Santa's Perfect Package: A Collection of Holiday Romances

by KB Winters

  Jenna laughed at my comment and busied herself with tapping buttons on a tablet. “Thanks for agreeing to do this interview, Sergeant Lawley,” Jenna purred, looking up long enough to point at the couch, indicating for me to take a seat. I glanced around before taking the seat, realizing we were alone in the room. There was no sign of the crew that usually followed closely on the woman’s heels.

  Jenna set the tablet aside and doubled back to shut the heavy door.

  I dragged my eyes back to Jenna, my mouth opening to ask where the rest of the crew was, but the words died in my throat as she stopped before me and leaned forward to brush something over my cheeks with a makeup brush. As she pressed her breasts in my face, I realized that the top three buttons on her blouse were undone and the cups of her bra were exposed. I darted my eyes away, wondering if she realized her error. Jenna smiled down at me as she finished brushing over my face. “Just a little powder to combat the shine.”

  “Right,” I said, offering a hollow laugh. I’d seriously never worn any kind of makeup before and this was getting weird.

  Jenna took her seat in the chair and crossed her legs. “Who would you like to address in your shout out section? Are you married?” she asked, dropping her eye to my left hand.

  “No.”

  A catlike expression crossed her face. “Dating anyone?”

  I furrowed my brow. “No. Not at the moment…” Did she know about Sophia and me? Was that not allowed? Sophia hadn’t mentioned anything about it being a secret, but at the same time—I wasn’t even sure exactly what we were doing, so there wasn’t much point in telling anyone about it.

  Even if I wanted to shout it from the rooftops that the brunette beauty on stage tonight was all mine.

  At least for the next week.

  After that…I wasn’t sure what would happen with us, and didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about.

  Jenna leaned forward in her seat, adjusting her skirt and her shirt opened wider, revealing even more skin. I cleared my throat, trying to get her to notice. She dropped her eyes to her own cleavage. “See something you like?”

  My eyes flashed back to hers. “What? No…I just thought you might want to fix—”

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind.” Jenna got up and crossed the room to sit beside me on the couch. She ran her hand up my arm. “I thought you might like the chance to get alone with me…”

  I tugged my arm out of her reach and angled my body to use my long legs to keep some distance between us. “Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m not interested. I came here to do the interview…or at least, that’s what I thought I was here for.”

  Jenna gave a throaty laugh. “We can still do the interview. But we could have a little fun first. You must get lonely here, all pent up, with no…outlet.” Her fingers went to the loose buttons on her shirt and started to tug at the next one in the line.

  I pushed up to my feet. “I’m going to go. Can you tell me where I might find Sophia?”

  Hint, hint.

  Jenna shrugged, nonplussed by my quick exit. She lounged back on the couch and raked her hair back, letting it fall around her shoulders. “Sophia’s with Blake tonight. You know Blake Powell, the lead singer of Spiral? The two of them have a thing going on.”

  I shook my head. “You’re lying. Sophia told me that Blake’s a womanizing snake. She wouldn’t be with a guy like that.”

  Jenna smiled. “Listen, I haven’t known Sophia for all that long, but she’s coming off a nasty divorce and kind of…finding herself. It wouldn’t surprise me if she has a few guys on speed dial for when she gets lonely. A girl like that is never without a crowd of admirers.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, my jaw tensed. Sure, I hadn’t known Sophia that long. Hell, it hadn’t even been a full week, but the picture Jenna was painting of the woman I’d spent the night with was skewed.

  Behind me, the door flew open and Sophia bull-rushed inside, fire blazing in her dark eyes. She flicked from Jenna, to Jenna’s bra, and then finally to me.

  Jenna popped up from the couch, doing a stunning acting job as she feigned embarrassment. “Oh! Sophia! I didn’t know you were done with your meet and greet.” She made a show of buttoning her top. “You’ll have to excuse us, we got a little…carried away.” She winked at me.

