A Dream Christmas

She slid off him, stood up and reached for a nightgown that lay folded across a wingback chair and quickly pulled it on. Riley saw her reflection in the free-standing full-length mirror and winced—mussed hair, stubble rash-covered jaw and languorous, satisfied eyes. Yep, no guesses as to how they’d spent the last ten hours.

After a polite greeting at the beginning of the evening and—admittedly—many, many intense looks from across the crowded wedding tent, he’d taken her hand and led her to his car. She hadn’t bothered protesting, hadn’t thought about where she was going, what she was about to do. She’d wanted him as much as his eyes had flashed that he wanted her. They didn’t need any words; they both knew that they were going back to her room at his childhood home situated on the Western Cape vineyard, Bon Chance, for a night light on conversation and heavy on kisses, pleasuring hands and throaty, breathy cries. Incredible physical pleasure.

After all, this wasn’t their first ride on this particular roller coaster.

‘Oops, we did it again.’

Okay, it was flippant but at least it was something to break the tense silence between them. James lifted a sandy eyebrow. Without responding, he stood up and walked across the room, picking up his suit trousers from the floor and holding them loosely in his hand.

‘Yeah, we …’ James swallowed the swear word and ran his hand through his thick blond hair ‘… messed up again.’

Just the words a girl needed to hear after a spectacular orgasm given to her by the only man who’d ever managed to rock her sexual world. Oh, she felt so special.

‘So, the post-orgasmic glow doesn’t last long for you. Good to know,’ Riley retorted.

‘I’ve slept with one of my oldest friends, my employee, my sister’s best friend! Again!’

‘Why can’t you think of me as just Riley?’ she quietly asked. Not as the pigtailed girl who pulled your hair, not as Morgan’s BFF, not as the window designer for your family’s ultra-chic and mega-expensive string of international jewellery stores, Moreau’s. Not as your vineyard manager’s daughter …

Just Riley, she thought, finding it difficult to keep her eyes on his face. Any woman who had seen James naked would understand … His rugged, hot action-hero face had been known to stop traffic but, dear Lord, his naked body could stop intergalactic spaceships.

His looks, combined with the fact that he was CEO of Moreau International, dealing with every aspect of gemstones from mining to upmarket jewellery stores, made him a whale-size catch and one of the top five most eligible bachelors in the world. Not that she gave a rat’s about any of that nonsense—he was just James. Hot, yeah, but he drove her batty.

James ran a hand over his face and she couldn’t help but notice the tension in his broad shoulders, his ripped abs, skittering through his muscled arms.

‘Why do we keep doing this?’ he demanded as he yanked his trousers on and zipped them up.

‘Jeez, it’s not like this is a habit or anything. Three times in a decade isn’t exactly an addiction, Moreau.’ Riley watched as he pulled on his dress shirt, idly noticing that it was now missing a couple of buttons.

‘It was a mistake,’ James muttered, looking around for his shoes.

Riley shoved her hands into her hair and yanked it in frustration. ‘So the other times we slept together, when I was nineteen, and when I was twenty-five … were those mistakes too?’ Riley said bitterly. ‘Then again, you are such a damn playboy that you probably don’t even remember me, us …’

‘I’ve never forgotten one minute spent with you.’ James snapped his head up, his eyes hot and full of frustration.

Well, what was she supposed to say to that? Wait, she always had something she could say …

‘Probably because I’m nothing like the women you usually sleep with. They are all blonde and buxom and long-legged and beautiful and I’m … not.’ No, she was still the size of an average fourteen-year-old with grey eyes, copper-red hair and a temper to match. And didn’t she sound like a whiny witch. She dropped her eyes and her tone. ‘I don’t understand you … this … us.’

‘There is no us,’ James said.

There had been once—for a brief, glorious month there had been a Riley and James. And then she’d let herself be talked out of it … or talked herself out of it …or something.

There is no us. Riley twisted her lips. No, there wasn’t, not any more. And there was no comfort in the knowledge that James, ever since his failed engagement years ago, hadn’t been part of an ‘us’ with anyone else either. He was the King of the Fling.

