Page 6 of His Off-Limits Christmas Gift

I simply wasn’t ready. Six years ago, I made the mistake of trusting a beautiful woman, and I wasn’t sure I could ever take the risk to do so again.

Besides, she’s just here to work.

Right?

3

RACHEL

“Nate?” I couldn’t help but repeat it. Surprise didn’t cut it. I was totally shocked that Brandon had me apply for a vacancy to be Nate’s assistant.

His best friend? The hot redhead I'd had a crush on since I was a teen?

Oh, my God.

“I take it you already know each other?” Julie asked. She said it in such a deadpan yet curious manner that I knew this woman definitely didn’t struggle to keep up with anything.

“No,” I replied at the same moment Nate said, “Yeah!”

We stared at each other, caught in the contradiction.

Sure, I knew him—from many years ago. I knew the old Nate, the younger version. Not this mature, sophisticatedmanin a fitted suit looking like a proper and successful businessman.

“Perhaps I should give you two a moment to decide,” Julie quipped, seeming amused.

“We’re from the same town,” I hastily explained.

She snapped her fingers. “That’swhat caught my attention about your application. Rockton. I forgot that was the name of where you grew up,” she said, looking from me to astill bewildered but smiling Nate. “Huh. It’s a small world sometimes, isn’t it?”

I nodded slowly. “It’s an even smaller world when my brother is friends with the boss.”

Nate laughed lightly. It was a low, rich chuckle that teased me to want to hear more. From what I recalled, Nate was always the fun-loving, easy-going guy. Being twelve years younger than Brandon—and Nate—I was left seeing them when they came back home to visit from college and such. With that many years between us, we were never peers, but they let me follow them around. I knewofNate, enough for a little crush to form on the laidback man.

It seemed his willingness to laugh and have fun hadn’t faded.

That was the only similarity I could find in him, though. It likely wasn’t wise to stare at him, not like this, like I wanted to memorize a sexy hottie in a suit. But I couldn’t look away. His thick red hair was shorter than I remembered it, less shaggy but not overly styled. Those brown eyes seemed darker and deeper, and the moment I realized he was staring right back at me, just as intensely, I realized we had an audience.

Julie had gone quiet. Normally, in any other introduction between a new employee and the boss, long moments of silence would be awkward. I might have come from a small town, but I wasn’t lacking social skills.

Except when I was surprised. Except when I was near him, apparently.

I cleared my throat and glanced at Julie. Just as I suspected, she was smiling at me, then him. “Well. This is certainly an interesting development.”

“It’s not a development,” Nate argued. “It’s just a surprise.” He turned those caramel eyes to me with a slow smile. “A pleasant one.”

The way he looked at me, like he wanted to eat me up, nearly had me breaking my cool. Desire sparked within me. Without fanning the fire of attraction, I struggled to keep my thoughts straight.

Sure, I was thrown off seeing him here. But realizing I was working for my former crush wouldn’t change the facts. I was here to work. I was here to get out of Rockton and be away from all that damn Christmas glee and cheer forced on me by my family.

Focusing my energy on how Nate McIntosh looked at me wasn’t the way to go about it. All I had to do was my job.

And that’s that.

“Likewise,” I replied, clipped and curt. In my mind, I sounded cool and professional. Dignified. But out loud, I sounded like a bitch. “It’s a pleasant surprise to run into you as well,” I added, hoping to smooth out my delivery.

He didn’t seem bothered, sticking with that slow appraisal and those long once-overs he couldn’t stop giving me.

“So.” Julie cleared her throat. Theahemwas only to break this lure binding me and Nate to stare at each other. I was proud that I didn’t flinch. He raised his brows a bit, perhaps startled that he’d zoned out on me for so long.

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