looked sharply across the room at Max. She had thought the loss of her mother six months ago was bad enough, but his parents had both died at Christmas sixteen years ago? At the same time? Which surely must mean that their deaths couldn’t have been due to illness or natural causes?
Which also explained why Max had said he hadn’t smelt gingerbread baking ‘in a long time’? And the reason he had looked so grim when he’d arrived home earlier and smelt it in his apartment.
Could his parents’ deaths also be the reason that Max usually chose not to celebrate Christmas?
It would certainly explain his aversion to anything to do with the festive season.
As it explained why he chose to go skiing every year rather than join in any of the Christmas festivities.
And why he didn’t possess so much as a single Christmas decoration, let alone a tree.
And the fact that he’d had to ask Sally to have ‘Christmas delivered’ to his apartment.
Perhaps Max wasn’t such a bah humbug, after all, and it was more the case of the festive season holding such sad memories for him that he preferred to avoid everything to do with it?
Sophie felt slightly guilty now for judging him without knowing all the facts. If he had just explained—
But of course Max wouldn’t explain himself to her. Why should he? She had been employed by him, and was being paid by him, to ‘deliver Christmas’ to his apartment, and then only because of the expected arrival of his sister and niece. Of course Max wouldn’t feel a need to explain himself to someone whom he considered merely an employee.
Although quite where their earlier intimacies now put them in regard to maintaining that distance, Sophie had no idea!
She glanced across at Max from beneath lowered lashes, her heart giving a leap in her chest as she recalled the feel of his lips against hers, along the column of her throat and across the bared tops of her breasts. Breasts he had also cupped and held, caressed. Her nipples tingled now, tightening inside her red satin and lace bra, just thinking of the intimacy of those caresses.
She had also told him she was wearing a matching red satin thong, for goodness’ sake.
Her cheeks flushed just thinking about that part of their conversation …
In the circumstances, it really was just as well that she had persuaded Sally into not revealing that Sophie was her cousin!
Max gave her a hard and mocking grin, as if he were fully aware of some of her thoughts before he turned his attention back to his sister. ‘Perhaps we should just make the introductions, Janice?’
‘Oh. Of course.’ His sister dragged her gaze away from the gingerbread to turn and look at Sophie with curious eyes. ‘I’m Janice Hilton, Max’s sister.’ She smiled warmly at Sophie. ‘And that’s my daughter, Amy, in Max’s arms. And this—’ she turned to smile at the tall, blond-haired man who had just entered the kitchen and moved to stand beside her before draping his arm about her shoulders ‘—is my husband, Tom.’
‘I think Sophie has already guessed that much,’ Max drawled ruefully.
‘Sophie?’ Janice echoed lightly, Max knowing by the sharpness of the curiosity in his sister’s avid green gaze that she was more than a little interested in knowing who—or what—Sophie was to him.
Which was a question Max would also like an answer to.
Until tonight he would have said that Sophie was a temporary—intrusive!—and paid addition to his household. An irritating necessity if he was going to give Janice and Amy a family Christmas with all the trimmings.
Until tonight?
Be honest with yourself, at least, Hamilton, he inwardly berated himself; he had found Sophie intriguing from the beginning. Had found her conversation amusing as well as interesting. And although she bore absolutely no resemblance to those model-beautiful women he usually dated, Sophie undoubtedly had her own attractions.
Her eyes were such a deep and dark brown a man could drown in them, for one.
Those freckles across her nose and cheeks were a temptation to kiss them, for another.
Her lips were full and pouting, and extremely kissable.
As for the creaminess of her breasts …!
Max hadn’t been able to resist kissing them either. Or touching them. As for caressing them? Sophie’s breasts were extremely responsive, the nipples plump and full. As delicious and succulent, in fact, as two ripe berries, and Max had wanted to gorge himself on them.
The fact that Sophie’s lips were red and slightly puffy from the heat of their kisses, with a slight redness on her chin and down her neck, thanks to the five o’clock shadow on his own jaw, was evidence of how close he had come to doing exactly that.
Lord knew how far things would have gone between the two of them if Janice and family hadn’t arrived so unexpectedly.
Which raised the question—what was Tom doing here with his wife and daughter?
Not that Max wasn’t pleased to see his brother-in-law, or that Janice and Tom were so obviously back together, because he couldn’t have been happier on both those counts. He had always liked Tom, and it had to be better for all of them, but especially for Amy, if Janice and Tom had resolved their differences. Max just wished he had known about the reconciliation before the three of them had actually arrived.
Not that it made a lot of difference in the grand scheme of things, because Janice had already informed him out in the hallway that the three of them would now be spending Christmas with him rather than just two, and that they’d arrived a day early so that they could surprise him.
Any explanations about the reconciliation, if Janice and Tom cared to give any, could be made after Amy was safely in bed. And, if not, then Max considered it was none of his business.
‘Sophie Carter,’ Max answered his sister briskly now. ‘Employed by me, to answer my “organising Christmas for you” prayer,’ he added drily.
‘Oh.’
Max chuckled ruefully. ‘Try to look a little less disappointed by that explanation, sis,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘You’re embarrassing Sophie.’
Sophie was beyond mere embarrassment right now. Way beyond, after the intimacies she and Max had indulged in before the arrival of his sister and her family.
Max had also, in just a few brief words to his sister, placed Sophie firmly in the role of employee.
‘It’s time I cleared up in here and left you all to enjoy the rest of the evening together,’ she announced briskly as she moved round the table to start putting the now cooled gingerbread into a storage box ready for decorating tomorrow morning. ‘Unless you would like me to prepare something for dinner before I go?’ she offered with a politely enquiring glance in Max’s direction, letting him know that she had no delusions about what had happened between them earlier and could be just as coolly businesslike as him.
And, with the arrival of his sister and
