Page 71 of Snowbound in Her Boss's Bed

“Mostly through the adoption agency paperwork and genetic testing,” he said. “Unfortunately, on that front I didn’t have much to work with. It looks like both of my biological parents’ families came the European route, and both came from families hard hit by the Holocaust. It’s incredible what havoc an attempted genocide followed by a generation of low fertility can do to a family line.”

“I guess it’s lucky you even know what you do, then,” Miri mused, and he nodded.

“I owe a lot of it to the adoption agency that handled my case,” he said. “They focus on making sure Jewish children end up with Jewish families and are meticulous about record keeping along the way. We’ve lost so much already—they work hard to preserve what’s left.”

“It clearly made a difference in your life. I’m glad you had people like that looking out for you,” she said, and she meant it. The image of a child Benjamin alone in the world filled her heart with sorrow. Instead of falling through the cracks, though, he had had a second chance at a doting family and the support and understanding he’d needed.

For an orphaned child, that was as precious as it was rare.

“Me, too,” he agreed. “That’s why, years later, when I had reached the point at which I could give back, I chose the foundation. To this day they fund the agency that handled my adoption, and to this day, I fund them.”

Despite the fact that the reminder of the foundation cast an unwelcome shadow in her mind, Miri smiled. “Fund it? You run it.”

Catching her eye, his filling with the glint she was coming to recognize, he said, “I like to be in control.”

Miri shivered, hearing the promise in his words.

She knew from personal experience what it was like to be under his control, and she couldn’t say she didn’t like it.

Clearing her throat, she refocused on the onions in front of her. “Well, I can see why the foundation is so important to you now,” she said, and again, the statement carried a twinge of melancholy.

The foundation was important to both of them, something far more than just an employer and a position of prestige, and because of that, there was an inevitable expiration to their interlude.

But banishing the dread, if she had to accept that the most sensual and alive experience she’d ever had was doomed to end, she would damn well make sure she enjoyed everything it had to offer along the way.

She wouldn’t waste their time being anticipatorily sad.

No, the only crying she would be doing would be because of these damn onions.

Smiling through the welling in her eyes—entirely the onions, she assured herself—she changed the subject with the words, “It’s a good thing latkes are delicious, because they’re sure a pain in the butt to make.”

Two hot and fragrant hours later, they sat at the dining table together again, but this time the meal before them was the result of their own blood, sweat and tears.

Taking it in excitedly, Miri exclaimed, “While I’m sure your chef would have presented it better, all of it looks and smells delicious! I can’t wait to eat it.”

Benjamin laughed, rumpled for the first time she had ever seen, in the way that only big cooking projects can create. “That’s just starvation and hard work talking,” he said, grinning at her and their feast.

For the third night in a row, they ate delicious food and drank too much high-quality wine and ended up together on the sofa in front of the fire.

“I could never speak a word against your phenomenal chef,” Miri said, a giggle in her voice, “but I have to agree. Your mom’s tastes better.”

Benjamin tipped his glass to her. “I knew you were a smart woman from the moment I first heard you speak.”

Miri’s breath caught in her throat.

His mind, his looks, the things he said—he was so arresting. For a moment she could only stare.

In the firelight, his eyes and cheeks glowed with a relaxed ease and warmth that she would have thought impossible the moment she first laid eyes on him.

He was so different, in private like this, from the man who had greeted her on his private tarmac.

That man had been Mr. Benjamin Silver, tech billionaire and board chair of the Los Angeles Jewish Community Foundation—cold and exacting and on a schedule.

Here, though, he was simply Benjamin, no less commanding, but also sensual and easy.

Like lava versus ice.

Hot, he was even more compelling and irresistible than he was chilly.

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