Page 11 of Mistletoe Bargain with the Billionaire

We click our coffee mugs together in a silent toast to our bargain. We’re an excellent team, comfortable together and PDA has been established. Easy peasy. Grams won’t suspect a thing.

???

“What’s our origin story?” Carol asks after we’ve laid waste to our feast. “When was our first date? What did we do? What type of toothpaste do I prefer?”

“Uhhh…” I had not considered any of this.

“It could come up. Better we’re prepared.”

I can’t imagine anyone questioning us over toothpaste preferences but she’s got a point. “Okay, we’re still pretty new relationship-wise but together for a couple of months.”

“Smart choice.”

“I saw you performing in Vegas.”

“I’d only been there a short while.”

“Does anyone back home know that?”

She seems to shrink a bit before answering, “No.”

“Okay, so we saw each other in Vegas where you were performing and I recognized you-”

“I recognized you first.” Yeah, she did. I still can’t believe I didn’t recognize her sooner.

“Well, you were so hot on stage I was in a lust-fog before we spoke and was too busy trying to come up with a good pickup line.” She snorts, incredulously. It’s true though. “We spent the rest of the weekend catching up and you showed me some of the sights around Vegas.”

Her eyes light up. “Ooh, maybe we did the Emerald Cove kayak tour!”

“Great choice. Have you done it?”

Her bright eyes dim. “Well, no. But I really wanted to.” She’s going to do it someday if at all possible. Preferably with me.

“How about something you’ve actually done, Carol?”

“We rode El Loco in Circus Circus.”

“We rode a roller coaster with your fear of heights?” I tease.

“My fears were temporarily alleviated by tequila at the time.”

With who? When? I wish I’d been there to see it. I don’t say any of that.

“Unfortunately, I threw up afterwards,” she confesses next and why does that fill me with a powerful urge to protect her?

“Okay. We rode El Loco, I held your hair back when you got sick.” I grin when she makes a little ah-ing sound over that. “We shared coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich later and then toured the Strip until dawn, watching the sun come up together.”

“Damn, Nicky. That’s romantic.”

Does she think so? All the women I’ve dated, including Lydia, would’ve turned their surgery-perfected noses up at a roller coaster ride and a grilled cheese sandwich.

And, is it strange that Carol calling me Nicky, which no one else has called me since I was eight, pleases me?

“Two weeks later, I asked you to come visit me in San Francisco for a weekend. Which is when we first…”

“Found out each other’s toothpaste preference?”

I smirk. “A gentleman never kisses and tells toothpaste preferences.”

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