Silver Fox’s Christmas Scandal (Billionaire Baby Daddies #8)

Chapter 1 Tessa

TESSA

The elevator doors closed, followed by the soft ding, trapping me in a metal box with my own panic and a mountain of dusty Christmas decorations that smelled faintly of mothballs and forgotten holidays.

I pressed my back against the cold wall and tried to convince myself that tonight could still be salvaged. The armful of tangled garland and dented ornaments shifted precariously in my grip, threatening to scatter across the elevator floor at any moment.

Five days before Christmas, and I had officially become the architect of corporate disaster.

The storm raging outside had demolished every carefully laid plan I'd spent months coordinating.

Three inches of snow had turned into eight, then twelve, trapping half our staff in their homes and leaving the other half stranded in the Cross Capital offices with nothing but stale coffee and the growing certainty that this year's Christmas gala would be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

The caterer had called two hours ago to cancel, citing impassable roads and a kitchen fire that had taken out their main prep area.

The florist never showed.

The band was stuck somewhere on the interstate, and I'd watched helplessly as three separate strands of lights had flickered and died, plunging half the forty-second floor into shadows.

I shifted the decorations to my left arm and fumbled for my phone, checking the time for the umpteenth time. I felt like I was watching my career implode in real time.

Seven thirty.

The party had officially started thirty minutes ago, and what did we have to show for it?

A handful of employees huddled around the few working light fixtures, picking at the emergency cheese and crackers I'd scrounged from the break room, and the kind of awkward silence that settled over gatherings when everyone realized they were witnessing a spectacular failure.

My reflection stared back at me from the polished elevator doors, and I winced at what I saw.

My carefully styled hair had come loose from its pins during my frantic trips to the storage area, and my burgundy dress—the one I'd splurged on specifically for tonight—now bore the telltale signs of my basement expedition.

Dust on the shoulders, a small tear near the hem where I'd caught it on a rusty metal shelf, and I looked like I'd spent the evening wrestling with holiday decorations from the Carter administration.

The elevator climbed slowly past the twentieth floor, and I tried to formulate some kind of plan that didn't involve throwing myself off the roof of the building.

Maybe I could string these ancient decorations around the conference room and create enough ambient lighting to hide the fact that we were essentially hosting a Christmas party in a partially darkened office.

Maybe I could convince people that the whole thing was charmingly rustic, a throwback to simpler times when corporate celebrations didn't require three different caterers and a light show that rivaled Times Square's NYE celebration.

Maybe I could update my resume tonight and start job hunting tomorrow.

The thought sent a cold spike of fear through my chest. I needed this job.

More than that, I needed the salary that came with it, every carefully budgeted dollar that was bringing me closer to the future I'd planned for myself.

The IVF fund tucked away in my savings account represented two years of careful scrimping, two years of choosing generic groceries and walking to work instead of taking the L, two years of building toward my goal of motherhood, making Mom happy.

Losing this position would mean starting over, and at twenty-six, I was already acutely aware of how quickly time moved when you were trying to build a life that didn't depend on anyone else.

The elevator slowed as it approached the fortieth floor, and I took a deep breath, trying to summon the professional composure that had carried me through countless other crises.

I was good at this job. I was excellent at this job, actually, even if no one seemed to notice the thousand small disasters I prevented every week or the way I managed to keep Cross Capital's most demanding executives functioning at peak performance.

Tonight was just one night, one party that would be forgotten by New Year's Eve.

I stepped back from the door when the elevator suddenly stopped, and the doors slid open with their familiar whisper.

Lucian Cross stepped inside.

My breath caught in my throat as six feet and three inches of impeccably dressed authority filled the small space.

Even in the middle of what was rapidly becoming the worst Christmas party in corporate history, he looked absolutely flawless.

His charcoal tuxedo fit him with the precision that only came from expert tailoring, emphasizing the broad line of his shoulders and the lean strength of his frame.

Silver hair gleamed under the elevator's soft lighting, and when those pale gray eyes found mine, I felt my heart stutter against my ribs.

He was holding a crystal flute of champagne, and somehow, that small detail made everything worse.

While I'd been crawling around in storage rooms and trying to perform miracles with electrical tape and whispered prayers, he'd been upstairs looking completely unruffled by the chaos surrounding us.

"Miss Wynn," he said casually. I was used to him speaking to me about work details, but with the colossal failure tonight was turning out to be, I felt ashamed to be in the same space with him. "I wondered where you'd disappeared to."

Heat flooded my cheeks as I pressed myself farther back against the elevator wall, suddenly hyperaware of my disheveled appearance and the musty smell clinging to the decorations in my arms. "Mr. Cross.

I was just… I found some backup decorations in storage.

From previous years. I thought maybe we could—"

"Salvage Christmas?" There was something that might have been amusement flickering in those steel-gray eyes, and I wasn't sure if I should be relieved or terrified.

"Something close to that, yes." I tried to shift the decorations to a more secure position, but the tangled mass of garland had other ideas.

A string of ancient silver bells chose that moment to work free from the pile, clattering to the elevator floor with a sound that seemed to echo forever in the enclosed space.

Lucian bent to retrieve them, his movements fluid and unhurried despite the confined space.

When he straightened, he was standing much closer than before, close enough that I could smell his cologne—something expensive and understated that made my pulse quicken in ways that were entirely inappropriate for an employee-boss interaction.

Let's face it, I wasn't immune to how drop-dead gorgeous he was. Every woman in the office knew how intoxicating he was and exactly how single he was too.