  “Sophia, this isn’t what it looks like,” I protested, side stepping away from Jenna another wide pace.

  Sophia glared at me. “Really? I expected to find you with Jenna, but not like this,” she said, gesturing at Jenna who was still fidgeting with her buttons.

  “Why would you expect me here, with her?” I spat.

  “Because she was trying to tangle me up with Blake Powell who not-so-subtly dropped hints that the two of you were together. I just didn’t imagine that it was by your choice.”

  “It wasn’t! She told me we were doing an interview.” I raked my hands over my short cropped hair. God, I sounded like some woman who tangled with a director or producer to get a part in a movie. This wasn’t the casting couch!

  I stepped forward, reaching for Sophia, but she flinched away. “Sophia, please, I didn’t want anything to do with this. Jenna—” I snapped my attention back to the woman-slash-snake on the couch. “Tell her the truth.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes.

  “I’ll call Dale right this minute if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on! I have no qualms about reporting you directly to him and explaining what the hell I just walked into,” Sophia said, her tone matching the fire in her eyes.

  Jenna narrowed her eyes at Sophia but after a moment she crumbled. “Your little boy toy here wasn’t taking the bait, all right? Happy now?”

  “I will be as soon as I get word that your sorry ass has been fired,” Sophia retorted, not backing down.

  Jenna’s eyes went wide. Sophia had clearly struck home.

  “Get out!” Sophia demanded, waving a hand at the door.

  Jenna shoved off the couch, straightened her skirt, and marched for the doors. When the door shut closed behind her, Sophia turned to me, the fire in her eyes had dimmed, but wasn’t fully extinguished.

  “I’m sorry, Sophia. Trust me, this was not the way I planned on seeing you again.”

  She shook her head. “I know. That bitch was jealous of your attention from the moment she saw us together. I just had no idea she’d play such an underhanded game.” She sighed deeply and squeezed her eyes closed. When they opened again, they were misted over.

  “You okay?” I asked, stepping closer.

  Sophia let me wrap my arms around her. “Yeah. It’s been a really long day,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper as she turned her face to bury it against my chest.

  “I’m sorry.” I squeezed her tightly and we stayed that way for a few minutes as the tension melted away. I tipped her chin up and kissed her soft and slow, doing my best to reassure her that my lips were only interested in hers.

  “I should go do the meet and greet,” she said once we parted.

  With the tip of my thumb I stroked at her cheek, sweeping away a single tear that had slipped free. “How can I help?”

  “Come with me?”

  “Of course.”

  Sophia’s hand found mine and our fingers locked together before I lead her back through the doors.

  Chapter Ten - Sophia

  Neither Blake nor Jenna was anywhere to be found during the meet and greet. I hoped they were off commiserating their losses. They deserved each other. Derrick stayed by my side during the event as I signed countless autographs and snapped pictures with anyone that asked. He kept one arm around my chair and the warmth of his presence helped me stay locked into the task at hand and not drift back over the events of the terrible day.

  When the last soldier had gone on their way, I thanked the crew that came in to break everything down, and then took Derrick’s hand and let him lead the way back to my room. We didn’t speak on the way, and even when we were alone in my room, Derric
k waited for me to start speaking.

  I sank down on the couch and leaned forward to brace my elbows on my knees. “My ex-husband is engaged,” I blurted.

  Derrick sat down beside me and gently pulled me against him. “I’m sorry, Sophia.”

  I shook my head. “The biggest thing is that I don’t even know why I care. It’s been over a year since he told me he wanted a divorce. Why should I care if he’s getting married to someone else? I should feel sorry for her, write her a letter saying something like ‘careful, his attention span for marriage only lasts three years’ or something.”

