Page 14

“Honestly, I’m too tired to think. How do you handle this every day?”

“You develop a rhythm over time, knowing when it’s important to be seen and when you can take a break. I also have Marci as my assistant GM, so we tag-team a lot, especially when I need to rest,” Joy explained, gesturing toward the crutches propped against the wall. “Since I live here, it’s easy to be available for open and close.”

“Do you have to do that every morning and night? It seems there are better ways to manage it so you aren’t working eighteen hour shifts.”

“Been here ten whole hours, and you’re already micromanaging, I see.”

“No, but if you’re putting in that many hours, there must be a reason. That’s what I’m trying to determine.”

“No, that’s your way of saying that if I were a better manager, I wouldn’t have to be here at all hours.”

Standing, Kian leaned over Joy’s desk and met her gaze nose-to-nose. “Don’t put words in my mouth. There are far tastier things in life than that.”

How badly Joy wanted to rise to the occasion, but she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Why did he have to be so damn handsome? Why did she want to mash her lips against his and find out what those tastier things in life were? She was having a stroke. That was the only reason a thought like that crossed her mind about Kian Van Adler! Still, his lips looked soft, and those damn coffee-brown eyes sparked with an emotion she couldn’t name as they locked onto hers.

This was madness. She sat back in her chair, breaking the connection as relief and disappointment surged through her at once. Then, with precise, controlled movements, he turned and walked out the door, slamming it behind him.

Letting out a breath, Joy leaned her head back against the chair. Let him sit with his insinuation, which was completely incorrect. She didn’t care one bit what he thought of her management style or why she kept the hours she did.

Sitting quietly, Joy knew it was a lie. She cared what he thought about how she ran Snowcap Ridge. She’d put her heart and soul into the place for his mother, and now that Lorelei was gone, all she wanted was to keep her lifeblood flowing through the space. That wasn’t an easy job. It required dedication and hard work. In her heart of hearts, she was sad that he didn’t see his mother’s touch in the mall or appreciate what Joy had done to keep them there.

Pulling her computer toward her, Joy was determined not to let Kian get to her. She had less than three days to put the final touches on the first Santa event of the season, Kian Van Adler be damned.

Joy Brady did nothing halfway, and if Kian couldn’t see that, he was the problem. A problem she had to solve quickly if she wanted this holiday season to go off without a hitch. How she was going to do that when she couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him was still up in the air, but she needed to figure it out fast. With Kian in town, the only thing she’d feel this Christmas season was Grinchy, and that just wouldn’t do.

11

#Backfire

If Joy thought she could put words in his mouth, she had another think coming. If she thought antagonizing him with word games would drive him out of town, she was sorely mistaken. She didn’t know it yet, but they both had a hefty stake in this place, and it would be an understatement to say how important it was to work together toward a common goal.

As Kian sat on a bench near his mother’s bronze statue, his phone rang. He didn’t need to check the caller ID because the ringtone told him it was his best friend and assistant.

“August, what’s happening?” he asked, lounging with his arm draped over the back of the bench. He secretly hoped Joy was watching the cameras and saw him there, relaxed, as though their little face-off in her office hadn’t fazed him. Part of him wondered whether she’d been thinking about kissing him the same way he’d been thinking about kissing her. Was that madness? Yes. It was also true. Grown-up Joy Brady was hot as hell, even when her eyes sparked with hatred for him. He wasn’t sure it was hatred so much as trepidation. She wanted him gone and was desperate to make that happen. Little did she know…

“Checking in to see how it’s going there,” August answered. “Both at the mall and at the estate.”

“Busy,” he answered, smiling as though he were having a great time. Just in case Joy was watching. “I’m at the mall as we speak. Joy gave me the GM job for the day.”

“She did now,” August said, sounding as if he was trying not to laugh. “Boots on the ground isn’t a bad thing.”

“Unless you spent your childhood pissing off half the people you’re dealing with now,” Kian answered, his practiced smile never leaving his face. “I definitely deserve it, though. There was nothing redeeming about who I used to be.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” August said quickly. “Your morals were good, and you valued the right things. You always have. You were just rough around the edges, angry at the world, and struggling with abandonment issues. They’ll see you’re not the same person if given enough time.”

“I suspect time is the last thing Joy wants with me,” he said, turning to face the other side of the mall so it didn’t look like he knew exactly where the cameras were or that he was playing to them.

You think Joy is thinking about you a lot more than she probably is, man, the voice said.

Unfortunately, that voice was likely right.

“Have you told her yet?” August asked.

Inhaling deeply, he answered on the exhale. “No.”

“Kian, for God’s sake, you have to tell her.”

“I can’t!” Kian exclaimed, forcing himself to relax against the bench. “If she learns she has half the control of this place before she’s learned to at least tolerate me, we’re both going to be miserable. Not to mention, the will states she can’t know until the first Christmas Eve after Lorelei’s death. If I tell her before then, she will lose this place.”