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

by Emma Lea

  It took him longer than he expected and then he had to rush through a shower and dress quickly. He piled the gifts into a large garbage bag and tossed it over his shoulder like he was Santa Claus. He made it to the pavilion before anyone else and managed to get the gifts under the tree without being spotted.

  He hid the empty trash bag in the camp kitchen and then finally took a look around. The big table had been set and decorated with branches of gum leaves and banksia flowers. Christmas crackers sat at each place setting and glass hurricane lamps with white candles inside were strategically placed amongst the floral decorations down the middle of the table. Christmas stockings had been hung around the walls of the pavilion and he was surprised to see there was one for everyone—including himself and the unborn baby that Zoë’s cousin carried.

  He heard voices and turned to see Zoë, her sisters, and cousins carrying a massive board full of food. It was so big it took six of them to carry it with Melinda and pregnant Chantel directing them. Before Blake could offer his assistance, they muscled it onto the island counter and set about fussing over it.

  Zoë saw him and came over to him with a big smile. “Are you ready for this?” she asked. “It’s going to get crazy.”

  “I can’t wait,” he replied.

  Breakfast was a massive grazing table. They did the same thing every year. It was the easiest way to feed everyone, especially in summer. Fresh fruit, yoghurt and crunchy granola were set up on one end. Plain croissants, fresh ham, smoked salmon, and a variety of cheeses were in the middle with a range of condiments. There was a toaster oven set up on the camp kitchen bench for anyone who wanted their croissant warmed and their cheese melted. On the far end were the pastries; chocolate croissants, fruit danishes, blueberry and chocolate chip muffins, pancakes and plain English muffins for those who wanted something a little less decadent for breakfast. Zoë’s family knew how to do food and it was one of the things she looked forward to every time they all got together.

  Familiar arms snaked around her waist and tugged her back against a hard chest. She tipped her head back and sighed. Asking Blake to come with her for the holidays was the best thing she’d ever done. Not only had he played his part of buffer extremely well, but he’d also ignited something in her that she’d thought had been snuffed out forever because of Tanner.

  “This looks incredible,” he whispered in her ear.

  She shivered. “It’s my favourite part,” she replied, tilting her head back to look at him. He dropped his head to kiss her and someone groaned.

  “Please, we’re trying to eat here,” Grant said.

  “Not yet you aren’t,” Jenny said, smacking him on the back of his head. “You need to wait for everyone to get here.”

  “It’s seven,” Grant pouted. “If they’re not here by now, they miss out.”

  “You know the rules, Grant,” Dad said as he came into the pavilion. “Christmas stockings first.”

  Grandad Farraday came in behind Dad wearing his Santa hat. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them the way he did every year. “Let’s get this show on the road. I’m starving.”

  “Come on,” Zoë said, weaving her fingers with Blakes. “We need to get a good seat.”

  She pulled him over to a seat near the tree and he sat. She tried to take the seat next to him, but he pulled her down on his lap instead. She went willingly, even if she felt a little awkward. She wasn’t one to just sit on a guy’s lap, but it felt right with Blake. Normal. Like they did it all the time. Like they were a real couple.

  “What’s with the Christmas stockings?” Blake whispered in her ear.

  “Mum and the aunties,” she whispered back. “They like us to all believe that Santa is real even if I’ve known since I was ten that he didn’t exist.”

  Blake’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. “Santa isn’t real?” he hissed and she laughed before kissing him.

  “You’re a nut,” she said before snuggling back on his lap. His arms tightened around her and she sighed.

  The last of the stragglers came in and everyone settled around the Christmas tree. Grandad Farraday always played ‘Santa’ for this part and then Grandpa Jones would do the honours with the wrapped presents after breakfast. Zoë thought she was too jaded to enjoy the simple traditions of her family’s Christmas, but being here with Blake gave her a new perspective. She was fortunate to have family to spend Christmas with—a family that loved her even if they annoyed her more often than not. Blake’s whole family had deserted him and for the entire time he’d been here at Windaroa, his phone hadn’t rung once. No one even bothered to check up on him or wish him happy holidays. Zoë griped about her family and how overly interested they were in her private life but she would take that over disinterest any day.

