Page 24 of His Christmas Gift

“It’s gorgeous Melissa. I can’t wait to see what else you’ve done,” Evelyn said making Jasper laugh brightly before taking out his tablet to pull up the photos on it. He handed it over to his mother and she gasped lightly at the pictures from the dinner party. “Is this…”

“Her handiwork in a day, yes,” he stated letting her look through everything from that night and then onto the Christmas party. “We had our best turnout ever for the Christmas party; everyone at the office was full of compliments on Melissa’s hard work.”

“This is incredible, you’d never guess you were still in the city,” Fred said looking at the photos. “You even had Santa and Mrs. Claus there?”

“Yes, although she still won’t tell me how or where she found them,” Jasper stated making her smile.

He’d find out when they went to see her father, but she didn’t want to get into that now. She wanted to spend Christmas and New Year’s with him, falling deeper in love with him first.

“They handed out gifts to all of the children and teens that came with their parents,” Jasper added when they flipped to a photo of a girl reading on a reader. “Depending on ages, the littlest ones got blankets and stuffed toys, which had a gift certificate for their parents to purchase any of the electronic learning toys for toddlers or baby monitors along with a savings bond certificate for them. The next ones got the electronic readers with preloaded content and two hundred dollars of credit for books loaded on them. The teenagers got five-hundred-dollar certificates to Hannover Electronics. I can say everyone was shocked and astonished by Santa’s generosity.”

“Which was actually Hannover Electronics’ generosity,” Melissa said with a soft smile at him. “I just contacted them for the potential donation, and they agreed. They’re huge sponsors for children’s literacy programs so when they heard how many of the employees had kids in that age range, they were happy to do it.”

“I’ve heard of them doing things like this before,” Evelyn said giving her a bright smile. “That’s amazing that they would do it for you, it must have taken a lot of talking for them to say yes though.”

You’d be surprised to know how easy it was, Melissa mused to herself. “The people in the charitable division are sort of pushovers. They were hired because they like to give back apparently, so it wasn’t that hard.”

“But to even take the time to get them to do it, I am so glad that my son’s fallen in love with a girl like you rather than some of the ones he’s run around with in the past,” Evelyn said making her duck her head avoiding Jasper’s gaze.

“Thanks for stealing my line, Mother,” Jasper teased lifting Melissa’s chin his way to see her face, read the hope in her gaze.

“But is it any wonder that I’m in love with her? She’s everything I’d ever want or desire,” he stated keeping his gaze intently on her.

“Jasper…” Melissa said softly, amazed at how easily his words came out.

“I love you, princess, no one could ever change that,” he said just as softly before stealing her lips in a gentle kiss that made her heart race wildly with longing to be his entirely in every way.

“I know I’m in love with you,” she told him as he pulled back, cupping her cheek as his mother watched with pure joy washed across her face.

“Oh, this is the best Christmas present I could ever hope for,” Evelyn said happily leaning into Fred’s side.

“Well, there’s more to come still,” Jasper stated guiding Melissa up from the couch. “Do you want the tour now or would you like to visit one of Missy’s favorite spots in the city?”

“I’ve already seen the house Jasper,” Evelyn said laughing at the suggestion.

Melissa grinned as she settled her hand onto his chest, her heart fluttering, butterflies bounding about in her stomach. Surely her father would be happy for her.

Jasper was more self-made than most of the men he met, successful at reinvigorating the company he took over, and he loved her. That had to be enough for him, it was for her, and she would be the one to live with him after all. As long as he forgave her for keeping the truth from him about whom she really was for so long.

“There might be an upgrade or two you haven’t seen yet,” Jasper offered but they agreed they wanted to see one of the places she loved.

He loaded them into the car to go to the wine shop. Arthur greeted her warmly, thankfully only by first name as she’d told him her real one, and asked if they were looking for something special. She couldn’t help but grin at that question and asked after one her favorite wines. Most places hadn’t ever heard of the winery before, but Arthur certainly had, and even better than that, had a few bottles in stock from them even.

“I still don’t see a ring on that finger, my dear,” Arthur said pulling a laugh from his mother.

“I suspect it will be there soon and this mother couldn’t be more thrilled at the prospect,” Evelyn said introducing herself to the man. “I anticipated my normal workaholic grumbly son and instead found a very happy and satisfied one in his spot.”

“I still say it’s a shame my grandson didn’t find her first, but as long as she comes back to see an old man and she’s happy, I’ll settle for it,” Arthur said wrapping their bottles for them to take home to have with dinner.

“As you can tell, she steals hearts very easily,” Jasper said once they left, taking the long way back to the house to enjoy the Christmas scenery around town.

“Well deserved, I know it,” Evelyn stated and over dinner, she asked her about herself and how she came across her wine knowledge after tasting it.

“Melissa and her friends at college were a little more high-browed than I or my friends were I believe,” Jasper said making her laugh.

“He’s joking of course,” she said as he lifted her hand, pressing a kiss to it. “It’s actually because of my father. I was twelve when my mother died and rather than leave me home if he had to travel for business during the summers, he’d take me with him. We traveled to Europe several times with his work and once I was fifteen, they would include me at any of the dinners. No one said anything about me having wine; it was typical of the company at them I suppose. My father once told me that as long as I wasn’t guzzling it or acting a fool, he didn’t care. He actually said it would be good for me to have a wider palate than the normal teenager who was merely sneaking beer or hard liquor from their parents’ stash.”

“I’d say he had the right idea,” Fred stated with a light laugh. “I can remember my boys more than once losing their stomachs after indulging a bit too much as teens. My daughter is a bit younger than them, Russell is thirty-four, Brent is thirty-two, and Ashley is twenty-seven now, but when she was fifteen, we let her try something to drink with us, rather than risk her doing it at a party somewhere. She never let it get her in trouble after that.”

---