her you were impotent and not to waste her time."
"Hmm," he murmurs, the tone giving me nothing. "Interesting."
"Did you want me to run back and give it to her?"
"No, you were right. It would be a waste of her time."
"Can't squeeze her in before our flight in the morning?"
We've entered our hotel and I've turned to face him. He's not looking at me, his focus instead on the large Christmas tree decorating the lobby.
"Is that what you think of me?" he finally says, meeting my eyes. I'm tempted to reach out and run my fingertip over his bottom lip, just to feel him against my skin in some way again, but I stop my twitchy traitorous hand from moving. Just barely. "That I'm happy to fuck anyone who offers?"
"She's hardly just anyone. You've met her, she's quite pretty." Honestly, I should have told her he was impotent in addition to the dominatrix insinuation, just to cover all my bases.
"Holly," he murmurs and I'm flustered. Because hearing him say my name instead of Miss Winters has always sounded like sex to me and now I have all the accompanying visuals to confirm it.
"I don't know." I look away, uncomfortable with his stare. "No. That was rude. And unprofessional. I apologize."
"It's fine." He jabs his hands in his pockets in a grumpy gesture I've become familiar with. "My language was unprofessional as well."
"No worries."
And that's how we end it. No worries. Who even says ‘no worries?’ Old people. Old ladies with cats, which is exactly how I'm going to end up because all other men are ruined for me now. None of them will ever measure up. And worse, I'll never look at an Advent calendar the same way again. Or Christmas lights. Or the scent of cinnamon and cloves.
Bavarian Bears. The taste of mulled wine. The entire nation of Germany.
It's all crap now.
Chapter 12
"So he told you how he felt and you rejected him."
"I did not. That did not happen." I'm shaking my head before Ginger has finished speaking.
It's the week before Christmas and I'm at Ginger's house delivering the gingerbread I bought her in Nuremberg and recapping my trip with Nick. Nick, who I haven't seen since we returned to Reindeer Falls. He took off on another business trip on Monday. An unscheduled business trip. My Advent calendar is sitting in a drawer filled with unopened doors because he was supposed to be in the office this week.
"Holly, are you nuts? What exactly did you want him to say? That he's borderline in love with you? You asked him why he kissed you and he said because he wanted to. He told you he'd been wanting to kiss you since the first day he met you. WAKE UP, HOLLY," she adds in a shout.
"You're very tense about this gingerbread competition."
"I'm very tense about your idiocy."
"Well. Somebody has the Christmas spirit." I slump over her kitchen table, chin in palm, pouting.
"Was the sex awful? The sex following the most romantic kiss on a church balcony that's likely ever occurred in the history of time?" Then just in case I forget her stance on the topic she mutters, "You blind bat," under her breath but loud enough for me to hear.
"Why are you swearing at me like an old woman from the 1940's?"
"Holly." Ginger sighs my name as she loads a loaf of ginger something or other into her oven and joins me at the table. "Let's go over this again. In detail."
"I'm not totally romantically inept, you know. I am older than you," I point out. "Bossy brat."
"So he kissed you on a church balcony," Ginger starts, ignoring my jab. "You swooned."
"I did not swoon!"
She levels me a look. "Holly, I'm swooning and it wasn't even my kiss."
"Fine," I huff. "There was swooning. He's a great kisser. He's even better in bed. He's attentive and generous and… fun." And maybe, just maybe, he's not as big of a jerk as I'd thought.
"Okay, so." Ginger waves a hand in the air like she's getting ready to make a case. "He kissed you on the balcony." She holds up one finger then takes it back, frowning. "No, wait. Let's back up. He took you to a Christmas market, Holly! He took you to a freaking Christmas market, which is exactly how I'd seduce you if I was trying to seduce you."
"Um, that wasn't creepy at all."
"Making my point. Don't sidetrack." She holds her finger back up in the air, ready to start her