I frown and pick up one of the pages on the floor. It’s a memo, from my lawyer and … I cover my mouth.
Did I forget to call him?
I close my eyes momentarily trying to remember what happened. I exchanged emails with my lawyer and cleaned the kitchen. Then Sterling barged in the house, we talked, had sex …
My brain stops working when Sterling sexes me up and leaves me in a daze of desire.
“Sterling, let me explain,” I say.
“You and these children have become the axis on which my entire world spins and what do you do … on Christmas Eve?”
He laughs and the sound is empty, angry. “Merry Fucking Christmas, Sterling Ahern. This is what I think about handing me your heart.”
He rakes his hair, pacing around the room.
“For once in my life I let myself enjoy the near-magical quality of the holidays. It’s all a trick. Nothing was real.”
“Sterling—”
“It’s over.” He dusts his hands. “Look, you don’t want to be with me, I get it. It fucking hurts but I won’t force you to it. You played along and got a good fuck while it was fun. I should’ve seen it when you were spending so much time trying to figure out your future and pushing away your hiatus. You made a decision.”
My eyes sting, he’s hurting so much, and I am the one who hurt him. How am I going to fix it? It feels as if he has built a wall of steel between us and I’ve lost him. This can’t be happening. Not today—or ever.
“It’s not what you think,” I say, but he’s not listening.
“I’m not stupid. My reading level is high enough to understand what those papers mean and what you’re trying to accomplish. I might spend my entire day creating art but I can run a company, Juniper. I guess you don’t get how much power I have, but I’ll be happy to show you. I scanned the papers and sent them to my lawyer. You’ll receive a counter in a few days.”
He turns around and leaves me standing still.
Sterling’s standing in the shower, hands flat on the tile wall. His head bent, the water washing him down. He’s pissed off at me. I’m not sure if what I have to say and what I bring will be enough to earn his trust.
Old me would just turn around and leave, back to San Francisco where nothing touches me, feelings don’t happen, and I have built a life that’s safe.
But I don’t want any of that, I want us.
“The day after we came back from Steamboat, when you didn’t come to dinner. That’s when I emailed my lawyer. I forgot all about it until … now.”
“We have nothing to talk about, June,” he says with a warning. He glares at me, jaw clenched, water running down his body. “If you’re trying to talk to me so I don’t take the children away from you, I won’t. I’m just going to make sure I have daily access to them. This will be their house. We’ll share custody.”
“Hear me out, you can believe me or not. You said it once. We talk everything out, no bullshit. It was a mistake,” I confess, hating to admit that I make more mistakes than everyone else around me. I just know how to cover them up well.
“You don’t make mistakes, June,” he says sharply and turns around facing the wall. “Leave.”
I step into the shower. The water slips into my clothes. My face is soaked, washing away the tears that are finally rolling down my cheeks.
“Why do you think I have a routine and I write everything down? To avoid mistakes and surprises. Still, they happen more often than you can imagine. I cover them well. I’m an expert. Only Jeannette and Hannah know how much I fuck up, but I hate being less than perfect. I only let people see my success. So yeah, I screw up more often than many.”
He finally turns around, lifts my chin, and looks into my eyes. “Why did you do it?”
“I was just trying to get ahead of the game because I thought you were done with me and … I kept telling myself this was to protect them, but I was protecting my heart because I was already falling in love with you. Never in my life had I ever felt so alive and that I could finally be myself. If you signed the papers, I wouldn’t have to hear my heart shattering every time you rejected me.
“We talked the next morning, and you confused me in so many ways. But you said you were mine. That meant everything to me. I just had no idea how to keep you and not crowd you. Someone like you wouldn’t want to be trapped. So, I’ve been too busy thinking about us and learning how to make a life with you. Trying to enjoy the moment and not focus on every single detail that used to dictate my life.”
I laugh and crying harder because I don’t know what else to say to make him stay.
“You make me feel things I have never felt before. Not only love, but a feeling of belonging—to you. Even when you’re handsome and have wild bedroom eyes and an old soul that stirs everything inside me, I love that you’re spontaneous, thoughtful, and caring.”
“You love me,” he whispers.
“Of course, it’s easy to fall in love with you,” I mumble. “You’re so intense… and who wouldn’t fall for you, Sterling? Hear me out, I would never take the babies away from you, even when what you feel for me disappears someday.”
“Never,” he says, kissing my temple and embracing me. “You’re the big love that I never expected. The blizzard brought you to me. You’re a fucking storm with high winds, destroying my walls. You heat my cold heart and slowly have molded me into someone new. If you ever leave me, I’ll be an incomplete piece of clay. Finish me, make me the man you deserve by just being with me.”
Sterling
We spend Christmas Eve in the house. Around midnight, when everyone who stayed with us goes to their bedrooms, I get ready for tonight’s surprise. Christmas is just a few minutes away.
