ballroom. He had caterers and a band lined up, gifts to raffle. All he needed was a substitute Santa.
Moments later, the elevator bell chimed, and the doors slid open to reveal the elegant gray and white marble lobby. Green garlands trailed down either side of the black granite water feature. Red bows and mistletoe decorated the floor-to-ceiling marble columns. Piped-in music played Christmas carols.
And, sure enough, a red-suited St. Nick stood outside the flower shop. After a quick greeting, Clay cut to the bottom line. “I have a holiday party tonight and a sick Santa. How about a hundred dollars to fill in?”
He pulled the money from his wallet and watched the man’s eyes widen above his snowy beard. Looking far more greedy than jolly, the man protested, “I already got another gig lined up.”
Recognizing the negotiating tactic, Clay pulled a second bill from his wallet. “Does it pay two hundred dollars and include a meal catered by one of Chicago’s finest restaurants?”
Santa snatched the money from Clay’s hand.
Holly Bainbridge flipped the hanging sign to Closed, slipped out of the flower shop, and locked the door behind her. Six o’clock. She had a half an hour to get to the foster home. Pocketing the keys, she turned and was surprised to see Clay Forrester talking to the storefront Santa.
Working in the same building as Forrester Industries, even if it was thirty some floors below his skyscraping offices, Holly knew his company’s reputation as an avaricious giant, gobbling up small businesses. And she’d seen for herself how ruthless Clay Forrester could be. Months ago, she’d watched, unnoticed, as he stared down some poor old man whose company he had destroyed. Forrester hadn’t bothered to say a single word; his features—and his heart—could have been carved from the same stone that filled the lobby.
Holly had dealt with that kind of ruthlessness before, with the kind of hardball businessmen who cared more about turning a profit than turning foster children out of their home. Fury filled her, but Holly buried the useless emotion and the ache of tears that accompanied it.
She watched Forrester hand the Santa a piece of paper. Was he donating to charity? Perhaps the holiday spirit had the power to touch even the most cynical hearts. Forrester smiled, but the twitch of his lips reflected the look of a man who accepted victory as his due.
Holly waited until he strode away before approaching. “We’ll have to hurry to get there on time, Charlie,” she told the costumed Santa.
A bad feeling crept into her stomach the second he glanced toward Clay Forrester’s departing figure. “Uh, Miss Bainbridge, something’s come up. I’ve got another party to go to.”
She couldn’t believe it. “I have half a dozen kids waiting for Santa, and you’re going to disappoint them?”
“Sorry, Miss Bainbridge.”
Sorry. People always said they were sorry. But apologies didn’t make heartaches heal any faster or hurt any less. She had promised the foster kids at Hopewell House a Santa, and she was not going to disappoint them! Especially this year, when the group home would soon be closing its doors for good.
Determined, Holly marched toward the elevators where Clay Forrester stood waiting. A bell chimed, and the gilded mirrored doors slid open. The rapid tattoo of her boots striking the marble floors increased as she ran toward the elevator. She squeezed through the doors, with inches to spare.
He glanced at her with a touch of curiosity as the elevator rose. Holly had seen the handsome businessman before; a woman would have to be blind not to notice six feet of black-haired, blue-eyed perfection. But she’d never had the chance to study him up close. Never noticed the straight, serious eyebrows, the stubborn jaw, his sculpted, sensuous mouth…
“Mr. Forrester…” Flustered by the huskiness in her voice, Holly stopped speaking.
He looked again, charting a course from the top of her dark hair, to her sweater and jeans, to her ankle boots. By the time his lingering gaze made its way back to hers, curiosity had turned to interest, and somehow the elevator reached high enough altitude to steal the breath from Holly’s lungs.
“I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
It should have put her at an advantage, knowing who he was when he didn’t know her. Instead, Holly felt insignificant. “Holly Bainbridge. I work at the flower shop, and you stole my Santa.”
“Excuse me?”
She flushed. If only he weren’t so darn good-looking, maybe she could complete an intelligent sentence. “Charlie promised me he would make an appearance tonight.”
“He did mention another job, but—”
His words cut off as the elevator jerked to an abrupt halt. Holly gasped, losing her balance and falling against Clay. He caught her body with his as the elevator went dark. She couldn’t see a thing.
But she could feel. Oh, yes, she could feel. The imprint of each finger grasping her upper arms. The slight catch in his breath as her breasts grazed his chest, the quickening of his heartbeat. His rock-solid chest beneath her hands. And his belt buckle, hard and cold against her stomach, a sharp contrast to the rest of him, which was definitely hard and warm.
Awareness skittered along nerve endings, and her own heart beat double time, nearly drowning out the sound of their combined breathing.
“What happened?” she asked when she found her voice.
Holly felt the slight shaking of his chest a split second before laughter filled the small space. Jerking away, she demanded, “What’s so funny?”
“I’ve got the Three Stooges remodeling my office, and my guess is that Larry just blew a fuse.”
Adrift in the darkness, without his touch to anchor her, she reached back for the elevator wall. “The building’s lost power?”
“With the luck I’ve had recently,” he said wryly, “all Chicago’s probably lost power.”
A faint electronic hum punctuated his words, and after a tense moment hanging in space, the car resumed its ascent. Giving a sigh of relief, Holly closed her eyes and sank against the side of the car.
“Are you okay?”
Opening her eyes to find Clay standing inches away, Holly thought the elevator might have fallen after all. She certainly felt like she’d lost touch with solid ground, her heart hovering somewhere in her throat. She grasped hold of the handrail to keep from swaying closer. “I’m—I’m fine.”
He searched her expression as if looking for the truth, and Holly purposefully held his gaze instead of allowing her attention to slip to his lips, hovering above her own.
In a voice deeper than moments before, Clay said, “I’m sorry about the Santa thing.”
His words dimmed the rush of attraction as Holly imagined using that brush off with the disappointed children. Hey, kids, sorry about the Santa thing.
The casual crushing of hopes and dreams reminded her of her ex-boyfriend’s easy defection. Even after she’d trusted Mark enough to share the truth about her painful childhood, he’d let her down in the worst possible way. “Sorry, Holly,
