CHAPTER ELEVEN

      SOPHIE WAS SITTING on the edge of the sofa, still struggling to pull her trousers back on and fasten them by the time Max had located and flicked on the light switch. He stood looking searchingly around the room for whatever it was that had attacked him, green eyes narrowing as he located the black cat sitting on the back of one of the armchairs. The cat’s back arched as he gave a disapproving hiss in the direction of their late-night visitor.

      ‘Bad cat, Henry,’ Sophie scolded, fully dressed again now as she moved to shoo him off the chair and he ran and hid beneath the coffee table.

      ‘Henry is a cat?’ Max exploded disbelievingly.

      Sophie froze as she realised her mistake. A mistake that could cost her dearly. Could cost Sally dearly too, if Max made the connection between them at last.

      ‘Sophie?’ Max prompted harshly.

      She gave a pained wince, feeling the colour drain from her cheeks as she slowly turned to face Max and instantly saw that the indulgent lover of a few minutes ago had been replaced with the cold and arrogant Max Hamilton, billionaire CEO and owner of Hamilton Enterprises.

      ‘I’m waiting for an answer, Sophie.’ The softness of his tone sounded even more dangerous than his previously harsh one.

      She moistened her lips before speaking. ‘I’m … I’m cat-sitting for … for a friend while she’s away over Christmas.’

      ‘That wasn’t what I asked!’ There was no sign of so much as a crack in Max’s icy veneer.

      Sophie swallowed before confirming heavily, ‘Yes, Henry is a cat.’

      ‘And you deliberately let me think—’

      ‘I never lied to you.’

      ‘You lied by omission! ‘

      ‘You assumed Henry was a man.’

      ‘And you allowed me to continue to assume it.’ ‘Yes.’ She sighed at the cold accusation in his tone.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I just … I thought it best … It just seemed the wisest thing to do, in the circumstances!’

      Those arctic green eyes narrowed to icy slits. ‘And what circumstances are those? Damn it; why couldn’t you have just told me that Henry was a cat and be done with—’ He broke off, becoming very still as he now eyed Sophie speculatively. ‘What’s your friend’s name?’ he prompted softly.

      Yep, there was definitely going to be trouble, Sophie acknowledged with another wince, in all probability for both Sally and herself.

      ‘Answer me, Sophie!’ Max snapped harshly.

      ‘This is all my fault. Sally had absolutely nothing to do with it.’ She rushed into speech. ‘She—We—I thought it best if you didn’t know of the connection, then if anything went wrong, if I made a mess of things, there would be no comeback on Sally.’

      Max continued to look at her coldly. ‘What connection would that be?’

      Trust Max to have latched onto that part of her statement!

      Just one glance at the cold implacability of Max’s expression and those icily glittering green eyes was enough to warn Sophie against even attempting to continue to deceive him about her family connection to Sally. Any further prevarication really wasn’t an option when he was already so angry. And it could result in her getting Sally fired from her job as Max’s PA. If that hadn’t happened already, as far as Max was concerned.

      Her gaze lowered from meeting his piercing green one. ‘Sally is my cousin.’

      ‘Your cousin?’ he repeated softly.

      ‘She and my Aunt Rachel and Uncle William are the only relatives I have, yes,’ Sophie confirmed huskily.

      ‘In that case, why didn’t you go to Canada and spend Christmas with them?’

      ‘I wasn’t … I didn’t feel up to travelling all that way yet, let alone—I offered to look after Henry instead,’ she stated firmly.

      Max continued to look at the top of Sophie’s bent head for several long seconds before he turned away abruptly. He moved to stand in front of one of the windows, his clenched fists thrust into the pockets of his trousers as he absorbed, and tried to make sense of, this conversation.

      Sophie was the cousin of his PA, Sally.

      She was cat-sitting her cousin’s pet while Sally and her parents were in Canada meeting her fiancé’s family.

      Leaving Sophie to ‘deliver Christmas’ to Max’s apartment.

      His shoulders tensed as he slowly turned. ‘You either overheard my conversation with Sally that day in her office, or Sally repeated it to you.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

      ‘Sally would never do that,’ she assured him heatedly. ‘I—I was meeting Sally for lunch that day and I overheard the two of you talking. I thought it best to wait outside in the hallway till you’d finished,’ she admitted gruffly.

      ‘And in the meantime you eavesdropped on a private conversation!’ Max’s top lip curled back contemptuously.

      ‘Not intentionally! I just—I had arrived at Sally’s office a little early for lunch and the two of you were talking and I didn’t want to interrupt. I couldn’t help overhearing what you were discussing and—’

      ‘I should take a breath, Sophie,’ he advised scathingly.

      She gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘Sally had nothing to do with the decision not to tell you of our family connection; that really was all my idea. Sally was short of time and I had nothing else to do over Christmas except look after Henry, and so I offered to organise Christmas for you and your family.’

      ‘To “deliver Christmas” was how you described it that first day, if I remember correctly,’ Max rasped harshly. ‘A direct quote from part of my conversation in Sally’s office that day. Which is no doubt the reason you were so damned contemptuous towards me when we first met.’

      ‘I thought you were just a Bah Humbug. I had no idea then of the reason why you’ve avoided celebrating Christmas for so many years,’ she defended uncomfortably.

      But she had realised the reason now, Max accepted, after Janice’s indiscreet comments about their parents both dying at Christmas sixteen years ago.

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