The Billionaire's Christmas Bargain: Billionaires in Bondage, Book 3

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  The door slammed open, hitting the wall, and Harvey stomped inside without pausing to look at either of them. “Fine. Just don’t look at me.”

  Kelsey met Gordon’s gaze and they shared a smile. Using her most cheerful voice, she said, “Good morning, cupcake.”

  Harvey’s growl echoed inside the fridge and glasses clanked together. “Don’t talk to me either.”

  Gordon ignored him. “Wow. You’d think that getting so much sleep would put someone in a good mood.”

  “Among other things.” Kelsey smothered a laugh at the increased volume of Harvey’s grumbling.

  He slammed the fridge door shut and strode over to the table. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Think about what?” She widened her eyes and pretended surprise. “I was going to tell Uncle Gordon about that delightful conversation we had yesterday in the library.”

  Harvey lowered his head even more to glare into her eyes. “Don’t.”

  She laughed and glanced over at Gordon, as if Harvey’s threatening posture meant absolutely nothing to her. Because it didn’t. “It sounds like he actually thinks he can tell me what to do. Is that what I’m hearing?”

  “I can tell you what to do,” Harvey gritted out. “I’m the employer of you both.”

  “Actually, that’s far from the truth,” Gordon replied. “You personally haven’t paid me a dime. Ever. The Caine trust takes care of my salary for the rest of my—”

  “Abnormally long life,” Harvey butted in.

  “Absolutely,” Gordon continued, unfazed. “And you’re not paying Kelsey a dime either. So don’t come into my kitchen and pretend to lord it over me or my niece.”

  “How many idiots did you hire to tear up my house?” Harvey retorted, starting to straighten. “They’re giving me a splitting headache.”

  Kelsey snagged a handful of his shirt and pulled him back down so she could whisper in his ear. “Did you keep your promise?” He hesitated a moment and nodded, unable to meet her gaze. “Good,” she lowered her voice playfully. “Maybe I’ll give you a new fantasy today. If you’re interested.”

  He jerked upright. “Why did you call me cupcake?”

  “Because you’re so damned sweet.”

  He bared his teeth and snarled, making her laugh.

  “The cleaning service remembered us.” Gordon pretended to ignore their secretive interaction. “Plus, it’s been quite a few years since we called for their services. So they sent a team over.”

  “A team,” Harvey said slowly. “I said one or two. Not—”

  “Ten.” Gordon grinned. “Now that you finally emerged from your cave, I’m sure at least half of them are attacking your room as we speak.”

  “Fuck you,” Harvey retorted. “My room is always off limits!”

  “Language, Master Caine. Don’t speak like that front of my niece.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, Uncle Gordon.” She let a little of the sex kitten purr into her voice and Harvey’s eyes flared. “I actually like bad language. Isn’t that right, Harvey?”

  Averting his gaze, he headed for the door. “There will be no more cursing in this house.”

  Gordon laughed delightedly. “It didn’t occur to me that I ought to be worried about her corrupting you.”

  “You have no idea,” Harvey muttered, giving her a dark look that only made her laugh, too. “You’re both fired!”

  Gordon threw his head back, laughing harder. “Now you’ve gone and done it, dear. Whatever shall we do?”

  “Pack,” Harvey growled, but he gripped the older man’s shoulder in a fond squeeze, betraying himself in that moment. All his harping and yelling and bossing everyone around was actually the way he showed affection, at least for Gordon.

  “Actually, I thought since the house was so clean, we’d unpack something.”

  Harvey narrowed a glare on Gordon but didn’t say anything.

  “The Christmas—”

  “No.” Compared to his loud posturing before, he whispered this time, but his tone vibrated with intent. Low, deliberate and closer to real emotion. “Absolutely no Christmas decorations. Period.”

  Waiting until Harvey left, Gordon turned to Kelsey with a conspiratorial smile. “How do you feel about doing a little decorating?”

  “Are you sure? He seemed pretty adamant about no Christmas decorations and it wasn’t his normal blustering.”

