Swaying my hips from side to side to the music, singing Wizzard under my breath, I forgot to feel moody and lovesick for the first time in months.
Toe bells jingling as I skipped toward the Christmas tree to collect Belle’s present, I bent over without thinking, singing away to myself.
It was a wonder I didn’t feel his glare singeing my arse.
Because I certainly felt it when I stood up, turned with a flourish of my petticoats and smiled just as my gaze collided with Reid’s.
He stood off to the side of Santa’s grotto, a fierce glower furrowing his brows, arms crossed over his chest as he glared at me.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he mouthed slowly before pressing his lips into a hard line. His eyes lowered down my body and back up again. Somehow his expression grew even darker.
Damn it.
I guess it didn’t look all that professional for his personal assistant to dress in a teenager’s elf costume.
My lips widened into a sheepish grin and was followed by an equally sheepish shrug as if to say ‘What can you do?’.
In answer, he crooked his finger at me to come to him.
It was appalling the way my body reacted to the commanding gesture, as if I’d just been summoned to the bedroom.
Mortified, frustrated and irritated that he had that power over me, I gave him a slight shake of my head. Reid’s eyebrow raised at my defiance, but I ignored him. We’d decided that I needed to find a new job, and that’s exactly what I’d done. My time at Shaw’s was up after Christmas and Reid would no longer be my boss. So defying him wasn’t really an issue!
Instead, I moved toward Santa, who took the present with another lascivious wink in my direction.
The whole time I could feel my boss’s stare burning into me.
I knew he was beyond annoyed at this point.
A niggle of concern filtered through my newfound “could give zero fucks” attitude.
Maybe Reid would just ask me to leave sooner.
And even though I kept telling myself I didn’t care what he thought of me, I knew it would sting horribly if he made me pack up my things and leave him.
I wasn’t prepared for it.
Not yet.
I had two weeks of secretly pining after him and hating him in equal measure to go.
I wanted those two weeks!
They were mine.
I flicked him a look beneath my lashes.
He was still there.
Glowering at me.
Oh dear.
I was definitely on someone’s naughty list.
Evan
Early October - Three Months Ago
The thing is … I’m actually a really professional person. Normally. Ask anyone.
The current situation didn’t highlight that virtue, but I promise it’s true.
It was just very hard for me not to press my ear to Reid’s office door so I could listen in on his conversation with Emmy.
I wouldn’t usually.
I might be infatuated with my boss, but his relationship with Emmy was none of my business.
However, yesterday, I’d had the unfortunate task of relaying to Reid that his girlfriend rang up a whopping five grand bill under his personal account for the store. Reid had gone quiet at the news, giving nothing away regarding his feelings on the matter.
Then, today, I’d been in the staff room trying to diffuse a quarrel between Ailsa, the manager of the salon, and Louis, the manager of the beauty department. Apparently, Ailsa had recommended a product to a customer that we didn’t stock and this ruffled Louis’s feathers. While he was sort of right that she should only recommend store products, I couldn’t help but understand why Ailsa was pissed off at him for his condescending attitude.
Handling staff disputes was not part of my job description. It should fall to either George, the general manager, the human resources department, or Reid himself. Reid, however, had no patience for ‘tattletales’ as he called them, and George was in a meeting with our events coordinator for the upcoming Halloween sale. Human resources were surprisingly good at avoiding human contact outside of their own department. Reid had asked that ‘I see to the problem’ regarding the staff. This had been happening more and more lately since I had a knack for diffusing situations.
“So,” I was saying to Ailsa and Louis, “If Ailsa thinks this product is a better one than the products in Shaw’s, I’ll talk to Reid about stocking it. That way we all win. Yes?”
Louis gave a little huff but nodded.
Ailsa beamed.
That’s when I saw Emmy floating by the staff room wearing four-inch heels, her diaphanous trench coat billowing behind her as she strutted down the hallway toward Reid’s office.
“Uh … I have to go. We’re all good?” I gave Louis and Ailsa a thumbs up before scurrying out of the staff room before they could stop me. “Back to work,” I threw over my shoulder.
Emmy was already in Reid’s office by the time I caught up. The woman had outrageously long legs.
That’s when I abandoned all common decency and pressed my ear to the door.
I was shamefaced but not nearly enough to stop myself.
“Three months is nothing,” Reid said calmly.
While my boss could glower for Scotland and brood and cut a person with a look so dirty I’d seen grown men crumble under it, he rarely raised his voice. He was always so in control. It made me want to ruffle his feathers.
And by ruffle his feathers, I mean drive him so wild with passion he falls on me like a wild thing.
Flushing hot at the imagery, I squeezed my thighs tight together and tried to concentrate on the somewhat muffled conversation beyond the door.
“Do you know how many men would die to have me in their bed?” Emmy countered.
At her arrogance, I stifled a snort.
So she was tall, voluptuous and gorgeous.
Big deal.
If she had a beautiful heart to go with her pretty facade, then she would have been right. Reid would be lucky to have her.
Unfortunately, Emmy was kind of a snooty cow.
