SNOWED IN WITH THE BILLIONAIRE (10 page)

Or why.

She put the presents under the tree while he dished up, and then after they’d eaten and cleared away they peeled sprouts and potatoes and parsnips and carrots, until finally he called a halt.

‘Enough,’ he said firmly, took the knife out of her hand, replaced it with her wine glass and ushered her through to the sitting room.

The fire was low, the embers glowing, and they sat there with just the faint glow of the fairy lights and the occasional spark from the fire, his arm stretched out along the back of the sofa, his head turned towards her as they talked about the timetable for tomorrow.

If he moved his fingers just a millimetre—

‘Tell me about the renovations,’ she said then, and shifted, settling further into the corner, and he reached for his glass and pulled his arm back a little, out of temptation, and as he told her about the house and what he’d had done to it, he watched her and wondered just how much he was going to miss her when she left...

* * *

Josh woke early.

He always did, but she’d sat up with Sebastian talking about the house and the building work and what his plans were for the gardens until the fire had died away to ash and her eyes were drooping.

He’d hung the little stocking up on the beam, off to one side so the chocolate didn’t melt, and then he’d taken himself off to his study while she’d come up to bed.

She’d heard him come up later, but not much later, and she’d turned on her side then and fallen sound asleep until Josh’s cheerful chatter had woken her.

Bless his darling heart, she loved him so much but she could have done with another half hour. She prised open her eyes and he beamed at her and stood up in the travel cot, holding up his arms.

‘Happy Christmas, Josh,’ she said softly, gathering him up and hugging him tight. He gave her a big, sloppy kiss, and she laughed and kissed him back and tickled him, then she changed his nappy and took him down to the kitchen.

To her amazement the lights were blazing, the kettle was on and there was a wonderful smell of baking.

And it was after seven! How did that happen?

‘Biscuit, Mummy,’ Josh said, just as Sebastian came back into the kitchen.

He was wearing checked pyjama trousers and a jumper, his hair was rumpled and he definitely hadn’t shaved, but he’d never looked so good, and her heart squeezed.

No! Don’t fall in love with him again!

But then Josh ran over to him and he scooped him up and hugged him, tolerated the sloppy kiss with amazing grace and even kissed him back. ‘Happy Christmas, Tiger,’ he said, ruffling his hair, and Josh growled at him and made him laugh.

He growled back, and Josh giggled and squirmed down and ran back to her. ‘Biscuit, Mummy! Bastian want biscuit too.’

‘Ah. Sebastian’s actually cooking croissants and pain au chocolat,’ he confessed, his eyes flicking to hers in apology.

She smiled. ‘It’s Christmas. And they smell amazing.’

‘They are. And they’ll be burnt if I don’t take them out. Coffee or tea?’

‘Both. Tea first. I’ll make it. What do you want?’

‘Same. Tea, then coffee. I’ll put a jug on for later.’

How domesticated, she thought, getting out the mugs and making the tea while he rescued the pastries and found plates and butter and jam, and she poured the tea and he sat Josh down and pulled up his pyjama sleeves so he didn’t get plastered in butter.

We’re like an old married couple,
she thought,
just getting breakfast together on Christmas morning, and in a minute we’ll go through to the sitting room and open Josh’s presents and play with him, and the goose will cook and...

She cut herself off.

This was a one-off. They weren’t married. They were never getting married. And she needed to stop dreaming.

* * *

The train set was a hit.

They moved a table out of the way, and Sebastian got down on the floor with Josh and helped him set up the track, and she sat with her feet tucked up under her bottom, still in her pyjamas, cradling a cup of coffee and watching them.

Josh had opened his stocking, with the little cars and a packet of chocolate buttons and a satsuma she’d taken from the fruit bowl, and Sebastian had lit the fire and thrown the peel on it and it smelled Christmassy and wonderful.

So wonderful.

Her eyes filled. What had happened to him to make him change so much, to become so driven, so remote, so focused on something she couldn’t understand that their love had withered and died?

He wasn’t like that now. Or not today, at least. He’d been pretty crabby out in the lane in the snow, but since then he’d made a real effort.

Or maybe it was just because of Josh, to make him happy. That seemed really important to him, but was there more to it than that?

He’d written ‘love from Sebastian’ on the gift tag.

Just a figure of speech, the thing everyone always writes? Or because he meant it?

She had no idea, she just knew, watching him, listening to the two of them talking, that he’d really taken her little boy to his heart, and she found it unbearably touching.

‘Right. Time to put the goose in,’ he said, and she yanked herself out of her thoughts and put the cup down.

‘I’ll do it.’

