“We’re eating on the roof,” Noelle said a few moments later. He smiled at her disbelief as she stated the obvious.
Actually a glass atrium, the famed Crystal Terrace was decorated similarly to downstairs, only instead of recessed lighting, patrons ate under the night sky.
“I figured since this was our only meal in the Big Apple you should eat it with a view of the skyline,” he told her. “By the way, this time you can see the Rockefeller Christmas tree. And the Empire State Building.”
“Amazing.”
Letting go of his hand, she moved toward the window while he and the maître d’ exchanged amused glances.
“I had a feeling you’d like the view,” James replied. He waited until the maître d’ had disappeared behind the elevator doors before joining her at the glass. Noelle stood like a child pressed to a window display with her hands clutching the brass guardrail. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth in wonder. James stood behind her and captured her between his arms, the same way he had on the observation deck. “As good as the Fryberg town tree?” he asked.
“The Empire State Building really is red and green. I’ve read about how they projected the colors, but I had no idea they would be so vivid. The building looks like a giant cement Christmas tree.”
“I’m not quite sure that’s the analogy the city was going for, but...”
“I love it. Thank you for bringing me here.”
Still trapped in his arms, she whirled around to face him. Up close, her smile knocked the wind out of him. He had to swallow before he could find his voice.
“I thought we agreed this afternoon that you could stop thanking me.”
“We did, but a place like this deserves a special thank-you.” She slipped her arms around his neck. “Makes sense now, why you wanted to have dinner. I’d have been disappointed if I’d learned... Are we the only people here?”
He was wondering when she’d notice. “No. There’s a waiter and a bartender on the other side of the room.”
“I don’t mean the staff. I mean dinner guests. The other tables are empty.”
“Are they, now?” He pretended to look over his shoulder. The Terrace only housed seven tables; the limited seating was part of how the place got its exclusive reputation. All seven tables were unoccupied.
“Well, what do you know. So they are empty,” he said before turning back to her. “Must be because I booked them.”
“You what?” Noelle’s expression was worth every cent he’d paid too. Her eyes widened, and her lips formed an O. She looked so charming; he had no choice but to press a kiss to her nose.
“You know how I like efficiency,” he told her. “Service is so much better when you don’t have to compete with other patrons for the server’s attention. Besides, I wanted to give you something special since you took me in these last few days.”
“I was under the impression flying me to New York was the something special,” she replied. “This is...”
Shaking her head, she slipped from his arms. “Do you do this sort of thing often? Buy out restaurants?”
James wasn’t sure of the right answer. Had he gone too far? The impulse had popped into his head when he’d read the internet article. Yes, it was over the top—this whole day was over the top—but he’d wanted to make it memorable.
Face it: he’d wanted to impress her. Because he liked her. And how else was he supposed to compete with a dead war hero who gave her the family she’d always dreamed of?
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he replied. “If you want, I can tell the maître d’ to open the other tables...”
“No.” She shook her head again. “You went to a lot of trouble, and I’m sounding ungrateful. It’s just that you didn’t have to do all this. Any of this. I would have been perfectly happy having dinner with you at the Nutcracker.”
“I know. I told you, I wanted to do something special. To make you feel special. Because I kind of think you’re worth it. Hell, after kissing you, I know you’re worth it.”
He scuffed the ground with his foot. Stumbling for words wasn’t like him. But once again, she had him feeling and thinking uncharacteristically.
“Thank you,” Noelle replied. Unlike the other times, she spoke in a gentle, tender voice that hung in the air. “No one has ever put so much effort into trying to impress me. Ever. You’ve made me feel very special. I think you’re crazy. But you make me feel special.”
James smiled. So what if he was crazy? The satisfaction he was feeling right now far surpassed that of any deal or successful investment. “So does this mean you’ll stick around for dinner?”
“What do you think?” she replied.
Turning to the first table within reach, James pulled out a chair. “After you.”
CHAPTER NINE
“HERE’S WHAT I THINK.” It was an hour later, and the wine had loosened Noelle’s tongue. “I think that you’re not as antiholiday as you claim.”
“I’m not?”
“Nope.” Giving an extra pop to the p, she leaned forward across the table. Shadows cast by the flame in the hurricane lamp danced on the planes of James’s cheek, giving his handsome features a dark and mysterious vibe. She’d been thinking about this for a while, analyzing the clues he’d dropped. Tonight’s rooftop surprise sealed her theory. “I think you’re sentimental and I think you’re a romantic,” she told him.
He rolled his eyes. “Why? Because I bought out a restaurant? Hate to break it to you, honeybunch, but that doesn’t mean I’m romantic—it means I’m rich and trying to seduce you.”
And he was succeeding. Not even the wine and duck with truffles could wash the kiss they’d shared off her lips. James kissed like a man in charge. She might have met him halfway, but there was no doubt who dominated whom once the kiss began, and frankly, so caught up was she in the moment, that she didn’t care. She liked being overwhelmed.
