The Christmas Wife Read Free Page A

desk
before staring out the window.  Snow was falling steadily and he watched the traffic
zipping by.  It was late Thursday afternoon and he was no closer to solving his
problem.  If he didn’t have a wife by Monday his grandmother would give her
portion of the company to Brandon.  If that happened, Deacon would be out of a
job by Tuesday.  It didn’t matter that ten years ago he had taken over the
failing toy company from his father and turned into in a multi-million dollar success. 
His grandmother has lost her marbles and her old-school belief that he needed
to be married and starting a family had finally crossed over the line.  He had
never dreamed that she would hold the company hostage just to see him married. 
    Who even did that?  His crazy grandmother, that’s who.
    His assistant’s voice came over the speaker phone.  “Mr.
Stone?  There’s a Mrs. Talson from “Bee Clean Maid Services” on line one for
you.”
    “Thank you, Tabitha.”
    He punched line one and said curtly, “This is Stone.”
    “Mr. Stone, my name is Edith Talson and I’m the owner of Bee
Clean Maid Services.  I’m calling to personally apologize for the incident
yesterday and to reassure you that we are fully covered for accidents of this
nature.”
    “Good,” he grunted as he scrolled through his emails. 
    “We hope that you’ll continue to use our services.  You’ve
been a client for nearly five years now and  - “
    “I’m not going to fire you,” he interrupted.  “But I would
prefer to have someone other than Ms. Brooks cleaning my house.”
    “That won’t be a problem, Mr. Stone.  Ms. Brooks no longer
works for our company,” Mrs. Talson said.  “We’ll have a new girl out next week
to clean.”
    “You fired her?” 
    “Of course,” Mrs. Talson replied.  “We take our work very
seriously and an error of this magnitude can’t be – “
    “Thank you, Mrs. Talson,” he cut in.  “I appreciate your
call.”
    He hung up before she could reply and swung his chair around
to stare out the window again.
    Way to go, Stone.  You got a single mother who looked
like she could barely feed her child fired from her job.  You’re a real hero.
    It’s not my fault she brought her kid to work , he
argued with himself.  She shouldn’t have been letting her run around like that.
    You’re an asshole.
    Alright, fine, he was an asshole.  But his maid’s personal
problems wasn’t his problem.  He had enough of his own damn problems to…
    He trailed off mid-thought and stared blankly at the falling
snow.  The maid obviously had very little money and he was desperate for a
wife.  He rubbed at his forehead.  She was pretty enough, seemed intelligent,
and as long as she didn’t have a criminal record or something stupid like that,
she would work fine as his fake wife.  Plus she had a kid – his grandmother
would love that.  She was crazy for kids.  Personally he thought they were
messy and annoying as hell but his grandmother – she was a softie for them. 
    He punched a button on his phone.  “Tabitha?  I need an
address for a woman named Claire Brooks.”
    * * *
     
    Claire sat on the couch and stared numbly at the spot where
the television used to be.  Two weeks ago she had sold it, crying guiltily
later that night as she remembered the way Hattie had pleaded to keep it, to
add to the rent money.  Like the necklace, it had been a pointless gesture. 
She was being evicted on Monday and not only would she and Hattie be homeless,
she was also unemployed.
    She had cried and literally begged Edith not to fire her,
something she couldn’t even bring herself to be ashamed about, but it hadn’t
helped.  Edith had felt bad but she had a business to run and Claire couldn’t
really blame her.  She had just cost the company a shitload of money.
    She rubbed at her forehead before heading to the bathroom. 
“Hattie?  I’m going to have a shower and then I’ll make us some dinner,