Riley jammed her hands into the pockets of her gown and lifted her head, up and up, to his face. At five two, she looked utterly ridiculous standing next to the six-foot-plus James. Without heels, her head barely scraped his collarbone. Riley suspected that if she were any other woman he’d send her a wide smile, flash those sexy dimples, say, Thanks, babe, and slip out of the door.

She didn’t need his words to tell her she was wasting her time—what he wanted to say was written all over his face. Not wanting to prolong the humiliation, Riley went to the door and yanked it open.

‘Ri, this was a—’

‘If you say it was a mistake again, I swear I’ll stab you with … something,’ Riley hissed. ‘I think it’s time for you to go before you say something else that can’t be taken back.’

‘Dammit, Riley, you are like my sis—’

Oh, that was a crappy, crazy excuse. Riley slapped her mouth against James’s and smacked her hands on his butt. She might not have had many lovers for a woman fast approaching her thirties but she had kissed a lot of men and she knew exactly how to do it. A slide here, a nip there, a quick suck … and James quickly forgot what he was about to say. When she allowed him to come up for air James looked shell-shocked.

Yeah, take that … Mr I-Think-of-You-As-My-Sister.

‘You didn’t say that when you were moaning my name in the throes of passion last night.’

‘Ri—Okay. But—’

‘I am not your sister or your friend. And I’m done pining away for you. You have ten seconds to decide if you want to explore this heat we have always had or whether you are walking away for good. But you should know that if you walk that’s it. You don’t get another chance.’

‘Riley, I—’

‘Ten seconds, nine, eight, seven—’

‘It’s not that easy.’

It wasn’t easy at all, she thought, as she held his eyes as she counted down. Riley, fighting back the tears that she refused to allow to fall, breathed out the last number and shut the door in James’s face.

So, that was that. Time to move on, Riley.

It was way, way, way past time for her to move on.

CHAPTER ONE

The end of November …

THE WORKERS AT THE diamond mine in South Africa were threatening to strike again, they had a staff member at the jewellery store filching merchandise and he had a board meeting to prepare for.

His plate was full to overflowing and he was tired and stressed and … horny. Man, he was horny. He wanted, needed, craved sex … and so he should after a five-month drought. And whose fault was that, Einstein? He could have walked into any function in New York City and had any piece of tail he wanted—single, engaged, married, even!—but every time he decided to go for it the image of storm-grey eyes in a pixie face flicked across his retina and the moment passed.

He didn’t want any woman. James wanted Riley. That night they’d spent together was the best and worst time he’d spent with a woman in … hell, for ever. An amazing night because he had shared explosive, passionate sex with a woman he cared about and that emotional connection added a depth to sex he’d long forgotten about.

The worst night because he had, a long time ago, deliberately chosen not to combine sex and emotion again.

His body, which apparently did not connect with his, reputedly, very sharp brain, suddenly craved the one person he shouldn’t want. Remind your junk why she is out of bounds, Moreau. This normally stopped him from storming down to her basement studio in the Moreau International building and taking her on her weird coloured couch.

Three, two, one … go. Or, failing that, just go back to work.

Before he could do either his desk phone buzzed, followed by his PA’s amused voice. ‘James, Riley wants to see … Oh, she’s already at the door and on her way in.’

Think of the devil and she appears …

James looked across his spacious office towards the door that was opening and Riley strode inside, dressed in a black skirt, a black cashmere turtleneck and high-heeled black boots. She always wore heels in an effort to look taller, not that they helped … much.

She took his breath away every single time he saw her.

He wished he could run his hand down that fall of bright red hair, feel her silky-smooth skin under that black jumper. She had a perfect body, he thought—all woman, despite her pint-size package. And she’d felt amazing in his arms—fragrant, heated skin, breathy cries. She was still the only woman who had the ability to rocket blood to his groin simply by stepping into the room.

Under his desk, James adjusted the crotch of his suddenly tight trousers and leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up onto the corner of his desk. This was the first time that they had been alone in five months and he wondered what had prompted her to collar him in his office, on his turf.