  “Who’s been good girls and boys this year?” Grandad Farraday asked the assembled family.

  “I have!” they all cried in unison before cracking up.

  She felt Blake’s chest rumble with his laughter and it warmed her inside and made her feel soft and gooey. She was a sap, but it was Christmas, so that was allowed. She could go back to being the tough, bitchy business woman when they got back to the city.

  Trina and Jenny helped Grandad Farraday distribute the Christmas stockings that had been left by ‘Santa.’ Zoë shifted on Blake’s lap so she could watch his face. Every year the stockings were different, but they always had a theme. Last year it had been personal care products—razors, shaving cream and Lynx body wash packs for the boys, and bath bombs, body cream and hair treatments for the girls.

  The stunned look on Blake’s face made her giggle. He looked at her and then back at the boxer briefs he held in his hand. “Um…” He swallowed. “Please explain.”

  “It’s jocks and socks,” she said with a big grin.

  Blake looked around at the others. All the boys were pulling boxer briefs out of their stockings and multipacks of socks.

  “So what did you get?” he asked, trying to look in her stocking, but she held it away from him so he couldn’t see.

  She stuck her hand in and brought out the first thing her fingers closed around. She tugged it out and held it up for him to see. Red lacy underwear. His eyes flared and her body heated.

  “Will you model them for me later?” he whispered in her ear, nibbling on her lobe.

  “Only if you model yours,” she replied breathlessly.

  “Just say when,” he said before kissing her.

  “Time to eat!” her mother called before the kiss could spiral into something inappropriate for the very public place they were in.

  19

  When everyone had eaten their fill, they once again gathered around the Christmas tree for the ‘real’ presents. Jimmy—Zoë’s Grandpa Jones—played ‘Santa’ this time and the youngest members of the family got their gifts first. The babies were too young to really understand what all the fuss was about. Braden and Melody’s little boy, Jake—the eldest of them—got the most value out of it. He might not understand what Christmas was but he knew all about presents and new toys. When he had been thoroughly spoiled by the family, Grandpa Jones began to hand out the presents for the older family members.

  “Trina,” Grandpa Jones said, reading form the tag. “From Blake and Zoë.”

  Zoë turned to look at him and then back at the gift Trina was grabbing from Santa’s hands.

  “That’s not from us,” she said.

  “Yes it is,” Trina said, “It says so right here on the tag.”

  “But I wrapped all the presents from Blake and me and that wasn’t one of them.” She turned to look at him. “Did you do this?”

  He just smiled as Trina’s whoop of joy had Zoë turning back to her sister. Trina held up a pair of handcrafted earrings to her ears, modelling them for her audience.

  “I was going to buy these at the markets,” Trina said, her eyes sparkling, “but by the time I got back to the stall, they were gone.”

  “What did you do?”
Zoë hissed at him.

  Instead of answering her, he simply placed a kiss on her lips.

  “To Finn from Blake and Zoë,” Grandpa Jones called out.

  Zoë narrowed her eyes at him after taking a look at the wrapping. “Did you buy presents for my whole family?’ she hissed.

  “Everyone except the babies,” Blake replied, tugging on a piece of hair that hung over her shoulder. “What’s the matter, Slim? Afraid I’ll show you up?”

  “No, it’s not that,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You didn’t have to buy gifts for my family when I’d already bought them. It wasn’t part of the deal.”

  His lips flattened into a tight line and the good mood he was in slowly drained away. It was still all about the deal they’d made when he had started to think there was something more between them.

  “I like your family,” he said, his voice flat even though he tried to keep it light. “I’ve enjoyed my time here with them and I wanted to buy them gifts. Is it really such a big deal?”

