Carrie, her favorite of the receptionists while she’d been working on the hotel lobby, looked pained as her forehead wrinkled. The poor young woman was probably looking at a completely booked schedule pretending there might be a possibility just to make her happy.
“It’s okay,” Laura said, just able to hold back her sigh of frustration. She’d thought maybe they’d let her stay in one of the permanently open rooms hotels saved for royalty or something, since she’d worked for them, but she wasn’t going to put Carrie in a weird position by asking outright. “I’ll figure something out. Maybe I’ll go buy an air mattress and sleep in Maisey’s apartment with her three cats that I’m dangerously allergic to.”
Carrie looked stricken and started scrolling furiously. “I’m so sorry,” she gulped, worrying her hot-pink lip. “But there’s just nothing. This week has literally been booked for months. People really like seeing the tree and stuff.” This last was said with a sardonic and commiserating look as if to say that it was a little bit Laura’s fault that there were no rooms available for her.
“I appreciate you trying,” Laura told her, ignoring the perpetual holiday gift of irony. “It was wishful thinking on my part that you guys would have any openings.”
She should have known by how stiff Carrie’s body language had become, but she’d been too focused on her own misery to notice that Will, who apparently didn’t want to be her friend again, had appeared next to her.
“Openings for what?” he asked, that raspy voice straightening her spine. Had he just taken a shot of warm whiskey or did he gargle rocks? Or maybe he just frequently destroyed the hopes of old friends to get that sexy gravel.
She deliberately refused to look at him, ignoring the electricity that was zapping between them like a broken telephone wire on an asphalt road. Even his bad attitude hadn’t put a damper on that, unfortunately.
“I was hoping to book a room,” she explained.
From the corner of her eye, she saw his hands slide into the pockets of another pair of dark jeans. “We’ve been booked for the season for quite some time.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I thought you’d be well on your way home to spend the holiday with your family by now.”
“There’s a blizzard coming in, according to the latest weather forecast. I waited too long to get out of the city.”
“What’s wrong with your own place in the city?” he asked, regarding her.
“My assistant’s family is staying there. I told them months ago that it was theirs for the week.”
And she wanted them to stay and be a family together on Christmas with Maisey whom she loved and wanted to help out where she could.
He didn’t answer right away and she grew irritated. If he didn’t want to know her, then, fine, he didn’t have to. Her feelings might be hurt, but she knew from experience that was survivable. She’d left him before when he’d been a nice person, the second time around shouldn’t be nearly so bad. No crying over a letter he’d never read or constantly looking out the back window of the state employee’s car as she drove away, hoping for just one more glimpse of him to cherish forever.
“Right, well, I have some other hotels to check,” she said, clearing the throat that was clogged. “Merry Christmas.”
Then she rolled her bag away, calculating just how much allergy medication she’d need to purchase to make it through a week on Maisey’s studio apartment floor.
“You could stay with me, you know,” she heard his rough voice soft but firm from behind her. “I have the penthouse which has several extra bedrooms.”
Stopping in her tracks, Laura wasn’t ready to turn around, but it also made her realize that she hadn’t actually looked at his face this entire time.
“I couldn’t impose,” she told him, turning halfway around. “I’m sure you have Christmas plans.”
He waited until she finally met his eyes, dark and unreadable, before speaking again.
“You wouldn’t be imposing,” he said, locking their gazes together as his eyes grew darker, more intense. “It’s the least I can do for a friend.”
She didn’t even have time to tell her stupid heart not to flutter at his words, it just up and did it without listening to any reason whatsoever. Ridiculous. But she’d thought after their dinner that she’d blown it and despite his going all stoic on her last night all she really wanted to do was apologize.
“If you’re sure,” she finally managed, “I would really appreciate it.”
“Of course,” he said, his tone turning brisk as he pulled out his phone. “I’m out to a meeting right now, but I’ll text you the door code.” So saying, her phone beeped with a message. “Make yourself at home.”
Then he nodded to Carrie. “Can you send someone up with the usual?”
Carrie nodded so fast Laura thought her head might fly off her shoulders. “Yes, sir.”
And then before Laura could say another word because her mind had stalled on whatever “the usual” was, Will was halfway to the front doors. She probably wasn’t the only woman who Will had in his penthouse, which she shouldn’t find deflating, but definitely did.
Laura looked to Carrie who was currently on the phone relating orders to whatever employee was on the other end. When she hung up, she gave Laura instructions on what elevator buttons—Will had his own—to press to get to the penthouse. Once she was inside said elevator she felt like she was in an alternate superswanky universe, which only continued when the doors opened into a jaw-dropping penthouse. She was so in awe that the doors nearly closed again with her still standing inside because she was frozen to the spot.
