Million Dollar Christmas Bride - Holly Rayner Page 0,30

a box of tissues. Then, she changed the subject back to soup recipes. She’d had about all of the emotional conversation she could handle for one day. As Helen dried her tears, Bianca worked on holding back her own.

“So, what’s this recipe you wanted to give me?” she asked, pointing to the pile of cut-outs that still lay on the table before Helen.

“Oh, yes,” Helen said, as she finished drying her cheeks. “It’s for homemade autumn soup. Let me see if I can find it…”

Chapter 10

Bianca

“And this is the last one,” Jackson said, as he added a thick, stapled chunk of paper to the top of the pile in front of Bianca. “An NDA that basically says you’re going to keep the details of our arrangement between us.”

“NDA?” Bianca asked, unsure of what the acronym meant. She picked the packet up and leafed through it quickly, to get a feel for how many pages it was. At least twenty, she thought as she set it back onto the pile.

“Non-disclosure agreement,” Jackson explained. “My lawyer got very specific in it, but that’s because he’s a show-off.” He gave Bianca a friendly wink and leaned back in his chair. “Really, it should be standard confidentiality terms.”

“I’ll start… um… reading,” Bianca said, eyeing the massive stack of papers.

She felt completely overwhelmed. Jackson had already handed her a contract and a prenup, along with several other forms that she’d barely grasped the meaning of. This was more paperwork than she’d had to fill out when buying her house or getting hired at Riverside Assisted Living.

On one hand, she was glad that Jackson was acting like a professional and clearly laying out the details of what she was signing up for. On the other, the thought of reading the pages and pages of minuscule text made her head spin. The simple “yes” that she’d uttered in the dog park was about to become a complex agreement that would affect an undetermined amount of years of her life—possibly several years or more.

Jackson seemed to pick up on her hesitancy. “Could I get you a coffee or something?” he asked.

“No, no thank you,” she said, while reaching for the fountain pen he’d placed by the stack. “This might take me a while to get through. I hope you don’t mind if I camp out here for a little while.”

“Take all the time you need,” Jackson said. He stood up from the high-backed leather chair behind his desk. “I’ll give you some space. If you need anything, just pop your head out the door and my secretary will see that you get assistance.”

With that, he left the room.

Bianca began with the first page of the NDA and worked her way through the document. It outlined the various media outlets on which she was to refrain from “spilling the secret”—which basically included every means of communication under the sun.

She started skimming whole paragraphs, but then chided herself for her impatience. I have to read every word, she thought. Even if it’s tedious.

She was happy that Nicky had called earlier that day to ask for a schedule change. Nicky had offered to take Bianca’s night shift in exchange for getting Bianca to cover hers later in the week.

Though Bianca had planned on being in Jackson’s office for under an hour, it was nearing six by the time she finished reading and signing the last document. She’d been alone in Jackson’s office for two whole hours.

Once she capped the pen, she stood up and stretched. Her whole body was stiff, and her mind was filled to the brim with legal terms and jargon.

Figuring that Jackson had ducked out, bored with waiting for her to finish, she exited his office while texting him to let him know that the papers were all signed and on his desk. She was still mid-text when she heard his voice emanating from a conference room a few doors down.

“Three more times, or even four. Whatever it takes, guys,” Jackson said, in his sweet, deep Southern drawl. “I want to knock this ad campaign out of the park. We’ve got to keep testing until it’s perfect. If that means hiring more focus groups, that’s what we’ll do. Our clientele in these states won’t be the same as any we’ve worked with before. We need to speak their language. It has to be perfect.”

She peeked around the open doorway and caught sight of Jackson standing at the front of a room. A whiteboard hung on the wall behind