Page 55 of The Christmas Tree Farm

He chuckled and moved so that his arm was draped around her shoulder. ‘I thought you didn’t even like Christmas,’ he said.

She peered up at him. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Well, you have zero decorations in here. You don’t even have a Christmas tree and you own a Christmas-tree farm. And you cringe every time you hear a Christmas song.’

‘Christmas music is objectively terrible.’ She crinkled her nose at the thought, and God, she wascutewhen she wasn’t trying to scare him away.

‘And yet you love these objectively terrible movies.’

‘Hey! This movie is a cinematic masterpiece.’

His laugh rumbled through them and Kira nuzzled in closer. Her body was so warm andright. He hadn’t felt like this in so long, like he clicked with someone, like he could actually imagine wanting to be with them.

‘Why do you love them so much?’

She sighed. ‘Watching crappy Christmas movies was one of the few holiday traditions I liked. Me and Chloe, every year we watch the worst ones and eat our weight in Christmas cookies and do our best to avoid my mother’s over-planned events.’

‘Sounds fun.’

‘It was. Except the year we tried to make it a drinking game.’

‘Less fun?’

‘Well, less fun because they said the word “mistletoe” so many times I almost got alcohol poisoning, and Chloe nearly ran bare-ass naked through my mother’s famous Christmas Eve party, but luckily she passed out in the hallway before she made it downstairs.’

‘Wow.’

‘Yeah. Poor Elaine, our housekeeper, had quite a shock in the morning.’

‘I bet.’

‘Don’t worry I gave her an extra good Christmas gift that year.’

‘What did you get her?’

Kira huffed a disbelieving laugh. ‘Cash.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘I’m guessing your Christmases were a bit different.’

‘Uh … yeah. I mean there was no household staff and no big parties, and definitely no naked drinking games, but we had fun.’

‘Did you wear matching pajamas and sing around the Christmas tree?’

Bennett laughed, his breath rustling Kira’s hair. Her head was tucked right beneath his chin. ‘Nothing quite that cute. We used to see all my cousins on Christmas Eve, and we’d do a Secret Santa gift exchange.’

‘That’s pretty cute.’

‘Not that cute. We liked to mess with each other and tried to one-up each other on giving the worst gift.’

‘Who won?’

‘Probably my cousin Andrew, the year he got me a bottle of lube when I was sixteen.’

Kira burst out laughing and he couldn’t help but join her. In hindsight, it was kinda hilarious. At the time, he’d wanted to crawl under the tree and die.

‘Lube?!’