  Gordon picked up his tea cup and drained it. “Absolutely. He said no Christmas decorations. We’re going to decorate for winter.”

  She had no idea what that meant, but the old guy grinned, rubbing his hands together, and she couldn’t deny him. “Sure thing. Where do we start?”

  “Outside in the backyard. And if we have any luck at all, maybe we’ll finally get him out of the house.”

  Chapter Twelve

  For a late-December Sunday morning in Minnesota, it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the snow on the ground was pristine, at least in the backyard of the Caine mansion. With huge evergreens sparkling with ice and snow, the yard looked like a photograph.

  The house sat alone on the block, with park-like lawns even in winter. While the interior of the house had suffered with its owner’s phobias, the exterior had been well maintained. Evidently Harvey hadn’t minded people working outside, as long as he could hide away from prying eyes. A large stone fountain lay dormant, topped by a stone angel. Her face was lovely and serene, but years of outdoor wear had given her darker tears and shadows that gave her a haunted sadness. Entirely appropriate for this particular house.

  “So what did you have in mind?” Kelsey asked, tugging on her gloves. The mature trees sheltered the yard, keeping the wind chill to a minimum. With the sun, she could almost leave her coat unbuttoned.

  “I’d like to get some greenery for the mantel,” Gordon replied. “Even Harvey surely can’t complain about some pine branches.”

  “You never know.” She followed him to a behemoth pine, loaded with pine cones nearly as big as her head. “Wow, this tree would be at home in Rockefeller Center.”

  “Once upon a time, we had every tree loaded with lights. The front yard, always clear, with red velvet bows and candles in the windows. But the backyard was reserved for the family, and Harvey always liked the multicolored lights and the tackiest lawn ornaments we could find. After dinner at Mrs. St. Johns’s with the entire family, we’d come home and drink hot cocoa around the fountain, which was always lit up with so many lights and tinsel that we didn’t even care about the cold.” Gordon hefted the pruning shears and started snipping from the lower branches. “Even after he left for prep school, when he came home for the holidays, we celebrated as if he were still five years old.”

  Kelsey stacked the branches as he cut them. The pungent smell of pine filled her nose, and it was all she could do not to spread the branches out on the snow and roll in them. “So he went away to school?”

  “When he was six or so, we took him sailing in the Caribbean on vacation. He became obsessed with all things sailing. I’m not talking toy boats in the bathtub, but studying nonfiction books and blueprints. He begged us to take him out on the lake every free moment we had, and of course we took him to the ocean when school wasn’t in session as often as we could. It was the damnedest thing, but when he was ten, he’d already made his top five list of colleges based on their sailing teams.” Gordon chuckled, shaking his head. “Yale, Harvard, Boston College for sure. I can’t remember the other two. Nathan went to Yale, so Harvey was pretty sure that’s where he’d go. Nathan arranged a friendly outing with one of the coaches of the sailing team, and when they saw him in action, they started recruiting him hard. Once he committed in his mind to Yale, Hotchkiss was the natural choice, even though it was so far away.”

  Kelsey had never really heard of anyone who went to prep or boarding school. She’d though
t it was a myth of the rich and famous on TV. “Where…?”

  “Connecticut.”

  “Wow. How old was he when he went away?”

  “Fourteen. Melissa took it hard, though she never showed how much it broke her heart to see him leave. She’d never have stepped between him and his dream.”

  Kelsey gathered up an armload of branches and carried them to the back door. A slight motion drew her gaze to the window, but she didn’t turn her head. Hopefully Harvey was watching. Maybe they’d come up with something fun to entice him outside. She dumped that load and went back to get the rest. “He doesn’t sail anymore?”

  Gordon stood upright and arched his back with his hands on his hips, stretching out the kinks. “No, not for years, even before the accident. He had a pretty bad scare navigating Cape Horn and almost capsized. I think that rattled him enough that he decided the one-man races weren’t for him any longer.”

  “He sailed alone?”