‘No. It’s heavy. I’ll put it in. You can do the tricky stuff later.’

He went out, taking their mugs, and came back a few minutes later with a refill and a handful of satsumas.

‘Is that an attempt to compensate for the croissants?’ she said drily, and he chuckled and lobbed one over to her, dropping down onto the other sofa and turning so he could watch Josh over the back.

‘He chatters away, doesn’t he?’

‘Oh, yes. He didn’t talk very early, but boys don’t, I don’t think. And they stop talking again in their teens, of course, and just start grunting.’

He frowned again, looking thoughtful for a moment. ‘I’m sure I didn’t grunt. Nor did my brothers, as far as I’m aware.’

‘My brother did. He was monosyllabic for years. It made a refreshing change from all the arguments.’

‘How is he? We lost touch when—well, then.’

She ignored his hesitation. ‘Fine. He’s working in Norwich. He’s a surveyor. He’s stopped grunting now and he’s quite civilised. He’s married with two children and a dog.’

He looked away. ‘Lucky Jack.’

‘He is. He’s very happy.’

‘I’m glad. Give him my regards.’

‘I will. How are your brothers?’

‘Better now they’ve grown up. They both work for me. Andy’s an accountant, and Matt’s a sales director.’

‘Don’t they mind answering to you?’

He laughed softly. ‘It makes for interesting board meetings sometimes,’ he confessed, and she laughed too.

‘I’m sure. Talking of families, I ought to ring my parents. They’ll want to say Happy Christmas to Josh.’

‘How about doing it from my computer with the webcam, so they can see you?’

‘Can we? That would be brilliant!’

‘Well, since they know you’re here, you might as well. Do it in my study.’

She looked down at herself, suddenly aware of what she was wearing. ‘I might get dressed first. Just so they don’t think we’re hanging out all day in PJs.’

And then she looked up, and his eyes were on her, filled with a dark emotion she didn’t want to try to understand, and she took Josh upstairs, protesting all the way, and washed and dressed him.

She needed a shower, really, and her hair washed, but she didn’t like to let Josh run riot and she could hear water running in Sebastian’s room, so she told him to stay there and look at a book, shot into the bathroom and showered and came out to find the door open and no sign of him.

‘Josh? Josh, where are you?’

She ran out onto the landing, clutching the towel together, and slammed straight into Sebastian’s chest. His bare, wet chest. His hands came up and steadied her, and she stared, mesmerised, as a dribble of water ran down through the light scatter of hair across his pecs and disappeared into the towel at his hips.

‘If you’re looking for Josh, he’s in my room.’

His voice, low and gravelly, cut through her thoughts and she sucked in a breath.
What was she doing?

He let go of her shoulders and stepped back, and she hitched her towel up and blushed. ‘He is?’

‘Yes. Don’t worry. He came to find me. You take your time, we’re fine.’

‘Are you sure? Because I really need to—’ She waved a hand vaguely at her towel, and his eyes tracked over it and he smiled slightly.

‘Yes. You do.’

She glanced down, and saw it was gaping. Dear God, could it get any worse?

Blushing furiously and clutching it together, she went back into her room and closed the door, leant back against it and shut her eyes, humiliation washing over her. How could she have gone out there with her towel flapping open and revealing—well, everything, pretty much!

Not that he’d been exactly covered. Had he always looked that good naked?

Yes. Always. He was more solid now, but he’d always looked good. Tall, broad, muscular, without an ounce of spare flesh on him.

And she really, really didn’t need to be thinking about that now! She pushed away from the door, dried herself quickly and wrestled her still-damp body into jeans and a jumper.

Her hair needed careful combing and drying, but it wasn’t going to get it.

Or was it? There was a knock on the door and it opened a crack.

‘There’s a hairdryer in the top drawer of the bedside table. I’m taking Josh downstairs. There’s no rush. We’re going to play with the train set.’

She sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed. Well, it would give her time to dry her hair properly and put on some make-up. And gather herself together a little. Her composure was scattered in all directions, and she was ready to die of humiliation.

Too right she’d take her time. She was in no hurry to face him again!

* * *

Her towel had slipped.

Not far enough. Just enough to taunt him, not enough to see anything. He’d gone back into his room, found Josh under the bed giggling and got dressed before Georgie had time to come looking for him again and caused another incident.

And Josh was more than happy to come downstairs and play with his trains. So was Sebastian. Only too happy, because it reminded him of all the reasons why getting involved with Georgie again would be such a mistake.

She’d walked out on him once, but they’d been the only ones who could get hurt in that situation, and he knew he’d been at least partly responsible. OK, maybe largely responsible, but not solely. He wasn’t taking all the blame for her lack of sticking power.

