A Holiday Temptation - Tiffany Patterson Page 0,49
Year’s Eve. That’ll ensure my bonus with Cypress and, thus, the money I need to purchase my mom’s home. With that, I can be free from my father’s manipulations. “Just a few more days,” I say since the date is December 22nd.
Mark glares at me from across the table, his gaze reading mine. I always feel so naked when he does this.
“A few more days,” he agrees.
“Let’s pack it up and go get something to eat.”
Without hesitation, I close my work laptop and smile. “My stomach couldn’t agree more.”
I pack up my belongings, as does Mark, but just before I head out the door, he pulls me by the waist, and down onto his lap I fall.
“I swear you’re going to break something if you keep doing that,” I growl.
He chuckles, which causes goosebumps to form down my neck and shoulders. Nuzzling the crook of my neck with his face, he murmurs, “You know you can tell me anything, right? You don’t have to wait until after New Year’s.”
I press a kiss to his forehead and sigh. “It’s only a few more days. Please, just let me hold it until then, okay?”
He pulls back, and although I can see that he doesn’t want to from the look in his eyes, he nods.
Pushing out a breath, I give him a smile of gratitude before standing. “And no more groping me at work.” I try to sound stern, but when I pivot to head out of the boardroom, a loud smack sounds against my bottom.
I glare at Mark over my shoulder, and he shrugs. “What?”
I shake my head but laugh to myself. He has a way of flipping my entire mood in only a matter of seconds. I can’t wait until after the New Year to be free of everything that stands between us and our happiness.
Ten days.
That’s it. That’s what I keep telling myself as I drive behind Jackie in her car on the way to my apartment. There’s only ten days from now and the time I’m giving Jackie to unburden whatever’s been weighing on her. I’ve had to keep myself from forcing her to tell me. I want to give her time.
Hell, I need to give myself time. A few short weeks ago, if you would’ve told me that Jackie Hinkerson would walk through the doors of Townsend Industries and I’d be fucking putty in her hands again, I would’ve cursed you and your mother to hell and back. Love has a way of making a man eat his words. Happily.
Yes, happily … joyously, even. For the first time in sixteen years, I can feel why everyone tends to love the holidays so damned much. How can you not be happy surrounded by people you love, holiday treats, lights, music, and parties? For years, the memory of my accident, months of rehab, and the depression that sank in once I realized that I’d never walk again took all of the joy out of this season. What’d made all of that a hundred times worse was that Jackie wasn’t around any longer. The pain of believing she’d up and left me because I was broken in her eyes seared through me, just as cleanly as that fall had cracked my spine.
For years, I was bitter. Never believing a woman could genuinely see past my chair to love me. Even once I started to believe it was possible, I didn’t want any of the women I came across. They were nice. Most of them were great, actually, but they weren’t for me.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Jackie says as we sit at the table in my kitchen, eating the Chinese takeout I picked up on our way in from work.
Chuckling, I take a swallow of the beer I opened to have with dinner. “Thinking about tomorrow. It’s the 23rd,” I answer honestly.
Her head angles to the side as her eyelids lower. “I know.” She reaches her hand across the table, taking mine. I squeeze.
“Our first December 23rd together since that night.” I pull at her arm, and she stands from her chair, moving over to me.
I roll away from the table, giving her space to sit in my lap—my favorite position for her to be in. Instead of sitting sideways, however, Jackie surprises me when she hikes up the black skirt she’s wearing and straddles my legs.
“I need to tell you something,” she whispers against my lips.
“Tell it.”
Taking my face into her hands, she searches my eyes for something. “I love you.”