A Kiss at Christmas Read online

  Suddenly everyone in the car was more on alert, watching exactly where they were going, all with confused faces. Their driver made a left turn, drove past the main buildings for the hotel, past cottages, and then turned right onto a road that ran slightly uphill but alongside the ocean, to where several mansions stood tall and proud, and pulled to a stop at one.

  “We’re staying in a mansion?” Kelli exclaimed.

  Their driver opened the door and Parker and the others all climbed out. “You can head inside; I’ll get your luggage taken care of.”

  The other limo had pulled up right behind them, and the twelve of them stared up at the mansion in awe as they made their way to the front door. When Graham and Merit first told him about this retreat, this wasn’t exactly what he had pictured.

  Graham opened the front door and said, “Welcome! Come on, come inside—we’re excited to get this week started!”

  Parker stepped into a tall foyer of a mansion that opened in one direction to a living room and the other to a twisting staircase leading to a second floor, all of which looked like a Christmas explosion had gone off. This place was even more decorated for the season than his Grandma Ines’s house.

  It appeared that escaping all of Christmas was going to be more difficult than he had planned.

  Chapter Seven

  When he welcomed Kelli and the others into the mansion, Graham had immediately led them to the gigantic room that had a family room on one end, a dining room at the other, and a kitchen in the middle, and Kelli was in love. The dining table seated sixteen people. Sixteen! A lunch buffet was set up along one side of the room, which was good, because Kelli was starving.

  Once they had their plates filled with a variety of cute little sandwiches and different kinds of salads, they all sat down at the big table. With Graham, Merit, and a woman who didn’t come in with them but was looking at Merit like she was in love, they nearly filled the entire table.

  For a while, they just chatted while they ate, and it felt like heaven, being surrounded by so many happy people. Parker was sitting straight across from her, and he looked like he was enjoying it, too. Then, as they got close to finishing, Graham stood up, and everyone stopped talking.

  “Welcome, everyone. We’re thrilled you joined us this Christmas.”

  Someone in a Royal Palms Resort uniform appeared from some side room and started clearing their plates while he spoke.

  “I know how it can feel to not have anywhere to go for Christmas. I spent two years living away from family, and the holidays were especially rough. I know how it can make you long for all the traditions of home. Or how it can make you not want to have anything to do with Christmas at all. I completely understand that some of you are going to want to gravitate toward activities at the resort that don’t have to do with Christmas, and you’re going to skip anything we do here that’s Christmassy, too.”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Parker exhale in relief, like he was so glad that Graham understood. Did he not like Christmas?

  Merit stood up. “Our goal,” he said as he motioned between him and Graham, “is to make sure that you don’t.”

  Kelli didn’t want to be obvious by turning to look at Parker so she couldn’t see the expression he made at Graham’s declaration, but she chuckled inside, just knowing that he probably wasn’t thrilled about it.

  “Okay, ‘make sure you don’t’ is kind of harsh. We’re going to encourage you to participate. Because we know that when we get to the end of this week, you’re going to be happier and more refreshed if you do.”

  “Now hop up. We have explaining to do, and explaining is always better with a slideshow!”

  Everyone looked at each other, seeming just as wary of the slideshow as she was. Especially because this was supposed to be a break from work. But they still all stood, of course, looking around to see where they should go.

  “Don’t look so afraid,” Merit said. “Graham’s presentations aren’t boring.”

  Joy, a quiet, sweet, and totally adorable woman who had ridden in the same limo as Kelli, walked next to her and said, “I don’t know a soul here. Do you?”

  “Just Parker.” She motioned at him as they walked toward the couches on the family room side of the room.

  “He is one good looking guy.”

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “If only he wasn’t Parker.”

  “Oh. He’s bad news, then?”

  She shook her head. “Only for me.”

  The couches were a giant half circle facing a fireplace with a huge TV above it. An undecorated Christmas tree stood next to the fireplace, looking regal and ready to be loved. Kelli sat down on the couch with everybody else and, once again, realized she had sat with Parker right in her line of sight.

  “Welcome to the ZentCube Christmas Celebration!” Graham said, the first slide of his slideshow appearing on the screen. It was of each of their faces, probably from their employee ID badges, on tiny bodies, looking like bobble heads dancing. He had the sound of a crowd cheering, and everyone laughed, including Kelli. She knew the cheering wasn’t real, but still, it made it feel more festive and exciting.

  “Now, we have a little contest to get you all in the Christmas spirit. There are two parts to this—individual activities and group activities.” Graham switched to a new slide, and a little bobble-headed Merit danced onto the top of the screen, with a list of activities below him. “Now, during your time here, you can do any of these activities, and each one will earn you one point. All you have to do is send a picture of you doing the activity to me and Merit.”

  Two phone numbers came up on the screen, and Graham paused while they all pulled out their phones and entered them in. Kelli couldn’t believe that Merit and Graham were actually giving them their personal cell phone numbers. She was putting the CEO’s and the CTO’s phone numbers into her phone!

