Page 49 of Christmas with the Denton Billionaires

He glanced back at her as he pushed through the office door. She looked like she was fighting a grin.

“I don’t care if anyone saw…” Having a baby spit up on his thousand-dollar suit was not the way he’d seen this day going. He just didn’t know how to say it without it sounding exactly the way it sounded. That he was more concerned with the state of his clothes than the state of the child. He softened slightly, sighing. “Fine. I’ve never been puked on before. Not even in college.”

Jules snickered, swaying slightly as she held the baby. Her brown hair swept over her forehead as she smiled down at the bundle in her arms. “There’s a first time for everything. I think you’re initiated now.”

He paused in the middle of slipping off his jacket, sideswiped by the sight of Jules standing there. So beautiful, but also now so tender as she held the little girl. He almost forgot what he was doing until Jules looked up at him.

“You better get to it before it sets,” she said.

“Right.” Mitch cleared his throat and laid his jacket down over a clear section of the desk and hurried into the small, attached bathroom to snag some paper towels. When he came back out, Jules grimaced.

“I think she got your shirt, too.”

He looked down, and sure enough—a small damp area right beside the breast pocket stared back at him. He bit back a complaint.

“I guess I should be happy she feels better,” he said with a sigh. “At the expense of my clothes.”

“Exactly.” Jules still swayed where she stood. It seemed the baby had fallen asleep again. “She wasn’t feeling good, and now she feelsgreat.”

Mitch worked on removing the bulk of the spit-up while Jules walked around the office, gently rubbing the baby’s back. Whenever she crossed through his line of sight, it was hard not to stare. There was something so elegant, so soft about her right now. Unlike the woman he’d met earlier. The transformation nearly stole his breath, but he couldn’t even say why.

Jules is the event planner, and you’re trying to find out where to send this baby.He frowned as he scrubbed at the stain.

Why was that so hard to remember?

5

JULES

Jules had a sleeping baby in her arms for less than a half hour and already she felt like she belonged toher.

You can’t adopt the first orphan you find, Jules. It doesn’t work that way. Certainly not legally.The words were so ridiculous she hesitated to even think them. It wasn’t like she planned on having children—notyet, anyway, and certainly not as a single mom. She’d thought that someday she might settle down, find a great guy, start a family the old-fashioned way.

But for some reason, this baby in a manger seemed like a test of that idea.

Or was she falling victim to the Christmas season and the incredibly sexy man in the room?

Jules struggled to keep her eyes off him as he unbuttoned his shirt. It was almost like he’d forgotten she and the baby were in the room, since she’d been standing by the windows while the baby slept. When the shirt crested his shoulders and she caught a glimpse of pale skin and sturdy, rippling shoulders, she gasped.

Like an idiot.

Mitch whipped around, confusion on his face. “Sorry. Should have warned you.” His shirt hung open, revealing washboard abs and the absolute perfect dusting of chest hair. He offered a lopsided grin. “I’ll go into the bathroom.”

“No, no,” she blurted, unable to stop her gaze from careening over the creamy expanse of his chest. Damn, she’d give a lot to see the rest of him. Like the whole rest of his body. “I just…I noticed it’s snowing harder.” Her gaze jerked to the window, at the gray sky threatening black. “That’s all. This is your office. Do what you need to do.”

Her heart stayed in her throat as he headed her way, brows drawn together as he assessed the outside world through the window. “Oh, wow, it’s really coming down now,” he murmured. The cedar scent of his aftershave reached her, the masculine scent nearly sending her to her knees. It had been long—far too long—since she’d been with a man. And she had never had the pleasure of being with someone who looked like Mitch.

She’d been so focused on her career and so jaded by the dating world in New York City that the majority of her male interactions were with clients and the occasional hanger-on at the bar. On the rare occasion she even went out with her girlfriends.

Truth was, she didn’t expect much in the way of love. Her mother had drilled that into her from a young age. Watching her mother in one disastrous relationship after another left them both jaded and taught Jules that there was no such thing as a happily ever after. So, why bother looking for something that didn’t exist?

“Weather reports weren’t exaggerating. This really is going to be a bad storm,” Mitch said, raking a hand through his hair. The shirt shifted, and she caught a glimpse of his dime-sized nipple. She was blatantly staring now. “I’m going to call Patrick so we can have security meet us in here and then figure out where—”

A knock interrupted him. They both swung around to look at the door just as it cracked open.

“Mitch. You wanted to see me?” The same man she saw Mitch with in the ballroom poked his head in, then stopped short with a little “Oh!”

“Patrick, it’s fine, come in.” Mitch waved him in, heading toward a wardrobe on the other side of the office. “I was hoping you were still here. Did your assistant make it in today? I need to send some things for dry cleaning and I could use some assistance with a few other things. Rose is off because of the storm.”

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