The Christmas Collection, page 1
THE CHRISTMAS COLLECTION
SAM MARIANO
These volumes are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Wrapped in Red © 2021 Sam Mariano
How the Hitman Stole Christmas © 2020 Sam Mariano
Mistletoe Kisses © 2019 Sam Mariano
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All rights reserved.
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Thank you for not being a pirate!
CONTENTS
Wrapped in Red
Sam Mariano
1. Georgia
2. Georgia
3. Lee
4. Georgia
5. Georgia
6. Lee
7. Georgia
8. Georgia
How the Hitman Stole Christmas
Sam Mariano
Dedication
Untitled
Author’s Note
1. Jasper
2. Autumn
3. Jasper
4. Autumn
5. Jasper
6. Autumn
7. Jasper
8. Autumn
9. Jasper
10. Autumn
11. Jasper
12. Autumn
13. Jasper
14. Autumn
15. Jasper
16. Autumn
17. Jasper
18. Autumn
19. Jasper
20. Autumn
21. Autumn
22. Jasper
23. Autumn
24. Jasper
25. Autumn
26. Jasper
27. Autumn
28. Jasper
29. Autumn
30. Jasper
Epilogue
Mistletoe Kisses
Sam Mariano & Isabella Starling
1. Callan
2. Noelle
3. Noelle
4. Callan
5. Noelle
6. Noelle
7. Callan
8. Noelle
9. Noelle
10. Callan
11. Callan
12. Noelle
13. Noelle
14. Noelle
15. Callan
Epilogue
Also by Sam Mariano
About the Author
WRAPPED IN RED
AN OFFICE ROMANCE BY
SAM MARIANO
To anyone Adele has ever made cry. ♡
CHAPTER 1
GEORGIA
Humming a favorite Christmas tune from childhood and ripping a piece of tape off my desk dispenser, I am fully immersed in my own festive little world when my boss strides into my office.
In my mind, a chubby caveman is dressed as Santa Claus, clutching his jolly belly and singing about how Christmas is his favorite time of year. In actuality, a tall, gorgeous man is preparing to startle the hell out of me.
Ordinarily, my boss would never be able to sneak up on me when my back is facing a wall; I’m too aware of him. But tonight I am so wrapped up in wrapping presents, I don’t notice he has entered my office until his shiny black loafer crushes the piece of wrapping paper I was about to grab and fold over.
Growing up, my mom used to shop the after-Christmas clearances to buy next year’s paper. When she cut a piece and didn’t use all of it, she rolled it up and saved it for a smaller gift.
I do not abide ruining wrapping paper just for the hell of it.
Horrified, I push at his expensive shoe, but he doesn’t budge. “Have you lost your mind?” I ask him. “What kind of person deliberately steps on wrapping paper? Move your foot, please.”
He doesn’t.
I’m sitting on the floor by my desk to wrap, so I have to look up to glare at him.
He’s looming over me in his coal-black Tom Ford suit, one dark eyebrow cocked as if unimpressed—a sight anyone else under his employ would find intimidating. I’m not intimidated, but I do hate to feel his displeasure. Even the threat of it causes my stomach to sink for a split second before he speaks.
Because I’m not terribly good at hiding my emotions, he can see that fleeting feeling written all across my face. He doesn’t know the threat of his displeasure is what put it there, though. He must believe the reason for my distress is him stepping on my wrapping paper, because he finally moves his foot.
“Is this what I pay you for?”
He sounds serious, but I know he’s not.
First of all, I could have left hours ago when I finished my work. Instead, I hung around and did my Christmas preparations at the office just in case he needed anything.
Secondly, he did ask me to wrap gifts for his family. I also did the shopping for most of them, so he has no idea if the presents I’m wrapping are for him or not.
Since this particular gift is a baby doll and I’m not sure whether or not that will trigger memories of Christmases past for him, I dust off the paper and swiftly cover the box before he sees what it is. Casually affixing tape to the paper seam, I focus on finishing up my task as I answer him. “Actually, yes, but these aren’t the ones you asked me to wrap for your family. These gifts are for the shelter.”
“What shelter?”
“The women’s shelter.” He blinks at me, uncomprehending. “Remember that gala you took me to in September when Stacie had to cancel and you were short a plus-one?”
“Yes,” he answers patiently.
“The organization it was benefitting has a shelter in Harlem for women and children fleeing domestic violence. Remember? That woman we were talking to told us all about it.”
“Did she?” he asks in a tone that tells me he has no memory of any such woman.
