His First Christmas: The Lonely Billionaire - A Heart-Warming Romance Novel
Read His First Christmas: The Lonely Billionaire - A Heart-Warming Romance Novel Online
Authors: Lara Hunter,Holly Rayner
His First Christmas
The Lonely Billionaire
By Lara Hunter
With a little inspiration from Holly Rayner
Copyright 2015 by Lara Hunter
Contents:
CHAPTER ONE
A walking pile of shopping bags sighed and slumped down onto a mall bench. Anna Lionel would have preferred to have powered-through her shopping, but her legs had become irredeemably numb.
As she extricated herself from her bags, she watched passers-by from her spot on the bench; an elderly man giving his similarly silver-haired beau a peck on the cheek, and a trio of teenage girls howling with laughter as they ambled along, arms linked.
Looking at them caused Anna to sigh wistfully. As she waited to regain the feeling in her legs, her thoughts finally got a chance to catch up to her.
What am I doing here?
It wasn’t that Anna was particularly anti-consumerist; it was more a response to seeing her fellow shoppers’ laughing faces as they walked by—faces accompanied by friends and families and lovers—faces that contrasted sharply with Anna’s distinct sense that she did not belong.
Cheer up,
she thought to herself.
Think of how happy your family will be when they see what you got them for Christmas.
She only wished that some of the gifts in her bag were for people other than her family. Sure, she had purchased a few polite boxes of chocolates and bottles of wine for her coworkers—but she wished she’d formed the type of relationships that warranted more heartfelt gifts. Feelings of failure began to surface in her brain as she sat on the mall bench with her endless shopping bags as her only company.
Thinking of her family didn’t do much to stave off her feelings, and given that it was hardly November, she wouldn’t be seeing them for a while either. She’d always been a little overzealous when it came to Christmas, commencing her holiday spirit (and shopping) the minute Halloween was over.
Hey, at least I avoid long lines,
she thought as she got up from her bench, rounding up her army of bags.
I need a better strategy for keeping my mind off things,
she thought as she finished up the last of her shopping. She didn’t like it when she got stuck brooding.
I need to keep busy…
Anna’s job was keeping her as busy as it could, given that she was still a fairly new recruit, but still she pondered what she could do to further squeeze out any pockets of idle time.
Maybe a yoga class…?
She mused as she exited the mall.
She’d only made a few steps on the pavement outside when a man sitting on the sidewalk interrupted her.
“Excuse me, miss,” he said, fog coming out of his mouth as he spoke. “Can you spare a quarter?”
“Um…” she said, slowing her walk, “My hands are full right now—but I’ll be right back!” she said.
She power-walked down the block to where her car was parked, dumped her bags, and ran back to the spot where the man was sitting. She caught her breath before handing him a ten. “Here you go,” she said.
“Oh my… Bless you,” the man said, looking at her.
She was about to wave and run off, but something stopped her. “You don’t have proper gloves, or a warm jacket!” she said, appalled. “You must be freezing.” An idea was forming in her head. “Why don’t you come with me, and we can get you some winter clothes?”
“Oh my,” the man said again. “God bless your soul,” he said, showing off a missing-tooth smile. “I can’t go in there, though. The mall cops don’t like the likes of me.”
Anna frowned. “Okay…will you wait here while I get you some things?”
He nodded. “Thank you,” he said. Anna turned towards the entrance.
“Wait,” the man said. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“It’s Anna,” she smiled. “What’s yours?”
“I’m Robert.”
Anna completed the shopping as quickly as she could, but it took longer than she had anticipated as she found herself buying practically an entire winter wardrobe.
She came out to find Robert sitting in the same spot.
“Here you go,” she said, handing him a giant bag. He took it carefully from her and when she looked at his face, Anna was shocked to see tears in his eyes.
“Thank you so much,” he said. “No one is ever this kind to me,” he said softly.
“It’s no problem,” Anna said warmly. “Where are you headed after this?”
“To the shelter, down that street there,” he said. “Compassion House. Luckily, they got room for me tonight. I’ve been turned away before, but I don’t blame ‘em. They got too many people. How they supposed to handle that many?”
Anna nodded, frowning. “Listen, Robert. If you ever need anything, feel free to contact me. I mean, I know it might be hard to get access to a phone or a computer, but the library should be able to help set you up,” she said, handing him her real estate agent card.