But this time, Josh would be involved. And he was so open, so trusting, so vulnerable. Two was a bad time for your world to fall apart. He knew that, in some deep, inaccessible but intrinsic part of him that still ached with loss.

Wounds that deep never really healed. And that was another reason to keep his distance.

So he played with Josh until she came down, and then he went into the kitchen and started putting the lunch together.

She followed him, Josh in tow. ‘You said I could hook up with my parents,’ she reminded him, and he nodded, put the timer on for the potatoes and took her to the study, connected her up and left them to it. Five minutes later they were back.

‘I thought I was supposed to be cooking?’ she said, but he shook his head.

‘Don’t worry about it. It actually looks pretty straightforward and the instructions are idiot-proof.’

‘Are you sure? I thought that was the deal?’

‘There’s no deal,’ he said shortly. ‘Go and play with your son. It’s Christmas. He needs you, not me. I’ll do this.’

In fact there wasn’t that much to do, to his regret. He parboiled the potatoes and parsnips, put them in a roasting pan with some of the goose fat and put them in the oven, moving the goose to the bottom oven to continue cooking slowly.

And then there was nothing to do for an hour.

Well, he had two choices. He could spend his Christmas Day sitting alone in the kitchen, or he could go back into the sitting room with Georgie and Josh and try not to remember what he’d seen under her towel...

The sitting room won, hands down.

CHAPTER SEVEN

G
EORGIE
SAT
BACK
and sighed happily.

‘Sebastian, for someone who claims not to know how to cook a goose, that was an amazing lunch. Thank you so much.’

His shoulders twitched in that little shrug of his that she was getting so used to. ‘Good ingredients. I can’t take any credit.’

That was rubbish and they both knew it, but he’d always been modest about his achievements. For such a high achiever, it was a strange trait, and rather endearing. She smiled at him.

‘Nevertheless, it was delicious and I’m washing up.’

‘No. The dishwasher’s washing up. And the sun’s out and it’s warmer, so let’s not waste the day in here. Has Josh got anything he can wear outside?’

‘Yes. Wellies and overalls, in the car, and I brought my wellies, too—hey, we could make snow angels!’

He chuckled. ‘I think you’ll find if we put him down in the snow, he’ll vanish without trace, unless we can find a bit where it’s not so deep. Right, let’s go!’

So they abandoned the devastated kitchen, wrapped themselves up and headed out into the garden. Sebastian hoisted Josh up onto his shoulders and the little boy anchored his chubby fingers into Sebastian’s hair, his happy grin almost splitting his face in half.

‘Wait, let me take a photo,’ she said, and pulled out her phone. They posed dutifully, and she carried on, snapping off several shots of them as he turned and walked through the archway into the sunlit garden.

And it was glorious. He was right, it would have been criminal to miss it. The wind had died away completely and the sun shone with real warmth, sparkling on the snow and blinding them with its brilliance.

She scooped up a handful of snow and let Josh touch it, probing it with his finger. He was wary, but fascinated, and Sebastian lifted him down on the grass in the little orchard where the snow wasn’t so deep and lowered him carefully into it, and Josh watched his feet disappear and giggled.

Then Sebastian turned and looked at her, and she knew what was coming.

She saw it in his eyes, saw the way he carefully gathered up a great big handful of snow and showed Josh how to squash it into a snowball.

‘No. Sebastian, no! I mean it—!’

It got her right in the middle of the chest.

‘Oh, you rat!’ she squealed indignantly, and he just picked up her giggling son and laughed, his head tilted back, his mouth open, his face tipped up to the sun as Josh laughed with him, and if she could have bottled it, she would.

Instead she whipped out her phone and took a photo, the instant before he set Josh back in the snow.

Then she filed her phone safely in her pocket, because this was war and she wasn’t taking any prisoners.

Sebastian’s eyes were alight with mischief, and she scraped up a handful and hurled it back, missing him by miles. The next one got him, though, but not before his got her, and they ended up chasing each other through the snow, Sebastian carrying Josh in his arms, until he cornered her in one of the recesses of the crinkle-crankle wall and trapped her.

‘Got that snowball, Josh?’ he asked, advancing on her with a wicked smile that made her heart race for a whole lot of reasons, and he held her still, pinning her against the wall with his body while Josh put snow down her neck and made her shriek.

‘Oh, that was so mean! Just you wait, Corder!’

‘Oh, I’m so scared.’ He grinned cockily, turning away, and she took her chance and pelted him right on the back of his neck.

‘Like that, is it?’ he said softly, and she felt her heart flip against her ribs.

