Page 416 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
Chadwick’s mouth fell open. “There’s nothing sexy about Santa Claus.”
Alastair stood and clapped his son on the shoulder. “Not everything is about your reputation amongst the ladies of New York, my boy.”
“You want me to attend all these events and run the company for the month?” Chadwick asked.
Alastair nodded. “You’ll have Hugh. Oh, and I almost forgot.” He turned back to the rest of us. “Settle down, folks. Settle down. Chadwick needs a Christmas companion to see him through the month. Someone who can attend all the events with him and blend in when he’s dressed as Santa Claus. Someone who might make a good Christmas elf, perhaps?”
Oh no.
I shimmied deep into the corner, the cold glass window chilling my right arm as I bent at the knees and tried to disappear entirely. Maybe they’d forget I was here if they couldn’t see me. Holding my breath and inching the binder up in front of my face, I prayed to the Christmas gods that Chadwick didn’t say my name.
I heard Alastair speak but stayed hidden. “You have until after lunch hour today to submit nominations for Chadwick’s Christmas elf,” he said. “Feel free to nominate yourself if you’d like a shot and think you’d be good at the role. But let me warn you, it’s going to make for a demanding month. There are a lot of parties, interviews, photoshoots, and fundraisers to attend. So be prepared to give up a lot of your free time. I don’t advise nominating anyone with children as this will be too demanding on their schedule, and we don’t want to pull any parents away from their kids during the holidays. Let’s call this meeting here.”
As soon as the room started emptying out, I seized my chance and moved out of the board room with them, using their bodies as a shield wall like the Vikings used to.
I didn’t have kids, and I knew for certain half of these traitors would write my name down believing I’d want the gig because of how much I loved Christmas.
But a whole month with Chadwick?
I cringed at the thought. Maybe I could talk Aleena into it. She thought he was hot, and she didn’t have any kids. She’d love all that uninterrupted time with the top-notch stud, and maybe her enthusiasm would let me off the hook.
I spied her coming down from her ladder and closed in, cornering her between the ladder and an empty desk.
“Tinsely,” she said as she picked up the ladder and moved it a couple of feet to the right to continue working on that part of the ceiling. “What’s up? You have that look in your eyes.”
“What look? I don’t have a look.”
She laughed as she climbed the ladder with greenery draped around her neck and pins pinched between her teeth. “The scared-deer look. It’s cute, really, but it’s a dead giveaway that you want something from me.”
“I want you to nominate yourself to be Chadwick’s elf assistant for December.”
She froze and peered down at me with narrowed eyes. “Say that again.”
I summed up everything that had happened in the board room and made my pitch. “I don’t have time to step away from my job this month, especially with the grand opening of the Times Square store only days away. I know people are going to vote for me, but I need to sway them to vote for you. We have until lunch.”
“That’s less than an hour and a half.”
“Then I guess we’d better tighten our pitches and make our rounds. Are you in?”
Aleena grinned, and the pins pinched in her teeth caught the reflection of the lights above. “Babe, you had me at ‘one month with Chadwick.’ This is how epic love stories start.”
“Yeah,” I muttered as I scoured the office for my first victim to persuade into voting for Aleena. “Epic love stories. Sure.”
CHAPTER 4
CHADWICK
I followed my father into his office after the board meeting. As I turned to close his door, a body slammed into it on the other side. The glass gave a threatening rattle as Hugh, my assistant, mumbled a string of apologies even though I’d been the one to nearly crush him with the door.
“Sorry, sir, sorry. I didn’t mean to be away for so long. It took me forever to talk her out of your place. First, she wanted coffee. Then she wanted eggs. Then she wanted a tour. Then she wanted your office number so she could call you and recite all the things you did to her last night when—”
I cleared my throat.
Hugh’s eyes darted to my father. Panicked, he did a little bow, perhaps to hide his neon pink cheeks. “Mr. Bamford. I didn’t see you there.”
Groaning, I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. “Sit down, Hughie.”
Hugh sat.
