A Dream Christmas. Кэрол Мортимер
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supposed to do about that.
Except just … watch it fall.
Which was not what she wanted to do. She wanted to scream. And punch someone. And punch herself. Because she was an idiot.
She growled when the elevator doors opened, and stalked down the hall to their room. And realized that she had no key.
“Argh!”
She kicked the door and turned, leaning back against the wall and sliding down to the floor, her knees drawn up to her chest. Her woolen tights would have to be enough to protect her modesty.
As if it mattered since she’d just crawled on her boss like a sex-starved maniac. Because she was a sex-starved maniac. There was no modesty left. No shame. She was embarrassment.
He’d kissed her. And he’d made her feel special, and sexy for a moment. And then he’d pulled back and been regretful. As if her status with Clint was more important than what she wanted, no matter what she said. Which … under normal circumstances she might have appreciated. But not now. Not in the throes of feeling as if she’d wasted nearly a decade of her life in the service of what benefitted Clint.
The elevator doors slid open and Luc walked out into the hallway.
“You don’t have a key?” he asked, looking down at her.
“No, Mr. Chevalier, I don’t have a key.”
“I do.”
“Oh, well, nice for some.” She slid back up the wall, vaguely aware that the wall texture was going to make her hair look ratty.
He put the card in the slot and the light turned green. “You’re angry with me,” he said, pushing the door open.
“Ding ding ding! Someone get the man a prize!” She walked into the hotel room ahead of him and sat on the couch, huffing loudly.
“Amelia, I’m not going to do this. This is what Blaise did to me. And I have too much respect for—”
“For a man you don’t even know? More respect than you have for me?”
“What’s the point, Amelia? We work together. Every day. And there is no good way for this to end. Either you start your marriage out with a lie or …”
“But that’s my problem! It’s not your problem.”
“No, it is, because I don’t want to be that man. I refuse to be that man.”
“What I want is just … so small to everyone, isn’t it? If I’m not making people comfortable and helping them live their convenient little lie then who am I?”
“What?”
She closed her eyes, fighting against the misery that was threatening to swamp her. “Clint cheated on me. I found out this morning.”
“What?”
“It gets better. Or worse. The thing is … the thing is that he wants me to stay with him. Because he’s sorry. And he was weak and he apologized. He said he still loves me.”
“Amelia …”
“But … the thing is, he told me that he’s gay.”
She might have laughed at the look on Luc’s face if she wasn’t so miserable. “Oh.”
“Yeah, well, it … definitely cleared some things up for me. But the thing is, I don’t know what to do with that. We’ve been together for nine years. And my parents love him. And his parents love me. And there’s this expectation that we’re going to be … I mean, I’ve known Clint since I was a kid. And they’ve always expected us to end up together. I expected us to end up together. But …”
“I’m unclear as to why he wants to marry you,” Luc said.
Amelia sucked her cheeks in, then released them with a smack. “Uh … I’m going to go ahead and give that some additional context and say this has more to do with his sexual orientation than the fact that you’re actually stymied as to why a man would want to marry me.”
“That is what I meant.”
“Ah, well, yay me. Knocking ‘em out of the park today.” She let out a long breath. “He told me, after a lot of apologizing, after his friend left, that … that it’s not what he wants for his life. That he wants the life we’ve been building toward for years because he thinks that would be better.” She bit her lip. “And what do I do?” she asked. “What do I do? He’s … I love him, Luc. And I don’t think I’m in love with him, if I’m terribly honest, but he is my best friend. He really is. And I’m angry because he didn’t tell me. And I’m angry because if I turn away from him now … because he’s made me feel like doing anything other than what we planned is a betrayal on my part. And the only thing I really do know is that kissing you felt really good. I just wanted to feel good for a while because otherwise, frankly, today has kind of sucked.”
“I’m not sure what to tell you,” he said.
“Then don’t tell me anything. Thankfully, we’re going home tomorrow. I’ll deal with Clint. And we can pretend this never happened. I’m under duress, so just … ignore it all.” She looked at the champagne that was still sitting in the ice bucket. “I am gonna take this.” She snagged the bottle. “And I’m going to go to my room.”
“Dinner?” he asked.
“I think I’ll skip it. Suddenly I’m not very hungry.”
Amelia turned and walked into the bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind her. Tomorrow, they would fly back to New York. Then it would be Christmas. And she would just … go home to her family and pretend that nothing bad was happening. They would all spend Christmas together, even Clint and his parents, and then after the holidays she would figure out what to do.
LUC DIDN’T SLEEP at all. He spent the entire time tossing and turning and trying to ignore the fact that he was hard as hell for a woman who was off-limits.
Engaged. Personal assistant.
Though, he had to admit that her revelations about her fiancé had put a new and morally interesting spin on the engagement.
Clint hadn’t been faithful to her. And really, in his opinion, she shouldn’t marry him. And he had a feeling she would arrive at the same conclusion. But for now, she was still wearing the ring and that felt … Well, considering his past it was a complication he couldn’t ignore.
Which meant he would continue to ignore the hard-on. Particularly difficult in the morning. He gritted his teeth and went to his suitcase, tugging out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, putting them on as quickly as possible. He wasn’t going to shower. He would only end up thinking of her. And he would end up doing something he would probably regret. Their employer/employee relationship might be able to survive an ill-advised kiss, but if he let himself get off at the thought of her, if he made fantasizing about her acceptable that would be a can of worms that was hard to close.
He snagged his phone off his nightstand and saw a warning banner on the lock screen. He entered his passcode and opened it.
“Dammit,” he said, walking out into the living area. “Amelia,” he said, belatedly realizing that he probably should have gotten his arousal under control before he tried to be in the same room as her.
“What?” She emerged from the bathroom, freshly showered, her cheeks pink, damp hair curling around her face. She was wearing a sweater that looked as if it might have started life as a blanket, and a pair of tan pants with leather patches on the knees. In short, she should look sort of ridiculous, and she didn’t. She was still sexy, even dressed as some insane version of a jockey.
“There