Page 108 of Christmas with the Denton Billionaires

He looked at her, excited. “Have you seen it?”

Shaking her head, he clicked play and they settled down to watch the movie. About an hour into it, they were well into the nap portion of their day.

11

MARA

When Monday rolled around, she left the condo early so she could go home to change her clothes and do her makeup before heading to the competition for the day. Being away from Chris felt unnatural at this point. After spending forty-eight hours together without leaving the condo, she already missed him, and it’d barely been ahalf hour.

That was troubling. But also…somehow just right.

Mara whipped herself into camera-ready shape as quickly as she could and headed for the community center. She was already excited to see him. Already excited to see how the rest of this week might unfold between them. And, amazingly, already missed the weight of him between her legs.

She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her coat as she hurried up the sidewalk to the community center giving a wave to the people waiting in line to take their seats to watch the filming. A smile overtook her face as her mind drifted back to the weekend they’d shared. Could there have been a more perfect weekend? She’d come more times than she thought humanly possible and she didn’t want to contemplate where he’d learned all those tricks in the intervening ten years since she’d last seen him. His brash behavior on set was nonexistent, and she hoped to see more of that beautiful man who was so very intoxicating when he turned on the charm.

But one thing was clear. It had to be behind closed doors only. Because while they were in public, they needed to keep this thing—whether fling or romance or full-blown second chance—out of the competition.

“Mara!”

She turned to find Dan jogging toward her. He waved his reporter’s notebook in the air.

“Hey, Dan! I didn’t know you’d be showing up again. I thought you were headed back to New York.”

“Yeah, well my boss wanted me to stick around until the announcement of the winner.” His cheeks were pink as he caught up to her. “Turns out, all of America is obsessing just over the teasers, so we need to have full coverage.”

She grinned and started to walk toward the front doors, but he reached for her wrist.

“Wait a second.” Something serious overcame him. “I need to ask you something. Are the rumors true?”

She blinked, searching his face for some sort of clarity. “What rumors?”

“That you and Chris are together.”

His words slammed through her, both exciting and uncomfortable at the same time. The wordsyou and Chris togetherwere oddly titillating, but how the hell didDanknow?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A strange cocktail of emotions washed over Dan’s face. Part relief, part confusion. He was laying something out here—Mara just couldn’t figure out what it was.

“The network said there might be a little romance brewing between competitors.”

“I don’t think that’s anyone’s business,” she said with a tight smile. She started walking toward the doors.

“You might want to make sure Chris is on the same page,” Dan called out after her. She pulled open the door, a gust of heat whooshing out. Inside the community center, the front lobby was buzzing with journalists. The network had spaced out the media days so that each channel and news outlet could get their turn at different points of the competition.

And at the start of the day, with a handful of press conferences under her belt already, she’d felt confident. She and Chris weren’t fighting anymore. They’d kissed—sexed, rather—and made up.

But now? Dan’s comment made her doubtful and tense.

Chris was already seated at the long table facing the reporters when she breezed inside. She hurried to hang up her coat and joined him in the seat next to him. He sent her a warm smile, and she returned it tightly.

Dan had said the network knew about a potential romance brewing between competitors. And how else could the network know if Chris hadn’t told them?

Her mind spun as she settled into her spot and tried to make sense of where the information could have come from. They’d been seen ice skating, and Chris had stopped to talk to some fans. Maybe someone had spotted her going into Chris’s condo. But Glenford was a small, tightknit community. She couldn’t imagine someone selling her out so quickly. Who on earth could have seen them and already alerted the network? Nobody here had the bigwigs on speed dial.

The most logical answer was Chris himself.

The realization thudded through her, making her morning coffee churn unpleasantly in her gut.

---