Right now, however, she didn’t like him distracting her.
“Why are you so quick to paint yourself negatively?” she asked, getting back on track. “Last time I checked, a person could be rich and seductive and a sentimental romantic. This restaurant is only one example. The entire day...”
“Again rich and...”
“Trying to seduce me. I know,” she replied.
James reached for the bottled water to pour himself a glass. “So far, I’ve got to say that your argument isn’t too compelling.”
“I have other examples.”
“Such as?”
“You were tapping your toe during the show.”
“It was a catchy tune!”
And the enthusiastic smile he wore at the end of the performance? He’d probably say he was rewarding a job well done. “What made you pick that particular show in the first place, huh? Why not that hot hip-hop musical everyone’s gushing about, if you were simply out to impress me? Don’t tell me you couldn’t have scored tickets to that if you’d wanted them. Instead, you picked a Christmas show, and not just any show. The Christmas Spectacular. Heck, even your choice of restaurant,” she said, gesturing at the winter wonderland around them, “is Christmassy.”
“I didn’t exactly pluck the theme out of thin air. Since I arrived in Fryberg, you’ve made your attachment to Christmas quite clear. For crying out loud, your in-laws celebrate Christmas year-round.”
“All the more reason for a person who hates holidays to show me something different,” she replied. “But you didn’t. You went full-on Christmas. What’s more, you enjoyed everything as much as I did. And not—” she wagged her finger “—not simply because I was having fun.”
James raised his glass to his lips. “How could I not have a good time with such amazing company?”
Noelle blushed at the compliment. There was more though. She’d s
tolen enough looks during the day when he thought she wasn’t looking. Saw the enjoyment on his face. Their adventure today had touched something inside him. The same sensitive part that was inspired to rent out the dining room.
She still couldn’t believe he’d rented an entire rooftop for her. Talk about intimidating. She’d never been the focus of attention before, not by herself. Not without a Fryberg attached. The notion unsettled her.
Her thoughts were getting off track. “You’re trying to distract me with compliments,” she said, shaking her index finger. “No fair.”
“Au contraire. I’m pretty sure all’s fair,” he replied.
“This isn’t love or war.”
“Yet.”
He was joking. It was one date and, possibly, a few hours of intimacy. Neither of them expected anything more. Nevertheless, her stomach fluttered anyway. She reached for her wine, changed her mind, picked up her water and took a long drink to drown the sensation.
“Do you have any good memories of Christmas?” she asked, changing the subject.
He made a noise in his throat that sounded like an unformed groan. “We’re back to talking about Christmas, are we?”
“We never left,” she said. In spite of his efforts to dissuade her. “Surely, you must have some decent memories before your parents’ marriage went sour.” She was curious. There was a different James Hammond behind the cynicism, one that believed in moonlight dinners and making a woman feel like a princess, not for seduction purposes, but because he thought that’s what a woman deserved. She wanted to get to know that James.
If she could coax him to talk.
He sat back and let out a long breath. “Easier asking for the Holy Grail. My parents never got along. Even before they separated, as soon as they spent extended time together, they would end up screaming and tossing dishes.”
“Glass tumblers.” She remembered.
“Exactly. Honestly, it’s amazing they managed to have two kids.” Frowning, he pushed his plate toward the center of the table. “There was this one Christmas. I was four. Maybe five. Hammond’s was having some kind of event, for charity I think—I’m not sure. All I know is Santa was supposed to be there so my parents took Justin and me into Boston to see him. We had these matching wool coats and hats with flaps on them.”
“Stylish,” she said.
“Best-dressed kindergartener in the city.”
His frown eased into a nostalgic-looking smile. “It was the first time I’d ever seen the Hammond’s window displays. First time I remember seeing them anyway. We stood outside and watched them for hours. Although now that I say it out loud, it was probably more like ten minutes.”
“Time has a way of slowing down when you’re a kid.”
“That it does,” he said. “I read somewhere the passage of time changes based on how much of your lifetime you’ve lived. The author was very scientific. All I know is, on that afternoon, I could have watched those window displays forever.”
He chuckled. “In one of the windows, a bunch of animals had broken into Santa’s workshop. There was this squirrel inside a pot on one of the shelves that kept popping up. Every time he did, Justin would squeal and start laughing. Every time,” he repeated. “Like it was the first time.” And he rolled his eyes the way Noelle imagined his four-year-old self had. The image made her heart turn over.
“But you knew better,” she teased.
“Totally. Who cared about some stupid squirrel when there was a polar bear looking in the window? At least the squirrel was inside the workshop. The bear was obviously in the store. What if he ate Santa Claus?”
“Obviously.”
“Hey, don’t laugh. Polar bears can be ruthless creatures.”
“I’m not laughing.” Not much anyway. His exaggerated earnestness made staying completely serious impossible. She could picture the moment in her head. Little James, his eyes wide and serious, worried about Santa’s safety. “What did you do?”
