The Billionaire’s Second Chance Christmas (Christmas with the Denton Billionaires Book 3) Read online

Chris worked his jaw back and forth as he turned to leave. But then he whipped back to face her. “All I wanted to say was good luck. Because you’ll need it.”

  “Will I?” Mara scrubbed at a perfectly clean spot on the countertop, unable to control the snark flying out of her mouth. If there was one thing that rubbed her the wrong way, it was arrogant assholes. She had a short fuse for guys who acted holier than thou. “I’ve seen your show before, and I know how you bake. You really could have spruced up the fondant in that wedding cake episode, by the way. But you’re not a baker. You wouldn’t know.”

  Chris’s jaw flexed. “You watch the show? I take it you’re a fan.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? No. I’m not a fan. I’ve just had the misfortune of being trapped in a few waiting rooms while your show was on.”

  “You might not be a fan, but fifty-five million other Americans are. That’s not even counting international ratings.”

  “I’m sure those numbers help you drift off into a restful sleep each night,” she shot back, feeling herself tumble headfirst into the tunnel of snark. “And with numbers like that, why are you even here? I mean seriously. You can’t possibly care about this gingerbread competition.”

  She stopped scrubbing at the countertop, her elbow suddenly aching. Wouldn’t that be great—if she’d given herself tennis elbow simply from the pent-up frustration of being around Chris Denton?

  “Why am I here?” The acid nearly dripped from his tongue. “I go where I’m needed. That’s what my career is about. And clearly, this competition needed an experienced hand to liven things up. Everybody loves me, Mara.”

  “Not everybody,” she shot back.

  His grin turned sardonic. Like he’d been waiting for her to go there. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  Chris turned on his heel and strutted away, and all she could do was gape after him. The remark felt out of left field, but she also felt called out. He could somehow peer into her head and see just how hot her blood was running at the sight of him.

  That didn’t mean she loved him. Even though she had once, she didn’t anymore.

  She blinked, repeating this to herself as she busied herself in her kitchen again.

  Ten years was more than enough time to get over someone and move the hell on.

  Wasn’t it?

  3

  “Places!”

  The sharp voice of the director cut through Chris’s early morning fog. He always woke up at seven on the dot, espresso by 7:20 and in the studio by eight, but something was throwing him off today. As his gaze landed on Mara’s stony face and a shiver coursed through him, he had an idea of what it was.

  “Are we ready?” The director, Paul, looked around the room. Both Chris’s and Mara’s teams were assembled in the network-provided aprons emblazoned with the show’s logo. The first full day of filming was about to commence, and the only thing more nerve wracking than competing against Mara was not knowing what her gingerbread plan of attack was.

  Chris hated to admit it—so he never would out loud—but Mara was right. He wasn’t an amazing baker, but what he lacked in prowess he made up for in ingenuity. He could still bake circles around most people in the industry, but by the way she directed her assistants around the kitchen and arranged her equipment, he could tell that Mara knew what she was doing.

  Though she hadn’t baked back when they were in high school, their ten years apart must have sparked an interest in the field.

  What else has changed since then? He glanced at her hands, curious to see if there was a ring there. All fingers were bare. Not like she’d wear a wedding ring during a baking competition. But still. Maybe there was someone she called her boyfriend…or more probably, her husband.

  And what if she still had that asshole Dan on her arm? Anger flashed through him, a sucker punch from the past. He hadn’t expected to get bothered by that decade-old drama, but maybe that was just a natural consequence of being back in Glenford. The memory of walking into the school dance to find Mara making out with Dan had haunted him. Even after he’d broken up with her and read her the riot act and moved to New York City to move in with his cousins Josh and Mitch, he hadn’t stopped thinking about it for a long time.

  Maybe too long.

  Filming began, and Chris fought to regain focus. He was used to high-pressure situations, filming schedules, and being surrounded by cameras for more than eight hours a day. So why couldn’t he get his head in the game in Glenford?

  His mind darted back to Mara, even though he kept his eyes off her. He directed his crew through the preparatory items on his to-do list for the day: mixing dough, cleaning pans, arranging the rolling pins. But Mara sizzled at his periphery. The more he tried not to look at her, the harder his thoughts about her accelerated.

  Focus.

  He scraped together the shreds of his concentration and powered through the day. Over the years, he’d finetuned his TV persona to such a degree that it came like second nature. So much that it didn’t even feel like work—he could just transform into his television-ready self at a moment’s notice. And that happened on the set as well, knowing that the cameras were filming, shouting and barking commands the way his audience had come to expect.