He held the bells out to me, and when our fingers brushed during the exchange, I felt a tiny charge of electricity pop between us.

"The storm caught everyone off guard," he said, and there was something almost gentle in his tone. "No one could have predicted this level of disruption."

I knew he was trying to be reassuring, but all I could think about was how thoroughly I'd failed at the one thing he'd entrusted to me.

The Christmas gala wasn't some minor office function—it was Cross Capital's biggest social event of the year, a carefully orchestrated evening designed to strengthen client relationships and showcase the firm's success.

Board members brought their spouses. Major investors flew in from other cities. The financial press usually sent photographers.

Tonight, they were all getting cheese and crackers by emergency lighting.

"I should've had contingency plans," I said, more to myself than to him. "Multiple backup caterers, alternative lighting arrangements, weather protocols—"

"Tessa." The sound of my first name in that deep, measured voice stopped my spiraling thoughts completely. He never used my first name.

In the four years I'd worked as his executive assistant, it had been ‘Miss Wynn’ in every interaction, maintaining the careful professional distance that kept Cross Capital's hierarchy clearly defined.

Hearing him say my name now felt intimate in a way that made my stomach flutter with something that definitely wasn't professional admiration.

The elevator resumed its climb, and I realized I'd never pressed the button for our floor. Lucian must have done it while I was busy having a minor breakdown over silver bells and my own incompetence.

"These things happen," he continued, his gaze steady on my face. "The measure of a professional isn't whether problems arise, but how they respond when they do."

I wanted to believe him, but the evidence of my response was literally draped across my arms in the form of decorations that had gone out of date twenty years ago. "I'm not sure desperate basement excavation counts as professional problem-solving."

That earned me a ghost of a smile. "I've seen worse solutions to larger problems."

The elevator slowed again, and I braced myself for the return to the party that wasn't quite a party. Maybe I could distribute these decorations strategically, get a few more lights working, find some way to transform disaster into something that at least resembled festive. Maybe—

My phone buzzed against my hip, and I tried to shift the decorations to reach for it without dropping everything.

The movement brought me forward, closer to where Lucian stood near the control panel, and I realized too late that I was off-balance and carrying far more than my arms could securely manage.

The collision happened in slow motion.

My elbow caught his wrist as I reached for my phone, and I watched in horror as champagne flew in a perfect arc across the small space between us.

Crystal-clear liquid splashed across the front of his tuxedo, soaking into the expensive fabric and sending droplets cascading down to pool on his perfectly polished shoes.

The decorations tumbled from my arms as I instinctively reached forward, as if I could somehow catch the spilled champagne and return it to his glass.

Garland unfurled across the elevator floor, ornaments rolled into corners, and the scent of mothballs intensified as decades-old holiday cheer scattered around our feet.

"Oh, God. Oh, no. Mr. Cross, I am so sorry—" The words tumbled out in a breathless rush as I stared at the damage I'd inflicted.

His tuxedo was ruined, not just damp or slightly stained, but thoroughly soaked across the chest and lapels, the dark fabric now bearing the unmistakable evidence of my clumsiness.

This was it. The final nail in the coffin of my career at Cross Capital. I'd managed to destroy the Christmas party and assault the CEO with champagne in the span of one evening.

HR would probably have my desk cleared before the elevator reached our floor.

But when I finally worked up the courage to meet his eyes, expecting to find the cold fury that I'd seen him direct at underperforming executives and incompetent business partners, I found something entirely unexpected.

Lucian Cross was laughing.

Not the polite chuckle he might offer during a business dinner, but genuine laughter that transformed his entire face.

The stern lines around his eyes softened, and for a moment he looked younger, more approachable, startlingly human in a way that made my chest tighten with awareness that had nothing to do with professional anxiety.

"Mr. Cross, I can pay for the dry cleaning—or replacement—I know it's expensive, and I'm so sorry, I don't know how I—"

"Tessa." My name again, spoken with enough quiet authority to cut through my panicked babbling. "It's a tuxedo. I own several."

"But the party—your appearance…" I gestured helplessly at his soaked shirt front, my mind racing through the implications. How could he return to the gala looking as though he'd been caught in a champagne rainstorm? What would the board members think? The clients?

"I have a better question," he said, bending to set his empty champagne flute carefully on the floor before straightening to face me again. "How would you feel about saving Christmas together?"

I was dumbfounded by his question. I stared at him, certain I'd misheard or misunderstood, waiting for the punchline that would reveal this was some elaborate joke at my expense.

"I don't understand."

"My penthouse has an extensive wine cellar," he said, as casually as if he were discussing quarterly reports. "Champagne, wine, spirits—more than enough to replace what the caterer would have provided. If you come with me, we can retrieve enough bottles to salvage the evening."

The elevator doors opened with their soft chime, revealing the chaos of the forty-second floor beyond.

But I couldn't move, couldn't process what he was suggesting.

Go with him. To his penthouse.

Just the two of us.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I tried to understand what this offer meant, what it would cost me, what he expected in return.

Because men in Lucian Cross's position didn't make generous offers without expecting something in exchange, and I was suddenly, acutely aware of how vulnerable I'd become.

"I feel like a fool," I whispered, the words escaping before I could stop them.

His expression grew serious, and when he spoke, his voice carried a note I'd never heard before—something warmer than his usual professional tone, but with an undercurrent that made my pulse quicken.

"Then let me help you fix it.”