Sex is great and all, but food … that’s where my true passions lie.
“What is all this?” I ask, looking from the beautiful table to him.
“Something special for my girl,” he tells me with a seductive smile. With one more long kiss, he pulls out a chair for me and we sit down to eat. He’s pulled out all of the stops. There’s salad, lobster, steak, baked potatoes, lemon custard, and the most decadent looking chocolate cake I’ve ever seen.
We’re partway through it when he looks at me intently and I
know that I’m about to find out the real reason behind this whole fancy dinner he’s set up for me.
“I wanted to ask you about something.” He’s studying me and I wonder what’s going on in his mind.
“Okay.” I wait, my mind going in every direction. As well as I know both of my boys, I can’t figure out what he’s up to.
“I want to ask you to come and spend Christmas and New Year’s with me and my family. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I wanted you to know how much it would mean to me. You’ve become family to me, and holidays are meant to be spent with family. Christmas just wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t there this year.”
His eyes, his beautiful eyes the color of a storm-tossed sea, hold me fast, and it feels like my heart is going to beat right out of my chest.
“You and Blair mean everything to me. I wish …” I hate that I have to say this to him, but there’s no way around it. He’s just a little too late. “I wish so much that I could spend the holiday with you, but my aunt and uncle have already asked me. I promised them I would.”
As much as I would prefer to spend the day with Wills, it will be my first holiday with actual, blood relatives, and I can’t pass that up.
I feel awful. He went to all the trouble to make this amazing dinner for me to ask me to spend Christmas with him and I can’t do it.
He sighs and I see his thick, wide shoulders fall. Like a sad giant.
He nods. “It’s okay. I understand. I knew that there would be other people asking you too. I know how important it is to you to that you have some family around you for the holiday for the first time.”
I reach for his hand. “Wills, you and Blair are my family too,” I tell him earnestly, and he smiles a little, knowing I mean it.
“Well, the invitation is open. My parents are happy to have you with us anytime.” He lifts my hand and kisses my fingers. I wonder if his parents are as open-minded as Blair’s. I better hope Ellen doesn’t get wind of our unusual arrangement, or her matronly instincts are going to go haywire.
“Thank you so much Wills, for thinking of it. I’m so lucky to have you. I find myself wishing in my heart of hearts that I could spend the holidays with him instead. I know there will be more holidays, but somehow, missing just this one makes me ache.
We finish dinner as our conversation goes to other things, and when we’re done, we clear the table. I take his hand and pull him to me, kissing him softly.
“Stay the night with me?” I ask in a whisper, looking up at him. All this time I was looking forward to being alone, away from my new family before they can smother me. Now I can’t imagine falling asleep without Wills by my side.
Wills smiles and nods, running his fingers over my cheek. “I was hoping you’d ask me that.”
I grin and walk with him to my bed, and the rest of the night is lost in sweet, passionate kisses, skin, and ecstasy. There’s no one else who means to me what my boys mean to me, and I can’t ever see that changing.
It is one thing, at least, that I hope stays the same.
Chapter 8
Christmas Eve comes and I drive through snowy roads in the bright midday light back to the massive White home. I agonized over what to get them for Christmas because they literally have everything, and that doesn’t leave much for me to give them.
I’d thought about how Ellen seems to draw a parallel between Sadie and me, and about all the photos and paintings of her daughter around the house. I decided that the best thing to give them would be a professional photograph of me. It’s kind of creepy, and I felt like a total weirdo at the store getting it done, but I think she’ll like it.
I have low-to-moderate hopes that if there’s a photo of me at their house and Ellen looks at it from time to time, she’ll start to see me as myself instead of as Sadie. Differential would be nice. I’m glad that I remind her of her daughter, but I’m not there to replace her daughter, and I want to set that tone as soon as possible.
I guess I was expecting their house to be decked out to the nines for Christmas, but the White home is barren of décor save for a wreath hanging on the front door. I expected more, I guess. Nothing so gaudy as blow-up snowmen in the yard and fake icicles hanging from the roof, but maybe just … something.
It doesn’t look like a holiday celebration at all. I lift my chin and remind myself that Christmas with family has been a lifelong dream of mine, and I shouldn’t judge too soon. It will probably be a really wonderful holiday with them.
The butler brings me in, and I look around, expecting Ellen to have done some seriously lavish decorating throughout the house, considering how she likes to shop. There’s nothing. Not one single hint of a holiday inside. It could be March in their home. There’s just nothing different about it at all.
I do not take this as a good sign.