“Do you trust me?” I ask June as we reach the bottom of the stairs.
“Blindly,” she responds and smiles because I pull out a blindfold. “What are you doing?”
“Humor me,” I say, covering her eyes.
Slowly, we make our way to the upstairs area. “I’m going to trip,” June complains. “This is silly.”
“Just admit you hate surprises,” I say, guiding her toward the room and stopping right in the middle of the hallway where I press the switch to turn on the twinkle lights I had installed while she was shopping with her mom during the weekend.
Jason and Alex came through, I asked them to sprinkle pinecones and snowflake shaped confetti before they went to their rooms.
“Okay, you can uncover your eyes now,” I say.
She has the biggest smile I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
“This is a lot of holiday cheer for ol’ Scrooge,” she jokes. “But so beautiful.”
I guide her to our bedroom and when she opens the door, she gasps. “We have a tree.”
She tosses her arms around me and hugs me. “When did you do this?”
“Merry Christmas,” I whisper into her ear and release her. “It’s time to open your presents.”
She walks to the tree that sits in her reading nook, then she turns back and says, “Why are your presents here too?”
“Your mom said I should bring those three with me just in case,” I explain, marching toward her.
I bend and give her the first one.
“These are beautiful,” she says, pulling the ornaments out of the tissue paper. “Baby’s first Christmas.”
I made them for her, for our babies. Two snowflakes, they’re similar but not the same.
She looks up at me, her eyes glistening with tears that she’s about to shed. “They’re perfect.”
I pick up the next present. This time she shreds the wrapping paper and smiles at the ornament of two tangled snowflakes. “Our first Christmas.”
“How did you know I’d love this? They’re my favorite ornaments.”
I gather her into my chest, kissing her. “You’re my favorite. Everything about you is what gives me joy. I couldn’t ask for a better present or a better life.”
Brushing a kiss against her l
ips, I pull out the velvet box and drop to one knee.
“Sterling,” she says my name with fear in her voice. “No, you don’t have to.”
“I know, but I want to with all my heart.” I slide the ring onto her finger. It fits just perfect. “Have I mentioned that as an artist I observe and learn more than people give me credit for?”
She nods slowly.
“I learned to trust you with my heart, that the only reason I’ve never found love is because I hadn’t met you. For this relationship to work, I have to give you everything without expecting anything back. I’m afraid enough to have the courage to ask you to be mine forever. I can’t live without you.”
“I love you so much, Sterling Ahern. I never thought this much happiness could be within my reach. That I would fall so madly in love so fast and feel so … alive. I can’t live without you either,” she confesses and begins to cry.
“Don’t cry, beautiful girl.” I rise up and hug her. “You’re never going to lose me. I’m yours forever.”
“You and our babies are the best Christmas present I could’ve ever asked for, I just can’t believe it’s actually happening.”
I kiss her until her arms are twined around my neck.
“We’re in this for the long run, right?”
“Yes, we are,” she says.
My heart jackhammers against my rib cage, yet I’m filled with a sense of righteous calmness I’ve never had in my life. We’re enough to make each other happy. This isn’t contentment, it’s happiness and a sense of fulfillment. My heart is finally full.
I sway her against my body as we stare at the Christmas tree and the nativity set I made for her. The last few days I’ve spent my time in the studio creating what I thought would bring a smile. Maybe in fifty years we’ll be decorating for our grandchildren with these same ornaments and wouldn’t it be amazing to tell them the story of how the most wonderful woman in the world taught me that love really exists.
“I love you,” I whisper. “With all my heart.”
Epilogue
Sterling
A Year Later …
June hated surprises. Her life is full of them. That was until her twelve-week checkup. The doctor recommended a second sonogram. Her belly was bigger than the gestational age of the babies. Surprise, they didn’t detect the third fetus during the first sonogram.
There’s a joke going around about Jack and Em trying to have quadruplets to outdo us.
Our time together has been full of surprises and we are ready for more.
We married in February, in France at a cute château in Midi-Pyrenees. It was an intimate ceremony. We celebrated with our families and our closest friends.
In mid-July, our babies arrived. Violet, Vaughn, and Vanessa. Like their mom, they stole my heart the moment I held them.
James and Aria live close by, but some nights they stay in the guest room to help us. Raising our babies is a team effort. However, they also spend time with Marianne, Caroline, and Blake, Jason’s son.
Wes and Abby visit us often and have been embraced by the Spearman family too. We’re so close that the entire family spent Thanksgiving in Tahoe. My brother hosted it and Ari helped organize everything.
I can’t remember how life was before June and her family came into my life. She changed everything, including my priorities.
This year the house is the North Pole. I bet Santa might want to copy the light design Wes helped me create.
Our little ones turned five months old a couple of weeks ago. They came to change my life, teach me more than I’ve learned through my travels, and keep me awake all fucking night. But I adore them.