But he did nothing, because they found a clear bit of snow where it wasn’t too deep, and one by one they fell over backwards and made snow angels.

Josh’s angel was a bit crooked, but Sebastian’s was brilliant, huge and crisp and clean. How he stood up without damaging it she had no idea, but he did, and she looked down at it next to Josh’s little angel and then hers, and felt something huge swelling in her chest.

And then she got a handful of snow shoved down the back of her neck, which would teach her to turn her back on Sebastian, and it jerked her out of her sentimental daze.

‘Thought you’d got away with it, didn’t you?’ he teased, his mischievous grin taunting her, and she chased him through the orchard, dodging round the trees with Josh running after them and giggling hysterically.

Then he stopped, and she cannoned into him just as he turned so that she ended up plastered against him, his arms locking reflexively round her to steady her.

And then he glanced up. She followed his gaze and saw the mistletoe, but it was too late. Too late to move or object or do anything except stand there transfixed, her heart pounding, while he smiled slowly and cupped her chilly, glowing face in his frozen hands and kissed her.

His lips were warm, their touch gentle, and the years seemed to melt away until she was eighteen again, and he was just twenty, and they were in love.

She’d forgotten.

She, who remembered everything about everything, had forgotten that all those Christmases ago he’d brought her here, to the orchard where that summer they’d made love in the dappled shade under the gnarled old apple trees, and kissed her.

Under this very mistletoe?

Possibly. It seemed very familiar, although the kiss was completely different.

That kiss had been wonderfully romantic and passionate. This one was utterly spontaneous and playful; tender, filled with nostalgia, it rocked her composure as passion never would have done. Passion she could have dismissed. This...

She backed away, her hand over her mouth, and spun round in the snow to look for Josh.

He was busy squashing more snow up, pressing his hands into it and laughing, and she waded over to him and picked him up, holding him against her like a shield.

‘Oh, Josh, your hands are freezing! Come on, darling, time to go back inside.’ And without waiting to see what Sebastian was doing, she carried Josh back to the relative safety of the house.

As she pulled off their snowy clothes in the boot room, she noticed the little heap of mistletoe on the floor. It was still lying in the corner where he’d left it yesterday, and she’d forgotten all about it. Had he? Or had he taken her to the orchard deliberately, so he could kiss her right there underneath the tree where it had been growing for all these years? Where he’d kissed her all those Christmases ago?

If so, it had been a mistake. No kisses, she’d said, and he’d promised. They both had. And it had lasted a whole twenty-four hours.

Great. Fantastic. What a result...

* * *

Sebastian watched her go, kicking himself for that crazy, unnecessary lapse in common sense.

He hadn’t even put up the mistletoe in the house because in the end it had seemed like such a bad idea, and then he’d brought her out here and they’d played in the snow just as they had eleven years ago, right under that great hanging bunch of mistletoe.

And he’d kissed her under it.

In front of Josh.

Of all the stupid, stupid things...

‘Oh, you
idiot
.’

Shaking his head in disbelief, he made his way back inside and found she’d hung up their wet coats in front of the Aga to dry. Josh was playing on the floor with one of the cars out of his stocking, and she was pulling up her sleeves and getting stuck into the clearing up.

‘I’ve put the kettle on,’ she said. ‘I thought we could do with a hot drink.’

‘Good idea,’ he said, but he noticed that she didn’t look at him, and he only noticed that out of the corner of his eye because he was so busy not looking at her.

No repeats.

That had been the deal. He’d give Josh Christmas, and there’d be no recriminations, no harking back to their breakup, and no repeats of that kiss.

So far, it seemed, they were failing on all fronts.

Idiot!
he repeated in his head, and pushing up his own sleeves, he tackled what was left.

* * *

‘I’m sorry.’

The words were weary, and Georgie searched his eyes.

She’d put Josh to bed, waited until he was asleep and then forced herself to come downstairs. She’d hoped he’d be in the study, but he wasn’t, he was in the kitchen making sandwiches with the left-over goose and cranberry sauce, and now she was here, too. Having walked in, there was no way of walking out without appearing appallingly rude, and then he’d turned to her and apologised.

And it had really only been a lighthearted, playful little kiss, she told herself, but she knew that she was lying.

‘It’s OK,’ she said, although it wasn’t, because it had affected her much more than she was letting on. She gave a little shrug. ‘It was nothing really.’

‘Well, I’ll have to do better next time, then,’ he said softly, and her eyes flew back to his.

‘There won’t be a next time. You promised.’

‘I know. It was a joke.’

‘Well, it wasn’t funny.’

He sighed and rammed his hand through his hair, the smile leaving his eyes. ‘We’re not doing well, are we?’

