied, her voice sultry. “It is Christmas, after all.”

  “Finally, a reason to celebrate. After twelve long months,” he grinned wryly.

  James poured the glasses, then, and passed one to her. They tilted their glasses together, sloshing the wine around, and briefly found themselves looking just a little too intently into the other’s eyes.

  “So,” James began, after sipping the wine. “You said you had a party planned for us?”

  Mia put her wine on the desk and rubbed her hands together, turning her eyes to the flo
or. “Of course, of course. Well first, we need to get some music going. Perhaps we could have a playlist from your computer, good sir?”

  “Absolutely,” James said. “Cheesy Christmas music coming right up.”

  Mia rolled her eyes at his tone. He acted begrudgingly, tossing his weight around as he leaned over his computer. “We have several options to choose from, it seems: Christmas Classics, James Taylor Christmas, Christmas with the Muppets—which, I would immediately like to veto, if possible—and Vintage Christmas.” He glanced up at her, his voice inquisitive. “Do any of those suit you?”

  “I think we should try Vintage Christmas. Billie Holiday and the like. Don’t you?”

  “Don’t really mind, personally,” he said. “Like I said. As long as we avoid the Muppets.”

  “Let’s see if you’re chanting the same tune after that third glass of wine,” Mia laughed.

  James tapped at something on the screen and Mia’s heart wrenched in her chest as she heard the soaring melodies of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” She blinked rapidly, trying to work back tears. It wasn’t time yet. She had to create a party.

  “So,” Mia began, gesturing for James to join her in the center of the room, beside the desk. “Do you have any favorite party games?”

  James scratched his skull, looking at her incredulously. “Party games? You mean, times that don’t involve all your relatives sitting around and arguing about politics?”

  Mia snipped her lips close together. “No. That’s not what Christmas is all about.”

  “Then tell me, missy.”

  “It’s about coming together to enjoy each other’s sense of humor, to laugh together, to sing together.” She traced her thoughts, searching for the correct move. “I know what we could do. We could play charades.”

  “Charades?” James asked her, his eyebrows high. His voice was tentative, uncertain. “I haven’t played that since I was a kid at a Chicago summer camp.”

  “Come on. I promise, it’s fun.” Mia remembered cozy nights with her adopted family, each of them waving their arms and tossing their heads in faux-frustration, going through the movements of charades. “I can start, if you like.”

  “I think that’ll be necessary,” James said, tipping his head. “I’ll fill up our glasses.”

  “Great. Already, you’re participating in the party festivities, and you don’t even know it,” Mia laughed. She tapped her glass on the desk and watched it fill with deep red liquid. It made her ache with happiness. So often, her life was regimented, geared toward her professional life. She needed to make more room for such celebration.

  Mia stood before James, then. She opened her palms and looked at them, imitating someone reading.

  “Ah. Okay. Okay. It’s coming back to me,” James said, his voice gruff. “It’s a book. You’re going to act out a book title, and then you want me to tell you what it is.”

  Mia snapped her fingers, her eyes bright. She had to keep her energy high, and she knew he would join her, eventually. James rolled his eyes slightly but leaned his head forward, attentive.

  Mia lifted one finger high.

  “First word,” James monotoned.

  She nodded and lifted two fingers. After some brief back and forth, James suddenly affirmed that the first word was “Two.”

  “All right. Next,” he said, his voice betraying just a hint of enthusiasm.

  Mia began with the second word, then, acting out a murder by knife—stabbing it into the air before her with a menacing expression. She watched James’ face as he struggled to pair the action with words.

  “All right. You’re murdering. Murder?”

  Mia shook her head.

  “Murder. Stab. Assault.” He passed his fingers through his dark stubble. “Kill.”

  Mia snapped her finger, alerting him that he was correct.

  “Huh,” James said, shrugging. “This is easier than I expected.”

  Mia shook her head, rolling her eyes. She lifted four fingers.

