by Holly Rayner
“Where is everyone?” she asked, gazing around the lobby as Chase pressed the button for the elevator.
“I imagine they’re at home with their families, like they should be,” Chase answered as the elevator dinged, and he gestured for her to step inside.
“I thought everyone worked every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Annabelle said, casting him a sideways glance.
“Well they did, until a certain someone told me that I was the worst manager ever, and I realized I needed to change my ways a bit.”
“Oh did you now?”
Chase had taken everything she’d said and used it to become a better man, and a better employer. Annabelle could hardly believe that her sassy opinions had had so much of an impact.
When the elevator doors opened on the twentieth floor, Annabelle actually gasped at the difference.
The towering gray walls of the cube farm had come down and been replaced by leafy plants and colorful dividers that completely opened up the space. Annabelle noticed a recreation area with a pool table and indoor golf, several sofas sat around a large television, and a cluster of what looked to be nap pods.
“Woah,” she breathed. “This place is seriously awesome.”
Chase stared around, taking in the space through her eyes. “Since the refurbishments, I’ve noticed that my workers not only work harder, but they’ve also been far more productive, even with less time in the office. So much so that I gave all of them the week between Christmas and New Year’s off.”
“That’s wonderful,” Annabelle cried, and she couldn’t help but throw her arms around Chase in that moment.
He laughed, hugging her back just as tightly, before they strolled to his office, which had remained unchanged. It might have been the only thing in the building that remained exactly as Annabelle remembered it, and she chuckled as she thought about how different their conversation had been a year ago.
Chase located the key to the cabin and led the way back down to the street, where they hopped in the car and set out towards the mountains in the distance.
***
It was a little over two hours before they reached the mountains, and Annabelle was itching to get out and walk around. While Seattle had seen very little snow that year, as they drove higher and higher up, they were surrounded by glistening white trees and bushes. Chase turned into a small drive Annabelle never would have noticed, and when they rounded the corner, she could hardly believe her eyes.
It was large, for a cabin, with several floors and a wraparound porch made entirely of wood. It had many windows, meant to fill the place with natural light, and the sun glinted off of them, reflecting the forest.
“Wow,” she breathed.
Chase smiled warmly as he pulled the jeep into the snow-covered driveway and set it to park. He turned to Annabelle, and she realized then that she had never seen him look as happy as he did in that moment.
“Let’s take a look inside, shall we?”
“Sure,” she agreed, eagerly.
When she stepped out onto the snow, Annabelle’s boot crunched against the thick ground cover. Her breath steamed as she followed Chase to the door, which he opened before guiding her inside.
The whole place was a dark wooden color, nearly the opposite of Chase’s gleaming white apartment. It was cozy and homely, with colorful furnishings facing a fireplace encased in gray stone which reached all the way to the ceiling.
“Welcome to the cabin,” Chase said. “It’s been in my family for several generations. Most of us have left it basically untouched, though my parents made some changes after my grandparents died.”
Annabelle glanced around as Chase moved to turn on a few lights, though they were hardly necessary with the sun beaming in through the windows. She ran her fingers along the back of the sofa and stopped at a side table. There, in a wooden picture frame, was a picture of two people who had to be Chase’s parents.
Chase walked back into the room, his arms loaded up with firewood. He dropped the wood in a metal holder next to the fireplace and made quick work of getting a roaring fire started. When he looked back at Annabelle, he saw her staring at the photograph.
He stood and moved to her side, taking a look at the picture.
“They would be proud of you, you know,” Annabelle said in a hushed voice.
“How do you know?” he asked, his tone vulnerable. “They say my father was an ace businessman, like I try to be, and my mother was an amazing host and entertainer, but I hardly knew them long enough to make my own judgements.”
Annabelle reached for his hand and held it tight. “It sounds like you’re a perfect combination of the two of them. You’re smart and business-savvy, but you’ve also got a heart, and know how to reach out to others and make them happy. Of course they’re proud of you, wherever they are.”
Chase gazed down at Annabelle, then, his eyes caressing her face. The sensation was powerful enough to feel as though his fingers touched her skin.
“Thank you, Annabelle. I think they would have liked you very much.”
“I hope so. I will do my best to treat their son exactly as he ought to be treated.”
“Where are my manners, anyway?” he said, cutting through the tension and heading in the direction of the kitchen.
When he returned, he was holding a bottle of wine and two glasses. He handed Annabelle the glasses as he opened the bottle, pouring a liberal amount in each glass.
“It’s time to relax, be merry, and enjoy one another’s company. Don’t you agree?”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Annabelle said. She took a sip of the delicious drink and plopped down on the couch, enjoying the fire. Chase soon joined her, his arm draped casually around her shoulders.