The penthouse was breathtaking. Floor-to-ceiling windows at least thirty feet high spanned three sides of his living area, overlooking Midtown Manhattan from forty floors up, the view absolutely breathtaking. Low-slung black leather furniture nestled near a fireplace while ivory marble end tables anchored the space. The open kitchen was more black—onyx countertops with rich mahogany cabinetry and formidable stainless steel Wolf appliances.
A glaring omission, however, was that the entire place was devoid not only of any sign of Will, but most notably, Christmas. Not a single twinkle light, ceramic snowman, pine garland, beribboned wreath or even a tree in sight. Laura thought of her parents’ house, every inch as if a Christmas store exploded in their home and each item placed with care and tradition. It was her favorite time of the year for so many reasons, but mostly because of how warm being home felt. And now she was probably going to be stuck here in this huge penthouse, which was absolutely stunning obviously, but so different from how she’d imagined spending Christmas.
And damn it, she wanted some gingerbread cookies and hot cocoa by a fire, by God. It wasn’t too much to ask for of a Christmas, what she thought of as her holiday, because she’d made a career of making it as special for others as it was for her.
Following the rest of Carrie’s instructions, she entered a long hallway and opened the first door on the left. The windows were far smaller and the ceiling a normal height, which was better for her, but like the rest of the place, it very much felt like a hotel room. All the amenities but lacking any real warmth or comfort.
Laura unpacked her suitcases into the spacious closet and dressers, thinking with some measure of positivity that she could get more clothes from her apartment now that she was staying in the city. But then was depressed again as her other luggage was brought up, namely the suitcase that contained all the gifts she wasn’t going to get to give out on Christmas morning.
She put that entire suitcase in the closet and tried to forget the fact that she was spending Christmas with a virtual stranger, and a taciturn one at that. Imagining the life Will had described to her last night, of basically drifting, she supposed he had some right to that, but she hoped this would be their opportunity to clear the air and put the past where it should be—in the
past. And not only because she wanted something different in the present.
But after two hours of waiting for Will to return while flipping through his immense cable package, and learning that “the usual” was just a care package with designer toiletries and an assortment of expensive nutrition bars, her anxiety was growing. Her eyes kept drifting to the mantel above the fireplace and the glaringly empty corner of his apartment absolutely begging for a Christmas tree.
And within a matter of minutes she was bundled up in her coat again and heading back into the streets, her purpose now clear.
She had a chance to smooth over whatever she’d done last night to make him mad and also make up a little for the past. She could finally give Will Walker the Christmas he’d deserved when she’d left him.
* * *
Will hated Christmas for probably the same reasons Laura loved it. From his time in the group home to horrible foster homes, Christmas had been the biggest reminder that his life was a steaming pile of shit. Until he’d met Laura Harris, which was what her name had been back then before her permanent foster parents must have legally adopted her.
The Christmas she’d left had been his hardest one in memory. They’d been planning on breaking out together; he’d been planning on getting out anyway the day of high school graduation, but then they ran out of time. She couldn’t have stayed with that coked-out, abusive asshole of a foster father another day and Will knew he had to get her out for her own safety. It would have been scary, but he had money saved and they had each other and he’d been determined to make it work. He would have made it work because their lives would have depended on it. For her, he’d been willing to risk everything.
But then Laura had left without a word. And he’d been alone. Again.
God, how he’d hated being alone back then, which was ironic considering how much he loved being by himself now. He’d been against the grindstone working his way toward the dream of a hotel for so long: schmoozing every potential investor he met with a money clip and platinum card, scraping up money to attend every hotel-management conference available and meeting anyone along the way who could be of use to him from extraordinary housekeeping managers to lauded CEOs, and finally working one-hundred-hour weeks. And none of it had been alone. Especially not now living in a busy hotel that he owned.
Some days he’d give away a million bucks to not have to see a single human being. But it’d been no surprise when he’d offered his place to Laura for Christmas. Even now he couldn’t imagine not protecting her. She’d been the only girl who had genuinely ever broken his heart. When he’d still had one to break, that is. Relationships were something he had absolutely no time for since he wasn’t exactly a talk-about-his-feelings type of guy.
Sex was about the only thing he let into his life. And his attraction to Laura was palpable even when they were in high school. He’d been interested in her then, but he’d known her since she was twelve. It would have been the height of awful behavior to go from being her big brother figure to some asshole trying to date her.
She was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He’d thought that when they were kids and nothing had changed. Her adorable light brown freckles still scattered across the bridge of her nose even though her new sophisticated style was light-years away from the dingy hoodies and scuffed sneakers of their adolescence. But that radiance she’d always had was still there in spades and coupled with a sexuality that virtually oozed from her with every move she made.
