Soft Spot

Bonus Chapter Excerpt

A few months later...

"You're kidding!"

Heads fly up and swivel in my direction at the outburst I wasn't even aware came out of my mouth. Pair that with the way I smacked the table in frustration and I'm basically a free show.

I cringe, duck my head, and quickly gather my things from my desk so I can go lay into whose fault this really is. I'm knocking on his door a second later.

"Yes?" Comes the expected cool response.

The door shuts behind me with a quick push of my four inch heel. It's tapping the sleek carpet of my boss's office floor a second later.

"Seriously?" I scowl at Mason. "You scheduled me for tonight?"

He's unfazed, typing away at his computer and not even glancing in my general direction. "Yes."

I throw up hands of exasperation. "It's Christmas Eve!"

"And?"

"And I happen to have plans."

"You've yet to make your point."

Have I mentioned that my boss is basically an unfeeling robot who probably plans to destroy the world one day?

"My point is that your stupid schedule is getting in the way of Santa getting his cookies tonight, if you know what I mean."

That gets his attention. Mason blinks one slow and almost regretful blink before looking away from his computer to meet my eyes. His are as expressionless as ever but I swear there's a hint of horror in them.

"Fortunately, no. I don't know what you mean, Miss Davis."

I bug my eyes out like it's obvious. "Sawyer, little boss-man. As far as I'm concerned, he's the only bearded man whose lap I'm sitting on tonight."

Mason stares. I wink.

Mason stares some more. I wiggle my brows.

Mason pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. I wait patiently with a smile.

"You spend too much time with him," he mutters under his breath. I shrug my shoulders. He's probably right about that. "I've scheduled him too."

It's my turn to stare. "You what?"

"Scheduled you both. Would you rather one works and the other has the night off?"

"I'd like to go with neither for fifty points, please."

The joke flies over his head. Either that or he chooses not to humour me. I can never tell with him. Mason's personality is like a dead end you keep bumping into because you swear you can get past it.

"The campaign with FitKit is due tomorrow and you specifically requested not to be scheduled for Christmas Day. Where does that leave us, Ms. Davis?"

Aw, crap.

I shuffle on the heels that I specifically brought to see wrapped around my man and grumble, "Today, I guess."

"And I presume working with the person you want to spend Christmas Eve with is better than not seeing them at all?"

More points I reluctantly hand over with another, "I guess."

"So do you still have a point to make or have you realized there isn't one?"

I cross my arms, way past maturity as I sulk at the realization that my initial plans for today aren't happening.

"I thought we were friends," I sniff. "Where's the love, man?"