Colour him intrigued.

Maybe she was as frustrated as he was and she was about to offer some recreational office sex … Yeah, in your dreams, Moreau. He knew what Riley looked like when she was turned on and big worried eyes and a tense jaw were not part of her ‘dome-now’ look.

No, he immediately clocked that, whatever it was that Riley had to say, it wasn’t going to be good news.

James dropped his feet and stood up, unable to help the surge of protectiveness she always generated in him. He didn’t like it but he’d known her all his life and it was part of who he was. ‘What’s wrong? What’s the matter? Are your folks okay? Your brothers?’

Riley shook, then nodded her head. Well, that helped … not. She lifted up her hand to halt his progress across the room and James, seeing how she was struggling to get her words out, decided to help her by stopping and waiting.

When she finally found her voice, what she said rocked the foundations of his world. It was nothing that he could ever have anticipated.

‘I wanted to personally tell you that I’m leaving Moreau International. I’ll have my resignation letter on your desk by the end of the day.’

Without giving him a chance to respond, she turned on her heel and walked straight out of his office.

SHE’D DONE IT, Riley thought, walking past his PA’s desk, blindly heading to the elevators at the end of the long passage. She had told James and now she had to leave—she couldn’t live in limbo any more.

She couldn’t live like this any more.

Riley blinked back tears, resisting the urge to just stop and place her forehead against the cool wall. This was one of the longest, busiest corridors in the building and she just needed to get to her basement studio, her sanctuary, where she could be alone.

There was nothing left for her in this city any more. She loved her job as chief window designer for Moreau’s; it had been the only thing that had carried her through the last nearly half year but it was no longer enough, she thought, as she caught and ruthlessly stopped the sob in her throat.

The past five months had been tough on her, mentally and emotionally. The last whisper of her dreams around James had been shattered that night and since then her life seemed to be spiralling out of control. Not to be dramatic, but she felt as if she’d not only lost her dreams but, to an extent, her way as well. Alienation and loneliness now characterised her life. When her best friend, Morgan, had fallen in love with Noah, it was so natural that he became her priority and she hardly saw Morgan these days. It was so normal and so healthy but Riley acutely felt the absence in her life. Especially since she and James hadn’t exchanged more than ten words in far too long. They knew each other too well, shared too many memories, were part of each other’s families and their disconnection felt strange, unnatural.

It was better this way, Riley told herself again. She’d finally come to accept that they were simply not meant to be together. She needed to move on and create new dreams, find another way to be fulfilled, happy.

As she went to step into the lift, Riley felt a strong hand on her arm and was pulled to a stop. Dang, so close …

‘My office, now,’ James growled from above her head.

A dark, sculpted eyebrow lifted and her large, expressive grey eyes shot silver lightning in his direction. ‘No.’

‘We need to talk about the fact that you didn’t just blow your budget for the Christmas windows, you blew it with the strength of a Category five hurricane.’

Okay, not what she was expecting. Maybe he didn’t want to announce her resignation in front of the ten-strong crowd of his employees who were waiting for the lifts so Riley decided to play along. ‘You’ll understand why when you see the windows. They are incredibly special this year.’

‘They still need to come in under budget, Riley.’ She thought she heard him mutter, ‘Damn artists …’ under his breath.

‘Is that what you came all this way to tell me?’ she asked, her expression facetious. ‘You could have just sent an e-mail.’

‘You could’ve given me a better explanation as to why,’ James replied and they both knew that he wasn’t talking about the windows and her lack of budgeting skills.

James clocked the curious glances from his staff, their ping-pong eyes, and his glower immediately wiped their faces into ‘not listening’ expressions. Hah! Of course they were …

‘I’m not arguing with you in front of an audience. My office, now,’ James ordered.

Uh … no.

‘I’m not going to argue with you at all.’ Riley bared her teeth at him in a smile that held all the charm of a snakebite. ‘Bye.’

