“Three glasses in here please!”

Nope. Clark’s foot needed to come down. He couldn’t allow them to walk all over him and around him like this. He’d given her the run of the house, sure. But he did not agree to have his entire life overrun, not by Kate and certainly not by her friends. Every minute, she threw more and more illegal fireworks at him; soon, his annoyance would explode. His right hand twitched; he struggled to control his own breathing.

No one got under his skin like this. Not business partners, not rivals. And never a woman.

“No, no! No eggnog for me. Two glasses.”

“But—”

“I didn’t come down here for eggnog. I came down here to tell you to stop playing.”

“It’s not Christmas without music. C’mon,” she said, her voice lighter than a chorus of bells. “Sing a song with us. It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t sing,” he growled.

“Everyone sings at Christmas.” Emily returned with the eggnog and requisitioned the overstuffed couch, plopping down on it and burying herself in the cushions. “Even Frank Sinatra sang Christmas songs and he could hardly carry a tune.”

“Frank Sinatra was a great singer and this isn’t a party!”

“Why not?” Her golden eyes twinkled with the edges of a private joke. “You look like you could use a little party.” She’d wedged herself under his skin and she knew it.

You look like you could use a little party. The challenge repeated in his head, a maddening, singsong refrain he wished he could pluck out and erase from his memory. An unfamiliar feeling welled inside of him; every time he tried to place it, the name eluded him. It wasn’t rage or dignified coldness; he could easily identify those, as they were his most common emotional responses to nearly any annoyance, even if he didn’t let them register on his face. He felt altogether different than he could ever remember feeling before.

Fondness? Was it fondness?

Before he could answer, he turned tail. A hasty retreat would be best. Alone in his office, there was no way he could feel anything for Kate.

“I have to work. Keep the noise down and the disasters to a minimum, please,” he commanded.

But he’d only made it three steps towards the exit when Michael sidled up beside him and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. Clark didn’t often have occasion to feel like “one of the boys,” but when Michael elbow nudged him, he could almost imagine it.

“Hey, Clark.”

“Yes?”

“Can I give you some advice?”

Clark didn’t want his advice. He knew the other man’s advice would inevitably lead him to staying here, in this room, in close proximity to the undecorated Christmas tree and the beautiful, determined, open-hearted Kate Buckner.

“…Yes.”

“Just go along for the ride. Your life will be much, much easier. I promise.”