“I thought we should call the police so they could tranquilize him, but my father assured me that all the polar bears at the North Pole were Santa’s friends, and if there was one in the store, he was probably Santa’s pet. Like a puppy.”
“And that worked?”
His gaze dropped to the table. “Yeah, it did. If my father said the polar bear was a pet, then I believed him. Funny how at that age, you believe everything your parents tell you.”
“The voice of definitive authority,” Noelle said.
“I guess,” he replied. “Anyway, we saw Santa, he told me the bear was taking a nap when I asked, and that Christmas I found a stuffed polar bear in my stocking. Damn thing sat on my bureau until junior high school.”
When his world fell apart.
Afraid he’d come to the same conclusion, she reached across the table and took his hand. He responded with a smile and a fan of his thumb across her skin.
“I bet you were an adorable little boy. Protecting Santa Claus from danger.”
“More like worried I wouldn’t get presents. I’d have gladly sacrificed Justin if it meant finding a race car set under the tree.”
“Did you?”
“You know, I don’t remember.”
But he remembered the window displays, and the polar bear toy, and his childhood wonder.
“You know,” she said, “they say Christmas brings out the child in people. That’s why adults go so gung ho for the holiday.”
“Oh, really?” He entwined their fingers. “In your case, I’d say that’s definitely true.”
“It is for you, as well. Seriously,” she said when he rolled his eyes. “You can talk about hating Christmas all you like, but today’s little adventure proves that little boy who watched the window displays is in there, way down deep.”
“That little boy also pulled off Santa’s beard.”
He was so determined to pretend he didn’t have a soft side. “Fine, be that way,” she told him. “I know better. Thou protest too much.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me,” she said, reaching for her glass. “You may act all cynical and talk about greeting card fantasies, but you don’t one hundred percent believe it. If you did, you’d convince your father to redo the Boston store, tourist attraction or no. We both know you could do so successfully.” Instead, he doubled down on the Christmas fantasy every year. The reason hadn’t hit her until tonight, as she looked around the winter wonderland he’d rented.
He may never have had a greeting card family Christmas, but he wanted one. Over the years, whenever she’d looked at photos of the Boston store, she had sensed a secondary emotion hovering behind the nostalgia and charm, but she could never give the feeling a name. Until tonight. Like a completed jigsaw, now that the pieces had fallen in place, she could recognize the emotion clear as day. It was longing.
Hope.
That was why James authorized the window displays every year, and why he kept the Boston store unchanged despite his insistence they focus on the future. The Boston store wasn’t selling a greeting card fantasy to tourists. It represented his Christmas fantasy.
How on earth had she missed it? If anyone knew what it was like to hope on Christmas... She’d bet he didn’t even realize what he was doing.
“You’re staring,” James said.
“Am I?” Lost in thought, she hadn’t realized. “I didn’t mean to stare. I was thinking how stubborn you are.”
“Me, stubborn? Says the woman who refused to move a moose?”
“Elk, and that’s different. Fryer is part of our great tradition. And at least I fought to protect something the town has had for years. You’re going out of your way to avoid looking sensitive.”
As expected, he rolled his eyes again. At least, there was a blush accompanying it this time. She wa
s making progress. “You know,” she said, sitting back in her chair. “There’s nothing wrong in admitting a vulnerable side. Some people might even be impressed.”
He laughed. “Some people being you.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. Truthfully, she was already impressed. Probably too impressed, if she stopped to think about it.
She waited while he studied their hands, a smile playing on his lips. “I never should have told you I enjoy it when you challenge me,” he said.
“Yeah, well, hindsight is always twenty-twenty,” she teased before sobering. “What I’m trying to say—very badly, apparently—is that it’s okay for you to let your guard down around me. That is, you don’t have to feel awkward about showing...”
Thinking of all the ways he’d already opened up, she realized how foolish she sounded. Psychoanalyzing and advising him on his feelings. “Never mind. You don’t need my encouragement.”
Slipping her hand from his, she pushed her chair away from the table and started folding her napkin. “I wonder what time it is? We probably won’t get back to Fryberg until after midnight.”
“Once,” James said.
“Once what?” She set her napkin on the table and waited. James hadn’t moved. His eyes remained on the spot where their hands had been.
“You wanted to know how often I bought out restaurants to impress women. The answer is once.” He lifted his eyes. “Tonight.”
Holy cow.
His answer rolling around her brain, Noelle stood up and walked to the window where, a few blocks away, the lights of Rockefeller Center created a glowing white canyon amid the buildings. “I was pretty sure you were joking about the whole rich-and-trying-to-seduce-you thing, but at the same time, I thought for sure you’d done stuff like this before.”
She heard his chair scraping against the wood floor. A moment later, her back warmed with his presence. “Stuff?”
“You know... Sweeping a girl off her feet. Making her feel like Cinderella at the ball.”
“Nope,” he replied, mimicking the way she’d said the word earlier. “Only you.”
Christmas with Her Millionaire Boss Page 12