Free SNOWED IN WITH THE BILLIONAIRE by Caroline Anderson

gates because the snow had had somewhere to go.
    Straight across the entrance, through the bars of the gates and right up the drive.
    There was at least a foot everywhere, but it wasn’t smooth and level. It was sculpted, like sand in the Sahara, swirls and peaks and troughs in shades of brilliant white and cold bluey-purple in the light of dawn.
    Beautiful, fascinating—and deadly. If he hadn’t been here they could have been trapped inside the car, buried alive in the snow, slowly and gradually suffocating in the freezing temperatures—
    He shut off that line of thought and concentrated on the here and now. It wasn’t good.
    In a freewheeling part of his brain that he hadn’t even consulted he realised Georgie wouldn’t even be able to get away if they landed a helicopter in the field opposite, despite the fact that it was virtually bare of snow now, because the snow in the lane was so deep they’d never cross it. Not that he’d really contemplated hiring a helicopter on Christmas Eve to take her and Josh away and bring his family back, but even if he had...
    And the snow wasn’t going anywhere soon. Although the wind had finally died away, it was cold. Bitterly, desperately cold, the change from the previous few days sudden and shocking, and he shrugged down inside his coat with a humourless laugh.
    He hadn’t needed a cold shower. He should have just come out here. Naked. That might have done the trick. The shower certainly hadn’t.
    He gave the lane one last disparaging look and waded back to the house, walking in to the smell of toast and the sound of laughter, and for a moment he felt his heart lift.
    Crazy. Stupid. She left you.
    But even so, he’d still have her there for another twenty-four hours at least. More, probably, and nobody was going to worry about this tiny little lane given that it was as bad elsewhere in the county as it was here. He’d already known it, he’d seen it on the news, and only wild optimism had sent him down the drive to check...
    He swept the snow which had fallen in through the doorway back out into the courtyard, shut the door, stamped the snow off his boots and put them on the rack, hung up his coat and went back into the kitchen.
    She’d made a pot of tea and was sitting at the table with Josh and a pile of hot buttered toast, playing peeka-bo behind a slice of toast. Josh, his face smeared with butter and crumbs, was giggling deliciously and Sebastian felt his heart squeeze.
    ‘Smells good,’ he said, rubbing his hands together to warm them, and Georgie looked up and searched his face.
    ‘And the answer is?’ she asked, the laughter fading in her eyes, and he shook his head.
    ‘We’re going nowhere. The lane’s full to head height.’
    ‘Head height?’ she gasped, and her eyes looked shocked. As if she was imagining being out there with Josh, trapped in the car, seeing what he’d seen in his mind’s eye?
    ‘Hey, it’s all right, I was here,’ he said softly, reading her mind, and she looked up at him again and their eyes locked.
    ‘But what if...?’
    ‘No what ifs. Don’t go there, George.’ He certainly wasn’t going there again. Once was enough. He took a mug out of the cupboard. ‘Any more tea in the pot?’
    ‘Mmm. And I made you more toast. I wasn’t sure if you’d want it but I made it anyway because we interrupted your breakfast.’
    He dropped into the chair opposite her and reached for a slice. ‘That’s fine, I could do with more,’ he said, and sank his teeth into it, suddenly hungry.
    Hungry for all sorts of things.
    Her warmth. Her laughter.
    Her little boy, so like her, so mischievous and delightful, a part of her. What did that feel like? To have someone to love, someone who was part of you?
    He looked quickly away and turned on the television to give himself something to do.
    So much for his defences. They were in tatters, strewn around him like an old timber barn after a hurricane, and she and her child had walked straight