CHAPTER FIVE
AARON
I looked across the table at this woman that I didn’t know enough to say hello to in an elevator a couple of weeks ago but now suddenly found myself completely enchanted with. She was like no other woman I’d ever met. She kept bringing up Christmas which both frustrated the hell out of me and intrigued me. It frustrated me because I’d given it up so long ago and never looked back. She was trying to get me to question that. Of course she didn’t know why I’d given it up, but I had a feeling this woman would say that I had handled it wrong. If anyone else told me that I’d tell them to go to hell, but somehow as I looked into Robyn’s pretty blue eyes I knew I would never tell her that. I got the impression she wasn’t just being nosy when she asked why I didn’t like Christmas… she truly loved it that much and couldn’t fathom why anyone else would not.
The thing I liked most about her, beyond her beauty… was the fact that she was blindsided by her boss; the CEO of the company she worked for was her date and she didn’t seem the slightest bit intimidated. She hadn’t tried to kiss up to me or cowl down to me, she’d treated me like any other human being and that, I appreciated tremendously.
“So what about eggnog?” she asked. She wouldn’t let up on the Christmas kick. She was trying to insist that there was something I liked about Christmas, no matter how much I insisted there wasn’t.
“I don’t care for it,” I said.
“Peppermint candy canes?”
“I’ve never had one.”
“The smell of pine?”
“My housekeeper uses pine-sol.” She wrinkled her nose and made a face at me when I said that. It made me laugh, in spite of myself.
“Think of it this way Robyn, you’ve read Dr. Seuss, right?”
She seemed amused that I would be considering quoting Dr. Seuss but she said, “Of course, everyone has.”
“Christmas is like green eggs and ham to me. I don’t like it here nor there, I don’t like it anywhere.”
She laughed and said, “I’d be willing to bet that’s the oddest analogy a brilliant CEO has ever come up with for anything.”
“You’d be surprised,” I told her. “Besides, I’ve been more lucky than brilliant I’m afraid.”
“I doubt that,” she said. “Winters Inc. is a conglomerate because you made it that way. It takes a lot more than luck to do that. Maybe you got lucky in the family department and one of them was willing to finance the start-up, but I suspect you took it from there.”
“I got a small inheritance when I was twenty-one. That’s what I used as my start up capitol.”
“And eight years later your company is a household name. What about when you were a boy, didn’t you believe in Santa Claus and all that?”
“Of course I did,” I replied.
“So, what happened?”
“I realized he was a fraud, like everyone else did.” The sentence came out more bitterly than I’d intended, and I could see from Robyn’s expression that she wanted to know more. Thankfully, she refrained, and for a moment I thought I could see a trace of pity… or was it sadness in her eyes.
“Are you ready to go or would you like more coffee?” She made a face at me again. I knew she wanted me to open up more, but it was a subject I didn’t care to talk about with anyone.
“I’m ready,” she said.
We picked up our coats on our way out and I walked her to the limousine.
“I’ve got it, Jeffrey,” I told him. He got in behind the wheel and closed his door. I looked at Robyn in the moonlight and I was overcome with an urge to kiss her. I didn’t know what it was about this woman, but she’d definitely gotten under my skin. From the day I’d seen her getting on the elevator I had been thinking about her. I asked Max and he told me who she was and then I’d seen her name on the auction list. We’d been doing the auction for five years and I’d never bid before. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing a CEO should do. That night I went there on impulse, and even more impulsively I began to bid. I felt like I had to have her, if only for a day.
Once I had her, I hadn’t known what to do with her. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a fantasy list, but that would never do on a first date and with an employee to boot. I had made the false assumption that she’d be intimidated by me, so I set up the whole costume and delivering presents first to get a feel of what kind of person she was. Jeffrey had checked in with me periodically and had nothing but glowing reviews. They had bonded right away and here I was a little afraid that now after our dinner conversation, that she would think of me as a Scrooge and not want to see me again. It was a new experience for me that someone liked my chauffeur better than they liked me.
“I had fun, Aaron. It was a great day all the way around. Thank you for everything,” she said.
“I had a good time too, thank you, Robyn.”
I didn’t kiss her; it was too soon no matter how badly I wanted to. I watched her get into the car and I closed the door behind her. Suddenly her window came down and she said, “Aaron?”
“Yes?”
“I was thinking. It’s such a shame that you haven’t done anything festive in years. There’s a lot more to the Christmas season than presents and parties you know. You just need to explore it a little further. I was wondering if you might do me a favor.”
I was very interested to find out what kind of favor she might want from me. I didn’t want to commit to anything without hearing what it was however.
“What kind of favor do you need?”
“I’d really like to help you enjoy the season this year, if you’ll just give me a chance. Maybe I could have you for a day, the way you did me today?”
I was tempted to laugh. Instead of angering me like it would if someone else harassed me about Christmas, she amused me. I decided that one day couldn’t hurt anything. I didn’t have to enjoy it after all. I doubted that I’d enjoy any of it except for spending the day with this beautiful creature that I didn’t understand at all, but couldn’t get enough of. That was the bottom line here. I wanted to see her again.
“How about next Saturday?” I asked her. She looked surprised that I accepted.
“You’re on. You are going to so love Christmas when I’m done with you,” she said with a smile.
I chuckled and said, “Don’t get your hopes up Robyn. Good night.”
“Good night Aaron,” she said, “Thank you.” I watched the limousine until it was out of sight. I missed her already.