Free New York Christmas by New York Christmas Page A

past in a blur of coffee and money and tourists looking for local landmarks. It was Chris’s favorite kind of morning, busy and intense and full of shared laughter with Ame and the other staff. To top it all off, everyone who came into the store seemed so happy, shopping and visiting and bringing cold Christmassy air through the door. Or, he admitted, maybe it was just an extension of his own good mood? Whatever it was, Chris loved it. He had skipped lunch, the clock showed two thirty, and the anticipation of seeing Daniel later started to build.
    “Christian?”
     
     
    In a single second everything ground to a sickening halt. That voice, hearing the two syllables, a harsh end to his name, caused emotions to flood him in a crushing wave. Slowly he looked up, temper coiling within him, his hands gripping the counter, and everything around him blurring as he focused on the owner of that voice. Only one person called him Christian with that censorious tone laced with superiority. The one man who took his heart and his affections and stomped them into the mud. Who lied to him, used him, set him up for the fall.
    “Whit,” Chris said. Whitman Hamilton-Keyes III. A formidable presence, in a suit.
    A suit on a Saturday? With his blond hair scraped back and his arms crossed over his chest, he peered over the counter and cast a quick look at the other staff.
    “How are you?” he asked, and Chris rocked back on his heels. How was he? How was he ? Everything that had happened was Whit’s fault. How did Whit expect him to be? “Can you spare some time to talk?” Whit was joking right? Chris was in the middle of the afternoon rush, tourists lining up almost to the door behind Whit—of course he couldn’t spare any time. He attempted to form words, a simple no, gripping tight to the edges of his apron, sudden temper twisting in him, disgust rising in his throat.
    “We have nothing to talk about,” he finally managed to say and was proud of how he had said those few words without cracking up or jumping the counter and killing the man on the other side of it. Whit inclined his head in acceptance, made to leave, and then stopped and looked back at Chris with determination on his face.
    “Five minutes… or even just one minute…”
    Chris felt someone step close to him, looked left briefly, and caught sight of the frown on Amelia’s face. She had never met the other man during all of what had happened at Sacred Heart. Of course she knew everything that had happened, over whisky and beer she had prized it out of him. It had been good to share it. More than good, it had been vital, otherwise he swore he would have lost it completely.
    “Everything okay here?” She wasn’t really asking Chris, her words were directed at Whit.
    “One minute then,” Chris snapped irritably and then pulled off the apron, indicating Whit should follow him to the kitchen. He ignored Ame, couldn’t even look her in the eye, but thank God she didn’t push. He paused momentarily at the curious faces of the two girls on a break and thought on his feet, taking the stairs to his room.
    Whit followed and Chris deliberately shut the door on the outside so it was just them.
    To give him his due Whit didn’t flinch when Chris stopped right in front of him.
    “You have your minute.”
    “I… just… I have a lot to say… one minute isn’t enough time to—”
    “Fuck. You.” Chris inhaled noisily and then tried to settle his anger; he needed to be clearheaded to handle this. After that morning in the office, he had left with his future destroyed and his reputation shattered. Carefully he measured his next words.
    “In less than one minute the board at Sacred Heart judged me as a predator and finished me. So forgive me for matching that time.” Chris was giving no quarter and Whit blanched.
    “I didn’t have any choice. Believe me.”
     
     
    It was completely and absolutely the wrong thing for Whit to say. Rage spiraled so fast in Chris that