Annabelle looked up at Chase, and in that moment she knew that she couldn’t possibly spend her life with any other man.
Chase’s eyes searched hers for a moment before he took the glass from her hand and placed it on the side table, next to the picture of his parents. Taking her face in his hands once more, he looked deeply into her eyes.
“I love you, Belle,” he breathed.
“I love you, too.”
He kissed her then, as the fire crackled in the hearth, and Annabelle realized that finally, she had found her soulmate. It was truly a Christmas she would never forget.
The End
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And now, as promised, are the first few chapters of my previous novel, The Billionaire’s Christmas Bundle Of Joy. Enjoy!
ONE
Mia held the microphone with immaculately manicured fingers, blinking her doll-like eyes at the camera. She stood in her dark blue blazer, in front of the blaring green screen, drawing her mouth into a confident smile as she addressed the SNO News cameras.
“A local Portland retiree is holding on to that holiday spirit the rest of us bolted up in our basements sometime around January 2,” she began. “66-year-old Christopher Parsons, a former school principle and apparent Christmas addict, refuses to take down his extravagant holiday decorations.” She heard light tittering from the camera crew. “And his neighbors want him to be stopped. But we at SNO News must disagree. You see—if you look out your windows, folks—Portland has kicked up an unseasonal winter storm. If Portland can’t make up its mind about what time of year it is, Christopher Parsons can keep his Christmas decorations up all year, I say.”
She giggled into the microphone, knowing she sounded a bit ridiculous. They paid her for this personality; they loved the way she made these fluffy, filler-type stories shine. She had to keep up the act.
“Now, we head to my recent interview with Christopher Parsons’ next-door neighbor, Barbara, for an in-depth look at this breaking news story.” She winked at the camera, then. A bit of tongue-in-cheek never hurt anyone.
> “And…CUT,” Jeff, the station manager, called out.
Mia bowed her head, smiling slightly. Now, on televisions all over Portland, her interview with one of the neighbors was sounding out.
She remembered it well: a chilly afternoon just four days before, on April 6, when she’d shivered in the garage of Christopher Parsons’ next-door neighbor, who had explained to her that having Christmas decorations up for the duration of the year “just wasn’t right.” Neighbor Barbara said he didn’t even bother to put up Easter decorations and that he just flat out skipped July 4 as well, which just wasn’t patriotic. “So what’s up with this Christmas obsession?” Barbara had asked.
Despite her enthusiastic head-nods throughout the interview, Mia didn’t actually agree with Barbara. The magic of the Christmas season made her feel electric and she parted with it begrudgingly every year, taking her Christmas tree to the curb and stomping her feet in the browning snow.
Always, that post-Christmas disappointment reminded her of her childhood; when they’d strip the decorations, making the children’s home glum and dank once more. Everything that had made the children’s lives worth living was suddenly obliterated. Still, as the year swept on, Mia would find the scraps of tinsel stashed beneath her crooked bed and hope for the future.
“Mia. Mia. Hey—”
Mia shook herself back to consciousness, turning her head toward her friend and confidant, Theresa, the production studio’s lead makeup artist. She was holding a tiny makeup brush, covered with snow-like powder.
“I just want to touch you up, in case they want to film that other segment this afternoon.”
“Right,” Mia said, giving her a smile. She brushed her fingers through her long brown hair.
“And don’t play with your hair!” Theresa teased. She began to dot Mia’s face with makeup, humming to herself.
Mia and Theresa had met two years previously, when Mia had started working at the studio. Theresa was two years older than her, with a sense of hard-earned know-how and confidence. “This studio is a man’s club; you have to know how to work it,” she had told Mia once. “It might take a long time, but with hard work and determination, you can work yourself out of those fluffy stories and to the real, gritty journalism. Like you want.”
But Mia wasn’t so sure. It seemed that no matter how well she performed, and no matter how many extra hours she crunched at the newsroom, no one took real notice. She was the pretty anchor, and she was given fluff stories: Christmas decorations in April, squirrels dressed in sweaters, you name it.
Theresa balked, her eyes darting from Mia’s face to the window in the hallway. “You know, the snow is really starting to come down out there.” She pointed to the window; sure enough, great white fluffs were streaming through the sky.
“And on April 10, no less,” Mia whispered, shaking her head. “Are we ever going to get a summer around here?”
Theresa laughed. “You’ve been in Portland long enough to know we won’t.”
Mia giggled. Her eyes passed from Theresa, who parsed through her makeup bag, toward a kerfuffle erupting among the camera crew. She frowned. “What’s going on?”
Theresa spun her head, emitting a slight, hardly-audible gasp. She drummed herself up on her toes to fully see. “He’s back,” she whispered. “James.”