  Cooking with Chris wasn’t an international success just because he was a good-looking guy. No, he’d crafted a fine cocktail of arrogance blended with intellectual know-how. He’d criticized more than a few guests for their sloppy kitchen manners and schooled even more experts on their weak areas. That was part of the appeal.

  Which meant that Gingerbread Head to Head was relying on his infamous Chris-ness. And he was going to deliver.

  A slight commotion near one of the cameras caught his attention as he and the team brought out the first batch of cooked gingerbread. The director snapped his fingers.

  “Say that louder, Mara.”

  Mara glanced up at him, a smirk on her face. “What?”

  “Say what you just said, but louder. We didn’t catch it well enough the first time.”

  Mara’s smirk turned mischievous. “Chris wouldn’t know a good gingerbread recipe if it was garnished with lavender.”

  He flattened his lips. He loved garnishing with lavender, but hell if he’d let her know how annoyed that made him.

  One thing was clear—the woman had shown up to compete. He’d considered going slightly easy on her in the verbal arena, but now? All bets were off. He was going to treat Mara like she clearly deserved. As an absolute foe.

  “You wouldn’t recognize a good gingerbread recipe period,” Chris snapped back. He sent an accusatory glare over to her prep area. “Not even a culinary degree to speak of.”

  “Your degree means squat when it comes to flavor,” Mara said without even flinching. “Everybody knows culinary school is just a way to overpay for presentation lessons. Spend a year in a good kitchen—that’s all the culinary school you need.”

  “Spend a year in a good kitchen.” Chris lifted a brow and barked out a sharp laugh. Turning to the director, he said, “Can we call the competition already? I don’t have time for amateur hour.”

  Pure sound bites, and the satisfied grin that spread across Paul’s face told Chris he was hitting all the right marks. More than likely they’d use that as a promotional teaser. If the cameras caught Mara’s darkened face in response—which surely they did, with the ten cameras positioned around the multipurpose room—then they were well on their way to a tense showdown.

  Hours chugged by, interspersed with bathroom and meal breaks. They were set to film until five, and at four thirty Chris was already craving the sharp tang of a good whiskey. This first day of filming deserved a celebratory visit to the local watering hole. Not to get drunk—he couldn’t afford to have a hangover tomorrow—but just to be seen and take the edge off after this intense first day around Mara.

  A piercing scream echoed through the multipurpose room. It seemed everyone took a collective gasp.

  “Holy s
hit! Guys, fire!” One of Chris’s team members jumped back, pointing at the oven. The hair on the back of Chris’s neck stood up, and he raced over to the scene.

  “Get the fire extinguisher!” Chris shouted, his heart pounding. Fuck fuck fuck. What a way to inaugurate the competition. A crew member appeared a moment later with the extinguisher in his hands, and a punishing plume of white dust enveloped the kitchen space. After a few moments, the fire was out, and Chris’s entire workspace lay covered under a half inch of unappetizing gray residue.

  “What the fuck happened?” Chris demanded, approaching his team member with his hands on his hips.

  “I don’t know! I had just taken out the last batch of gingerbread and was about to put in the next…”

  Chris ran a hand through his hair, surveying the damage. Frustration bubbled up around the edges of his composure. The most recent batch of gingerbread lay completely caked over with fire extinguisher innards. It was a disgusting mess.

  “We need to get this cleaned up by five,” Chris said, checking the large clock hung between the two workstations. Turning to the director, he added, “And what about a replacement oven? I need to redo all of today’s work, and fast. What’s the game plan here?”

  Paul worked his jaw back and forth as he came forward, inspecting Chris’s oven. “I’ll get a crew to establish if its salvageable. But until then, our best bet might be to share the remaining workspace.”

  “Uh, no,” Mara interjected.

  Chris shot her a glare. “Director’s orders. Unless you have a better suggestion?”

  “I’ve already got everything set up here. I don’t have room for a second baker,” she said, crossing her arms.

  Paul checked his watch. “How about we sleep on it? We can reorganize in the morning.”

  “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 that getting in his new workspace. “I’m staying to get resituated. Whether she likes 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 overtime to get it in place.”

  His team members dispersed, and Paul came over to him. “I’ll send in a crew to clean up the oven, so at least you don’t have to worry about cleaning up that mess.”