  “Feel free to take a picture of this slide if you’d like, but just know that all of these activities, along with where to go to do them, are posted on that wall over there. Now, Merit’s going to talk about the group activities.”

  Graham changed the slide while Merit was standing up, and this time, all twelve of their bobble heads danced their way to the top of the screen, to the sounds of people shouting things like “Yay! My favorite!” and “I can’t wait!” along with a lot of clapping.

  “I would like to introduce you all to Elise Stevens.” Merit motioned to the woman who had been sitting next to him, with a look of utter adoration on his face. Like she was his world, and everything shone brighter with her in it. And Elise looked back at Merit like she had discovered the secret to happiness when she had met him. The woman was probably a couple of years younger than Kelli, yet she had already found a love like that. Someday, Kelli was going to find a man who would look at her like that when he introduced her to people. And she was going to look at him the same way Elise was looking at Merit.

  “Elise is the activities director for the Royal Palm Resort, and the reason why this resort is so popular at Christmastime.”

  Elise blushed, which made Kelli smile. And then, for some stupid-crazy reason, Kelli found her eyes darting to Parker. She had to remind herself that she was in no position to date right now. And especially not Parker. The two of them had already tested those waters and knew they’d sink. She didn’t want to date anyone in her building again.

  “Be down here for breakfast every morning at nine. For those of you counting, yes, that’s seven Denver time. Don’t worry—we’ll make the meal worth your while. And that’s when Elise will talk about the itinerary for the day. You’ll want to join in the group activities, because they’ll be worth two points each. Graham, want to tell them what their points will buy?”

  Graham stood back up, a grin spread across his face. “Do you remember that work satisfaction survey that went out to random employees via email a week or so ago? Yeah, that actually only went out to the twelve of you. And the question we were most looking for your answers to wa
s the one that read, ‘What kind of non-monetary reward would most motivate you?’ So we took your answers and came up with a prize package. We’re hoping there’s at least one thing on this list that will make each of you really want to earn as many points as possible so that you can win it.”

  Graham changed to a new slide, and a little game show host walked onto the screen, motioning big with her arms at a present. “The first prize we are offering is,” he dragged out the word, then the present burst open, “three bonus vacation days, to be used whenever you’d like over the next year.”

  There were lots of “Ooh!”s and “Wow!”s from the group, but that prize didn’t really interest Kelli. She glanced at Parker and saw that he didn’t seem particularly interested, either.

  “And the next prize is...” The game show host moved, and then motioned big at the second of the three prizes on the screen. It burst open and Graham said, “A free catered lunch for everyone on your team, delivered once a week every week for a full year!”

  Kelli’s eyes went wide. She instantly wanted this prize, and she wanted it badly. She imagined how much everyone on her team would enjoy it. How much all their faces would light up each week when it came. How valuable it would make her to the team, and how much she would enjoy being the one who won it for them. How much of a great bonding thing it would be for everyone on her team. With that kind of an experience every week, her team would be unstoppable.

  She could feel Parker’s eyes on her, so she glanced over at him and saw a look of curious interest—but only until she looked. He quickly dropped the expression and turned his attention to the TV again.

  “And for the last prize.” The little character Vanna White-ed the last gift, and it burst open. “The best parking spot at your building for a full year! We polled a bunch of people at each building to find out which was the most coveted spot.” Then he read the list of buildings, and the parking spot they were giving away at each one. “And for building C—so marketing, sales, and accounting—spot C7.”

  Kelli gasped and her eyes immediately found Parker’s, and they stared down each other. Kelli hadn’t looked at him when Graham mentioned the second prize, but based on the expression on his face right now, even if he hadn’t been interested in the lunch, he was definitely interested in the parking space.

  The competition was on, and Kelli intended to win it.

  “It looks like we’ve got you interested,” Merit said, chuckling. “You’ll see that right next to the list of individual activities on that wall, there’s a bar chart with each of your names, and we’ll update it with the number of points you currently have as soon as you report them. And just to the right of that, we’ll have the daily group activity posted.”

  “And this won’t stop on Christmas Day,” Graham said. “We aren’t a fan of the let-down you feel when all celebration stops the moment Christmas is over. We’ll be celebrating all the way up until the morning of the twenty-eighth, when the retreat ends. At that point, you are welcome to fly back home, or you can stay here until New Year’s Day. We won’t be doing the retreat for the extra days, so you’ll be on your own for most things, but we’ll still have the mansion. So you can keep your room and take advantage of all The Royal Palm has to offer. Just let us know which day you’d rather fly home in the next few days.”

  Kelli’s eyebrows rose. She hadn’t expected at all that they might offer more days. Her dad was going to be returning from his trip on the 29th, and she kind of wanted to be home when he got home.

  Merit nodded. “And I’ll be here the whole time until New Year’s Day, but Graham is going to head home on Monday for a family Christmas party. He’ll be back in time for our Christmas Eve celebrations, and when he comes back, he’ll have his wife, Tessa, and his little baby, Hope, with him.”

  “Who just happens to be the cutest baby in the universe!” Graham added, which made Kelli smile.

