Any explanations about the reconciliation, if Janice and Tom cared to give any, could be made after Amy was safely in bed. And, if not, then Max considered it was none of his business.
‘Sophie Carter,’ Max answered his sister briskly now. ‘Employed by me, to answer my “organising Christmas for you” prayer,’ he added drily.
‘Oh.’
Max chuckled ruefully. ‘Try to look a little less disappointed by that explanation, sis,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘You’re embarrassing Sophie.’
Sophie was beyond mere embarrassment right now. Way beyond, after the intimacies she and Max had indulged in before the arrival of his sister and her family.
Max had also, in just a few brief words to his sister, placed Sophie firmly in the role of employee.
‘It’s time I cleared up in here and left you all to enjoy the rest of the evening together,’ she announced briskly as she moved round the table to start putting the now cooled gingerbread into a storage box ready for decorating tomorrow morning. ‘Unless you would like me to prepare something for dinner before I go?’ she offered with a politely enquiring glance in Max’s direction, letting him know that she had no delusions about what had happened between them earlier and could be just as coolly businesslike as him.
And, with the arrival of his sister and her family, that was exactly what Sophie intended to be in future, as far as Max Hamilton was concerned!
‘I seem to have done nothing but eat since we left New York,’ Janice refused lightly. ‘How about everyone else?’
‘I’d like to go and look at the big tree and then go to bed, Mummy,’ Amy answered tiredly.
‘I’m good too, thanks,’ Tom also refused.
Which left only Max …
Only Max?
Sophie gave an inward quiver as she realised that he—maintaining a distance from him—was going to be her biggest problem over Christmas.
SOPHIE LOOKED AT MAX enquiringly, even as she inwardly willed him to say no to her offer to stay and cook dinner for him. Because she dearly wanted to leave now; she needed to get out of Max’s apartment, away from Max, in order to go home and regroup.
If that was even possible after what had just happened between them.
But she had to at least try.
Max Hamilton was a billionaire and she was a struggling student. Max was sophisticated and she was far from being that. Max was a rich and handsome playboy with a legion of women in his past—and present?—and she hadn’t so much as had time to go out on a single date in over three years. Also, Max was an experienced lover and she was still a virgin!
‘Let’s go and look at the tree in the other room, hmm, Amy?’ Tom Hilton was the one to lightly break the silence. ‘I’m pretty sure I saw presents beneath it!’ he teased his young daughter.
Amy gave a squeal of excitement even as she struggled to be put down from her uncle’s arms, before grabbing hold of her father’s hand and dragging him out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the sitting room.
There was a continued and awkward silence in the kitchen once father and daughter had left, causing Janice Hilton to look between Sophie and Max curiously.
‘Er … Perhaps Amy would like to help me decorate the gingerbread in the morning?’ Sophie prompted when she couldn’t stand the silence any longer.
‘That’s really kind of you; I’m sure she would love it.’ Janice smiled warmly. ‘Remember, Max, how we always used to?’
‘Not now, Janice!’ her brother rasped harshly.
‘Perhaps not,’ she accepted with a wistful sigh. ‘I think perhaps I should go and join Tom and Amy in the sitting room now, and leave the two of you alone to talk,’ she added with a rueful glance at the stony-faced Max. ‘Nice to meet you, Sophie.’ Janice paused in the doorway. ‘Oh, and did you know you have white powder—possibly flour!—on the back of your jeans, Sophie?’
Sophie’s cheeks blazed with warmth as she looked over her shoulder and saw the flour on the backside of her jeans, glaring at Max as the other woman left the room to join her husband and daughter in the sitting room. Obviously, the flour had got there when Max had lifted her up onto the kitchen table.
‘Don’t blame me!’ He held up his hands defensively.
Sophie looked up from brushing the flour off the back of her jeans, certain that her face must look very hot—and even more bothered!
‘And who else should I blame, when you’re the one that lifted me onto the table in the first place?’
‘I don’t remember you protesting at the time,’ Max came back mildly, outwardly amused by Sophie’s embarrassment, but inwardly irritated too—because he very much doubted he had heard the last on the subject from his sister.
Brown eyes glared daggers at him. ‘And I don’t remember being given much opportunity to protest.’
Max returned that gaze quizzically. They both knew her statement wasn’t completely truthful, that Sophie could have demurred at any time—when he first kissed her lips, when his tongue and lips had searched out the delectable hollows of her throat, when he had clasped her bottom and carried her over to the table, when he had unfastened her blouse, cupped her breasts and caressed them—and Max would have stopped.
At least, he hoped that he would.
Sophie, with her blazing red hair and refreshingly unusual and freckle-faced beauty, had a way of turning his well-ordered world upside down. Of turning him upside down. So much so that things like caution and self-control seemed to fall by the wayside the moment he was with her.
As they did now.
His body was still hot and aching, telling Max all too clearly that he wanted to continue where the two of them had left off. Something that was impossible, and would be for some time, now that his sister, brother-in-law and niece had arrived to stay.
‘Never mind,’ Sophie dismissed abruptly before visibly forcing the tension from the slenderness of her shoulders. ‘Now that your brother-in-law is here, would you like me to go present shopping for him too, before I come back here in the morning?’
Well, at least she intended coming back in the morning; there had been every chance that she wouldn’t, after their earlier intimacies.
‘Fine.’ Max nodded. ‘I—You don’t have to go right away,’ he continued huskily. ‘You could always stay and have a drink with all of us? It will give you a chance to get to know Janice, Tom and Amy better.’ He instantly had cause to regret his impulsive offer, as Sophie now eyed him suspiciously.
‘I—No, thanks,’ she refused abruptly, her gaze now refusing to meet Max’s. ‘It’s late and I—Henry will be expecting me home any minute,’ she finished determinedly.
‘Henry?’ Max repeated sharply. ‘Who the hell is Henry?’ His voice had deepened accusingly as he continued, without waiting for her to answer, ‘Damn it, I asked you the other day if there was anyone you should be spending Christmas with.’
‘And I told you there wasn’t,’ she maintained stubbornly.
His eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t want to spend Christmas with the man you’re obviously living with?’ Max couldn’t remember ever