A Very Bossy Christmas - Kayley Loring Page 0,11
they knew I received a gentleman caller without having done so. Even if the gentleman is my stinker of a boss.
DECLAN: I’m considering letting you have Christmas off.
ME: Go on…
DECLAN: And there’s something I’d like to discuss with you. Something that I didn’t want to discuss with you at the office. Something that is not work-related.
Gulp.
DECLAN: There’s a legal agreement involved. It’s not creepy.
ME: I’ll be the judge of that.
DECLAN: Exactly how large of an apartment do you live in? Because it’s taking you a really long time to reach the door.
I reach the door and open it. And Scrooge me, he might look even better unshaven, in a beanie, jeans, and black puffy jacket than he does all groomed in a suit and fancy wool trench coat. What an asshole.
“Hello, Magdalena.”
“Only Mrs. Pavlovsky gets to call me that.”
“Hello, Cooper… May I?” He gestures, asking if he can enter my home. Like a vampire. Like a vampire who smells like camping sex in a forest when it rains.
“Do I have a choice?”
“I’m about to present you with a choice, actually,” he says as he brushes past me, pulling the beanie off and combing his fingers through his perfectly tousled chestnut brown hair. Like a vampire with bedhead.
He doesn’t stop near the entrance to look around my apartment like most normal humans would—he immediately starts strolling around, checking it out. My living room area, the kitchen, the bathroom, and then peeks into my bedroom—as if he were at an open house. “This is pretty nice,” he says, sounding surprised.
“You were expecting me to live in a hovel? Just because my work environment is wretched and unpleasant, that doesn’t mean my home has to be.”
And there’s that damn dimple again.
Just as I realize I haven’t shut my front door yet, my landlady pops her head in. “I very like zis man, Magdalena. Wonderful man to have for you,” she enunciates while beaming at Declan.
“Very good, Mrs. Pavlovsky!” I praise her. “But I do not have this man, thank you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Pavlovsky,” the man says, grinning. “I very like your building.”
Why is he so nice to her? First my niece, now my landlady.
“Ohhh, sank you.” She gives a little wave. Her cheeks are so flushed, she looks like Mrs. Claus. “Okay, I am leaving now. Bye-bye!”
I carefully shut the door and stay near it because I expect to be opening it and ushering Declan out shortly. “I’d offer to take your hat and coat, but I’m sure you won’t be staying long.”
He shoves his beanie into a pocket, unzips his coat very slowly while holding my gaze, and all I can do is stare at his bare hands and imagine him stripping naked. I blame my thirteen-year-old niece for this. But God, that man knows how to take off a coat. He shrugs it off and drapes it over one arm. “I’ll keep it with me, in case I need to make a run for it.”
“Good thinking.”
“Can we sit down and talk for a minute?”
“Must we?”
“Are you this apprehensive with all of your guests?”
“No.”
He smiles, shaking his head, hangs his puffy jacket on the back of a chair, and takes a seat at my dining table. “Have a seat, Maddie.”
I get all tingly when he calls me Maddie. He almost never does. I can’t tell if they’re the good kind of tingles or not, but I can’t seem to make them stop. I take a seat opposite him, and we’re both watching each other’s every move. He pulls a manila envelope from an inside coat pocket and places it on the table but doesn’t pass it to me.
“How are you?” he asks as an afterthought, but he almost seems concerned.
“I’m apprehensive. How are you?”
“Eager to get down to it.”
I take a deep, shaky breath and wait for him to proceed.
He gently places the fingers of his right hand on top of the envelope, staring down at it. “I realize you’re unhappy with the idea of working so much during the holidays, and I’d like to propose a compromise… It turns out I have to attend a few family gatherings over the course of the next couple of weeks… A family dinner in Ohio on Christmas Eve. And a rehearsal dinner and family wedding on the 30th and 31st of December—which is a ridiculous date for a wedding, but there you go.” He looks up at me as if this is all he needs to say.
“And?”
“And I would like you to attend these