  “No,” she said slowly. “I just don’t want them getting attached to you,” she said and turned back around to watch the proceedings.

  Blake gripped the arms of the chair he was sitting on. It felt like a knife in his heart. She didn’t want her family getting attached to him because he would never see them again after this week. That was the not-so-subtle reminder she was giving him.

  He should be happy about that. He should be relieved that she wouldn’t be expecting anything more from him, especially when she found out who he really was. Once she knew that his real name was Blake Austin, things would change. She would get a glimpse of what he could do for her and her career. She would see him as little more than a bank account and a stepping stone.

  Blake exhaled slowly. He’d been letting his libido run away from him. He’d let the cosy family Christmas and picture perfect town weave a fantasy around him that could never be real. He and Zoë were having a holiday fling and whereas he’d been beginning to think they’d have something more after the holidays were over, she hadn’t been as sentimental about it all.

  As he looked around at the smiling faces of the people who’d become friends to him he was reminded that this was not his family…as much as he wished they were. He might have a secret wish to have a big family like Zoë’s that got together for birthdays and holidays, but that wasn’t his reality. His family was cold and distant, which was why he was with Zoë’s family in the first place. The very fact that his family would rather be spread all over the world than spend the holiday in the same room as him was why he was pretending to be part of this family. But that’s all it was. Pretend. As much as the people around him had made him feel welcome, he wasn’t really part of them and never would be.

  “Blake,” Zoë said, elbowing him.

  He looked up from his internal mourning-of-things-he-would-never-have to see a gift being held out to him. He forced a grin to his face and took the gift.

  “Thanks,” he said. “You didn’t have to, I mean, you didn’t even know I was coming.”

  Zoë’s mother beamed at him. “We couldn’t very well leave you out,” she said. “You’re one of us now.”

  He smiled hard to hide the hurt her words inflicted. If only she knew. He didn’t dare look at Zoë. The last thing he wanted to see was her censure. She wouldn’t be happy about her mother’s proclamation and no doubt she would have something to say to him later about raising the expectations of her family when there was no way in hell that there would ever be anything more between them.

  He unwrapped the paper around the gift in his hand and swallowed hard. It was a beautifully handcrafted photo frame and inside was a picture of him and Zoë dancing at the bush dance. He held her close and she was looking up at him like he hung the moon. If only he could believe that the love he saw in her eyes in the photo was real and not the result of too much Christmas cheer.

  He cleared his throat as he became aware that everyone was looking at him. “It’s beautiful,” he said, meaning it, as much as it hurt him to look at it. “I love it.”

  Since the female members of the family had prepared breakfast, it was the male members of the family who cleaned up. Zoë sat with her sisters, cousins, aunts, and her mother, nursing a cup of coffee as they babbled happily around her. She wasn’t paying attention to the conversation, instead she was thinking about Blake’s reaction to the gift her mother had given him.

  The photo had surprised her, although she hadn’t gotten a really good look at it. All she had seen was a brief image of her and Blake. What had gotten her attention more than anything else was the way his face had paled and how quiet he’d gotten afterward.

  Cassie came over and sat down beside her as she gave Kaila a bottle. “So what did Blake give you?” she asked.

  “Hmm?” Zoë asked, shaking herself out of her musings to look at her sister.

  “For Christmas. What did Blake give you?”

  “Oh. We haven’t exchanged gifts yet,” she said, thinking about the present she had stashed in the cabin. After his reaction to the gift from her mother she was in two minds as to whether to give it to him or not.

  “I bet it’s gorgeous,” Cassie said with a dreamy smile. “He’s got great taste.”

  Zoë had to agree. The gifts he’d bought for her family were all thoughtful and beautiful. They’d all been bought at the Christmas Eve Eve Markets, but it didn’t make them any less thoughtful.