  Graham switched to a new slide, one with Santa sneaking into a room. “We are doing Secret Santas, too, and Merit’s assistant, Carla, randomly chose a name for each of you. When you get to your room, you’ll find an envelope on your night stand with the name of the person you’ll be a Secret Santa for. Over the course of your time here, try to get to know that person, and get a small gift for them to open on Christmas morning.”

  “Your luggage is already in your rooms,” Merit said, “which are on the two floors above us, and your room assignments are posted on the same wall over there with the points. The theater and the exercise room are downstairs. But before we let you go up and get settled, we have our first group activity!”

  Elise, the woman Merit had introduced as the resort’s activities director, stood up for the first time. “We have a tree that needs decorating, but no decorations. You all are going to be the ones to make them.”

  All twelve of them looked at each other, like any of them had any idea what the plan was.

  “We’ve got some supplies set up on the table back there,” Elise said.

  Kelli turned around to look—someone had apparently come in just while they were watching the presentation on the couches and set everything up. She hadn’t even heard it happening.

  Elise shook a box. “And I’ve got a bunch of different themes right here. Everyone partner up. Each partnership needs to come grab a theme, then make at least four ornaments with that theme.”

  Without even letting her brain have a second to think about it or to give her eyes permission, Kelli’s attention flew to Parker. Apparently he’d done the same, because they were suddenly looking at each other. It would’ve been awkward to just turn away, so she raised an eyebrow in a silent question, asking if he wanted to be her partner for the activity. Parker only hesitated a second before a strange look crossed his face and he turned to the woman next to him—someone Kelli hadn’t met yet—and asked her to be his partner.

  Stupid eyes, thinking they could go and do the asking on their own. Her brain knew not to ask Parker—she didn’t know why her eyes couldn’t get the message. She exhaled then stood up with everyone else and looked around the group.

  A man stepped over to her and said, “Hi. I’m Davis. Would you like to be my partner for this?”

  He was cute. Nothing like Parker, of course, but he had a kind face and welcoming eyes, and looked like he might be in his late twenties, so that was perfect. His dark hair was the right amount of tussled, too. And he looked a little bit nervous to ask, which was pretty adorable. Not that she was looking to date anyone, but she wasn’t against a little harmless flirting. Especially with someone who worked in a different building.

  “I’m Kelli, and I would love to.”

  They grabbed their theme from the box Elise held—Santa’s Workshop—and headed over to the tables to get to work.

  As they were looking at what kinds of supplies they had and brainstorming what they could make, Kelli’s eyes couldn’t help but find Parker again. He and the woman he was working with seemed to be having fun. They were holding up things and talking and laughing. She told herself that it was a good thing. Parker and his fiancée had called things off just a couple of months ago, so he probably really needed a chance to chat with a woman in a low-pressure situation.

  Kelli wasn’t jealous.

  She wasn’t wishing it was her with Parker instead of this other woman.

  Nope. She was perfectly happy doing this activity with Davis. Her mind wasn’t on Parker at all. Not one bit.

  Chapter Eight

  By the look on Kelli’s face, she’d known that Parker understood that she wanted to be partners. And she knew that he’d pretended not to notice and instead turned to the person next to him. But he also knew that she hadn’t meant to look his direction—she had just turned to him because they were the only ones from their building who were there, so he was likely the only person she knew. It was human nature. It wasn’t because she wanted to be his partner.

  Besides, she seemed super interested in all the Christmas activities, and he wasn’t
. At all. So he didn’t want simple human nature of seeking out the familiar being the thing that stopped her from enjoying the festivities.

  Kelli had chatted with so many people since they had gathered together in a group at baggage claim, he figured she could just partner with one of them. But couldn’t it have been anyone other than Davis who asked? Parker often worked with product development in Building B, since they needed to show off the latest in trade shows. He didn’t work with Davis directly and didn’t know him well, but he had been in the building enough to know that he was a pretty decent guy. He wasn’t sure why that bothered him. He should be happy for her.

  Besides, he was kind of enjoying turning a bunch of random craft stuff into “Christmas on the Range” ornaments with Addison. She was funny, and they came up with some pretty brilliant ideas. And since it wasn’t something he did as a tradition with his own family, it didn’t make him feel sad about not being around them.

  But he kept finding his eyes going to Kelli and Davis every time they laughed, or every time they were working on something intricate and both were leaned in close.

  Which was ridiculous, especially since he wasn’t in a position to date anyone—most of all Kelli. And if he had no interest in dating Kelli, he had no business caring how close she and Davis were right now. Or that he just brushed a lock of hair over her shoulder for her, so it wouldn’t get in the glue she was using.

  “So, which of the three prizes do you most want to win?”

  Addison’s question had caught him off guard enough that he told himself that he really needed to focus more on what he was actually doing instead of on what Kelli was doing. “Oh, um, parking spot, hands down.”

  “Really? The parking space?” Addison scrunched up her nose in confusion.

  “It’s a really great parking spot.”

  “Is it hard to get a good one at your building?”