“Nope! He asked us to invite a Lot of homeless folks though, so we went around the shelters putting up flyers. As you can see there's been a pretty great turnout here."

“Thanks, Tulip! We'll be here all night until Santa shows up! Now

David, it's back to you in the studio."

KOK OK OK Ok

“Hey, Trish! Merry Christmas! Come on in." Hugh opened his front door for her.

"Thanks!" She stepped inside.

“Shitting hell! You know there's only us two here tonight, right?" He exclaimed as he looked down and saw the sack of various varieties of alcohol that she was hauling.

"Yeah! Well we don't have to drink it all and it's Christmas. Besides,

I wanted to get you something for making us dinner.“ She jingled the sack with a smile. "Ho, ho, ho!"

"Oh, well in that case you can get us some glasses." He smiled and stepped aside to Let her walk through his apartment.

From his friendly demeanour no one would have guessed that Hugh was absolutely terrified. Rather than going home for the holidays like seemingly everyone else in Christendom, he'd stayed there in New York to help his boss prepare a presentation to be delivered in early

January. It had just been the two of them in the office for the past week, going over the company finances and checking everything was settled before they moved forward.

His boss. Also known as Patricia May. Trish to her friends. His boss who he'd been madly in love with for the last four or five days, and had a distinctly strong crush on before that.

He didn't quite know how he'd managed to get the words out to offer her dinner on Christmas Eve. She'd mentioned that she was sorry about him needing to stay in the city, and that she herself wouldn't be meeting with her family that year either. From there, the words were coming from between his lips before he could quite make sense of them. We shouldn't be alone at Christmas. Would you like to come over for dinner?

What in the hell had possessed him?

Well, she was a phenomenally attractive woman in her early thirties who had an exceptional mind and a vicious streak that scared him just a little bit. He'd seen what happened to the people who wronged Trish, and it was terribly good motivation to never ever fall on her bad side.

She was always stunning to behold, but that night she Looked positively glowing. Long, platinum blonde hair was fixed in luscious waves cascading about her naturally tanned face and falling to her shoulders.

Plush lips had been coloured red for the evening, and she wore a matching red dress that was the same rich shade as his Santa hat.

Seeing the way the silky material clung to her body as she slipped her coat from her shoulders, he regretted wearing a horrific Christmas sweater and some brown pants. At the time he had felt comfy and familiar, and hoped that the silly sweater with a mangled image of

Rudolph on the front might make her laugh. Now he felt distinctly underdressed and was suddenly very much aware of the floppy point of his hat swishing about his head.