I nod as I carefully fold and crease the wrapping paper at the edge of the box closest to me. “Their lives are in transition right now. They can’t afford to buy presents for each other, which I’m sure is so heartbreaking. Anyway, we’ve adopted a few of the families, and we’re making sure every child at the shelter has as lovely a Christmas as they can under the circumstances.”
“Oh, are we?” he asks, cocking that black eyebrow at me, but by now he knows better than to argue with my assertion on something like this.
I nod, slap the last piece of tape on the package, then set the gift aside and stand as gracefully as I can in this tight black pencil skirt. “We’ve paid for their Christmas dinner, too.”
He watches me smooth it down and straighten my green silk top, his gaze lingering on my cleavage for a moment before returning to my face. “How Dickensian of us.”
I flash him a bright smile. “All done for the night?”
He nods. “You didn’t have to stay.”
I usually stay later than everyone else, but not this late. I didn’t notice it was approaching ten o’clock. We’re the only two left in the office. Everyone else went home hours ago.
I open my closet to stash the wrapped gifts and retrieve our coats. “I don’t mind. I had wrapping to do anyway. I picked up a couple of things earlier on my lunch break. Might as well get it done now so I don’t have to do it later.”
“Yes,” he says wryly. “I’m sure wrapping Christmas gifts is such a chore for you.” He takes his coat from me and starts to put it on.
My gaze drifts to the window as I put mine on, and my body follows. Our offices are at the very top of this skyscraper, so when I look outside, I see flurries of snow and a sea of city lights set against the pitch dark backdrop of the night sky.
Manhattan looks so small from way up here. The taxi cabs look like toy cars.
I feel Lee move up behind me. Standing so close as he joins me in looking out the window, his heat seeps into me and melts my bones. My tummy flutters, but I’m quick to lock that errant butterfly right back up in its cage.
I turn my head to look at him. Our faces are so close, if either of us leaned in just a little, they would touch.
“What are we looking at?” he asks, his tone lower and a touch more intimate.
I swallow. That persistent butterfly can’t be contained and bursts free from its cage. “The city is so pretty when it snows.”
The corner of his mouth tugs up with a hint of amusement. “The smallest things make you happy.”
I shrug, unrepentant. “What can I say? I’m a happy girl.”
Especially when he stands this close to me.
“I wasn’t complaining,” he says, taking a step back and turning away.
I feel his absence immediately. I can breathe again, but a thin blanket of disappointment swaddles me, too.
Trying my best to ignore the lapse, I grab my purse and follow him to the elevator.
“You didn’t pay for them yourself, did you?”
I look up at him blankly. His question is so sudden—and I’m so distracted—that I don’t immediately follow the thread of his thoughts. “Hm?”
We step into the elevator. His eyebrows rise as he looks over at me. “The presents you bought on your lunch break.”
“Oh.” I shake my head to clear it and paste on a smile. “The presents. Yes, of course I paid for them.”
“You shouldn’t have. I ll reimburse you.”
“It was my idea.”
“They’re coming from my company.”
It is his company, but I’m so invested, I think of it as ours.
I don’t have many people to buy presents for anyway, so I wave him off. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. My boss pays me the big bucks. I can afford to splurge a little on Christmas gifts,” I tease.
His lips tug up faintly. “Your boss pays you all that money for having to deal with him.”
“Oh, he’s not that bad.”
“He’s an asshole. You’re frankly underpaid.”
The elevator doors open and we step out into the lobby. “I’m going to have to insist you don’t besmirch the good name of my employer, sir.”
“I’ll show you sir,” he mutters.
I wish you would.
I bite back a smile at the errant thought, thankful he can’t hear it as we pass the nighttime security guard. I offer a little wave, but Lee walks by as if the man doesn’t exist.
“We should give Randy a Christmas tip,” I tell him.
He scowls. “Who?”
“Randy.” My eyes widen when his register no recognition. “The security guard?”
“Oh,” he murmurs. “That’s below my pay grade. I’d say you could tell my assistant to do it, but she might be too busy wrapping Christmas presents.”
“Keep it up, mister, and you might not get one.”
That’s an empty threat if I’ve ever made one. Still, the man could at least pretend to be worried.
He doesn’t. I already know what he’s going to say, but I still find it faintly annoying when he says, “I told you not to get me anything.”
Doesn’t he know I like buying him Christmas presents? It isn’t an item checked off a to-do list for me like it is for him. I genuinely enjoy the process of finding something I hope he’ll like. I anticipate the look on his handsome face when he unwraps it, wonder if he’ll think about me when he uses it.