As she stepped towards the open lift, Riley flipped him one last look and abruptly realised that he looked stressed, annoyed and exhausted and that he’d just hit his ceiling of tolerance. He had a slow to burn temper but when it ignited it scorched like a flamethrower. She suspected that she’d put a match to the flammable liquid.

‘I said … my office. Now.’ Then his hands gripped her hips and halted her progress into the lift. Since she weighed less than a feather, he easily spun her around, ignored her annoyed yelp, picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder.

What the fudge?

Riley pounded her fists on his back and he tightened his grip as he walked down the passage. ‘What the hell do you think you are doing? Put me down, you moron!’ she yelled. ‘Moreau, let me go!’

‘Try to remember that I’m your boss, Taylor.’ James spat the words at her knees.

‘Try to remember that I can sue you for manhandling me and for sexual harassment and for emotional distress …’

Riley squirmed and James tightened his arms across the back of her thighs and pinned her in place. What was happening here? Who was this person? James Moreau, usually cool and very controlled, must be losing his marbles because carting her around like this was very un-James-like behaviour.

Riley, realising that she had as much chance of surviving a nuclear explosion as she had of fighting James, stopped struggling and sighed when office doors opened and heads popped out to see who was screaming like a banshee. She guessed James had an expression like thunder because those faces disappeared as quickly as they had appeared and the office employees in the passage scuttled to get out of his way. Oh, yeah, this was going to spread through the building like wildfire.

James walked into his own office and kicked the door shut with his foot before dumping her onto the leather couch in the corner. Riley instantly sprang to her feet and launched herself at him, drilling her finger into his chest. ‘I don’t care who you think you are but you can’t just issue orders and then, when I don’t comply, toss me over your shoulder! ‘

God, she was still fighting him, James thought as he easily captured her wrists in one hand, twisted her around so that her back was to his front—and Mr Happy in his pants immediately sprang up in excited anticipation. And so it should, since this was the closest he had come to any action in far too many months and no, going solo didn’t count.

He really didn’t want to think about why the thought of bedding someone else left a sour taste in his mouth … every single time.

Riley stood immobile in his arms and, as he slid his other hand over her stomach and spread his fingers so that the tips rested just above her mound, a fine tremor skittered through her body. She went utterly still and under his fingers he could feel the rapid pulse in her wrists, could hear her uneven breathing.

She was so turned on…. Let’s see how much, he thought.

James pushed his hand under her shirt and he groaned when it encountered that silky skin of her flat stomach. He couldn’t help moving his hand further upwards so that he covered her breast and instantly her nipple bloomed into his palm. She was so responsive, her passion—and temper—was quick to flare. James, thinking that it was safe to release her hands, pulled her hair back and kissed that sensitive spot where her neck and shoulder met. He felt her shudder and she sighed when her small hands moved back to grip his thighs.

‘Don’t, James,’ she whispered. ‘Please.’

He nuzzled his face into her hair. ‘I can’t help it.’

He strained to hear her words and, when he did, they felt like bullets to his soul. ‘Why do I only feel like this with you, the man who can’t give me anything more than explosive sex? A night here and there. It’s not fair …’

Unfortunately, she was right …

James felt the familiar shudder pound through his body and he stepped away, turning to his desk and wishing that it wasn’t too early for a belt of that bottle of twelve-year-old whisky in the cabinet next to the door. Riley, and his craving for her, could literally drive him to drink. He jammed his hands in his pockets and looked out of the window, ignoring the magnificent view of Manhattan, the icy drizzle outside echoing the temperature in his soul.

The only time it felt warmer was when he was talking to, holding, arguing with Riley. He’d missed her so damn much these past months. Missed her wide smile, her smart mouth, her pint-size body vibrating with energy. They’d never been friends, precisely—there was too much lust and passion buzzing around them for that—but he used to see a lot of her. At his parents’ house, at functions, most often at Morgan’s flat.

But not at all for far too long.

And he desperately wanted to make love to her again; his mouth went dry every time he remembered what they’d done to and with each other. It was ironic that the best sex he’d ever had was with a woman he’d known all his life.

Who would have imagined that?