She looked down her nose at Reid’s staff and expected them to snap to her every demand and was what she referred to as a socialite. A socialite? Did those even exist in Edinburgh? Apparently so, because Emmy didn’t work for a living. She had a degree from St. Andrews University, so she wasn’t stupid, but she was from a wealthy family. Between their money and Reid’s, Emmy didn’t seem to think working was a productive use of her time.
Did I sound judgemental?
I wasn’t usually judgy.
But I was judging her. I admit it.
The thing of it was, I couldn’t understand how this lack of work ethic could appeal to Reid. My brother’s best friend hadn’t gotten to where he was in life without a serious amount of hard work. He’d grown up around the corner from us in Dalkeith, a town about thirty minutes southeast of Edinburgh city center. A town I stilled lived in, occupying a tiny one-bedroom apartment a few streets over from my parents’ house.
Reid had grown up with a single mum, Annie. She’d worked her arse off to keep a roof over Reid’s head and food in his stomach. Like us, they didn’t have much, but they had each other and Annie had my parents while Reid had Patrick. I hadn’t come along until my brother and Reid were thirteen years old, so by the time I was old enough to really get to know Pat and Reid, they’d left home. Despite how easy it might have been for them to fall in with the wrong crowd of boys in our estate, they’d both stuck in at school and gotten into Edinburgh University. While Patrick then studied for his medical degree in Manchester, Reid got his MBA at a top business school in London. We’d see them over the holidays as Annie and Reid always spent Christmas with us. I wasn’t aware of Reid back then. I was only a kid, after all, and just excited to have my big brother home.
Reid returned to Edinburgh before Patrick, and we didn’t see much of him at all.
My brother returned home two years later to
complete his foundation program as a doctor at a GP practice in the city. It was then we saw more of Reid. Not loads. But more.
And I developed my first real crush.
I remember it clearly.
I was thirteen years old. It was Christmas Day and Patrick was spending the night with us, rather than staying at his flat. Like always, Annie and Reid came over for Christmas day.
I’d noted that Reid didn’t smile much.
But he smiled at me as he strolled into my parent’s sitting room and wished me a happy Christmas. His smile set off a riot of flutters in my belly and I found myself tongue-tied and flustered around him.
The feeling never really went away, although it lost its intensity as I got older and saw him less and went off to Edinburgh university to pursue my own degree in Business Management. An MA that proved to be useless to me when I left school and competed with a ton of other young people with similar degrees and very little experience.
After six months of job searching with no luck, Patrick said Reid was looking for a new personal assistant at his department store and he was willing to give me a shot.
I hadn’t even thought about my old crush.
All I’d thought about was the great pay and the fact that my first job would be working with one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Scotland.
After working for several companies over the years, networking, accruing stock and investments, Reid purchased an aging department store in the heart of Edinburgh. Situated on the main thoroughfare of the city center, on Princes Street, the department store had lost its luster years ago, as many had because of online shopping. Reid bought the store and the three shops that shared the same turn-of-the-century building. Knocking through into those meant he could create a much bigger department store. While he maintained its nineteenth century charm, he created a mini empire with everything from clothing to home furnishing to electronics to beauty to a salon and spa and topped it off with a fine dining restaurant on the level below the office floors. He created an atmosphere where people wanted to shop and he catered to those in the city who had money to do so.
Everyone thought he would fail.
In the last three years the store had gone from strength to strength, proving all the naysayers wrong.
Unfortunately, success meant Reid was a busy man. Too busy to think about women beyond the convenience of having a partner with him at a business dinner and someone to satisfy his sexual appetite. While not necessarily a womanizer, Reid was definitely a serial monogamist. He had a few rules when it came to women.
They had to be understanding of his long working hours.
Everything was on his schedule.
And he didn’t do immaturity. Which meant he never dated a woman younger than twenty-eight. Patrick told me that. It didn’t make sense to me at all. I knew women twice my age way more immature than me. That ridiculous rule stung.
Did I mention my youthful crush returned when I started working for Reid and was now growing into a full-blown infatuation? It wasn’t just because Reid was tall with the athletic physique of a swimmer, or that he had the most beautiful glimmering dark eyes and wickedly boyish grin. I suspected Reid had much passion and feeling buried beneath his cool, overly controlled facade. For instance, he was loyal and generous to a fault. I wasn’t supposed to know it, but my parents were in financial difficulty because of a second mortgage they’d taken on with the house and were in danger of losing it. Reid paid off their debt. No questions asked. I could only imagine how much of a hit that was to Dad’s pride. Reid would have handled it delicately though. I’d seen him handle businessmen with a deft touch and he loved my dad, so I couldn’t imagine him not handling him with care.
Then there were the many charities I knew he donated to. Anytime I tried to ask him about them, he just blew me off. But I worked for him. I saw the good he did without wanting accolades for it.
And all of his staff were competitively paid. If one of them had a personal problem that was interfering with their duties, Reid had instructed Nicola, our Human Resource Manager, to create a supportive environment for them and to put measures in place to help them.
His staff were a priority.
When I mentioned this he just replied, ‘Happy staff are productive staff. Productive staff bring in more sales.’
All that was true, but I still thought he was a big softie, really.
