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She cut the thought off, but not before her mouth went dry and her body began to tingle again with an awareness she desperately didn’t want to feel—for a million reasons. First and foremost, he was a client! Before she even put her own thoughts on heartbreak and the untrustworthiness of men into the mix. Then again, her fantasies were all centered on his body, nothing more. Would it be the worst thing in the world to give in to…

Again, she cut the thought off.

“It looks like it now,” she agreed. “But by the end of the week, your house will have absorbed all of this and the boxes will be gone.”

He angled his face down to hers and her heart thudded. His eyes were probing hers, as though he could read something, understand something she usually kept hidden. She swallowed, blinked away.

“How did you get into this?”

It was a question she’d been asked a hundred times, at least. After all, this was not the sort of job people thought about as a possibility when they were at school. She moved to one of the boxes though, drawing a pocketknife from her jeans and flicking the blade open. She answered as she sliced along the top of a box that was labeled ‘garlands’.

“I studied interior design at university.” She moved to the next box, sliced it open. “One of my first clients was bemoaning her lack of skills when it came to Christmas decorating, and I’ve…always loved Christmas,” she admitted, cheeks flushing at the pronouncement she didn’t usually feel embarrassed by. “I offered to help but let’s just say, her idea of ‘help’ differed to yours.” She smiled at the memory. “She gave me an eye-watering budget, though, and that was it. I decorated her whole house—it took me forever, because back then I didn’t have my systems in place. I was starting from scratch. But God, I loved it.”

“And that led to a business?”

“Not immediately. Caroline—my client—was a huge entertainer. She loved hosting parties. Turns out, at her first party after I’d decked the halls, so to speak, she had a slew of my cards to hand out.” Chloe glanced over at him. “She was very generous to promote me like that.”

“Presumably she wanted to reward your hard work and talent.”

Chloe lifted her shoulders. “Yeah, I think she got a kick out of having ‘discovered’ me. I picked up a few more bookings that year, but it was around March that my phone started to ring off the hook. Client after client after client—more than I could possibly fit in. Still, I kept it small the first year, taking on what I could manage—but barely! I don’t think I slept for three months. After that, I was up and running. I met with a business manager to get advice on how to structure things, got a great accountant to deal with all the stuff I couldn’t be bothered with, and now I’m here.”

“Impressive.”

“I mean, it’s not some billion-dollar tech company or whatever.”

“Being born into money makes opportunity easier to come by.”

It was a strangely humble statement from a man who’d built so much from his admittedly privileged start to life.

She was about to point that out when her helpers arrived, carrying the last of the boxes—an enormous timber-framed one that weighed a heap.

“Where d’you want this, Chloe?”

“Ah! That goes in here,” she said, offering a smile at Dimitrios by way of farewell. “You. Get back to whatever it is you do. I’ve got this.”

His eyes lingered though, holding hers as though he wanted to argue, and there was a part of her that desperately wanted him to as well. But he nodded instead, and a moment later, disappeared down the long, wide corridor, so she was left with only a lingering hint of his fragrance.

It had been a long time since Chloe had been tasked with doing the actual decorating, and she realized how much she missed it. While it was a lot of fun to run her business and go to trade fairs around the world, sourcing and theming all new looks for clients who wanted to constantly outdo one another, this was what really made her heart sing.

At the end of a long day, she stood back to admire her work, heart bursting with pride. Her eyes skimmed the enormous Christmas tree—a living pine that her workers had planted in a huge terracotta pot, which Chloe had then tied an enormous golden ribbon around. She’d chosen the ornaments out of necessity—raiding the warehouse for what was left after all her other clients had been serviced had left a selection of gold, red, or white. She’d gone with gold and white, as many as possible, and only a few accents of red to really pop. Holly berries, for example, peeked out of the boughs of the tree, between dainty gold and white stars. The delicate lights she’d spent the better part of three hours weaving through the branches were a string that glowed with a soft gold when lit.

She was so captivated by the beauty of the tree that she didn’t realise she was no longer alone until Dimitrios spoke.

“That’s incredible.”

She turned to face him, unspeakably gratified by his words, and the look on his face of bemusement.

“What do you usually do for Christmas?”

He stuffed a hand in the pocket of his jeans and even that gesture somehow spoke of masculine authority and control. She turned her gaze back to the Christmas tree, but all her attention was still somehow focused on the man standing a few feet away.

“Not this.”

“You don’t decorate?”

“No.”

“So what do you do?”