‘You’re not. It was you that raised the walking out issue, you that kissed me. So far I think I’ve pretty much stuck to my side of the bargain.’

‘Apart from running around in a scanty little towel that didn’t quite meet.’

She felt hot colour run up her cheeks, and turned away. ‘That was an accident. I was worried about Josh. And you didn’t have a lot on, either.’

‘No.’ He sighed again. ‘I have to say, as apologies go, this isn’t going very well, is it?’

She gave a soft, exasperated laugh and turned back to him, meeting the wry smile in his eyes and relenting.

‘Not really. Why don’t we just draw a line under it and start again? As you said, it was warmer today. It’ll thaw soon. We just have to get through the next day or two. I’m sure we can manage that.’

‘I’m sure we can. I thought you might be hungry, so I threw something together.’ He cut the sandwiches in quarters as he spoke, stacked them on a plate and put them on a tray. Glasses, side plates, cheese, a slab of fruit cake and the remains of lunchtime’s bottle of Rioja followed, and he picked the tray up and walked towards her. ‘Open the door?’

She opened it, followed him to the sitting room and sat down. This was so awkward. All of it, everything, was so awkward, pretending that it was all OK and being civilised when all they really wanted to do was yell at each other.

Or make love.

‘George, don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’

He sat down on the other sofa, opposite her, and held her eyes with his. ‘Don’t look like that. I know it’s difficult. I’m sorry, I’m an idiot, I’ve just made it more uncomfortable, but—we were good friends once, Georgie—’

‘We were lovers,’ she said bluntly, and he smiled sadly.

‘We were friends, too. We should be able to talk to each other in a civilised manner. We managed last night.’

‘That was before you kissed me again.’

He sighed and rammed his hand through his hair, and she began to feel sorry for it.

‘The kiss was nothing,’ he said shortly, ‘you know that, you said so yourself. And I’m sorry it upset you. It just seemed—right. Natural. The obvious thing to do. We were playing, and then there you were, right under the mistletoe, and—well, I just acted on impulse. It really, really won’t happen again. I promise.’

She didn’t challenge him on that. He’d promised to love her forever, and he’d driven her away. She knew about his promises. And hers weren’t a lot better, because she’d promised to love him, too, and she’d left him.

What a mess.
Please, please thaw so we can get away from him
...

She reached for a sandwich and bit into it, and he sat forward, pouring the wine and sliding a glass towards her.

‘You didn’t tell me what you thought of this wine at lunch.’

‘Is it important?’

He shrugged. ‘In a way. I’ve got shares in the bodega. It’s a good vintage. I just wondered if you liked it.’

‘Yes, it’s lovely.’ She sipped, giving it thought. ‘It goes well with the goose and the cranberries. It is nice—really nice, although if it’s fiendishly expensive it’s wasted on me. I could talk a lot of rubbish about it being packed with plump, luscious fruit and dark chocolate with a long, slow finish because I watch the television, but I wouldn’t really know what I was talking about. But it is nice. I like it.’

He laughed. ‘You don’t need to know anything else. You just need to know what you like and what you don’t like, and I like my wines soft. Rounded. Full of plump, luscious fruit,’ he said, and there was something in his eyes that made her catch her breath and remember the gaping towel.

She looked hastily away, grabbing another sandwich and making a production of eating it, and he sat back and worked his way down a little pile of them, and for a while there was silence.

‘So,’ he said, breaking it at last, ‘what’s the plan for your house? You say you can’t sell it at the moment, but what will you do when you have? Buy another? Rent?’

‘Move back home.’

‘Home? As in, come back and live with your parents?’

‘Yes. I’ll have childcare on tap, they’ll get to see lots of Josh and I can work for my boss as easily here as I can in Huntingdon.’

He nodded, but there was a little crease between his eyebrows, the beginnings of a frown. ‘Wouldn’t you rather have your independence?’

She put down the shredded crusts of her sandwich and sighed. ‘Well, of course, and I’ve tried that, but it doesn’t feel like independence, really, not with Josh. It’s just difficult. Every day’s an uphill struggle to get everything done, hence watching the television when I’m too tired to work any more. There’s no adult to talk to, I’m alone all day and all night except for the company of a two-year-old, and after he’s in bed it’s just lonely.’

The frown was back. ‘He’s very good company though when he is around. He’s a great little kid.’

‘He is, but his conversation is a wee bit lacking.’

Sebastian chuckled and reached for his wine. ‘We don’t seem to be doing so well, either.’

‘So what do you want to talk about? Politics? The economy? Biogenetics? I can tell you all about that.’