Page 40 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
Christmas Eve Ultimatum
Jackie Ashenden
To Bruce, Allan and Dani. Yippee-ki-yay, mfs!
CHAPTER ONE
Ulysses
I knew themoment I saw her that I had to have her.
I’d heard about her through the business grapevine—the ice queen with a facility for numbers, and since I employ no one but the best at Vulcan Energy, the multinational energy conglomerate I own, I wanted to see her for myself. Naturally, with an eye to headhunting her.
She was the CFO of a small but up-and-coming solar energy company, Tanaka Solar—something else I’d had my eye on—so I organised a meeting with their executives.
She was dressed in a pale suit and sat at the meeting table like a queen, white-blonde hair wrapped in a braid around her head like silver rope, her eyes as blue and dark as the north sea.
Katla Sigurdsdottir: Katla, like the Icelandic volcano. Covered in ice with fire at its heart.
Our eyes met and I felt the impact. It had been a long time since I’d experienced such an intense rush of desire for a woman, so I didn’t bother to hide my interest from her—I’m always clear about what I want—and she’d flushed, all pretty and pink. Yet her chin came up, she held my gaze and the rest of the world disappeared. A heartbeat passed, and then another. Normally that’s when people look away from me, because they find me…intimidating. But she didn’t look away. And I could see it then, glowing in her blue eyes—the fire beneath all that ice.
And I knew. Despite her frozen exterior, she would blaze for me.
I’m not a man shy about what he wants, especially when it concerns physical desire, so I wasted no time letting her know that I wanted her. I expected some confusion, some cursory resistance perhaps, the way some women liked to play, and I’m not averse to it. But I didn’t expect her to refuse me—not once, not twice, but six times.
I do not take kindly to the word no, but if I’d thought she’d meant it I would have backed off. She didn’t mean it, though. So now I’m here, at Tanaka Plaza, the building she works in, ready to deliver her an ultimatum. Because I always get what I want in the end. Many would say that Christmas Eve is not the time for such a declaration, and certainly I have other, better things to do. However, I’m an impatient man and I’ve waited long enough.
Katla Sigurdsdottir has refused me six times but there will not be a seventh. She will accept me tonight, on Christmas Eve, because if she does not I will take the company she works for, that I’ve heard she’s so loyal to, and make that mine instead.
You can see why they call me dangerous.
Tonight, I’ve flown into LA from my office in Munich to deliver my ultimatum personally—it would be crass to deliver it via email—even though LA is a city I have never cared for. However, I appreciate its raw energy and the greed of the people who live here. They’re hungry for more money, more power, a better life…and that I definitely relate to. What has my life been, after all, but the relentless pursuit of all those things?
I’m certainly powerful now so, as I walk into Tanaka Plaza, my bodyguards flanking me, the man at the desk on the ground floor presents no obstacle. Xander, head of my security, explains to him the nature of my business and, proving he knows what’s good for him, the doorman doesn’t protest. He quickly ushers us to the lift that will take us to the top floor.
Five minutes later the sound of music and loud voices greets us as the lift doors open, and when we approach the empty reception desk we can see a party going on through the glass doors that separate the waiting room from the offices. People are wearing reindeer antlers and glowing red noses, and there is tinsel around more than a couple of necks. Everyone is talking and laughing, and some are singing.
A staff Christmas party. How quaint.
I ignore the party, searching the crowd for the woman I’ve come for, and eventually I spot her, standing near the tall, fake Christmas tree in one corner. She is wearing reindeer antlers too, and some kind of unattractive Christmas-themed sweater, but neither of those things detracts from her beauty.
She’s just as lovely now as she was in that meeting room. With all her pale hair, pale skin and those North Sea eyes, she reminds me of an iceberg—cold, frozen, yet, when the sun touches her, she glows. At least, she glowed when I looked at her across the boardroom table that day. That’s when I knew she was mine.
She’s talking to someone I don’t care about, the way I don’t care about any of the people in that room. They don’t matter. Only she does. I’m a dragon and she’s the unique gold coin I want to add to my hoard.
Olympia, my younger sister and the only thing I care about it in the entire world, would have something to say about my behaviour—she does not care for my ruthlessness and so I try to restrain myself for her. But Olympia isn’t here and this doesn’t concern her.
I glance at my bodyguards to let them know that it’s time, then I stride past the empty reception desk, through the glass doors and into the gathered party.
At first people are too busy having fun to notice me. But then double-takes start to happen and they’re turning around to look, the dark clothes I’m wearing with the black overcoat over the top cutting through all this brightness like a shadow knifes through a bean of sunlight.
I’m not above a little showmanship.
The din of human noise quietens and I leave a trail of silence rippling out behind me as I head straight for her. She is the last to notice, talking to the man standing with her, and only when he glances at me and stops speaking does she turn.
Her dark-blue eyes widen and alarm flares in them before it vanishes under a layer of ice. She glances at my entourage then looks back at me, and her chin lifts, hauteur in every line of her tall, slender figure.
‘Mr Zakynthos,’ she says, her voice clear as a bell with no trace of her native Iceland in the words. ‘I didn’t realise you’d been invited to our Christmas party. How nice of you to join us. But I’m afraid we’re not allowing guests, so the rest of your group will have to leave.’
