Christmas With the Billionaire: A Sexy Billionaire Christmas Romance (The Young Billionaires Book 6)

by Emma Lea

  If he hadn’t slept like shit, he would probably be enjoying himself, but the lack of sleep had given him a nagging headache that was only made worse by the heat reflecting off the tin roof where he stood.

  “Smoko!” Frank yelled and a round of cheers went up from the press-ganged workers. Blake climbed down from the roof and pulled his shirt off, wiping the sweat from his body and tipping his head back under the shade of the pavilion.

  “Here. Get this into you,” Samuel said handing him a thick slice of watermelon. “It’s good for rehydration,” he said. “Eat that and then you can have a beer.”

  “Thanks,” Blake said. He bit into the cold flesh and groaned with appreciation. Sweet, delicious juice filled his mouth and he closed his eyes to savour it.

  “Have a seat,” Samuel said, kicking a folding chair toward him.

  Blake dropped thankfully into the chair and took another bite of the watermelon. He wasn’t averse to hard work. He’d worked his way through some of the hottest places on the globe with a group of builders who trekked into remote places to help locals after natural disasters—or man-made disasters—destroyed villages. But, fuck, it was hot up there on that roof.

  “So tell me about you and Zoë,” Samuel said, not beating around the bush.

  Blake shifted in his seat, sitting forward and looking Zoë’s dad in the eye. “What do you want to know?”

  “Is it serious?”

  Blake exhaled slowly. “It’s still new,” he said, “but I really like your daughter.” It was the truth. The more time he spent with Zoë the more he liked her. He’d watched her last night as she interacted with her family and he could see the genuine affection she had for them, even if they did exasperate her with their meddling.

  “You can understand how her mother and I might be concerned. We had no idea she was seeing anyone.”

  Blake nodded slowly. “As I said, it’s still new for both of us and we’re taking it slow. Neither of us wanted to say anything until we were sure that we had something that was going somewhere.”

  “So this thing between you is serious, then?”

  “It’s beginning to be,” he said, treading the fine line between outright lying and sticking to the cover story they’d worked out. He wasn’t lying, exactly. The relationship between them—such as it was—may not be a romantic one, but it was serious. They were both serious about him being a buffer between her and her family.

  “And what about your family?” Samuel went on. “Why aren’t you with them for Christmas?”

  He sighed and sat back. “That was the plan,” he said, “but they had already made other arrangements. My brother and his family are in Paris, my sister is in New York and my father and grandfather are in Tokyo.”

  Samuel raised his eyebrows. “You’re not close with your family?”

  “Not particularly,” Blake said.

  “So this must be a bit overwhelming for you, then.”

  Blake smiled and shook his head. “Not really. I’m enjoying myself. It’s nice to be included in all the family traditions.”

  Samuel nodded thoughtfully and then smiled as he saw someone approach over Blake’s shoulder.

  “I hope you’re being nice,” Zoë said.

  Blake stood and her eyes switched to him and widened as she took in his shirtless appearance. He took a slow peruse of her body liking the short shorts and thin cotton tank top. Her hair was pulled up in a messy knot on top of her head with a few strands escaping their confinement to fall softly around her face. A light dusting of freckles that he’d never noticed before were scattered across her nose.

  “I was just interrogating Blake,” Samuel said, standing and jolting Blake out of his daydream. “It’s a father’s duty.”

  “Right,” Zoë said, dragging her eyes away from Blake. He couldn’t help but notice that it wasn’t easy for her.

  “Well, I just came to tell you that I’m heading into town with the girls to get supplies. Do you guys need anything?”

  “I’ll just go and check with the others,” Samuel said, leaving the two of them alone.

  “Having fun?” she asked and Blake grinned.

  “I am, actually. What about you?”

  She huffed out a breath, blowing a stray piece of hair out of her eyes. He reached over and tucked it behind her ear. “I am, but I expect I’m about to be the one getting the interrogation next,” she said.

