“I didn't have sex with him.”
“Then what were you doing up there all night?” she asked tartly. “Making cookies?”
“I made Owen a quiche,” I said primly. “Which he ate. He also ate me out.”
“So breakfast and a striptease. Someone got his Christmas present early.”
“Ugh.”
“You said you wanted me to help bake,” Morticia reminded me. “We have a very busy schedule. We need to finish decorating the lobby and you have subscription boxes to assemble. Or I suppose you could go back downstairs and try to convince your billionaire boy toy to give you an engagement ring, and you can leave us all and go off to Christmas fairyland.”
I grimaced. “Owen's not a boy, and that thing he's wielding is definitely not a toy.”
“Did you even see it?”
“I saw part of it.”
Morticia shook her head. “You need to test-drive the car before you sign for it.”
*
I changed and showered again.Then I was ready to bake.
“We have to send out two hundred boxes,” I said, looking at the list. “How about making white-chocolate-and-raspberry cheesecake squares, chocolate-almond pound cake, and bread pudding with amaretto sauce. Those should travel well,” I said. I turned on a Christmas movie and tied on an apron.
“No. I refuse to watch the Hallmark channel,” Morticia said, hefting a spatula threateningly.
“It's Christmastime.”
Morticia stared at me flatly.
“The Nightmare Before Christmas?” I offered.
“I accept.”
We baked while Jack Skellington sang about discovering Christmas.
“See, even the Pumpkin King loves Christmas.”
Morticia glared at me as she mixed the cheesecake batter. “That is not a Christmas movie, it’s a Halloween movie, which is the only reason we're watching it.”
42
Owen
Ihad meetings all morning and through lunch. When I went back up to my office, I froze outside the door.
“What the—” It looked as if a Christmas bomb had gone off. Holly was smiling in the middle of it all.
“Isn't it nice?”
“I thought you were decorating the main office,” I said with a frown.
“You're going to have a meeting with theTechBizrepresentatives in here,” she said. “Your office needed some Christmas cheer. We had leftover decorations from the lobby.”
There was garland hanging from the windows. Gossamer snowflakes glowed. A basket of winter fruits and flowers sat on the small refreshments bar. An actual Christmas tree stood in the corner.
“I kept it pretty minimalist,” Holly explained, trotting along beside me as I walked around my office. I really did not want all these Christmas decorations in my space, but Holly had put them up, and I didn't want to hurt her by removing them.
