One Night Before Christmas: A Billionaire for Christmas / One Night, Second Chance / It Happened One Night

Uh-oh. “Um...” She leaned against the sink for support. “I don’t have internet,” she said, not sure there was any way to soften that blow.

Leo’s look, a cross between horror and bafflement, was priceless. “Why not?”

“I decided I could live my life without it.”

He ran his hands through his hair, agitation building. His neck turned red and a pulse beat in his temple. “This is the twenty-first century,” he said, clearly trying to speak calmly. “Everybody has internet.” He paused, his eyes narrowing. “This is either a joke, or you’re Amish. Which is it?”

She lifted her chin, refusing to be judged for a decision that had seemed entirely necessary at the time. “Neither. I made a choice. That’s all.”

“My sister-in-law would never have rented me a cabin that didn’t have the appropriate amenities,” he said stubbornly.

“Well,” she conceded. “You’re right about that. The cabin I rent out has satellite internet. But as you saw for yourself, everything was pretty much demolished, including the dish.”

She watched Leo’s good humor evaporate as he absorbed the full import of what she was saying. Suddenly he pulled his smartphone from his pocket. “At least I can check email with this,” he said, a note of panic in his voice.

“We’re pretty far back in this gorge,” she said. “Only one carrier gets a decent signal and it’s—”

“Not the one I have.” He stared at the screen and sighed. “Unbelievable. Outposts in Africa have better connectivity than this. I don’t think I can stay somewhere that I have to be out of touch from the world.”

Phoebe’s heart sank. She had hoped Leo would come to appreciate the simplicity of her life here in the mountains. “Is it really that important? I have a landline phone you’re welcome to use. For that matter, you can use my cell phone. And I do have a television dish, so you’re welcome to add the other service if it’s that important to you.” If he were unable to understand and accept the choices she had made, then it would be foolish to pursue the attraction between them. She would only end up getting hurt.

Leo closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said at last, shooting her a look that was half grimace, half apology. “It took me by surprise, that’s all. I’m accustomed to having access to my business emails around the clock.”

Was that why he was here? Because he was too plugged in? Had he suffered some kind of breakdown? It didn’t seem likely, but she knew firsthand how tension and stress could affect a person.

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and crossed the room to hand it to him. “Use mine for now. It’s not a problem.”

Their fingers brushed as she gave him the device. Leo hesitated for a moment, but finally took it. “Thank you,” he said gruffly. “I appreciate it.”

Turning her back to give him some privacy, she went to the kitchen to rummage in the fridge and find an appealing dinner choice. Now that Leo was here, she would have to change her grocery buying habits. Fortunately, she had chicken and vegetables that would make a nice stir-fry.

Perhaps twenty minutes passed before she heard a very ungentlemanly curse from her tenant. Turning sharply, she witnessed the fury and incredulity that turned his jaw to steel and his eyes to molten chocolate. “I can’t believe they did this to me.”

She wiped her hands on a dish towel. “What, Leo? What did they do? Who are you talking about?”

He stood up and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “My brother,” he croaked. “My black-hearted, devious baby brother.”

As she watched, he paced, his scowl growing darker by the minute. “I’ll kill him,” he said with far too much relish. “I’ll poison his coffee. I’ll beat him to a pulp. I’ll grind his wretched bones into powder.”

Phoebe felt obliged to step in at that moment. “Didn’t you say he has a wife and two kids? I don’t think you really want to murder your own flesh and blood...do you? What could he possibly have done that’s so terrible?”

Leo sank into an armchair, his arms dangling over the sides. Everything about his posture suggested defeat. “He locked me out of my work email,” Leo muttered with a note of confused disbelief. “Changed all the passwords. Because he didn’t trust me to stay away.”

“Well, it sounds like he knows you pretty well, then. ’Cause isn’t that exactly what you were doing? Trying to look at work email?”

Leo glared at her, his brother momentarily out of the crosshairs. “Whose side are you on anyway? You don’t even know my brother.”

“When you spoke of him earlier...he and your sister-in-law and the kids...I heard love in your voice, Leo. So that tells me he must love you just as much. Following that line of reasoning, he surely had a good reason to do what he did.”

A hush fell over the room. The clock on the mantel ticked loudly. Leo stared at her with an intensity that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. He was pissed. Really angry. And since his brother wasn’t around, Phoebe might very well be his default target.

