A Christmas Proposal: A Hidden Threat Short Story (3 page)

It took all of ten seconds for Cali to respond to his lips’ urgent plea for entrance. He had to admit that he was insatiable when it came to her. Being with her, making love to her, was beyond description. His body was always ready and willing. 

Matthew broke the kiss long enough to say, “I made you breakfast,” before diving back in. Her only response was to shift her body so that he could now feel both of her breasts pressing against his still-bare chest. 

Belatedly, he realized his mistake. He should have gotten dressed first. Cali was wearing nothing more than a thin black nightie. He could feel her hard nipples against his skin, urging him to act. 

He wanted to resist but . . . Matthew tried one last time. “Breakfast,” he gasped as she dug her nails into his back. 

“Later,” she said, pulling his lips back to hers. Breakfast was quickly forgotten. 

Some time later, they sat in bed eating the breakfast he’d made for them. He’d had to throw the eggs, bacon, and toast into the microwave to warm them since everything was cold by the time they were thinking about food again. 

As much as Matthew would have liked to say he was disappointed things hadn’t gone as planned, he couldn’t. Before Cali, his life was very orderly, predictable, just the way he thought he wanted it. Having her in his life, though, had definitely added some spice. She was a lot more spontaneous than he was. At times, he had difficulty adjusting, but he was learning. She made everything in his life better, even the things he never expected. 

“Thank you for breakfast. You didn’t have to, you know. A bagel and coffee would have worked just fine,” she smirked, teasing him.

Matthew just leaned over, giving her a chaste kiss. “This is our first Christmas together. I wasn’t going to serve you a bagel and coffee. How is that special?” 

She set the tray of food aside and straddled his hips. He’d meant it as a rhetorical question, but she answered him anyway. “I’m here in Chicago for the first time in two years. I have you, my dad and Jessie, even Jason and Lisa. What more do I need? Just having the people I care about near me makes this Christmas special. That’s all I want.”

Her mouth covered his in a slow kiss that was full of love. He could taste a mixture of coffee and the strawberry jam they had on their toast. Matthew’s arms came up to circle her back, holding her to him. Unlike earlier, this kiss lacked heat. It was not meant to ignite passions. It was an expression of their love. 

“You know,” he said, as their mouths continued to mingle, “if we keep this up, we’re never going to make it to your father’s.”

She laughed, straightening up, her arms resting on his shoulders. “And that would be a bad thing?”

He smiled. “Considering you just said how wonderful it was to have your family and friends near this Christmas, I thought maybe to you it would be. I, for one, am all for spending the entire day in bed with you, Ms. Stanton.” At the use of the formal title he’d insisted on using ad nauseam when they’d first met, she pouted. He chuckled, taking her face in his hands and kissing her firmly. 

When he leaned back against the headrest, she sighed. “You’re right. I do want to spend Christmas with my dad.”

“I knew you would,” he whispered, tucking a loose hair behind her ear. “We’ll have tonight.” 

“You’re right,” she said, reluctantly getting up. 

She walked slowly over to the closet, swaying her hips the entire way, teasing him. Matthew groaned. He could feel his body responding again. At this rate, he’d never get to set the rest of his plan in action.

To make sure they both actually managed to get dressed and out of the house today, Matthew left the bedroom and went downstairs to clean up the breakfast dishes while she got ready. It was best, he reminded himself. The plan. He needed to stick to the plan. 

The plan nearly left the building when she came downstairs in a dress he’d never seen before. It was dark green, form fitting, and just revealing enough that he wanted to take it off her and explore what lay beneath. The fact that he
knew
what was underneath said clothes did not help matters in the slightest. 

Before his body could completely override his mind, Matthew excused himself, running up stairs. He needed a shower, a cold one, and fast. 

Forty-five minutes later, they pulled up to her father’s large estate. Alvin Stanton’s house was huge with over thirty rooms, not including the extensive balconies, decks, and sunrooms. 

She exited the car first, but waited for him to round the car and join her. Taking hold of her hand, they walked up the winding sidewalk together to the front door. Seeing the large wooden doorway, it was hard to believe that he’d lived here with her for over a month. 

Before they could even knock, the door was flung open. Alvin stood beaming at them. “Merry Christmas!” he shouted, wrapping his arms around both of them. 

Matthew returned the hug, trying to remember that today Alvin Stanton was not his boss but his girlfriend’s father. It was difficult to make that distinction at times. And if today went as he hoped it would, it would be that much harder. 

Jessie’s voice greeted them from the kitchen. “Cali! I’m so glad you’re here. I need you to taste this and tell me if you think it needs anything.” The older woman appeared in the foyer carrying a bowl of green fluffy stuff. If Matthew hadn’t known Jessie was an excellent cook, he would have been worried. 

Cali took the offered spoon from Jessie, taking a small sample. “It’s perfect, Jessie. Thank you for making it for me.” Matthew gave his girlfriend a confused look. “One of the nurses I worked with in Africa made this last year for Christmas. It was a huge hit, so I had her send me the recipe.”

“It’s close then?” Jessie asked, obviously still worried.

“Well, it’s been a year since I’ve had it, but it tastes exactly the same to me.”

“Oh, good,” Jessie breathed a sigh of relief. 

“You can relax, dear,” Alvin said, kissing his wife on the cheek. “Everything is going to be perfect.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s just . . . It’s just so great to have you back this year, Cali. We’re going to have a full house.”

Jessie’s eyes welled up with tears. Cali carefully took the bowl from Jessie while her father comforted his new wife. 

Matthew and Cali discreetly left the room, leaving the older couple alone. “They are really good together. I wish Dad would have told me sooner,” she said, putting the fluffy green stuff into the refrigerator. 

