Totally Smitten (A Cozy AF Christmas 3)

I get lost in her rambling. I know that Tara is different than most women, but I thought she was happy here. I thought we were friends.

She’s sobbing again, and because I can’t take it anymore, I stand up and circle the desk, sitting on the edge of it and putting my hand on her shoulder. “First of all, you’re not here alone. I’m your friend, and if you’re sick or ever need something, you call me,” I tell her gruffly. I’ve never cared before about being soft or dealing with emotion, but right now, I wish I was better at it.

“Second of all, what exactly did you tell your parents about your boyfriend?”

“We’re friends?” she asks me with surprise.

I’ve obviously done too good hiding my feelings from her. She’s way too young for me and quite frankly not the type of girl that would normally draw my interest. But there’s something about her. I’ve started coming back to the office to make sure she gets to her car safely, I’ve even followed her home a few times when it was after dark. She’s brought out a protective instinct about me, and I sort of don’t know what to do with it. “Yes, we’re friends. I mean. I know I’m your boss, but I’d still call you my friend. So that means if you need something, you call me.” I wait for the words to sink in before I ask her again. “So what do your parents know about your boyfriend?”

“Nothing. I told them we’d been dating a few months, but I wanted to wait to tell them all about him until after they’d met him.” She shrugs her shoulders. “It bought me time since I wasn’t sure who the dating agency would find for me.”

She pulls out her phone and opens her internet app. “Maybe there’s another dating service I can call.”

I barely stop myself from ripping the phone from her hands. Calmly, I take the phone from her and set it upside down on the desk. “I’ll do it,” I tell her.

She recoils from me like I’m a poisonous snake. “Holy mackerel. What?” she asks.

I can’t help but smirk at her reaction. In the beginning, I always thought she was joking when she would throw out old fashioned slang. I thought she was trying to be funny. But I’ve discovered that’s just the way she is. She doesn’t cuss. And she always says off the wall things, but I’ve come to love that about her. However, her reaction tells me everything I need to know about how she feels about me. I thought for sure I had sensed she was interested in me too. Maybe I was way off. She’s just not into you, Baker. Damn! “I’ll go with you. I don’t like the idea of you taking some stranger.”

She jumps up from her seat and starts pacing the room. “You can’t go with me. You’re my boss. I could never ask you to do this.”

Still leaning on her desk, I cross my arms and legs calmly. “You’re not asking me. I’m going. Plus, you know me, it’s not like I had plans for Christmas.”

“You hate Christmas!” she explodes.

“I don’t hate Christmas. I just never celebrated it growing up, that’s all,” I tell her. Tara doesn’t know a lot about my childhood. I don’t really talk about it.

She just stands there and stares at me, still looking at me as if I have two heads or something. “What? If you don’t think I’m the type of guy you want – I mean as your fake boyfriend—then I understand.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not that. No one is going to believe you”—she waves her hand toward me—“are going to be interested in me.” And then points at herself.

I could tell her that she’s lovely and has the biggest heart of anyone I know. That to me, she’s beautiful, and I’d be lucky to have her on my arm. But I don’t say any of that. I stand up to my full height, grab her by the shoulders, and look down in her open-mouthed, surprised face. “So when do we leave?”2TaraThere’s no way I can take my boss home with me. Baker doesn’t have a clue that I’ve been pining over him since the first day I met him when I came in for an interview. He’s the only reason I stayed here in the first place. I was about to give up and leave when I interviewed for this job, and afterwards, I knew I’d stay if he offered it to me. I still am not sure exactly why he hired me. I stammered and stumbled through the whole interview.

I have a business degree, and I’m very good at being organized and figuring things out. But I had no experience. None. This is my first job since I graduated college, and I’m really surprised he hired me. The only thing I figured at the time was he was desperate. But I didn’t care. I’ve made it my mission to be the absolute best assistant I could be. I knew nothing about construction, building plans, building licenses, nothing. But I’ve worked hard to learn. Now I can truly say I’ve been an asset to Baker and his Miller Construction company.