Robert took the card and looked it over.
“Hawthorne Estates, huh?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s some fancy stuff, girl.”
Anna laughed. “Yeah…I started working there a couple of months ago. It’s going okay,” she said.
“Alright then, I won’t keep you,” he said, clapping her on the back. “Thank you again, Anna.”
She smiled at him again before turning to walk back to her car, gears beginning to turn in her head.
CHAPTER TWO
“You’ve been hired at Hawthorne Estates?!” Julie exclaimed.
Anna nodded excitedly. It was a testament to how awesome her boss was that she was happy for Anna rather than sour at losing an employee to one of the company’s fiercest competitors.
Julie shook her head, smiling. “Well, I’ll be sad to see you go.”
Anna rushed in for a hug. “Thank you for giving me the chance to work here,” she said sincerely. “I’ve learned so much from you. I’ll definitely be visiting whenever I come back to Spokane,” she grinned.
Anna’s boss hugged her back. “Looks like young Anna is movin’ on up…”
***
That was six months ago. In the time since, Anna had slowly built up her list of contacts and learned the ropes of Hawthorne Estates—and of Seattle itself. For example: never mention
Sleepless in Seattle
unless looking to invite scorn from fellow Seattleites. Never mention
Starbucks
unless looking to incite a passionate debate about coffee. And lastly, most people were originally from somewhere else, too, so newcomers like herself were in good company.
Alas, knowing all this did not help Anna her feel any more settled in Seattle. Or at the company, for that matter.
Stepping inside the elevator, Anna pressed the button for the top floor. The doors closed and the car silkily made its way up the many floors to the penthouse office suite. Stepping out into the plush lobby, Anna made her way over to the secretary’s desk, smoothing her pencil skirt and trying to act as though she belonged. She noted the lack of Christmas decorations, and the impressive view of the bustling downtown scene below. She wished that the view included snow, but so far, much to Anna’s chagrin, Seattle was looking far from a picturesque holiday card.
“Hi there. I’m Anna Lionel, I work at the sales department,” she said, offering her hand.
“Karen,” the secretary replied, taking her hand warily.
Oh man. She already seems to not like me.
In response to Karen’s apprehension, Anna decided to cake on the cheer. “So, Karen, with the holidays being upon us, I was thinking…” she started jovially, “that I might be able to speak to Mr Hawthorne about organizing a Christmas fundraising dinner through the company. Do you know how I might go about doing that?”
“A charity appeal?” Karen asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Ah…that’s right, yes.” Anna smiled.
“You’ll have to get Mr Hawthorne’s approval for that.”
“Of course,” Anna said. “Would you be able to book me in for a meeting with him?”
Karen shuffled some papers. “Well first you’ll have to talk to Linda in HR to go through the process of getting the charity appeal approved. Once you do that, you’ll have to email this form to her for approval of audience, and then I can book you a meeting with Mr Hawthorne, who will either accept or reject the proposal—if he accepts the meeting.”
Anna nodded slowly.
Okay… So, in short, she’s telling me that in order to get approval for my charity appeal, I have to get approval to ask for approval from the CEO. And before I can do that, I have to get the charity appeal pre-approved.
Karen added, “If you really want to do this, make sure you act quickly; Mr Hawthorne will be leaving the office for his two week break in just a few days.”
Two week break? The rest of us are hardly getting two days,
Anna thought.
“Thank you for your help, Karen,” Anna said brightly, then made her way over to the thankfully waiting elevator where she selected the fourth floor, sixteen floors down.
Back at her desk a few minutes later, Anna got straight to work emailing and filling out forms. The labyrinthine process had come as a bit of a shock after her experience at her last job. There, she had literally gone up to her boss and asked, “Hey, what would you think about hosting a Christmas charity event?”, and her old boss had responded enthusiastically.
Anna resisted the urge to sigh with nostalgia. Working at her old job had been a great experience, but when the opportunity had arisen to work at the prestigious Hawthorne Estates, she hadn’t been able to refuse the chance for advancement.
But the boss here…
Anna knew precious little about him, and her coworkers hadn’t been able to tell her much. All she had learned in the couple of months she had been working there was that the CEO was king, and an extremely elusive one at that.