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A half-hour or so after the event started, the HR director poked her head in. “Okay, everyone. Santa needs to get back to the North Pole. He’s got a lot of work to do before next week. Everyone, say thank you.”
“Thank you, Santa,” the kids all said—not in unison.
Then we were alone. I waited for Santa to push himself to his feet and say he had to get back to work. Was I supposed to pretend I had no idea who he was? Yes, that was probably for the best, considering the way I was dressed. He wouldn’t know his own employees if he passed us on the street, and that was working in my favor today as my ass cheeks threatened to slip out from under this skirt.
“That went well,” he said.
I’d walked over to a pile of trash, trying to figure out how to swoop down and get it without either bearing cleavage or leg. I finally aimed for delicately kneeling—a huge fail. There was no way he didn’t get a big glimpse of my cleavage.
Even as I struggled to hold my thighs closely together, the skirt slipped up, revealing a good three inches of skin between the top of the tights and the bottom of this miniskirt.
“It did,” I said. “I can clean up here if you need to…you know.”
“No, I’ll help.” He pushed himself to his feet and yanked off both the wig and the beard. “Whew. I hope you don’t mind me getting out of this clown suit. I can’t let my employees see me like this.”
His employees. He didn’t realize I worked for him. That was a definite win.
“No, it’s fine,” I said. I looked down and frowned at the mounds of flesh that poked out from the top of my shirt. “I took someone else’s place at the last minute, so this costume isn’t exactly the right size.”
I stopped there, mortified by what I’d just revealed. Yes, some skinny Minnie had been designated to wear this getup, and I was no skinny Minnie. I had curves for days, and those curves did not mesh with the cute little outfits other women in their early twenties wore.
Those women were the ones guys like Blake Kincaid dated. Women who looked gorgeous in slinky dresses and bikinis. Not women who struggled to find anything that would get this cleavage under control.
“Looks great to me.”
His words blasted through the silence, pulling me out of my thoughts. I lifted my head and found him standing near the throne, coat open, revealing the button-down shirt he always wore to the office. Usually, it was paired with a suit jacket. I’d never seen him dressed casually, now that I thought about it—unless a Santa costume counted as casual attire.
“Did I say that out loud?” He winced, squeezing his eyes closed. Then he opened them again and shrugged. “Sorry. Long day. Let’s get this cleaned up.”
“I don’t normally dress like this,” I said as I took two fistfuls of wrapping paper to the trash can.
When I turned to walk back, he’d shrugged out of the coat and was working on the pants. God, I wished he wore nothing under that, but his usual dress pants came into view as the bright red monstrosity dropped to the ground.
He looked up at me again, a slight smile teasing the corners of his lips. “I assumed this wasn’t your everyday wear.”
This guy had the steeliest façade of anyone I’d ever seen, but he was giving me a peek behind the wall. There was a good reason for that. I was a scantily dressed elf who happened to be in the break room on the first floor of his office building. He had no idea I worked here. He probably thought someone had hired me.
Maybe I should work with that.
“I’m actually really shy,” I said. “I don’t even dress like this for Halloween.”
He had to move closer since I stood in the area where all the trash was. We both leaned down at the same time, reaching for a pile of wrapping paper. Our hands connected, his on top of mine. If I hadn’t known better, I would think he’d done that on purpose. He proved that was the case by running his thumb over my wrist instead of letting go.
“So, I’m one of the few people who’ve seen you like this,” he said.
I nodded. He probably thought that was part of this flirtation—if that’s what it could be called. He didn’t know how true those words were. No man had ever seen this much of my body. Even at the pool, I kept a cover-up on until I hopped in the water, and my modest one-piece left everything to the imagination.
“For your eyes only,” I said, not breaking my stare.
What was going on here? This was not like me at all. But the hottest man I’d ever seen was running his thumb over my wrist, and my body seemed to be doing its own thing.
“Do you get to keep the costume?” he asked.
The question threw me. Nobody had told me what to do with the costume.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I was going to change out of it.”
“Keep it,” he said. “I’ll pay for it…on one condition.”