  “Once he got his own yacht, absolutely. He loved the solitude.”

  She didn’t know Harvey all that well yet, but she could sense that deep need to be alone. Unfortunately, he’d taken it to extremes, by shutting himself off from the world. “Wasn’t he known as a party guy though, at least in the years leading up to the accident?”

  “He never really wanted to talk about it, but I think partying was his way of trying to compensate for his introversion and his natural fear after nearly dying on the ocean alone. He came home a stranger and tried to fit in the best way he knew how. Most of the young people his age were as careless and thoughtless as he was, and they partied hard.” Gordon bent down and rolled a snowball between his gloved palms. Without looking up, he whispered, “Don’t look now, but I’m pretty sure he’s watching.”

  She squatted down to stack the branches, keeping her back to the window and her hands low, hidden from Gordon behind the pile of pine. She quickly rolled a snowball. “Yeah, I saw him peeking out. You think a snowball fight might draw him out?”

  “Only one way to find out. If you’re game.”

  She launched her snowball at Gordon and hit him square in the chest. “Game on.”

  When was the last time this ancient old house had heard laughter?

  Hidden behind the drapes and blinds he always kept closed tight against the world, Harvey peeked out into the backyard and watched the snow-war unfold. Since they couldn’t see him, he let the smile widen into a shadow of his former carefree self. The one person left in this world whom he loved without question…and a new person who had wormed her way into his life in a matter of hours. He couldn’t believe she’d only been here days, rather than months or years. The time before Kelsey felt like a hundred years ago.

  How was that possible? He didn’t know anything about her. Her family, her past. For the life of him, he couldn’t even remember her last name. That scene in the library yesterday had made her permanently Kelsey in his mind.

  If he closed his eyes, he could smell her skin. Even though she’d barely touched him.

  Her peal of laughter drew his attention back to their game. They were trying to lure him outside. It wouldn’t work. Maxwell ought to know that. Harvey hated to lose any challenge or game, and while the man might be more than twice his age, Maxwell was damned spry for his age. He’d always had killer aim.

  Kelsey ducked and the snowball sailed over her head to slam against the house so close to the window that Harvey instinctively flinched. “Missed me!” She pressed against the house, using the shrubbery as a screen while she rolled another snowball.

  “Stick your head out and I won’t miss you a second time,” Maxwell called back.

  Keeping low, she scuttled behind the shrubs toward the corner of the house, passing in front of Harvey’s hiding place. So close. He pressed his forehead to the glass and breathed deeply, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to smell her through the window. He’d finally gone off his rocker. The depression and anxiety had pushed him over the edge. To be mooning over a woman he barely knew…

  She leapt up out of the bushes and ran toward the side of the house. Harvey’s eyes flew open. The gutter. It was always icy on the south corner of the house. “Watch out,” he roared, banging on the window. She disappeared from his sight, so he raced around the desk to the door that led out to the patio. Something thudded against the house and she cried out, but then nothing.

  Heart pounding, he threw open the door and raced outside, plunging through the snow drifted against the house. “Kelsey? Are you all right?”

  She didn’t answer. He pushed through the thick yews and found her flat on her stomach on a solid sheet of ice. Gingerly, he made his way across the ice toward her. “Kelsey?”

  Lifting her head slightly, she let out a little groan, and then wheezed, as if she couldn’t breathe. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled closer. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, he looked for blood or a bump that might mean concussion. “Are you okay?”

  “Ice,” she wheezed.

  “Yeah.” He carefully rolled her over so he could see her face better. “I yelled to warn you, but I guess you didn’t hear. I busted my ass in the exact same spot when I was a kid. Only Maxwell still managed to bean me in the face before I disappeared into that prickly bush over there.”

  Breathing hard, Maxwell rushed over to the edge of the ice. “Is she all right? Did she hit her head?”

  “I’m fine,” she gasped out. “Just knocked the wind out of me.”

