Chapter 16
CHRISTIAN
Christian pushed through the staff door so hard it slammed against the wall, almost splitting the plaster. He stormed down the corridor, his head spinning, his heart drumming. Behind him he heard Merry’s faint voice calling his name, but he didn’t turn back.
Her words had hurt. They’d pierced him like a blade and left a gaping wound. How wrong had he been about her? All this time he’d thought she was kind, and sincere, and honest, but in reality she was just like everyone else he’d met since he’d been here. All she cared about was status.
He walked back on to the store floor, losing himself among the shelves of baubles and tinsel.
Merry’s words echoed in his head — w hy on earth would I date a janitor?
— and he felt his blood boil. He wasn’t even a janitor, but the fact was that she had judged him based on the job she thought he had.
She had belittled him, in front of her friends, and reduced him to a cliché.
But it was a good thing. It made his life so much easier now. He could forget about Merry, focus on the job at hand, find out what was going on in the store, and then get out of New York City before it did any more damage.
He heard the sound of a door behind him and he peered between two dolls to see Merry emerge on to the store floor. She was beside herself, trying to conceal her tears with her hands. But he couldn’t let himself feel anything other than anger, despite her upset.
He stayed in the shadows for the rest of his shift, ducking behind the displays whenever Merry appeared.
He stalked through the craft goods using his trolley as cover, pretending to check off displays while watching her from a distance.
Every now and then she’d falter, a slight pause when she thought nobody was looking, a flicker of pain crossing her face before she straightened her back and smiled again.
She looked wrecked — cheeks blotchy, nose red, her usual sparkle dulled to a flicker.
Still, she pushed a smile on to her face when she spoke to customers with the kind of forced cheer that made Christian’s chest tighten in spite of himself.
His shift ended just after the morning rush and as he was leaving, he saw her crouch down to talk to a little girl who was holding a plush reindeer almost as big as she was.
Merry asked the child’s name, admired the reindeer, then turned the tag around and said, “Guess what? He’s on sale today, but only if you promise to take extra special care of him.
” The girl beamed, and her mother mouthed “Thank you” with a look of quiet relief as Merry took them to the till. Christian looked away, jaw clenched.
Damn her.
Damn her for being kind. For caring when she didn’t have to.
For proving with every gentle interaction that she wasn’t like the others, no matter what she’d said back in the locker room.
He should walk away — he didn’t know why he was keeping an eye on her in the first place.
Instead, he turned down the next aisle to get a better look, and froze.
Just ahead, tucked between a rack of Pop Mart boxes, Margot was whispering furiously to Mrs Cradley. Christian stepped behind an elaborate display of JellyCats and listened.
Margot’s voice was low, but he caught fragments between the shouts of overexcited kids and the jingle of a nearby toy display.
“. . . It’s too much,” she said. “I told you this would happen.”
Mrs Cradley gave a sharp sniff. “Then we need to stop him. Before he ruins everything.”
Christian’s heart thudded in his chest. Stop him? He leaned closer, trying not to shift the cardboard cutout.
“I’m not sure how long we can keep covering for him,” Margot said. “If he keeps snooping—”
Cradley glanced around. “He’s poking around in places he shouldn’t. If we don’t get ahead of this, it could all come undone.”
Christian’s fists clenched. They’re talking about me. They know I’ve been looking into the sales anomalies.
Mrs Cradley adjusted her clipboard with a sigh. “I’ve got to get upstairs. Just . . . keep him busy, will you? And don’t let him near the other Carroll.”
Margot nodded. “I’ll handle it.”
They parted quickly, Cradley disappearing towards the staff elevator, and Margot vanishing down the aisle. Christian stayed hidden a moment longer, heart racing, trying to piece it all together.
He knows too much . . . Stop him . . . Keep him busy . . .
So they were hiding something. He wasn’t paranoid after all. Christian backed away slowly, slipping into the board games aisle and leaning against a stack of Guess Who. Something was definitely going on and it sounded like he was running out of time to find out what.