  “Oh, fourth word. I get it,” James said. His annoyance was pure act, now. He was leaning against the desk, lifting the wine to his lips, truly focused on the game.

  Mia began flapping her arms, her eyes wide.

  “Ah. You’re a bird. Two. Kill. Bird. Ah—Mia, that was too easy. To Kill a Mockingbird.”

  Mia leaped up and down in the air, bouncing on her feet. She clapped her hands excitedly. “You did it! See? Wasn’t that fun?”

  James wouldn’t give it to her. Not yet. “It was okay,” he said, sloshing the last of his wine down his throat. “I’m either really good at this, or you’re making it too easy, but maybe it isn’t the worst game in the world.”

  He filled her glass, and Mia felt herself falling into a kind of tipsy wooziness. She hadn’t eaten anything in hours; she needed to be careful. But the celebration had brought electricity and zeal to her heart. She couldn’t stop.

  James went next, pausing for a few moments before landing on a title to act out. He waved his hands maddeningly, acting out The Hunger Games. Mia had to admit that he wasn’t very good at it yet, that she really had to dig deep to figure out what he was doing. But she played along anyway.

  “That took you way longer than it took me,” James said after it was over. He walked toward her and leaned with her against the desk. Christmas music rose up behind them, tinged with nostalgia.

  “Maybe I’m better at acting than guessing?” she suggested, her eyes bright.

  “Or maybe I’m just as clever as my position in my company warrants?” he replied.

  Mia scoffed. “Don’t ruin the mood by bragging about yourself.”

  “Isn’t that what Christmas is all about?”

  “Your ideas about Christmas are truly messed up, you know that right?” she said. Her words were coming quickly, unfiltered, revved with alcohol. “If anything, it’s an excuse to celebrate being alive.”

  “Maybe I don’t often feel like celebrating,” James said, his voice suddenly dark.

  Mia allowed the silence to grow for only a moment before bursting into another charade routine, hoping to quell the pain in James’ face. He was clearly filled with hidden demons. Perhaps he used his work as a distraction, to halt the tide that was the sadness of his past.

  Of course, she couldn’t blame him. Oftentimes, she did the same.

  Mia was happy to find that she could chase James’ sadness away. Within moments of her launching into her next charade, James was bouncing around, setting his wine back on desk to clap his hands soundly as he correctly guessed what she was acting out. His face was glowing from the alcohol. None of the tyrannical maniac that generally walked through the office seemed to stick with him. Mia was glad for that.

  Darkness had begun to fall outside. Exhausted from charades and wine, the pair of them sat on the floor beneath the Christmas lights, in the half-darkness. Blues, reds and greens reflected on their faces. James removed his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He belonged in a magazine for business professionals. He belonged in the bed of a super model.

  Mia swallowed, chasing away the feelings that had begun to thrust themselves through her. You’re just drunk, she told herself. She backed up against the desk and leaned her head back, heavy. It has nothing to do with him. Or his body. Or the gruffness of his voice.

  James gestured upward, toward the Christmas lights. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that,” he said.

  Mia allowed her face to fall in her hands. She’d almost forgotten. She’d fastened a single piece of mistletoe in the center of the room, tucked between the tinsel that hung from the ceiling.

  It was one of her favorite parts of Christmas. She remembered how her adoptive parents had hugged her beneath it when she was fourteen, the same year she’d been adopted: such a reassurance that they loved her, and that they also loved each other. They were meant to be together.

  “Oops! I didn’t think you’d see it.”

  James shook his head slowly. “You know I
notice everything. It’s kind of my job.”

  “As a fellow journalist, I suppose I can appreciate that,” Mia whispered. She gave him a subtle grin.

  “I noticed the mistletoe, the same way I’ve noticed you all these years. Don’t think I haven’t,” James said.

  Had he really said that? Mia broke eye contact immediately, trying to process this. He’d noticed her, too? Sure, she’d always seen him. That smile. That confidence that seemed to permeate throughout the hallways. He had always been frustratingly attractive. And now, he was right there, before her.