Page 24 of Dumped for a Christmas Tree Farmer

I sit up, pulling my bra and top back into place. He watches me as I do, no sign of disappointment, annoyance, or any other kind of emotion. He’s passive, calm. Like having sex or not having sex didn’t bother him at all. Considering I was just about to beg him to take me right there and then, the fact that he’s nonplussed is slightly shattering. And yet, I have a trusty vibrator, so I guess that will have to do the trick tonight.

“I’ll ask the B&B owner if there is space for you.” He quirks an eyebrow at me, and I mouth: When?

“When will you arrive?”

He pauses, his hand rubbing over the bulge in his pants. I can’t help but watch him, his eyes darkening again, and I wonder who is on the phone.

“Tomorrow. Sure. We’ll sort something out.”

He hangs up without checking with me first. But something tells me that Maverick Stone usually gets his way, one way or another.

“Friend of yours?” I ask, lifting myself off the table and slipping past him to grab the cat.

“Something like that.” His voice is low, deep, and he delicately wraps his fingers around my hair, pulling it to his nose and inhaling, his eyes closing for a fraction of a second.

I step toward the hallway, my hair slipping out of his reach.

If he can’t ignore a damn phone call whilst his hand is cupping my tits, then he doesn’t deserve to see the inside of my bedroom. I’ve had it with men thinking they can give the bare minimum and expect everything in return.

His brow pinches together, the muscle in his jaw clenching like he’s biting back a request to pick up where we left off.

“Goodnight, Mav.”

“Goodnight, Indy.”

He doesn’t move, but I can feel his eyes track me down the hallway until I slip into my bedroom. I jump on the bed, pulling out my vibrator from the bedside table. Switching it to its highest setting, I let him hear me make myself come.

Chapter Ten

December 27

Mav

It’s freezing, and Charlie Byrne is standing in his usual corporate lawyer suit. The man doesn’t shiver, doesn’t even look as if he’s noticed the snow fluttering past his nose. He’s simply staring at the back of the building I’m purchasing. The current owner is late. But given that it’s two days after Christmas and we’d sprung this meeting on her last minute, I’d say we deserve to stand out in the cold for a few minutes.

I rub my hands together, blowing my breath into my palms. Thinking warm thoughts keeps giving me a boner as I imagine Indy laid out on a fur blanket, laced up in lingerie by a fireplace, so I keep my thoughts to cold showers and overgrown toenails to keep the blood from rushing south to my pants.

“Sorry I’m late.” The soft feminine lilt of the current owner bounces across the snowflakes along with the jingle of her keys.

“It’s about ti—” Charlie stops as he looks down at the woman. She’s shorter, only coming up to Charlie’s shoulder. The end of her nose is pink, most likely from the chill, but her lips part the second she meets the eyes of the beast of a man who happens to be my lawyer.

Anytime now they’ll stop drooling over each other, and we’ll get out of the cold.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Charlie so stricken. He shifts from toe to toe, straightening his tie, his hand lifting to smooth back his hair. I would laugh if my teeth weren’t clenched together to stop the chattering.

Any . . . time . . . now . . .

“Can we do the ogling inside?” I ask.

The woman snaps out of it as she jingles her keys again, slipping them into the lock and opening the large metal door. It’s not exactly picturesque, and it’s barely warmer than outside, but there’s no wind, and no snow falling onto my nose, so it’s an improvement.

I take in the space that Holly is looking to rent. It’s an industrial kitchen, suitable for a bakery, considering someone had a shop here for decades before they moved to be closer to their grandchildren. Someone could move back in and set up a business quickly, regaining the customers of the previous owner. It won’t be hard, but I know for a fact it won’t be Holly.

There are plans in the works for this place and for her, not that she knows yet. Once I have my signatures signed and the keys the woman is swirling around her finger as she looks anywhere except Charlie’s penetrating gaze, I’ll be enacting stage two of Christmas Revenge. Because I can’t risk someone else renting her the space. I need to ruin her plan to stay here. No bakery means no business, and no business means nothing except an old boyfriend to keep her here.

I observe the room, the scent of sugar and cinnamon embedded in the walls after years of baking. It’s sweet, homely, with remnants of the previous owner littered from the height measurements on the wall, drawings of stick-figured families still taped to the window, and the open-and-closed sign on the door which has permanently been set to close.

“So the minimum lease we do is twelve months, is that okay with you, Mister . . .”