Merry had done him a favour. Without her as a distraction he could concentrate all his efforts on saving Carroll’s, which is what he should have been doing all along.
He desperately needed to do some more research and he was also desperately in need of a shower so he decided to head back to his hotel and sort out both.
Christian dropped off his trolley and stepped out into the brittle winter sunlight, the city wind whipping down Fifth Avenue with no regard for his mood.
He tightened his coat and kept his head down, ignoring the smell of roasting chestnuts from a nearby vendor, the twinkle of lights in the plaza tree, the sound of tourists cooing over store windows.
Last night, Christmas in New York had been magic. Right now, it felt like a bad joke.
His hotel was just over the road and he smiled at the doorman as he ducked inside.
A grand chandelier glittered overhead and the floors gleamed like a freshly frozen pond, but none of that mattered to him as he hurried to the elevator and hit the button to call it to take him up to his penthouse suite.
It was more apartment than hotel room: double-height ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the park, and a Christmas tree so tastefully decorated it looked like it belonged in a lifestyle magazine.
Christian didn’t bother turning on the lights.
He let the winter daylight filter in through the glass, casting everything in that same cold grey that had settled over him too.
He dropped his bag by the sofa and pulled off his coat, remembering that Merry still had his lumberjack jacket.
That was probably lost to him now, too, much the same as she was, which was a shame as they had been both turning into his favourites.
He walked through the suite, stripping off his jumper, unbuttoning his shirt, tugging loose the rest as he made his way to the en suite bathroom.
Steam billowed quickly in the glass-and-marble shower, fogging the mirrors and softening the edges of the room.
Christian stepped under the hot spray, bracing his hands against the tiled wall as the water sluiced over him.
For a while, he just stood there, letting it beat down on his shoulders, willing it to scald away the confusion and the pain, and the way her voice still echoed in his ears.
But it was no use. Because the second he closed his eyes, she was there.
The memory of Merry hit him like hot treacle. The scent of her skin, the press of her mouth, the way her breath had caught when he’d kissed down her throat. He could feel the silk of her thighs against his hands, the tremble in her legs when he made her come, the taste of her still on his tongue.
He pressed his forehead to the cool tile and drew breath. And then the sweetness turned sour. Why on earth would I date a janitor? The pain sliced through him, a punch straight to his gut from the betrayal he hadn’t seen coming.
He slammed his palm against the wall, the sound echoing in the marble room. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything. But somehow, Merry had gotten under his skin, past his defences, and she hadn’t even known who he really was. Maybe that was the cruellest part of all.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, trying to wash her out of his system. With a grunt, he forced himself upright and finished showering quickly, the sting of the hot water turning lukewarm by the time he shut it off.
He stepped out, wrapped a thick white towel around his waist and ran a hand through his dripping hair as he padded barefoot into the living area. The floor-to-ceiling windows threw long stripes of winter light across the rug and, in the sudden hush, the city felt a million miles away.
The folder from his dad sat where he’d left it on the coffee table and Christian dropped on to the sofa and spread the papers out in front of him.
Financials, staff rotas, delivery logs, anonymised internal complaints.
He scanned the pages, eyes flicking from margin to margin, looking for gaps, overlaps, irregularities.
Anything that would point the finger at Margot and maybe Mrs Cradley, the Dragon Lady, too.
But his concentration was splintered. His body ached, and not just from the manual labour of work over the last few days.
A deep, bone-level tiredness tugged at him.
He made it halfway through the second delivery report before his eyelids started to droop.
He shifted, blinked hard, and tried again. Then suddenly he was gone.
The city kept moving outside the glass, horns and sirens, and wind against the panes.
But inside the penthouse suite, Christian slumped sideways on the couch, towel askew, papers scattered around him like snowdrifts.
And in sleep, his brow was furrowed, because even in his dreams, Merry was still there.