  Each breath caved in her ribcage, as if her body was fighting a massive battle. Harvey scanned her again, looking for blood, cuts, his hands hovering over her. Afraid to hurt her more.

  “Harvey. Look at me. I’m okay.”

  He looked into her face and she smiled up at him. “Are you sure?”

  “Need—” she sucked in another shallow breath that still made her chest heave, “—more air. It’s better though.” She lifted her mittened hand and he automatically took it between both of his. “Look at you.” She coughed, but still managed to smile. “You’re outside.”

  It took a moment for her words to register. He lifted his head and met Maxwell’s teary gaze. The older man gave him a glad, proud smile that hit him straight in the gut.

  The snow and ice were cold, seeping through his pants and sweater. The air smelled incredible though. Almost as good as the ocean. Clean and fresh, rather than the recycled air of the house. Crushed pine, crisp snow. Amazing.

  Amazing that he’d denied himself every basic freedom, to the point that outside clean air seemed like a luxury.

  “It’s fucking December, there’s a foot of snow on the ground, and I’m not wearing a coat.” He tried for his nastiest voice but his hands trembled. He averted his gaze, careful not to look at Maxwell again. Or her, for that matter, at least directly in the eyes. “It’s fucking cold outside.”

  “So it is,” Maxwell said briskly. Bless the man, but he knew a show of kindness would only make Harvey embarrass himself. “If you’ll help her up, we’ll get inside and start a fire.”

  Harvey scooted closer to the edge of ice, gently tugging her with him. Maxwell came to take her other hand, and together they pulled her up to her feet safely in the tromped-down snow. She leaned against Harvey and it seemed like a different person slipped his arm around her waist to support her. It certainly wasn’t him. The shut-in grouch who hated everything and everyone except Maxwell.

  And evidently this woman. Pressing his face against her hair, he breathed deeply of her spicy scent. Just as he remembered from the fantasy. His subconscious must have latched on to her shampoo scent and buried it deep in his mind, only to be tapped when he started to let the fantasy unfold. His stomach quivered and his pulse skyrocketed enough that he felt lightheaded himself. He’d metaphorically slid across ice and slammed into a stone wall too. Inside, shattered bits of his being rattled around inside him, broken free
of the protections he’d encased around his heart and mind all these years. She’d broken him. With a single fantasy.

  Laughter. Light.

  Her light.

  Shaken, he tried to find solid ground again. “If you hadn’t been out here gathering Christmas decorations—which I expressly forbade…”

  Maxwell snorted. “I don’t see any Christmas decorations. Do you, Kelsey?”

  “Not at all.” She winked at Harvey and slipped her arm around his waist. It put her body closer to his. Nothing lewd, but the intimacy of a human being so close inside his personal bubble made him suck in a hard breath. “We’re just bringing a bit of the lovely winter season inside the house. I love the smell of pine. Don’t you, Mr. Humbug?”

  “I despise it.” The words came automatically, but without the bite and sting they usually carried.

  They knew it too, by the smug smiles they shared.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sipping hot cocoa in front of a roaring fire, the master of the house sat in the corner, brooding like a Gothic romance hero. Kelsey hid a smile behind her book.

  “We should play a game.” Breaking the silence in the room, Gordon stood and moved to a round game table in the corner. “It’ll be like old times.”

  “Sure,” Harvey said in a voice laced with sarcasm. “Except we don’t have four, so none of the games we played are actually possible.”

  “Nonsense.” Gordon scanned the shelves. “There’s no rule that we have to have four to play five card stud or hearts…”

  Harvey let out a low growl. “I’m not playing.”

  Kelsey joined Gordon at the shelves loaded with all kinds of board games, many of which she’d never heard of. “Wow. I’ve never seen so many games outside of a toy store.”

  “Mr. Caine loved strategy games, especially Monopoly.” Gordon’s wistful smile made her heart ache for both him and Harvey. “The hardest part was always ending the game, because neither Harvey nor Nathan would leave the table until one of them won. What was the record for the longest game, Harvey? Do you remember?”