Somebody's Santa. Annie Jones
She almost slid off the edge of the desk. “I…uh…”
What did she want for Christmas? “After six months of not so much as a phone message, you drove all the way from South Carolina to Atlanta to ask me what I want for Christmas?” She stood up to retake control of what was clearly a conversation with no real purpose or direction. “Are you kidding me? Who does that?”
He could not answer her. Or maybe he could answer but didn’t want to. He just sat there.
And sat there.
She could hear him breathing. Slow and steady. See his eyes flicker with some deep emotion but nothing she could define without looking long and hard into them. And she was not likely to do that.
She cleared her throat. She could wait him out. She had waited him out, in fact. He had been the one who had come to her, not the other way around. Even though early on there had been plenty of long, lonely nights when she had wanted nothing more than to hop in her car, or in the company jet or hitch a ride on a passing Carolina Crumble delivery truck to get herself back to South Carolina to confront him. Or kiss him.
Or both.
She wanted to do both. Even now. Which made it imperative that she do something else all together. So she plunked down on the edge of the desk again and said the only thing that made any sense at all to her, given the circumstances. “What I want is for you to go back to Mt. Knott and just leave me in peace.”
“Peace. Yes.” His slow, steady nod gave the impression of a man who longed for the very same gift—but doubted he’d ever find it. “That I can’t promise you. That’s better a request for the One who sent his Son.”
“Nice save,” she whispered, thinking of how deftly he’d avoided her demand for him to leave.
“Best save ever made, if you think about it.”
She looked out into the hallway at the Christmas decorations going up. Global would not have a nativity scene, or any reference to the birth of Christ, and yet they covered the place in greenery, the symbol of life everlasting. All around her this time of year, the world came alive with symbols of hope. They rang in the ears, they delighted the eye, they touched the heart. It was such a special time, a time when one could believe not just in the wonder of God’s Son but also in the possibilities for all people of goodwill.
Maybe even for a person like Burke.
Maybe he had really come here because he wanted to know what she wanted. Maybe he needed to know that she could still want him, to tell her that he had made a mistake, to tell her that she…
He shifted forward again, clasping his hands. “As for me…”
As for me. He had asked what she wanted, ignored her reply and went straight for his real purpose in coming. Me.
Himself.
He didn’t want to know about her, he wanted to ask her to do something for him.
The moment passed and Dora stood again. She had to get him out of here. She had to keep him from saying another word that might endear him to her, that might give her reason to hope….
“As for you, Mr. Burdett.” She moved to the door and made a curt jerk of her thumb to show him the way he should exit. “I don’t really care what you want for Christmas.”
“Not even if what I want, only you can give me?”
Chapter Three
Burke had broken the first rule of negotiation. He had let his counterpart know the strength of her position. He had been upfront and told her that he wanted to make a deal and she was the only one he wanted to deal with. He might as well have handed her a blank check.
And he would have done just that if he had thought it would work.
It wouldn’t. Not with a woman like Dora. So he had done the next best thing, given her all the power in the situation. Now that, that was something she had to find compelling. Right?
Burke swallowed to push down the lump in his throat. He was not accustomed to anyone questioning his judgment and actions. Even when they included his limited charm, fumbling coyness and…Christmas cutesiness.
Who does that? Dora’s earlier question echoed in his thoughts. Who drives all the way from South Carolina to Atlanta to ask a grown woman—one who clearly hates his guts—what she wants for Christmas?
Certainly not Top Dawg, the alpha male of the Burdett wolf pack. Certainly not him. And yet, that’s exactly what he’d done.
And he had no idea whom to blame for it.
“What do you want, Burke?” She folded her arms over her compact body, narrowed her dark eyes and pursed her lips, a look only Dora could pull off. A look that probably set countless underlings and more than a few superiors shaking in their boots. A look that made Burke want to take her by the shoulders and find the nearest mistletoe. “What could I possibly do for you?”
He forced the obvious and inappropriate answers aside and started at the beginning.
“It’s a long story. Goes back to my mom.” He squirmed in the fancy wingback. He tried to make himself comfortable but the back was too stiff, the seat too short, the leather too slick. Not to mention that his trying to pin his actions on his late mother, too flimsy.
He wasn’t a man who needed to assign blame, it was just that something had brought him to this point and he sure wished he knew what it was.
“Your, um, your mother?” Dora did not flinch but her no-nonsense squint did soften as she prodded him to say more.
He jerked his head up and their eyes met. He hadn’t planned on that happening. Hadn’t prepared for it—hadn’t steeled himself against the accusations he saw aimed like a hundred arrows right at him.
How could he have prepared a defense for those? He’d earned each and every one of those unforgiving, poisonous points. She had every right to hate him, or at least not to want to see him and to turn down his proposal outright. “Uh, yeah. My mother. Thing is she started this…it all started a long time ago, really. Long time before she was my mom or met my dad or had any idea that her life would turn out, well, the way it did.”
Dora looked away from him at last. Her shoulders sagged, but she kept her chin angled up, in that way she had that she thought made her seem brave and sophisticated.
Seeing her like that made Burke want to push himself up to his feet and take her in his arms and hold her close. To lay his cheek against her soft, black hair and tell her that when she acted that way he could see right through to the scared, lonely little girl he had seen in her since the first time she powered her way into the Crumble to try to buy it out.
She sounded the part, too, quiet with a tiny quiver that she forced to be still more and more with each word. “None of us knows the way our lives will turn out.”
“My mom did.” He matched her tone, without the tremor. “Or she thought she did.”
“That’s the kicker, isn’t it? When things don’t turn out the way you thought they would?” Try as she might to come off all cool and in control, his showing up like this had obviously thrown her off balance. “When you start down a path. You make plans. You pray about it and feel you’ve finally…”
She glanced out the door.
He uncrossed his ankles and set his feet flat, just in case he decided to up and bolt from the room. It wasn’t his style to do that kind of thing, but then again, neither was the way he had treated Dora earlier this year. Something about her made him do things he’d never thought himself capable of.
“Things just don’t…” She shuffled the files on her desk.
He looked down. He should have worn his new boots. Dora deserved for him to put his best foot forward, literally and figuratively.
Dora