She had the temerity to inch closer and perch on the chair opposite him. “Why would he keep you away from work, Leo? And why did he and your sister-in-law send you here? You’re not a prisoner. If being with me in this house is so damned terrible, then do us both a favor and go home.”

Six (#u46b89808-d66e-517c-8bde-945c256bbe0a)

Leo was ashamed of his behavior. He’d acted like a petulant child. But everything about this situation threw him off balance. He was accustomed to being completely in charge of his domain, whether that be the Cavallo empire or his personal life. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Luc. He did. Completely. Unequivocally. And in his gut, he knew the business wouldn’t suffer in his absence.

Perhaps that was what bothered him the most. If the company he had worked all of his adult life to build could roll along just fine during his two-month hiatus, then what use was Leo to anyone? His successes were what he thrived on. Every time he made an acquisition or increased the company’s bottom line, he felt a rush of adrenaline that was addictive.

Moving slot by slot up the Fortune 500 was immensely gratifying. He had made more money, both for the company and for himself, by the time he was thirty than most people earned in a lifetime. He was damned good at finance. Even in uncertain times, Leo had never made a misstep. His grandfather even went so far as to praise him for his genius. Given that eliciting a compliment from the old dragon was as rare as finding unicorn teeth, Leo had been justifiably proud.

But without Cavallo...without the high-tech office...without the daily onslaught of problems and split-second decisions...who was he? Just a young man with nowhere to go and nothing to do. The aimlessness of it all hung around his neck like a millstone.

Painfully aware that Phoebe had observed his humiliating meltdown, he stood, grabbed his coat from the hook by the door, shoved his feet in his shoes and escaped.

* * *

Phoebe fixed dinner with one ear out for the baby and one eye out the window to see if Leo was coming back. His car still sat parked out front, so she knew he was on foot. The day was warm, at least by December standards. But it was possible to get lost in these mountains. People did it all the time.

The knot in her stomach eased when at long last, he reappeared. His expression was impossible to read, but his body language seemed relaxed. “I’ve worked up an appetite” he said, smiling as if nothing had happened.

“It’s almost ready. If we’re lucky we’ll be able to eat our meal in peace before Teddy wakes up.”

“He’s still asleep?”

She nodded. “I can never predict his schedule. I guess because he’s still so small. But since I’m flexible, I’m fine with that.”

He held out a chair for her and then joined her at the table. Phoebe had taken pains with the presentation. Pale green woven place mats and matching napkins from a craft cooperative in Gatlinburg accentuated amber stoneware plates and chunky handblown glass goblets that mingled green and gold in interesting swirls.

She poured each of them a glass of pinot. “There’s beer in the fridge if you’d prefer it.”

He tasted the wine. “No. This is good. A local vintage?”

“Yes. We have several wineries in the area.”

Their conversation was painfully polite. Almost as awkward as a blind date. Though in this case there was nothing of a romantic nature to worry about. No will he or won’t he when it came time for a possible good-night kiss at the front door.

Even so, she was on edge. Leo Cavallo’s sexuality gave a woman ideas, even if unintentionally. It had been a very long time since Phoebe had kissed a man, longer still since she had felt the weight of a lover’s body moving against hers in urgent passion. She thought she had safely buried those urges in her subconscious, but with Leo in her house, big and alive and so damned sexy, she was in the midst of an erotic awakening.

Like a limb that has gone to sleep and then experienced the pain of renewed blood flow, Phoebe’s body tingled with awareness. Watching the muscles in his throat as he swallowed. Inhaling the scent of him, warm male and crisp outdoors. Inadvertently brushing his shoulder as she served him second helpings of chicken and rice. Hearing the lazy tempo of his speech that made her think of hot August nights and damp bodies twined together beneath a summer moon.

All of her senses were engaged except for taste. And the yearning to do just that, to kiss him, swelled in her chest and made her hands shake. The need was as overwhelming as it was unexpected. She fixated on the curve of his lips as he spoke. They were good lips. Full, but masculine. What would they feel like pressed against hers?

Imagining the taste of his mouth tightened everything inside her until she felt faint with arousal. Standing abruptly, she put her back to him, busying herself at the sink as she rinsed plates and loaded the dishwasher. Suddenly, she felt him behind her, almost pressing against her.

“Let me handle cleanup,” he said, the words a warm breath of air at her neck. She froze. Did he sense her jittery nerves, her longing?

She swallowed, clenching her fingers on the edge of the counter. “No. Thank you. But a fire would be nice.” She was already on fire. But what the heck...in for a penny, in for a pound.