Page 23 of The Christmas Mistake

She groans again and winds the window back up before stepping out of her vehicle. She really looks worse for wear. Her lips look parched and she’s breathing heavily. Breathing like she’s going to be sick.

I take a cautious step back. She notices.

“Don’t worry,” she mutters. “Despite how much I want to, I’m not going to be sick all over you.”

“That’s a relief.”

“You’re so arrogant,” she says. “Have I told you that before?”

“Lots of times,” I reply. “But I don’t care what you think of me as long as you give me plenty of warning before you vomit, okay?”

I can feel her eyes shoot daggers at me from behind those comical sunglasses.

“So, what about you, Nicholas?” she asks, taking a sip of her steaming coffee. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I just love coming into work on a December Saturday. I have absolutely nothing else to do with my time.”

She actually laughs at that comment and that, surprisingly, makes me smile. I guess she is adorable. In a certain light.

“You make a terrible comedian,” she remarks. “Go on, tell me what you’re doing here, other than having the pleasure of seeing me hungover.”

“Mark called me last night,” I say. “Saying there’s some kind of emergency.”

She scoffs. “Exactly the same with me.”

I glance around the empty parking lot. “Did he only call us or are there others coming?”

Chastity shrugs. “I guess it’s just us. No one else appears to be here.”

Great. An emergency meeting with my office hate, what a perfect way to spend a December Saturday.

“Let’s just make one thing clear, okay? I did not agree on doing this – whatever this work thing is - alone with you, alright?”

“You didn’t?” she asks me. “Funny that, I was beginning to have the feeling that all of this was your idea.”

“Trust me, Chastity. The last person I want to spend my Saturday morning with is you.”

“Oh, you’ve made that clear enough,” she snorts. “You don’t have to tell me. And to help clear things up, Nicholas, I would like to let you know that you are the very last – the very last – person I would ever want to spend a Saturday morning with. You got that? Even if all the men in the world have turned into flesh-eating zombies except for you, I would still prefer one of them to your stupid ugly face.”

“Got it loud and clear,” I reply with a smirk. Her arrows don’t affect me at all. She’s adorable the way she’s trying so hard to inflict verbal injury on me. I nod in the direction of our work building. “Shall we go in and see what all this fuss is about?”

Chastity nods.

Here we go.

9

CHASTITY

Yep, I’m hungover. But even the storm currently raging in my head like something out of an Armageddon movie is nothing compared to the fact that I now have a meeting with my boss with Nicholas freaking Carter. That man is the worst kind of hangover. He’s the man who’ll tease and annoy you all year simply because you once slept with him and he’s such a boy that he can’t process that idea. I know he secretly enjoyed our night together.

And, honestly, so did I.

But him startling me by tapping on my car window whilst I was trying hard to ready myself for the day and recover from my hangover has reminded me how freaking much I hate that man’s guts.

Dickface.

As we enter our deserted office building together, I clutch my takeaway cup of coffee like it’s some kind of shield protecting me from Nicholas. I’m desperately trying to hide behind my sunglasses. I know I look stupid in them on a frosty December morning, but I don’t need more of Nicholas’ teasing.