  Derrick stroked my hair. “What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “We met when I was seventeen. He was older, twenty-four. When I first started singing, my record label wanted me to be more of a pop princess. So, my first album was more dance tracks and so when I went on tour, I had backup dancers. Roberto—that’s his name—he was one of the dancers they hired. We started out as friends but after a year on the road together, things changed. He was my first love…my first everything. We got engaged a year after that and married six months later. The first year was good. After that, things changed. He stopped working as a dancer. He wanted to try modeling and acting instead. I helped him as much as I could but no matter what he did, he never got a foothold. Meanwhile, I separated from my original label and started my own music which actually made me more successful, contrary to what the original label thought when they signed me…”

  “I can’t even imagine you as a pop singer,” Derrick said, smiling at me.

  “Yeah. Do me a favor, never Google my first album.”

  Derrick smiled at my pained expression. “I might like it.”

  I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help but laugh softly. “Trust me, I didn’t pull it off like Britney.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that, but please, continue,” he said, tucking me in closer to him.

  “I guess it’s the curse of people in the entertainment industry,” I said. “My career was on the rise, he was struggling. On top of that, our schedules were all over the place. I thought things were better than they were. Maybe I was too wrapped up in my own world…anyway, last year, we spent maybe four months out of the entire year together. The next thing I knew was I came home from tour to work on my next album and he wanted a divorce.”

  Derrick grimaced. “Ouch. I’m so sorry, Sophia.”

  “Me too. I wouldn’t take it back, I learned a lot and I don’t regret it, but it’s still this pain point that I can’t quite seem to heal. So, to hear that not only did he move on so quickly, but now that he’s engaged, it just made me feel like there’s something wrong with me that I’m not over it yet. At least, not entirely.”

  “I think everyone handles divorce differently. In the military, sadly, there’s a lot of it. I’ve known half a dozen guys who leave for one tour married and then the next one, they’re not. It happens all the time. It’s not show business, but it’s got a lot of the same stresses. Time away, high pressure situations, schedule conflicts.”

  “Do you think we’re making a mistake here…?” I asked, my voice quiet as I barely forced the question out of my mouth.

  Derrick was quiet a moment too long, sending my stomach clenching into a tight knot.

  I didn’t want to let myself fall in love just to go through the same cycle all over again. Derrick wasn’t going to walk away from his career and I wasn’t willing to walk away from mine, either. Were we walking into a minefield?

  Derrick shifted so he could face me. His hand rested casually on my leg as his eyes met mine. “Well, I care about you, Sophia, I’d really like to get to know you better but, I’d be lying if I said we aren’t going to have challenges. My job takes me away for months at a time. So does yours. But that doesn’t mean we’ll have the same struggles.”

  “I know you’re right, but it still scares me.”

  He nodded. “Hell, it scares me too. I haven’t felt like this before and while I don’t shy away from taking risks, this feels different.”

  “Like the stakes are even higher.”

  “Yeah.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I really don’t want to hurt you. But I know there’s a chance this might get to be too much for me and I bolt. Not because I don’t want to be with you, but because I’m afraid of ending up heartbroken. Again.”

  “I don’t want to break your heart, Sophia.”

  I met his eyes, the dark brown pools flecked with gold from the low lights in the room. “I don’t want to break yours either.”

  Derrick cupped the side of my face and I relaxed into his warm touch. “I think we should try. We owe it to ourselves to see where this can go. It’s too good and feels too right to let it go because of fear of what might happen.”

  I hesitated, the words stuck in my throat. My heart was slamming against my chest as Derrick’s words rolled around in my mind. He was right. I felt it in my bones. But the shroud of fear still clung to my shoulders and held me back from jumping in with both feet. From the first night with Derrick, I had a sense that we’d have this conversation, there was something more between us than chemistry and a handful of nights spent together. But how would it translate? Would we be able to have something real outside of the bubble we’d been living in for the past few days? Was it kismet or was it just my frayed emotions getting the best of me and making me see something that wasn’t even there?

  “I don’t want to rush into anything, Sophia. Obviously you’re still working things out and I don’t want to get in the way of that,” Derrick continued, filling the quiet as I struggled with my cloudy thoughts.

  “You’re not rushing me,” I said, shaking my head. “I just need to go slow.”