Getting back to the problem at hand, Moreau. Oh, yeah …

James scrubbed his hands over his face and turned back to Riley, who was still standing where he’d left her, grey eyes enormous in her cute face. His mind finally left the bedroom and he remembered why he was so angry with her. ‘You just walk into my office, drop that bombshell on my head and leave without a friggin’ explanation? What the hell, Riley? You’re not going anywhere!’

Riley immediately pulled on her imaginary boxing gloves, lifting that stubborn chin as if offering him a chance to pop her on it. Why did he find her fighting spirit so attractive and why did she only ever fight with him? As far as he knew, she was perfectly pleasant to everyone else. Unless it was about her work, then she’d take on Genghis Khan and all his warriors to get her own way. And win. No one, including him, messed with her designs.

‘What did you say?’

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ James stated, his voice now calm but his eyes hot.

He was fairly certain that the red in her hair intensified with temper. ‘How dare you, you simpleminded sack of Siberian snot? I’m a contracted employee and I am exercising my right not to renew that contract!’

James blinked at her creative insult. He’d heard a few from her over the past twenty years but that was a new one. And, he had to admit, a good one. ‘You’re exercising your right to be an irrational, crazy hothead!’ he retaliated. ‘Why do you want to leave, anyway? You love fiddling with the windows—’ He knew that that comment would inflame her even more but what the hell? In for a penny and all that.

‘Fiddling? That’s what you think I do?’ Oh, man, was that hurt he heard under the layer of vinegar? James gave himself a mental punch to the head. Why did he always say the wrong thing to her? He was generally quite together with women, except this one. With this one, he never knew what he was doing.

‘And maybe that’s another reason I should go. You don’t respect me or the work I do … you just give me grief about it,’ Riley yelled, her eyes now the colour of thunderclouds. Behind the pride he could see the pain, and frustration, in the depths of her soul and his anger receded. It killed him that he’d hurt her. No one should ever be allowed to hurt her, including him.

Time to rein this in, to haul back. The conversation was out of control, like so many other things between them. He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Tell me why you are leaving.’

‘No.’ And there was her stubbornness. She could give lessons to a mule.

‘Why not?’

‘Because it won’t change anything.’

‘Tell me why or I’m going to do everything I can to make this as difficult for you as possible,’ James warned.

Riley’s nose lifted high enough to give her altitude sickness. ‘I’m not even going to dignify that stupid threat with a response but I will say that my Christmas windows will be installed next week, they’ll run through to the first week of January. The display for January is ready to be installed as soon as they come down—it’s simple and classic and my staff can put it up without my help. I intend to leave as soon as the Christmas windows are up. So, basically, at the end of next week.’

‘I do believe your contract runs to December thirty-first, Ms Taylor.’ Not that he had any intention of letting her leave—she was the most talented window designer in New York; he’d be a fool to let her go. Yeah, keep telling yourself that’s why you want her to stay; maybe you’ll begin to believe it … in a hundred years or so.

‘You’d keep me here, twiddling my thumbs for a whole month?’ Riley looked horrified. James smiled smugly; he knew that asking Riley to sit still and do nothing was torture. He didn’t mind a little torture when she was daring to leave him. Leave the job … the job. Not him. Get it straight, moron.

‘I’ll do whatever I damn well have to. Tell me why.’

Riley stalked up to him, stood on tiptoe and put her face as close to his as she could get it. James looked at her mouth and wished that she was about to kiss him but he knew her too well to assume that.

‘I am leaving. Deal with it.’

‘Over my dead body!’ James shouted as she headed out of his office.

At the door Riley stopped and sent him a cold, sharp smile. ‘That can be arranged …’

STORMING BACK TOWARDS the lift, Riley punched buttons on her mobile and slapped it to her ear. Ignoring the curious looks of her colleagues, she silently urged Morgan to answer her call.

It didn’t matter that Morgan was James’s sister; she could speak to her about anything, including what an utter ass her brother could be. As she and Morgan had been friends since their childhood, they’d had a lot of conversations about his ass-like qualities.