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“Please say you’re making pancakes.”
“Pancakes it is.”
Cam and I sit cross-legged on the bed, eating our pancakes in front of a roaring fire, and if anyone would have told me a week ago that this would be how I’d be spending Christmas, I’d have laughed in their face. Yet, today holds the promise of being one of the best Christmases of my life.
“What were your holidays like as a kid?” Cam asks me.
I swallow my last bite of food before I answer.
“Well, when my dad was alive, they were wonderful. Perfect. We had pictures taken on Santa’s lap, Christmas shopped at Macy’s, baked lots of cookies, and watched all the classic Christmas movies.
“We’d leave a plate of cookies out on Christmas Eve for Santa and a couple of extra cookies for his reindeer. Then in the morning we’d wake up and race to the living room to find our packages under the tree. Our parents didn’t have a lot of money, but my sister and I were happy with the presents Santa left us.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
Gathering our empty plates, he sets them aside, wraps an arm around me, and pulls me to him. I rest my head on his chest.
“After Dad died and Mom got sick, things changed. We did what we could but there wasn’t much extra money. Sometimes there wasn’t any money at all, so I learned to make things for my sister.”
He kisses the top of my head. “For your sister, but you often went without, didn’t you?”
I shrug. “It wasn’t a big deal. I enjoyed spending the day with my mom and sister, and I loved watching Ada get excited when she opened something I handmade. It’s true what they say—it’s often more fun to give than to receive.”
“Is that why you learned to crochet?” He’s stroking my hair and I love this closeness. I especially love his contrasts—the tenderness he displays at times and the rough way he makes love at other times.
Niggling at the back of my mind is the question of what happens when we leave here and go back out into the real world, but I don’t want to know the answer right now.
“I learned to crochet, cook, sew, all those things. My sewing skills came in handy because I was able to make or repair clothing. Sometimes we got stuff from the thrift store and I was able to snazz it up a little bit.”
“You’re amazing.”
I snort. “Right.”
“No, really. You are.”
“Well, I got picked on plenty. I wasn’t a cool kid with trendy clothes or anything like that, but I tried to give my sister what I didn’t have. I did my best, anyway.”
“You did your best? You were a child taking care of a child.”
The way he’s staring down at me melts my insides, and I squirm a little.
“How about you? What were your childhood Christmases like?”
He already told me his mom was an addict, so for some reason, I expect him to say he either spent Christmas at boarding school or with a nanny.
I’m shocked when he says, “When I was a kid, social services removed me from my mom’s care, and I mostly grew up in foster care and group homes until my grandfather found out about me when I was twelve.”
Foster care? Group homes? And then it clicks.
“Is that why you buy gifts for the children in the Childsplay Group Home?”
He grows still. “No one was supposed to know about that.”
So it’s true! I could scarcely believe it at the time, but after spending a little over twenty-four hours with hot, sexy, panty-melting Cameron—the man underneath Mr. Steele, the ruthless, cutthroat CEO of a multibillion-dollar conglomerate—I no longer find it unbelievable.
He smiles. “Like you said, it’s often more fun to give than to receive.”
“Yes, it is. Although, it’s fun to receive as well,” I say playfully.