Where she’d been stick straight and starved for food before, now her curves had filled out and were made for a man’s hands, her lips soft and plump along with cheeks that were always rosy. Blondes, brunettes, blue hair, he’d really never had a preference for women before, but he’d purposely stayed away from strawberry blondes because they reminded him of her, always. No one had hair like that, not that exact shade that turned rose gold in the right light or looked blond in the shadows. It was why he’d stopped to talk to a woman in his lobby who reminded him of her. He’d never actually expected it to be the girl he’d thought he’d seen a million times over the years. Especially during this time of the year when she was always on his mind, that to find her again was truly something.
What he hadn’t expected to return was the anger. She’d clearly never felt the same way about him as he had about her back then or else she never would have left. He’d taught her over and over the signs of government workers, had designated hiding places for when one showed up in the apartment building or at school. Because as deplorable as their foster parents were, the group home was even worse. The sadness there was enough to break any spirit. But Laura hadn’t taken any of their usual precautions and chosen to leave him. It was that simple. She had a choice and it hadn’t been him.
It was fine, obviously. He was a grown man and that part of his life was so far behind him it often seemed like it hadn’t even happened at all, but then she’d shown up in his hotel looking so painfully lovely and the relief just that she’d been okay, something that often plagued him over the years, had been enough to bring him to his knees.
During dinner when she’d swept it all away as if she hadn’t had a choice but to go with the social worker, like it hadn’t been that big of a deal, it’d pissed him off. And yeah, he’d been a dick, but Christ, he’d been so goddamned worried about her. For weeks he’d looked all over the neighborhood for her even though his gut had known the truth. Her friendship had meant something to him and besides a few guys from college, she was the closest thing to a best friend he’d had before or since.
So when the elevator doors opened to his penthouse and the first thing he saw was a fifteen foot pine tree already strung with enough lights to make his entire hotel seem to onlookers as if it was on fire, he tried not to immediately toss her off his balcony.
“Um, what happened here?”
Laura popped up from behind his kitchen island, a red bow in her hair and a glittery Christmas apron tied around her waist, looking so insanely happy while simultaneously fuckable that he had to stop himself from reaching for her.
It was then he realized that something was actually baking in his home. A place where he’d barely turned on a stove burner to boil water. In fact, he was pretty sure he hadn’t even done that because what did he ever need to boil water for? Nothing. He ordered in literally everything. He lived in his own hotel for just that reason.
Laura’s cheeks colored and he figured that the look on his face was probably scary. He’d been told he had Resting Dick Face on numerous occasions and he was also a little enraged at the moment. He’d given her a place to stay against his better judgment and she’d vomited Christmas all over it. Bushy strands of pine garland studded with red velvet bows and more twinkle lights were strung across his mantel above the fireplace, in which there was a roaring fire. Little tchotchkes she’d probably bought from street vendors crowded his end tables, his dining table had been effectively tablescaped, a term his employees were endlessly telling him was extremely important, with tapered lights and shiny plates and embroidered placemats. It barely looked like his place anymore.
“I’m making some cookies,” she said, holding up a hand covered with an oven mitt that had a chubby cartoon penguin on it, that frankly, was egregiously jolly. Where the hell had she even gotten all of it? He’d been gone for all of five hours and she’d shopped and decorated within that window of time. She was, in fact, just as hard of a worker as he was.
“You’re making cookies,” he repeated, still shell-shocked.
Her delicate eyebrows rose. “Yes, some gingerbread now, but I got the ingredients for all the standards, like sugar cookies, peanut-butter blossoms, linzer cookies, snickerdoodles, thumbprints, shortbread. You know, just the basics.”
Taking a small spatula, she started removing uniform gingerbread men onto a grated metal rack.
“That’s a lot of cookies just for the basics,” he point
ed out, his mouth watering of its own volition even though he certainly wanted to hate those cookies.
Laura shrugged. “It’s not that many really and I’ll give them away to people.”
“If you’re not going to eat them, why do it at all?”
“It’s what you do on Christmas,” she said simply, as if this explained everything. As if spending too much money to do an excessive amount of work for something you weren’t actually going to use made any sense whatsoever. But then he’d never actually celebrated Christmas so what did he know?
“Well, can I get my staff to take down all this stuff? I’m not exactly a decorations kind of guy.”
He knew it was an asshole thing to say and it was only emphasized by the stricken light that came into her generally cheerful brown eyes. He didn’t want to put that look on her face, but it was clear he had some unresolved issues he needed to figure out. Which was what he’d planned to do after their dinner, but instead of having time to sort through the dregs of his past, she was now his roommate.
“Never mind,” he heard himself saying. “I’ll just be in my room.”
“You don’t like it?” she asked just as he turned around to go. By being near her, he was hurting her feelings or trying to figure out how to get her into bed and neither of those things was a good choice so it was best that he just stay away.
“I’m not really a Christmas person.” An understatement, since he could barely think of a thing he loathed more.
“You’ve mentioned that,” she said, then met his eyes, an endless well of determination apparent in their depths. “But I can change that.”
Sinfully Yours Page 3