Page 5 of Hot Mess Christmas Express

“Then what can I do for you?”

What on earth could you possibly want from me? You’ve ignored me for two years…you can’t suddenly have something to say to me.

“You owe me an explanation.”

Excuse you?!

“I owe you nothing.”

“So I’m just supposed to believe that one of my pharma reps is also a wedding coordinator?”

His chiseled jaw ticked almost imperceptibly. Sienna wouldn’t have caught it, other than she’d been trying so hard not to stare into those perfect whiskey eyes of his that she’d been focusing on his jaw. Taking a deep breath, she looked him up and down, savoring just how delicious he looked in that tux, a deep red pocket square poking out just over his heart. She knew exactly what was under that suit too—even more deliciousness. Why did he have to be so fucking perfect?

“I told you. My family owns the place. I’m filling in for my sister, who has a stomach bug. Not that it’s any business of yours.”

"How am I supposed to know that isn’t just another one of your lies?” he growled, stepping into her.

Her lies?

This man had some nerve. Sienna Sloan was a lot of things. Daughter, sister, former cheerleader, artist, bad driver, failing entrepreneur. But she was not a liar.

“I have never lied to you.”

“Oh, really? I seem to remember spending a night with a woman who told me she was a graphic designer, only to show up at my practice two weeks later as my new Cosmas Pharmaceuticals rep. Or maybe that was a different pastel-haired siren named Sienna Sloan.”

Caleb’s words were like a slap to the face. Sure, everything he had just said was true. She had told him that night she was a graphic designer. Because she was. Everything was set for her to start getting her business off the ground. She’d been excited about the future and what it had all meant.

But yes, two weeks later she had shown up in his office as a sales rep. Something she was not excited about. That hadn’t really been in her plan, but it had also become clear to her after that conference that finding her clients wasn’t going to be as easy as she had thought. And that she needed to find some kind of income—and health insurance—to support herself as she tried to make a go of it. Had she known that the plastic surgeon’s office she was walking into that day was his, she never would have gone.

“If you had let me explain that day,” she started, “or bothered to meet with me even once in the last two years—”

“You would have what? Sucked me in with more lies?”

She huffed out a breath through her nostrils, as if she were a dragon in a storybook, reminding herself to stay calm. Losing her shit right now was not going to solve anything.

“I didn’t lie.”

“Which is why you still visit my practice every six weeks or so, all smiles and giggles for my colleagues while telling them about the latest wonder drug.”

"Just what are you getting at?” she asked. This conversation was going nowhere and was only serving to make her angrier by the second. She didn’t need this. It was Christmas, damn it. This was supposed to be a happy time of year.

“I just want to make it perfectly clear that it didn’t work the first time, and it won’t work this time.”

“What didn’t work?”

“Sleeping with me won’t gain you my business.”

He did not…

Sienna blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of what Caleb had just said. There was no way she had heard him right.

“I’m sorry, you think I fucked you so that I would get a better commission?”

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

You’re wrong. You are soooooo fucking wrong…

The words were on the tip of Sienna’s tongue. The intense rage inside her, however, was too strong and in the way of her actually saying them.

“You know what? I’m done,” she declared, waving her hands in front of him. “I could stand here all night telling you just how wrong you are. But it’s not worth it. You’re not worth it. I don’t owe you anything.”

She turned on her heel, ready to escape this hell that surrounded her. But her sister’s voice in her head stopped her. Taking a slow, calming breath, she spun back toward the gorgeous doctor.

"When it comes time for the bouquet toss and all that, please see Jolly,” she said, pointing to the DJ. “He’ll be able to help.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don't owe you that either.”