New Year at the Boss's Bidding

A tingle of alarm rushed over her as she realised she’d done the one thing she’d always avoided. She’d lost control of her emotions. But did she love him? No, she’d only wanted a fling, but hadn’t she already admitted to herself he’d taken a bit of her heart?

The questions continued to rush around her mind. She pretended to be busy folding the throws, desperate not to look at his icy-cold expression. Love didn’t happen that fast, she had merely been consumed by what she’d striven to avoid all her adult life. Passion—the emotion linked to pain and loneliness.

Her mother was proof that neither love nor passion could save a person from heartache. Why would anyone want something so destructive? Even as the thought entered her mind, she knew why. The intense passion of loving that she’d discovered last night was the reason and she shut those thoughts away. Her fling was over. Time to get back to reality.

She thought of the hours she and Xavier had spent making love. Her body could still feel every caress, every kiss and every hot spark of desire. But now despair filled her heart. It hadn’t helped her to move on, as she’d foolishly believed. It had only made things worse.

‘Let’s hope we can escape this place today.’ Xavier all but growled the words out. He was putting distance between them. She got the message loud and clear. Last night was well and truly over.

It’s for the best, she told herself as she walked to the window to see if escape, as he’d called it, was possible. One thing was for sure, she had no intention of hanging around for his rejection. He’d turned his girlfriend away, so pushing her away would be easy. She’d been rejected by Jason and she certainly wasn’t going to meekly wait for it to happen again. This time she would do the rejecting.

Feeling suffocated and hemmed in, she roughly pulled open the curtains, her agitation showing in every movement until she froze. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was still snowing. The possibility of leaving today didn’t look good. ‘No, it can’t be,’ she whispered, more to herself than to the man whose brooding presence filled the room.

Behind her she heard the flick of the light switch and turned to face him. ‘The power is still out.’ His eyes, cold and dark, met hers.

Could this get any worse? She’d just spent the night with the man who was effectively her boss, shared secrets they both probably would never have told, and now they were going to be forced to spend yet another day alone in the same house.

‘It’s still snowing.’ Her voice was barely above a whisper as she tried to take in what this all meant.

She turned to face him, wanting to prove to herself she was in control, that she wouldn’t dissolve into a distressed heap in front of him. Right now she didn’t care what he thought of her. All she cared about was dousing the passion once and for all. It couldn’t happen again.

‘So, we are completely cut off. Snowbound.’ His sharp tone caught her unawares and she couldn’t think what to do now, her mind in a panic.

‘I need to leave today. I have to go.’

She had to get to Vanessa’s, but, more importantly, she had to get away from Xavier.

* * *

Xavier marched to the window and looked out at the white landscape. Snow was plastered to the sides of trees and bushes as if someone had painted them with a brush. They could be stuck here for several days.

How were they going to move on from their conversation in the early hours of this morning? He’d opened up to her, believing they would be parting the next morning. He couldn’t spend the day with her after that revelation. What if they were stuck here? What would happen tonight?

He remembered every detail of last night as the blizzard had done its worst outside. Her total innocence and how he’d let her into his mind. But as dawn had broken, reality had begun to creep back stealthily.

‘We should have tried to go yesterday.’ She dragged her hands through her hair and instantly he recalled how his fingers had slid through its thickness last night.

Enough, he berated himself. It had been exactly that sort of emotion that had lowered his defences, allowed her to touch his heart. The heart he’d kept frozen for the last three years.

He looked at her face, at the horror of their situation reflected in her eyes. He knew she thought he was blaming her. But he wasn’t. He’d messed up enough lives with the accident and now he was messing up hers, opening up wounds he’d never known she’d nursed, wounds as big as those he was trying to heal.