Page 91 of Christmas with the Denton Billionaires

“I can’t leave this unfinished overnight,” Chris snapped, tugging off his apron. Fire extinguisher residue had stained the edges, and he wasn’t risking getting any of it in his new workspace. “I’m staying to get resituated. Whethershelikes it or not.”

When his team started to protest, Chris added, “You all can leave. This is work for me, anyway. I need my kitchen a certain way, so I’ll take the time to get it in place, and we can start fresh in the morning.”

“Are you sure? We can stay.” Shelby, one of his helpers, offered.

Shaking his head, he smiled at them. “Nope. I got it. You go enjoy your evening.”

His team dispersed, and Paul came over to him. “I’ll send in a crew to clean up the oven and scrub down the whole area to make sure all the powder from the fire extinguisher is cleaned up, so leave all that for them.”

“I appreciate that. I’ll take care of what I need right now.”

Mara stomped over to them. “There’s no space in my kitchen for him. He needs his own. Can’t you bring in a new oven?”

“Well, thatislooking like the plan,” Paul said, in a carefully curatedduhtone that Chris recognized well from his years in television. “But I can’t make one appear with the snap of my fingers. I need to order it, and it needs to be delivered and installed.”

“Don’t you have any extra lying around?” The look of incredulity on her face was almost amusing. Almost. “I mean, accidents happen. I thought you guys had backups foreverything.”

“We operate on a budget like every other show in the country,” Paul said, shrugging. “Which means we don’t buy more ovens than we need. While I realize this is a competition, we do expect a certain amount of cooperation. I’m sure you can understand that, Mara. Right?”

She huffed and turned her cutting glare to Chris. “Then I’m staying too. I’m not going to let him ruin my setup and create more work formetomorrow too.”

“Fine. Do what you want.” Chris headed for his ruined workspace and started picking out the most important items to clean and cart over. He went into hyper-focus mode, mostly because now he was a full day behind after a two-minute disaster. And because Mara’s presence began to burn at the periphery of his attention.

The camera crew and staff slowly cleared out. Once Paul called his farewell, only he and Mara remained in the multipurpose room.

The buzz of the fluorescent lights far above was the only sound between them for a long time as Chris piled up his work equipment on the counters. But once he started spreading out, Mara cleared her throat.

“You can’t put your bowls there,” she said, blocking off the counterspace with her hand. “This is my candy prep area.”

“Well your candy prep area can go over there.” He jerked his chin toward the far wall of countertops.

“That’s where my dough prep station is.”

“Then move it.”

“No. I already set up my space according my to work flow, and I’m not changing it now.” She leaned closer, asserting her territory. It irritated him, as much as it was sort of cute. Her strawberry-blonde hair, pulled back into a tight bun, looked like silk. Her cheekbones popped more now than they had in high school, which of course drew his attention down to her lips.

Those lush, full lips, which he’d kissed so many times during their junior year and thought of even more times since their break-up.

They hadn’t changed a bit, and now that his gaze was stuck on her mouth, he remembered why he’d made it a hard and fast rule not to look at her for too long.

“We need to share the space, so that’s what we’re going to do,” Chris said, moving his bowls beyond her hand barrier. She gasped.

“I told you,” she spat, picking up his bowls. “This is my candy station.”

“Put those down.”

“Okay. I will.” She smirked and marched over to the farthest point of the kitchen, setting them on a tiny sliver of countertop between her oven and one of the tall fridges. “Here. Right where they belong.”

“Jesus, Mara. Could you be more childish? It’s just for tonight. I’m sure Paul will have it figured out before we start filming tomorrow.”

She scoffed. Chris stormed back to his abandoned workspace and brought over the last load of utensils, all scrubbed and sanitized. As he got his whisks and spatulas arranged according to his system, he noticed that Mara had discretely pushed aside more of his pans and bowls.

“Mara, I swear to God, if you touch my stuff one more time—”

“What?”

“Just quit it. You don’t want to deal with the consequences,” he said, heat streaking through him as she sauntered up to him.

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