Page 115 of Christmas with the Denton Billionaires

Because logic always won against hope. If he was having a hard time dealing with Dan now, what did he have to look forward to while he was halfway around the globe? If it wasn’t Dan, then it would be somebody else. He could count on it. Mara was a beautiful woman who wouldn’t sit idly by waiting for him to visit between shoots. She had her own life she needed to live.

He’d allowed himself to get swept away in the passion and the lust and the incredible sex. But it would come to an end no matter what, and his jealousy and newest show offer had only hastened it. In a way, he was doing himself a favor.

It was easier to stay away, to not let this develop into anything more.

Even though he craved it.

“I don’t know how it could have,” Chris said in a low voice, feeling a lot like he’d just lowered the hammer for the final blow. But the hammer wasn’t crashing down on her. It was coming down on him.

This was the dose of logic and reality that he needed.

“Believe me…I want it to,” Chris added, but his words were swallowed by the vast gulf that had cracked open between them. “But when I’m shooting my show, I have a rigid schedule to adhere to and now with the added travel, it’s…demanding, to say the least.”

Mara nodded, rolling her lips inward. “Right. Yeah. Of course.” She sniffed, and for a second he couldn’t tell if those were tears shimmering in her eyes. “Well, congratulations on the show. And uh, let’s just stop this game we’ve been playing and finish the competition, okay? It should be easy enough, since you were never looking for anything long term anyway.”

Mara flashed him a tight smile. One that reminded him of their first day on set.

She turned and rushed out of the lounge, leaving him in a thick, bitter silence. One that had him rethinking every second of their conversation.

One that had him ready to chase after her and undraw every damn line he’d drawn in the sand.

14

MARA

The next few days blurred into an indistinguishable stream of hyper-focus. Mara needed to win the competition, but almost more than that, she needed to keep her damn mind off Chris.

The competition ended on Friday with the judging, and every day she woke up with a lump in her throat. Remembering that Chris had chosen his career—and jealousy—over something sweet and real with her. Wondering how the competition would pan out. Dreading the possibility of having to back out of her new bakery space because she lost the competition.

But as the hours edged closer to Friday, doubts and desperation crowded her. How could she win anyway? Would the network even allow it? Now that her small-town gingerbread village was complete except for the finishing touches, and Chris’s gingerbread New York skyline was towering and intimidating, it seemed obvious that the judges were going to pick him. While her village screamed Christmas with all the little details, Chris’s was an architectural marvel rendered completely in food-grade materials. He’d even included King Kong holding on to the side of the Empire State Building. It was bold, not at all Christmassy, and utterly Chris.

Ryan’s comment earlier that week only reinforced her suspicions. They all saw her as some sort of small-town underling. The butt of a joke that only they could hear from the fortieth floor in some sparkling Manhattan tower. This competition, which meanteverythingto Mara, was a throwaway act for Chris so he could climb the ladder even higher.

Sometimes she thought too much about it and her insides started to hurt. Because beyond the competition, beyond the delicate past of her and Chris, she’d actually been excited about the prospect ofsomethingwith that man. Jealousy and ladder climbing aside, in her most secret, private moments, she’d already started envisioning what their life together could look like. His enthusiastic support of her bakery, weekend trips to New York City.

None of those dreams had included a global cooking show. No, in her mind Chris had always been mere hours away by car. Not a full day via plane. And knowing him, the man wouldn’t fly out to Dubai or Istanbul or Beijing with any intentions of returning to Glenford. He was the sort of man to come home for Christmas…or gingerbread competitions.

That was it.

Still, it was hard to convince the romantic girl inside her to calm down. Part of her still wanted to fight for it—forthem. But she couldn’t fight for them if Chris himself wasn’t also willing. And the man had made it clear earlier that week. Pursuing something with her wasn’t what he wanted to do.

He didn’t want her. Didn’t need her.

And if there was anything she deserved in life, it was a man who would fight for her.

Friday morning, Mara found it hard to keep her eyes off Chris. This felt like their last real chance to be around each other. After three full days of stony silence between them, it might also be her last chance to tell him anything.

But what did she want to say to him, other thanscrew you?

“All right, people,” the director called out. “We’ll break for lunch and film the judging process after we eat. Almost done, folks!”

There was something jovial in the air today, the same way high school classrooms got during the last week of school. This was it. The actual end of the competition. No more early mornings in the Glenford Community Center. No more gingerbread mishaps and triumphs. No more furtive glances at Chris, wondering why she still craved the feel of his lips against her collarbone…

“Chris! This way!” The director barked for Chris to head out of the multipurpose room, and he complied instantly, shucking his apron. Mara resisted the urge to follow him, instead arranging her things with care in her workspace. This was going to be the last time she used the annoying red spatula with the blade that always fell off mid-stir. Hell, it was probably rigged that way by the network. They loved gobbling up those ridiculous moments of wits’-end frustration.

She couldn’t ignore her curiosity for long, though. Eventually she wandered out of the multipurpose room, and instead of heading for the lounge where their buffet lunch awaited, she followed the low undertones of the director’s voice.

She found them in the auditorium, just Chris, the director, and a man she didn’t recognize. Their voices carried in the expansive space, and she eavesdropped enough to overhear that it was a reporter from theNew York Timeshere for an interview.

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