Mia couldn’t help but roll her eyes. James Chance. A name like Oliver Twist or Usain Bolt—seemingly meant for great things. And the man had certainly made a career for himself; James Chance was a self-made billionaire and TV mogul, the CEO and owner of SNO News and its mother agency, Chance Media—and all at the age of 30. Mia didn’t understand how he’d achieved so much in so little time. But, when he came into the office from time to time, she could see the obsession with his work in his eyes. And of course, she could see something else. She felt the initial tug of attraction every moment he entered the office.
James parted the sea of cameramen, glancing toward her. Mia felt her face grow red. She could stand in front of the cameras all day, reporting the news, but something about James’ penetrating gaze gave her pause.
She felt Theresa scuttle toward the makeup room to her left, her brush tossing powder into the air as she went. For a moment, Mia was certain she would sneeze. She touched a light finger to her nostrils, halting the motion. Where was Theresa going? Fight or flight mode, perhaps. The previous time James had arrived at the newsroom, he’d given Theresa a bit of sass about the mess at her makeup station. “Why would he ever care about that?” Theresa had hissed.
Jeff, the cameraman, burst through the crowd of sound workers, breathing heavily. He halted, bracing his hands on his knees, bowing his head before his employer.
James Chance raised a single eyebrow, assessing him, and Mia watched without speaking, just three feet away from the commotion.
“Jeff. What is it?”
“James. We have—we have a problem with the last clip. I wanted to let you know. It cut out slightly. People have been calling in to complain about the missing interview—”
James raised his hand, causing Jeff to bite back his breathless words. His eyes blinked out to the window. “I don’t suppose this has anything to do with the incredibly beautiful, summery weather we’re having, does it Jeffrey?”
Jeff looked uncertain. He didn’t generally take well to sarcasm. “Um…”
Chance batted his hand, as if chasing off an imaginary insect. “Jeff, it’s perfectly all right. These things happen. And I don’t really believe that the entirety of Portland is dying to hear what the next-door neighbor of this Christmas-obsessed loon has to say. What was his name?” He turned to Mia for a moment, gesturing.
Mia’s heart clenched. She searched her brain. “Christopher Parsons,” she said finally, her brown hair swirling across her shoulders. She gave him a broad, news anchor smile. “And his neighbor was a real find, let me tell you. It’s a shame the people of Portland won’t see her face.” Barbara had been obsessive, with eyes that looked like moons.
Chance tilted his head at Mia’s words. Jeff wasn’t speaking, leaning heavy on one shoe and wheezing. “I’ll have to look over the footage myself,” he finally spoke.
“But James,” Jeff sniffed. “We have loads for you to look over. Some really hard-hitting journalism. None of this silly stuff. If you’ll just come with me.” He gestured toward the open door, behind the cameras, and back toward the director’s room. “I know you wanted to see what we’ve been up to since your last visit home.”
The CEO waved his hand, his dark eyes still centered on Mia. “I’ll get to it in a minute, kiddo,” he said to Jeff.
Mia felt her eyebrows inch down at the words. After all, James was only thirty years old, and Jeff was nearly fifty.
Jeff’s face grew blue. His lips pressed together. He backed toward the cameras, saying something about meeting in the office when James was ready.
Mia felt her eyes connect with James’. She gave an awkward giggle. She hadn’t seen James Chance in something like two months, and the last time, he hadn’t given her a moment’s notice. He’d lent that sarcastic remark to Theresa, and he’d yelled at Jeff in the office kitchen—and therefore, wasn’t exactly the most popular person in the studio.
But God, he was attractive. Those deep brown eyes gleamed beneath thick eyebrows, which had personality all their own. His beard was just the right amount of stubble; never a millimeter too long. He was broad, sturdy: the very definition of tall, dark and handsome. Mia crossed her arms over her chest, closing herself off.
“You know,” James began then, taking a step forward. “I’ve been watching your report from the director’s room.”
“The Christopher Parsons story,” Mia affirmed. “Or, as you put it, that Christmas-obsessed loon.”
James chuckled. “I really have a way with words, don’t I?”
Mia giggled; her laugh wasn’t flirtatious; rather, she focused on friendliness, on banter. She knew that if she was ever seen flirting with one of her super
iors, she’d be written off as someone who slept her way through the ranks of the office. Sure, she was beautiful, with her slim, almost boyish figure. But after all she’d been through, she couldn’t imagine tainting her reputation that way. She wanted to be a real, seasoned journalist, and she would blast through as many Christmas loon stories as she needed to in order to get there.
James’ expression grew serious. “I must say that I have some notes for your most recent performance.”
“All right, sir,” Mia said. She crossed her arms tighter, leaning heavy on her left hip. “I suppose I’m always ready for criticism. Hit me.”
“Well, Mia. It is Mia, isn’t it?”