Our first Christmas together, I wasn’t used to his often dismissive and impatient ways and I let him crush me.
I had a bit of a crush on him, but not one I would ever act on. He wasn’t just my boss, he was also married at the time—completely off-limits.
Still, he meant something to me, so I picked out a gift I thought he’d like. I bought overpriced wrapping paper that had a print I thought he would be amused by and attached a Christmas card I had to practice an enormous amount of restraint not to gush in. He had mentioned in passing that as a child his favorite cookies were the oatmeal raisin ones his mom used to make, but she didn’t make them anymore, so I wanted to make some for him. I thought it might come off a bit odd if I made them only for him, so I made enough for the whole office. That way when I offered him one, he wouldn’t know I’d made them just for him, but he would still get his favorite Christmas cookie.
He didn’t touch the cookies or the card. He barely glanced at the gift before telling me to open it for him and send a thank you card to whoever it was from.
“It’s from me,” I said with a smile, my cheeks warming as I held it out to him.
He blinked. “From you?”
“I brought in gifts for a few co-workers; I wanted to bring you one, too.”
He held my gaze for a moment, but with every fraction of a second that passed, I seemed to sink another inch into the floor. Without uttering a single word, he made me feel as if I’d done something terribly wrong when I thought I was doing something nice. Then, finally, he reached out and took the gift.
“Thank you,” he said flatly.
I watched as he sat it aside on his desk and resumed jotting notes down on his notepad.
Even though I felt like I might burst into flames if I stood there another moment, I forced a faint smile. “Aren’t you gonna open it?”
He looked up at me again, enough irritation in his gaze to flood me with embarrassment. Wordlessly, he reached for the present, tore it open without even noticing the paper it was wrapped in, and ripped off the top of the box. He barely glimpsed the tie inside before closing the box and setting it aside. “There. Happy?”
I was crushed. He seemed angry at me for getting him a gift. I knew he wasn’t expecting one, but I thought it would be a pleasant surprise, not an annoyance.
Thankfully, I had to run an errand that day, so I fled the building before I suffocated on my own humiliation.
Not that my errand was much more enjoyable. I had to pick up a piece of jewelry for his wife. When I returned to the office, I had to wrap it, too. I was at my desk ensuring every crease was neat and perfect for her when Lee walked in with a Christmassy unicorn stuffed animal.
I looked up at him blankly as he sat it on my desk. For a fraction of a second, I thought he was giving it to me. I was confused, but tentatively excited.
“Can you wrap this for my daughter, too? I like to get her something just from me.”
“Of course,” I murmured, grabbing the soft unicorn toy.
His daughter Tina wasn’t his biologically. When he met Tess, she was pregnant by an ex-fling. The biological father didn’t want to be in the picture, so when they started dating, Lee stepped up and took on that role. I think it’s one of the reasons they got married so quickly, maybe at all. In most regards, Lee is a careful, deliberate man who weighs his moves before he makes them, but he only dated Tess for six months before marrying her.
He hadn’t told me any of this himself, but I picked up plenty from the office gossips. It was widely known that his marriage was a miserable one. He hadn’t dated Tess long enough to ensure they were compatible, and they weren’t. She was shallow, dishonest, and irresponsible—always lying and creating some new mess for him to clean up.
Most men in his position would have left, but Lee stayed and tried to make it work. No one knew why because it didn’t even seem like he was deeply in love with her, but I thought it might have something to do with his adorable little daughter not technically being his.
Years later, I found out I was right.
By then I was used to him occasionally being mean to me for no reason. I had convinced myself it might be because he felt an attraction to me and couldn’t act on it. He didn’t know I would never have acted on it, either, so when he felt that tug of attraction, he would go cold and try to push me away.
It happened a lot.
It didn’t work.
It hurt, but I didn’t go anywhere.
Knowing why he was doing it and considering it so noble probably made my devotion to him deepen even more, honestly. He was just such a good man. Strong and loyal even when he was unhappy, unwavering in his own principles even if he might be a little tempted.
When his wife left him for someone else and took her daughter with her, that was the first time I ever truly felt his guard fully down around me, and it was a fleeting thing.
CHAPTER 2
GEORGIA
It was at the end of a long day. Everyone else had left. I figured Lee must be in the zone working on something since he’d been shut away in his office all day. When I had stayed as long as I could justify staying with nothing to do (I was still hourly back then), I finally interrupted to see if he needed anything before I left.
