Christmas in the Boss's Castle

He had no idea what size or length they were. Somehow he thought his eyes might be similar to Grace’s—all the gloves looked virtually identical. But they didn’t feel identical.

She slid her hands into the pair he handed her and smiled. ‘They’re beautiful...’ She gave them a little tug. ‘But they seem a little big.’

In an instant the personal shopper handed her an alternative pair. Grace swapped them over and stretched her hands out. ‘Yes, they feel better.’

‘Perfect. Add this to our bill, please,’ he said. ‘We’re going to the Christmas department.’

‘But...I haven’t decided yet.’ Grace had her hand on the collar of the coat.

Finlay shrugged. ‘But I have—the coat is perfect. The colour is perfect. The fit is perfect and the length is perfect. What else is there to say?’

He started to walk away but Grace wasn’t finished.

‘But maybe I’m not sure.’ Her voice started to get louder as he kept walking, ‘What if I wanted a red coat? Or a blue one? Or a black one? What if I don’t even like coats?’

People near them were starting to stare. Finlay spun around again and strode back over to her, catching her by the shoulders and spinning her back around to face the mirror.

‘Grace. This is you. This is your coat. No one else could possibly wear it.’ He held his hands up as he looked over her shoulder.

Her dark brown eyes fixed on his. For a second he was lost. Lost staring at those chocolate eyes, in the face framed with chestnut tresses, on the girl dressed in the perfect rose-coloured coat.

There was a tilt to her chin of defiance. Was she going to continue to fight with him?

Her tongue slid along her lips as her eyes disconnected with his and stared at her reflection. ‘No one has ever done something like this for me,’ she whispered at a level only he could hear. She pulled her hand from the leather glove and wound one of her tresses of hair around her finger as she kept staring at her reflection.

‘Just say yes,’ he whispered back.

She blinked, before lowering her gaze and unwinding her finger from her hair. She pulled off the other glove and undid the buttons on the coat, slipping it from her shoulders.

She handed it to the personal shopper. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply, then straightened her bag and looked in the other direction. ‘Right,’ she said smartly, ‘let’s hit the Christmas department. We have work to do.’

She wasn’t joking. The Christmas department was the busiest place in the entire store.

And Grace Ellis knew how to shop.

She left the personal shopper in her wake as she ping-ponged around the department, side-stepping tourists, pensioners, kids and hesitant shoppers.

He frowned as he realised she was picking only one colour of items. ‘Really?’ He was trying to picture how this would all come together.

She laid a hand on his arm as she rushed past. ‘Trust me, it will be great.’ Then she winked and blew into her fingers, ‘It will be magical.’

She was sort of like a fairy from a Christmas movie.

He was left holding three baskets and feeling quite numb as she filled them until the contents towered. Lights. Christmas bulbs. Some weird variation of tinsel. A few other decorations and the biggest haul of snow globes. He hadn’t seen one since he was a child.

‘Really?’ he asked again.

She picked up a medium-sized one and gave it a shake, letting the snow gently fall around the Santa’s sleigh above a village. ‘Everyone loves a snow globe...it’s part of our theme.’

Our theme. She was talking about the hotel. Of course she was talking about the hotel. But the way her eyes connected with his as she said the words sent involuntary tremors down his spine. It didn’t feel as if she were talking about the hotel.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Maybe he should have started much smaller. Grace’s enthusiasm for Christmas had only magnified as the hours increased. Was he really ready for such a full-on Christmas rush?

She tugged at his sleeve. ‘Finlay, I need you.’

‘What?’ He winced. He didn’t mean for the response to be so out of sorts. The truth was, he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing here, or how he felt about all this.

Five years ago he’d still been numb. Five years ago he’d spent September and October sitting by his wife’s bedside. The year before that he’d been frantically searching the world over for any new potential treatment. On a bitter cold November day, he’d buried her.

Anna had been so much better than him at all of this. She’d been devastated by the news. Devastated by the fact no treatment had worked. But she’d been determined to end life in the way she’d wanted to. And that was at home, with her husband.