“He didn’t know how you’d react. Besides, does it really matter? They’re together now.”

“I suppose it doesn’t, it’s just . . .” Her voice trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished. 

“It’s just what?” he prompted.

Cali closed the distance between them, encircling his waist with her arms. “I wish he wouldn’t have waited so long to be happy.”

Matthew ran his hands up her arms and around the back of her neck. “The past is the past. We can’t change it. All we can do is be happy for them now.”

She didn’t answer, just hugged him tighter, resting her head on his chest. Cali was such an unselfish woman. It was that same unselfishness that had brought her into his life. She’d left her life halfway around the world to come home and help her father when he needed her. Matthew couldn’t fault her for her unselfish nature. It was one of the things that made her her. 

They stood there in relative silence until the doorbell rang. With a soft kiss to her forehead, Matthew released her and they walked back into the front hall to greet his brother and Lisa. 

Chapter 3

Dinner was more than entertaining with Matthew’s brother, Jason, and Lisa part of the mix. Jason was nothing like his brother. Where Matthew was reserved and formal, Jason was more the life-of-the-party type. Being with Lisa seemed to have settled him down a little. 

    Jason still loved to joke and tease, however, and never missed an opportunity. Jason also had no problems embarrassing anyone; this, apparently, included Cali, her father, and Jessie. “So how’s married life?” he asked Alvin and Jessie as they all began eating. 

“I’ve never been happier,” Alvin smiled over at his wife. Her father and Jessie had only been officially married for a week, even though they’d been secretly seeing each other for the last fifteen years. Their wedding was a small affair with only about twenty guests attending. After waiting for so long to be together openly, they hadn’t wanted to wait the amount of time it would have taken to plan a big wedding. After the holidays they were planning on taking an extended honeymoon. 

Cali was happy for them. It was hard to believe she’d missed the signs over the years. The two just had a glow about them when they looked at one another.

Jason’s voice pulled Cali from her thoughts. “A lot better than sneaking around, huh?” Jason winked across the table. Jessie’s face flushed, as did Alvin’s. Cali shifted in her seat, trying not to look at anything but her plate. The last thing she wanted to think about was her father and Jessie having sex. She knew they did, obviously, but this was her dad. One just blocked that kind of stuff out. Or tried to when they didn’t have Jason Andersen pointing it out at the dinner table. 

“Jason,” his brother admonished. It was hard to believe sometimes that Matthew was Jason’s younger brother. 

“What?” Jason smirked. He knew he was in no way innocent, but that wasn’t going to stop him. 

Matthew frowned and shook his head at his brother, turning back to his food. 

Cali reached under the table and placed her hand comfortingly on Matthew’s leg. His frown immediately relaxed as his eyes flickered over to meet hers. 

Their gaze held for several seconds before his fingers reached for hers under the table and squeezed. It was subtle, but it conveyed the support and love they had for each other. 

For several minutes, the only sound in the room was forks and knives against the good china Jessie had insisted on using for the occasion. It wasn’t tense exactly, but apparently no one knew how to follow up Jason’s opening comments. 

Eventually, Jessie decided to give it a shot. “Cali, how is work at the hospital going? Are you still enjoying it?”

“Yes, I am,” she said thinking back to her last patient. “I had to remove an earring out of a little boy’s ear last night.”

“
Inside
his ear?” her father asked. 

Cali nodded. “He snuck downstairs, opened all of the presents under the tree, and decided to try out his mother’s new earrings.”

“Oh my,” Jessie said. “His mother must have been in hysterics.”

“She was a little beside herself at first, but I think she was embarrassed more than anything else. They’d tried to get it out on their own, but it was a pearl earring. If you didn’t grip it just right, you lost hold of it.”

They asked her a few more questions about the little boy before diving into preparations for New Year. Her father always held a dinner party at his home for his executives and their wives. 

Cali used to love attending when she was a little girl. She would get all dressed up in a fancy party dress and feel like a princess. That lasted until she was fourteen when she realized that everyone there had a date but her. When she’d asked her father about it the next day, he’d tried to be comforting but it didn’t work. She still felt left out. The next year she’d asked if she could spend the night at a friend’s. 

Next week would be the first time she’d be going to her father’s New Year’s Eve bash as a date instead of the boss’s daughter. Matthew was the head of security for Stanton Enterprises, or in formal terms Chief Security Officer. Even Matthew didn’t like that term; he said it made him sound more official than he was. It did mean, however, that he was one of the executives and, therefore, invited. 

Dinner plates were cleared away, and they all moved into the formal living room for coffee. Every flat surface had some sort of decoration. Jessie loved to decorate and Alvin had always given her free rein to decorate his house however she saw fit. Looking back now, Cali knew that should have been a clue right there. What man would give his housekeeper a free license to his house? At the time, she’d been so wrapped up in the thrill of the season that she’d not put two and two together. 

Matthew sat down beside her on the couch, placing his arm behind her. She leaned into him, so glad that they didn’t have to hide their relationship anymore in front of anyone. She had no idea how her father and Jessie had managed for so long. A month had been torture.

His lips brushed against her hair. “You all right?”

“Yes,” she nodded, looking up at him. “Just thinking.”

“About?” he prompted. 

“What it would have been like if my dad and Jessie had married years ago. I wonder how it would have changed things.”

“Hard to say,” he whispered, idly playing with her fingers. “You might have resented her if you were younger or you may have accepted her as you do now.”

Cali nodded and tried not to think about the ‘what ifs’. There were just too many. She had to admit that even if there were some things in her past that she’d like to change, she really liked where she was right now. 

Matthew couldn’t seem to keep his hands off of her as usual. If she was near him, he wanted to be touching her in some way. If she wasn’t, well then, he was thinking about touching her the next time he saw her.