  “So you think it might be serious between the two of you?” Cassie asked.

  Zoë shook her head and dropped her eyes to the table and the coffee in her hands.

  “Really?” Cassie asked, her eyebrows disappearing into her hair. “You could have fooled me.”

  “What?”

  She shrugged and Kaila frowned at the disruption to her feed. “You two look really cosy together. He can barely keep his hands off you and I’ve seen the way you look at him when you think no one else is looking. You’ve got it bad for him.”

  “It’s too early to say that,” she said. “We barely know one another.”

  “You can tell yourself that all you want but it won’t make it any more true,” Cassie said. “For fuck’s sake, Zo, the sparks between the two of you are hot enough to start a bush fire. I’m surprised that cabin of yours hasn’t gone up in flames yet.”

  Zoë grimaced. “You’ve been listening to Trina too much,” she said.

  “No, honey,” Cassie said, shaking her head. “We don’t need to hear what goes on behind closed doors to know that something hot and intense is going on between the two of you.”

  “It’s not like that—”

  Cassie raised an eyebrow and gave Zoë a sardonic smile.

  Zoë huffed out a breath. “Okay, fine. It’s hot and intense but that doesn’t mean it’s going to last. You and I both know that the really hot ones flame out the quickest.”

  “Speak for yourself, baby cakes,” Cassie said. “Luke and I burn plenty hot enough and we’re in no danger of flaming out. What’s really going on? That man is as hot for you as you are for him, so what’s the problem?”

  Zoë bit her lip and looked away from her sister. She couldn’t really confess that what was going on between her and Blake wasn’t even real. If her sister knew the real reason Blake was spending Christmas with them she would spill the beans to their mother and then Zoë would never hear the end of it.

  “It’s just too soon,” Zoë said. “How can I even be thinking about a future with him when we’ve barely known each other a month?”

  “But you brought him home,” Cassie argued. “That has to mean something. You wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t have feelings for him.”

  “I brought him home so mum wouldn’t set me up with Ryan or the new doctor dad works with,” Zoë said in frustration, very nearly giving the whole secret away.

  “Keep telling yourself that,” Cassie said with a smirk.

  Zoë was saved from answering by the reappearance of th
e men.

  “It’s time for The Ashes,” her dad said with all the seriousness of a funeral director.

  “Seriously dad?” Trina said with a roll of her eyes.

  “The Ashes?” Blake asked quietly as he sat down beside her.

  She suppressed a shiver and forced a smile to her face. She turned her head to look at him and had the overwhelming urge to press her lips against his and beg him to be her real boyfriend.

  “It’s the annual family cricket match,” she replied. “I believe the girls have won the last three years running.”

  “That’s only because you outnumber us eleven to nine,” Braden said.

  “But we’ll be more evenly matched this year,” Finn added, slinging his arm around his pregnant wife. “Channy needs to sit this year out and we have Blake.”

  “Are you any good at backyard cricket?” Grant asked Blake.

  “Um, I can’t say I’ve ever played,” he said.

  “You’ve never played cricket?” Zoë asked.

  “I’ve played cricket,” he said, “just not backyard cricket. I was a top order batsman at school.”

  “But can you bowl?” Cassie asked.

  “I’m no Shane Warne or Glen McGrath,” he said with a cocky grin. “But I can hold my own.”

  Cassie sniffed. “We’ll see,” she said.

  Zoë pushed up from the table but before she could follow the rest of the family out to the grassy area that served as the cricket pitch, Blake curled his fingers around her elbow and leaned down to whisper in her ear.

  “Can we talk?” he asked.

  “What, now?”

  “Later,” he said. “After lunch. I have something for you.”

  “I have something for you too,” she said.

  He smiled and the dark cloud that seemed to hover around him after he’d gotten the gift from her mother lifted. He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. She gripped his t-shirt and let herself get lost in the feel of him.

  “Until later,” he said and walked out leaving her reeling.