For the last six months, I’d seen Reid with two women up close and personal. The first was Anushka. She and Reid had been dating for three months before I appeared. His PA before me was a lovely older lady called Janet. She’d retired.
Anushka was unhappy that Reid’s new PA was a twenty-two-year-old, not entirely unattractive (I hoped) woman. Again, Patrick filled me in on that. After about two months working for Reid, Anushka grew increasingly paranoid about me. At her jealous insistence that Reid fire me, he fired Anushka instead.
Emmy appeared on the scene about a month later.
And she was the worst.
While I truly got the sense Anushka had genuine feelings for Reid, all Emmy saw was Reid’s success and what his money could do for her. Patrick told me (if you hadn’t already guessed my big brother was a bloody gossip!) that Reid had to stop at his mum’s house in Dalkeith one night while Emmy was with him. Despite Reid wanting to buy his mum a nice house somewhere else, she didn’t want to leave. Instead, he paid off her mortgage. The darling man.
Anyway, back to the story. So Reid goes to Annie’s to drop off the new phone he’d insisted on buying her when her old one broke and Emmy had stayed in his car, dramatically terrified to get out of it as if Dalkeith was the ghetto. While the estate we grew up in was a little run down and very working class, the insinuation that it was dangerous was insulting. Patrick had been pissed when Reid told him Emmy had said “he was never to bring her back to that dump again”. Reid had just shrugged it off. When I asked Patrick why, he said Reid wasn’t serious about her. He was just interested in their sexual relationship, so there was no point getting upset about her attitude.
I got upset.
Mostly at the reminder that the snooty cow got to have sex with Reid.
Reid who looked after his body with the same careful discipline he brought to all areas of his life. There was a staff gym on the top floor that Reid used first thing in the morning, every morning.
I’d once found him in there, shirtless.
The image was BURNED on my brain.
“I don’t care how many men would die to have you in your bed,” Reid was saying to Emmy. “Go find one of them.”
“What?!” Emmy screeched.
I winced.
There was a moment of silence and then, “I called you in here to discuss the charges on my store tab. I’m not a man you can use like this, Emmy.”
“Use you? I’m using you,” she said indignantly. “As if you aren’t using me. Reid, I’m at your bloody beck and call. You do realize that’s not how normal relationships work? They’re about give and take. Outside of the bedroom, you’re all about take. Surely, a little compensation for being one step up from an escort isn’t a lot to ask.”
“An escort?” he replied coolly.
I knew that tone. If Reid wasn’t happy before, he really wasn’t happy now.
“Yes, an escort. And I’m worth more than that. You think you can break up with me? I’m breaking up with you.” Footsteps moved toward the door and I skittered quickly back to my desk, staring at my computer like I hadn’t been eavesdropping.
The door to Reid’s office opened and I heard Emmy say, “You’re an unfeeling bastard, Reid, and you’re going to die alone for it.”
I tried not to let my jaw drop in shock at her awful snipe.
She stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her with a little slam. She cut me a dirty look and strolled away.
“Good riddance,” I called out to her as if I was calling a cheery ‘good day’.
Emmy glanced over her shoulder, pausing.
“Excuse me?”
“Go-od. Rid-dance,” I drawled, as if she were challenged in the hearing department.
“Screw you,” she huffed and marched away.
“No thanks,” I muttered to the screen. “Can’t afford you, babe.”
A snort sounded from the doorway, and I looked up to find Reid leaning on the doorframe of his office.
I grimaced. “Sorry. Not professional, I know.”
“No. But funny.”
I smiled sympathetically. “She’s wrong, you know.”
He raised an eyebrow. “About?”
“You’re not an unfeeling bastard who is going to die alone.”
Reid’s expression closed down. “Has Butler called?”
I knew by the very fact that he didn’t want to talk about what Emmy had said meant that she’d drawn blood. Hating that she’d wounded him, I suggested, “Why don’t you finish up early? I can handle everything here.”
“I’m fine. Let me know when Butler calls. If he doesn’t call by three o’clock, you call his assistant.” He disappeared back into his office before I could reply.
Hours later, once the store was closed at seven o’clock and the staff had all gone home except for the night time maintenance crew and security, I knocked on Reid’s office door.
In my hand was the bottle of eighteen-year-old Macallan I’d bought from our small whisky department with my staff discount. Grabbing two glasses from the staff room, I approached Reid.
The man didn’t seem to have anyone to talk to except Patrick, and sometimes guys couldn’t say the things they wanted to say to each other. Especially two proud Scots who thought it only appropriate to cry at football, funerals, or at the death of a beloved family pet.
“Come in.”
I stepped into the office, using my arse to close the door behind me. Reid raised an eyebrow at my entrance as I held up the items in my hands. “Thought you might need this.”
I expected him to reject the idea and tell me to go home. Instead, he exhaled heavily and pushed away from his desk. He gestured to the sofa and coffee table at the back of the small room and I made my way over to it. Ignoring the flutter in my belly and the slight increase of my pulse, I placed the glasses on the coffee table and opened the whisky as Reid approached.
All I Want For Christmas Is You Page 5