  He hooked his finger into the belt loop of her tiny denim shorts and dragged her closer.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered furiously, her hands going to his chest.

  “We’re being watched,” he said, dipping his head to run his nose along the side of her neck. “I can’t let my girlfriend go to town without a goodbye kiss now can I?”

  Her fingers curled into his chest, her short nails scratching his skin in a not entirely unpleasant way. “I suppose not,” she said, her voice breathy.

  He brushed his lips across hers, taking his time. He’d be lying if he said that the only reason he was kissing her was to put on a performance for her family. The truth was he’d wanted another taste of her since that kiss the night before. This time she tasted of something sweet and spicy. Ginger maybe, and sugar, and strawberry lip gloss.

  “Mmm,” he said as he broke the kiss.

  She blinked her eyes opened and looked up at him, her pupils blown wide and her lips pink and wet from his kiss.

  “I better go,” she said softly, pulling out of his grasp and escaping out of the pavilion.

  “Back to work,” Frank called to them, and Blake sighed. He shouldn’t have kissed her but he’d be damned if he regretted it.

  Zoë was having trouble following the conversation of her sisters and cousins as they drove toward town. Her mind was still on Blake. Shirtless Blake and that kiss he’d laid on her. Damn but he could kiss.

  “Are you listening to me?” Trina asked, nudging Zoë.

  “I think her mind is on something else,” Cassie said from the driver’s seat. “Or someone else.”

  Zoë smiled. “You’re all just jealous because my boyfriend’s hotter than yours.”

  This statement was greeted with a round of hoots as her sisters disagreed.

  “Does he have a brother?” her cousin Maddie asked.

  “He does, but he’s married,” Zoë replied.

  “Oh well,” Maddie said. “It was worth a shot.”

  The town of Hope Springs was a half an hour drive from the farm. Zoë watched the scenery go by noticing the small differences and the not so small ones.

  “What’s that?” she asked as they passed a construction zone.

  “New estate,” Cassie said. “Luke and I are hoping to buy in there next year.”

  “Yeah?” Zoë said. “You sick of living in town?”

  Cassie shrugged. “The blocks are a decent size and we can afford to build a bigger house. Plus it’s closer to mum and dad.”

  “Fair enough,” Zoë said. Not that she understood the desire to stay close to mum and dad. Maybe when she was married with a couple of kids she might appreciate the free babysitting, but that was a long way off in the future. Besides, she liked her life in Melbourne. She loved the city and the nightlife and having everything at her fingertips. If she felt like ice cream in the middle of the night, there was a store just around the corner that was open twenty-four seven. Not like in Hope Springs were everything closed at five, except for the three pubs in town, and nothing but the small convenience store near the petrol station was open on Sundays.

  “Tony and I are looking at blocks there too,” Trina said.

  Zoë shifted in her seat to look at her baby sister. “You and Tony are thinking of buying a house together?”

  Trina nodded and smiled. “I think he’s going to pop the question soon,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  Trina grinned wider and shrugged. “It’s just a hunch. Even so, we’ve been together for ages and we’re living together in town now. We’re practically
married anyway. The next step is buying a house.”

  “The next step is actually getting married,” Cassie said from the front seat. “You know that’s what mum and dad want.”

  “Sure,” Trina said, “but it’s just a piece of paper, right?”

  “Don’t forget the big party,” Jenny said, speaking for the first time.

  Maddie high-fived her. “Yeah, it’s all about the party and the hen’s night.”

  Trina laughed and Zoë shook her head.

  “What about you and Blake?” Cassie said. “Should we prepare ourselves for wedding bells anytime soon?”

  Zoë choked on a laugh. “Seriously? We’ve only been together for a short time. Don’t go marrying us off just yet.”

  “But you brought him home for Christmas,” Cassie said, looking at her in the rear vision mirror. “It must be serious if you’re willing to subject him to all of us.”