“God, I don’t think I’m going to stay awake for long,” June mumbles, biting her lip. “What are we having for dinner?”
I laugh and stare at her.
“Stop staring like that, your son is eating and you’re thinking about s-e-x.”
“Lucky baby.” I bend, securing the girls who are sleeping in my arms, and kiss her. “Let me set the princesses in their crib. I’ll help you with him once you’re done. Maybe we can whip something up if you really don’t want to go to Jack’s tonight.”
She shakes her head. “It’s okay. We can’t skip it. I’m just tired. Hooray for teething.”
June laughs and I join. We’re bone-tired but I don’t think we’d do anything differently. Maybe how we celebrate this year.
We split the holiday meals.
Christmas Eve is at Jack’s, breakfast at Jason’s, and we’re hosting dinner. June has everything ready, including catering. She’s learned that with three kids, it’s best if she just uses her resources instead of trying to look like a superstar. She is a superstar, I’m just proud of her for learning to enjoy what matters.
“Remind me to only have one kid the next time you knock me up,” she says and I freeze.
“What did you say?”
She shrugs. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a couple more babies?”
“You SOB, this is all your fault. I’m never having s-e-x with you,” I repeat the words she said during labor and smirk. “So far you’ve broken the no touching you rule—several times. And now we want another one.”
“Not now,” she says, as if that makes it different. “Later, in a couple of years. It’ll be like my brothers and us. We are so close that we are best friends.”
I shake my head and take Vaughn from her arms, set him on the left side of my chest, snuggling him close to me, smoothing his back. When I fell in love with June, I never knew it could be such a strong feeling that could overpower anything. My kids though, they taught me that the love I have for their mother is nothing compared to what I feel for them.
My biggest hope is that I can be a good father to them. That we can become friends and they can come to me for anything.
June keeps telling me how I have to let the fear of being my father go and just enjoy my relationship with our kids. She’s right and I’m working hard to be who they need and not what I wanted my father to be for me.
“Let’s take a nap,” I suggest as I set my son in the crib.
When I turn around, she’s looking at me. My breath still catches when I see her. She’s beautiful, sexy, and mine. The best present I’ve ever received in my entire life.
Lovelies, happy holidays!
Thank you so much for reading Once Upon a Holiday. Writing it was as much fun. So here’s a behind the scenes story about this book.
Originally, I was done writing for the year but as I plotted my first release for 2020, there’s this story just wanting to be told.
June Spearman didn’t want to wait until next year. Why would she when her older brothers already had their story?
Everything just fell into place. Sterling and I have been going back and forth about his story. It was supposed to be a second chance romance, but I just couldn’t picture him going back to Kara. With a simple glance I realize these two were meant to be together.
Plotting the story was easy, the beginning was a little rough. I wanted it angsty.
Karen, my PA made sure I understood the definition of Holiday cheer because if you’ve read me before I can get pretty angsty. So, I said, “what if they meet when she enters the wrong restroom?”
I wasn’t there to see Karen’s reaction. However, I imagine she laughed for hours. The same way she laughed back in April when we had dinner after Talkbooks Author Event. You see, that little mishap at Diego’s Steak house happened to me.
After the signing, we went over to dinner. We were chatting, laughing, and suddenly I had to go. I still don’t understand how I ended up in the men’s restroom, but while talking to another author she said, that’s a fun meet cute. She was right.
It’s like everything collided and made way to this great story. Even my crazy adventures.
Closing 2020 with this book feels just right.
Next year, you’ll have Alex’s story. His story has been plotted. It’s fun, different and I can’t wait for you to read
it.
If you like this book, I’d appreciate if you could write a review on Amazon; and recommend it to your friends.
As an author, my visibility depends on you, my friend, and your reviews.
Please, don’t be a stranger, check my other books and visit my website where you can find all the social media places you can stalk me.
May the joy and peace of the holidays be with you all through the New Year. Wishing you a season of blessings.
Love,
Claudia xoxo
Excerpts
I hope you enjoyed reading Once Upon a Holiday, keep reading for an extended excerpt of my bestselling romantic comedies, Maybe Later and Then He Happened where you can meet Jacob and Jason. Also, an excerpt of Begin with Me, Wes and Abby’s story.
Maybe Later
Billionaire Jackson Spearman is impatient, demanding, and private.
He’s practically a recluse.
When his assistant goes on maternity leave, Amy Walker virtual assistant extraordinaire arrives to save the day.
Or does she?
Amy is inquisitive and far too optimistic.
She isn’t impressed with Jackson at all.
Is she even real?
They can’t stand each other.
Unfortunately, they can’t seem to resist each other, either.
Soon, their work relationship starts to feel like something more…
Even when Amy meets her dream man, she can’t seem to stop thinking about her annoying online boss.
And the woman who’s never fallen in love before, finds herself falling for two men.
Both of them have everything she’s ever wanted.
But she has to choose one.
Once Upon a Holiday Page 18