  A smile spread over Derrick’s lips. “Slow works for me.”

  “Oh, really?” I asked, smirking at the look of mischief in his eyes. “Well, I got all night.”

  Derrick’s thumb traced over my lips. “That’s very, very good news.”

  His lips took the place of his thumb and he kissed me, erasing any trace of doubt from my mind. At least for the night. Tonight, there was no room for big questions and even bigger fears. I wanted to lose myself in Derrick and the way he made me feel, not stopping to wonder how long it would all last.

  Derrick pulled on my hips, dragging me onto his lap. I straddled him, arching back as his lips moved down the side of my neck. He knew just where to go, what to do to drive me crazy. “Take me to bed,” I whispered, clinging to him.

  I didn’t need to ask twice. Derrick pushed up from the couch, sweeping me along with him. I locked my ankles behind his back as he carried me to the bed and we didn’t leave until the following morning when the sun was streaming in through the windows.

  Chapter Eleven - Sophia

  The next six days passed all too quickly. I performed my shows at night and afterward, Derrick would come to the meet and greet to see me and we’d sneak away to my room as soon as we were able to. He told me the entire base was talking about us, but he didn’t seem to mind. Eventually, someone would leak it back to the US presses and the story would be splashed all over the place. The network wouldn’t care—if anything, they’d appreciate the extra publicity.

  My final concert was set up for Christmas Day, and was being held in a different venue to allow more soldiers to attend. There would be a Christmas feast in a few hours and then the concert and a longer sing-along portion for some extra entertainment. I was looking forward to spending more time with Derrick—who had the day off from duty—but it was bittersweet, as I would be leaving the next evening to fly home again.

  I dressed quickly and hurried out of my room to meet Derrick for breakfast. We’d planned to spend as much time together on our last day as we could. The smell of cinnamon rolls floated out of the double doors and my mouth watered as I pushed inside the dining hall. Derrick was already inside, hanging around by the doors, waiting for me with two plates in his hands, each one full of the massive pastries. He smile
d wide when he spotted me and held up the plates. “I snagged the last two. Otherwise we would have had a thirty-minute wait for the next batch.”

  “Nice work,” I said, crossing the heavy traffic to get to him. With his hands full, he couldn’t embrace me, but I stepped into him and wrapped my arms around his waist before propping my chin on his chest and saying, “I’ll get coffee.”

  Derrick dropped a quick kiss to my forehead. “I’ll get a table.”

  We made a good team. I glanced back at him as I walked toward the buffet table that served as the coffee cart, with giant carafes of coffee, pitchers of milk and cream, and a variety of sweeteners. Derrick was weaving through the tables, smiling and tossing out greetings as he went. He was obviously well liked and respected on the base. Even if his friends did heckle him from time to time. He’d introduced me to Marcus the day before when he’d taken me on a brief tour of his office and while the man had given Derrick some ribbing, it was obvious he was happy for him. For us.

  Us. The word could still stop me in my tracks. It was mind boggling at how quickly Derrick and I had meshed together. Even though our time was limited, everything kept building as though there were no deadlines hanging over our heads.

  After breakfast, Derrick took me for a long walk around the base, showing me the sights of the city that could be seen from within the perimeter of the base. We stopped at the courtyard that lay below the balcony we often visited after the sun went down. Derrick looped an arm around my waist, and I leaned into him as we stood under the sliver of shade underneath a potted tree. “Have you gone out into the city? Or does your work keep you here at the base?” I asked, glancing up at him.

  “Most of what I do is here, but when we go out to train the local forces, we’re out in the city.”

  Fear clutched at my heart. Over the last week and a half, I’d become used to the base and had almost forgotten that we were in the middle of a war. But looking out at the city and seeing the damage that had been done, I was brutally reminded. The idea of Derrick going out into the danger…it made my stomach clench. I’d never even seen him with a gun. A lot of the other soldiers and MP’s were armed but never Derrick. I had let that lull me into another false sense of security.