  Zoë opened her mouth to tell her sister the truth about Blake and then closed it again. She loved her sisters and her cousins but if she spilled the beans about Blake, her mother would know about it in five minutes flat, or quicker, depending on the speed of her sister’s texting abilities and the accessibility of cell service.

  “I like him,” she said and was surprised to find that it was the truth. She did like him and she definitely liked the way he kissed her and the feel of his body pushed up against hers.

  “Anybody could see that,” Jenny said, fanning herself. “Man, that kiss he laid on you last night? H. O. T.”

  Zoë grinned. She couldn’t help it. It was the truth. The kiss had been hot and had been way too short.

  “I bet he’s a tiger between the sheets,” Maddie said with a sigh. “I’m glad your cabin is so far away from the rest of us. The last thing I need is to be tortured by your screams of ecstasy in the middle of the night.”

  “What?” Zoë said, slapping Maddie.

  “Come on,” she said, smirking at Zoë. “There is no way the two of you are sharing that cabin and not getting busy. Damn, I nearly had an orgasm just watching the two of you kiss under the mistletoe.”

  So did Zoë but there was no way she was going to tell her sisters and cousins that. She’d lain in bed tossing and turning, thinking about that kiss and wondering just what would have happened if they hadn’t had an audience. She’d been tempted to take care of the ache between her thighs in the middle of the night but had refrained knowing he was sleeping scant meters away. It had made for a restless sleep and the kiss he’d laid on her just before hadn’t done anything to cool her attraction to him.

  “A lady doesn’t kiss and tell,” she said.

  “You ain’t no lady,” Trina said and the others laughed.

  “I don’t hear you spilling the beans about what you and Tony have been getting up to in your own cabin,” Zoë said, raising her eyebrows at her sister.

  “That’s because we’re as good as an old married couple. Not that the sex isn’t a-mazing,” Trina said.

  “And Blake’s fresh meat,” Jenny added. “We’ve known Tony and Luke for-ever. Hearing about their sex life would be about as exciting as hearing about Braden’s.”

  “Ew,” the girls said together.

  Braden was Jenny and Maddie’s married brother and the eldest of the cousins. She had to agree, she wasn’t keen to hear about his love life. But even if she was sleeping with Blake she wouldn’t give the details. No way. If she was getting busy with Blake she’d want to keep all the delicious details to herself.

  10

  “That’s huge!” Cousin Jessie said.

  “That’s what she said,” her husband Oliver quipped to the assembled family members earning him a backhand to the gut from his wife.

  “She’s a beauty all right,” Jimmy, Zoë’s other grandfather, said.

  The entire family stood around admiring the naked tree that Blake and Finn had just dragged in from the trailer.

  “Where did you get it?” Julia asked, walking around it.

  It stood tall in the centre of the pavilion, the top of it brushing the peaked roof. It sat in a bucket of wet sand just waiting to be decorated. Blake had seen big Christmas trees before but they were usually of the imitation variety. The scent of pine mixed with the lingering smell of barbecued meat and the heady smell of night jasmine.

  “The Christmas tree farm,” Jimmy said. “I got the biggest they had.”

  Blake reached for Zoë’s hand and she curled her fingers into his. He’d never had a family-trimming-the-tree party before. The few Christmases he could remember when they actually had a tree in the house, it had always been decorated by some professional that his mother hired. After she left, his father hadn’t bothered with a tree or even a wreath on the front door.

  “So, how does this work, exactly?” he whispered to her as Julia began directing the troops.

  “You’ve never decorated a tree before?” she asked turning wide eyes on him.

  He shrugged. “My family aren’t real big on Christmas traditions.”

  She searched his eyes and he thought she was going to say something but instead she shook her head and broke eye contact. “The lights go on first. Then the rest of the decorations.”

  “Tinsel?”

