Free The Boss's Mistletoe Maneuvers by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom Page B

participate in Christmas festivities, and how much it hurt to think of actually doing so.
    Elves. Snow. Packages in red ribbons.
She might have given her right index fingernail to join in everything going on around her, and had been slowly inching in that direction.
    Then she kissed Chaz Monroe.
    She hung her head. Her apartment smelled like a sugar factory. Worse yet, she wanted her place to smell like
him.
Like Monroe, companionship, sex, holiday glitter and all the other things her mother had shunned so harshly. You’d think she’d know better. Someone looking in on her life might expect her to just wipe the slate clean and start over, now that her mother was no longer in the picture. Who from the outside would understand?
    If she tossed the cookies, would things change? If she marched into the kitchen and got rid of the little doughy stars and trees, would time reset itself backward so that she’d have another chance to get things right?
    Monroe was a jerk. He had to be. Because if he wasn’t, then she was.
    Tossing her purse to the floor, Kim staggered to the couch and threw herself onto it, face-first, listening to the side seam in her tight red dress tear.
    * * *
    Chaz glanced at the paper, then up at the tall brick building. This was it. McKinley lived here, and he was going to trespass on her space and privacy because tonight he felt greedy. He wanted a showdown to get this over with once and for all.
    She lived in a place that was a lot like his on the outside. He didn’t know her well enough to gauge her decorating skills, but figured martini glasses wouldn’t be one of her prominent fixtures.
    In truth, he didn’t really know Kim at all and was relying on the concept of animal attraction to nudge him into doing what he’d never done before—plead his case a second time.
    He offered a curt but friendly nod to the doorman and went inside. The doorman picked up the lobby phone and dialed apartment 612.
    “Yes?” she answered after a couple of rings.
    The doorman spoke briefly, then handed the phone over.
    Hearing Kim’s voice left him temporarily tongue-tied, something so unlike him that he almost hung up. He thought about the napkin with the brunette’s number on it crumpled up in his pocket. Calling that number might have taken his mind off Kim McKinley for a few hours.
    So, the fact that he was standing here meant he was either acting like a madman, or a man possessed. Maybe even like a sore loser refusing to give up on the outcome he wanted. Those flaws made him see red. And in the center of that puddle of red was Miss Kim McKinley, the cause of all this.
    “Delivery for Kim McKinley, advertising queen,” Chaz said to her over the line, managing to keep his voice neutral. “I can’t be sure, but from the feel of the package, I think it contains an apology.”
    A short span of silence followed his remark. His heart beat faster. What was he doing here, anyway? Had he just uttered the word
apology?
    “This only adds to the harassment, you know,” she eventually said. “I believe stalking might be a felony.”
    “Yes, well, what’s one more year behind bars when there’s so much at stake?”
    “None of this is funny, Monroe.”
    “No, it isn’t. At least we agree on something.”
    “You can’t come up.”
    “Then maybe you’ll come down.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Are you sorry?”
    After another hesitation, she said, “No.”
    “Not very convincing,” Chaz remarked. “It’s that gap between what you say and what you don’t say that keeps me wondering what you might really be thinking.”
    More silence. A full twenty seconds, by his calculation. Chaz lowered the phone to keep her from hearing his growl of disappointment, then thought better of it. With the phone so close to his heart, she might be able to hear how fast it raced. She’d know something was up.
    “You just don’t get the picture,” she accused. “I don’t know you at all.”
    “You know me well enough to want to