  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, that is looking like the plan,” Paul said, in a carefully curated duh tone 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 arrive.”

  “Don’t you have any extra lying around?” The look of incredulity on her face was almost amusing. Almost. “I mean, this is a huge television network. Accidents happen. I thought you guys had backups for everything.”

  “We operate on a budget like every other show in the country,” Paul said, shrugging. “Which means we don’t get more ovens than needed. I’m sorry, Mara, but we’ll have to share the workspace for a while.”

  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 for me tomorrow 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 just 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 to the show’s standards, 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 senior 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?”

  She scoffed. Chris stormed back to his abandoned workspace and brought over the last load of utensils. 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.

  “What will you do?” A mischievous smirk crossed her face, and she pushed herself into his line of vision, seeking his gaze. “Come on, play it up like you do for the cameras. What’s big bad celebrity Chris gonna do?”

  A hint of her perfume wafted toward him—citrus and lavender—and washed over him like a caress. And then he was falling, falling into the past. Back when their barbs were laced with tenderness and every close encounter ended in the kisses and touches that he always craved from her.

  Apparently, not much had changed. Just inches away from her, his heart pounded like he’d run a marathon, and his lips already tingled as if he’d kissed her.

  “The cameras are off, Mara. The crew is gone. Besides, I might not do it at all,” he said, his voice coming out gruff. “You’d like it too much.”

  Her eyebrow lifted, and the remaining space between them shrank. Chris gritted his teeth, both shocked and calmed by how familiar her face still was to him. Even after ten years apart and all this bad blood that still pumped between them.

  “What could you possibly do that I would like?”

  He could have sworn that she pushed herself up on her toes, as if proffering herself. Like she wanted to smash her lips against his as badly as he did.

  Chris swallowed hard, feeling his last dregs of rational thought drift away. Fuck it. He was going for it. They were standing a breath apart in this vast kitchen. She had to be feeling it too. There was only one way to find out.

  He captured her lips in an urgent kiss, his palm finding the back of her head. Her lips were velvet, so soft and hungry and warm. Kisses like these made him want to ensure they lasted forever. No matter the consequences.

  Mara lingered there only a moment before pulling back with a gasp.

  4

  Mara searched Chris’s face, trying to pinpoint his motive. Was this revenge, somehow? Was this a tactic? Or was this him responding to the very real sexual tension rushing between them harder than Niagara Falls?

  She couldn’t tell
. And hell, maybe she didn’t want to know the reason. Every inch of her wanted those lips against hers again, even if it was the worst idea in all of history.

  Mara grabbed at the collar of his shirt before she could think better of it. Their lips came crashing together a second time, this time in a punishing kiss. There was heartbreak and eagerness and confusion there, and the whole mess of it scorched beneath her skin and lit her up more than any single lackluster ex of hers ever had.

  Goddammit, Chris. This phrase raced through her mind as they kissed, over and over again, their lips and limbs seeking each other as if she’d been waiting the past ten years for this. The thought settled strangely inside her—could that be true? She sure hoped not. But there was only one way to find out if her high-school heartbreak could finally be laid to rest.

  And it had a lot to do with boning Chris in the middle of the show kitchen.

  Mara tugged at his shirt, fingers seeking the hard planes of his body underneath. Chris grunted, and they broke their kisses long enough for him to rip her apron over her head and toss it aside. Mara found his mouth again urgently, deliriously, as if the half second she’d been away from his kisses had drained her.

  There was no denying it—the man had something special about him. Sure, it was laced with arrogance and cockiness and heavily doused with asshole. But these kisses? These were the kisses of romance novels, and goddammit, why were they even better than she’d remembered?

  “Oh, my God,” she mumbled through a kiss as Chris’s hands traced the curves of her body through her cotton long-sleeved shirt. When his hands reached her hips, he pushed his palms over the mounds of her ass and gave both her ass cheeks a good squeeze.

  Her breath shivered out of her. “Jesus, Chris.”

  “Mmm?”

  “What are we doing?” Her lips left a trail of kisses along his jawline. He grunted again.

  “I don’t know. But I like it.” He squeezed her ass cheeks again, and then one hand snaked around in front. He swiped his thumb over the crease of her pussy. Even though she was wearing jeans, the contact sent a jolt through her. She gasped without meaning to. Part of her felt like she could break into a million pieces from wanting him. But the rational part of her told her to woman up and step away.