  She crossed her two index fingers over one another and hissed as she held them out in front of her. “Tinsel is evil,” she said in a deep voice.

  He laughed and pulled her close to drop a kiss on her nose. He couldn’t help it. He needed to touch her. He needed to feel her body against his.

  “Alright boys,” Julia said, clapping her hands together sharply. “Let’s test these bulbs and make sure they work.”

  Zoë held his gaze for a moment before pressing up on her toes and pressing a soft kiss to his lips.

  “What was that for?” he asked quietly.

  “We have an audience,” she said simply, pulling away from him.

  Disappointment swamped him as she gathered a couple of the others and headed inside to get the tree-trimming-snacks.

  He shouldn’t feel disappointed, what they had between them wasn’t real. He needed to remember that. The little displays of affection were for the benefit of her family and they didn’t mean anything. He’d let his attraction to her cloud his judgement. Even if he might want more from her, she clearly wasn’t interested.

  “Blake,” Braden called. “Come help me with this.”

  Blake crossed the pavilion to where Braden was trying to untangle a length of fairy lights. There seemed to be an unholy amount of them. Blake had been surprised by the sheer multitude of lights they’d attached to the outside of the pavilion and the house. Now it looked like another couple of thousand lights would dress the tree.

  “So you and Zoë, huh?” Braden said in the most unsubtle of segues.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Me and Zoë.”

  “She’s been pretty tight-lipped about you. No one knew anything about you until you turned up here with her.”

  “It’s been a bit of a whirlwind,” Blake said, concentrating on the string of lights in his hands.

  “You know if you hurt her we’ll have to hurt you, right?”

  “It goes without saying,” Blake said.

  Braden grunted in response. “Just so long as you understand. She’s one of the good ones. I know she couldn’t wait to get out of Hope Springs and spread her wings in the big city but she’ll always be a country girl at heart. She’s not as tough as she makes out to be.”

  “I think you underestimate her,” Blake said.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I know she can hold her own, but she has a big heart. She’s a tough cookie on the outside but inside she’s all marshmallow. Her last boyfriend did a number on her. I didn’t think she’d recover.”

  “Tanner?”

  Braden looked up at him. “She told you about him?”

  “Not really,” he said. “She told me they were together for a while and that it didn’t end well. She didn’t go into specifics.”

  “He b
roke her heart,” Braden said and then grimaced. “I sound like my wife.” His eyes darted across the room where Melinda sat with their two-year old boy, Jake, on her lap and his face softened.

  “I’m not going to hurt Zoë,” Blake said, watching as the woman in question came back into the pavilion carrying a tray of cut fruit. She laughed at something Trina said and Blake couldn’t stop the smile that split his own face. She looked relaxed and happy surrounded by her family. She wore a short, strapless sundress that swirled around her toned thighs and her dark hair hung down her back in a cascade of loose curls. The first time he’d seen her she’d had a tightness around her mouth and she’d held herself stiffly. With each day they’d been away from the city, the tightness and stress had dissolved. He hoped that it was due in some small part to him and his efforts as her buffer.

  Braden slapped him on the back jolting him from his own thoughts.

  “Go and see your girl,” he said. “I can see you’re going to be useless to me until you do.”

  Blake grinned at Braden and crossed the room, snaking his arms around Zoë’s waist and placing a soft kiss on her bare shoulder. She tipped her head to the side and melted back against him.

  She spun in his arms and smiled up at him. “Was Braden being ridiculous?” she asked.

  “Not at all,” he said, drawing her closer and dipping his head to kiss her.

  She sighed against him and he deepened the kiss.

  “Get a room!” someone called and Zoë pulled away, her face going pink.

  “I should go and help mum,” she said, slipping out of his grasp.

  He sighed as he let her go. They’d been at Windaroa two days and it felt like he’d barely seen her, even if that wasn’t the point of coming here with her. The more she tried to avoid spending time alone with him, the more determined he was to do just that.