Read Online The Billionaire's First Christmas - Contemporary Romance by Holly Rayner - Free Book Online Page B

and then with a
sigh, he took one of the seats. He looked so cute sitting there in
his designer jeans in between the boys with their faded and scuffed
ones. I laid the two dollars down in front of him and the man
running the game picked it up. The bell rang and Aaron took out his
gun. His competitors had done this before; they already had theirs
in hand. They all started shooting before Aaron got his ready to
go. It took him several precious moments to line his water stream
up with the clown’s mouth.
    I heard him curse and then say, “Yes! There we go,” when he hit it.
He seemed to be getting into it as I cheered him on. I hoped he
wasn’t looking to the sides of him and seeing how much more quickly
the other balloons were filling up. He was having fun and that was
all that mattered. We heard a loud pop and when we looked down
where it came from we saw a jubilant red-haired boy with a Santa in
front of him already.
    The man running the game said, “Winner!” The boy picked up his
small Santa and handed it to the man who traded it for a larger
one.
    “Oh well, you gave it your best shot,” I told Aaron. He didn’t
answer me. He didn’t look like he was satisfied with only taking a
shot. Instead of getting up to go, he reached into his pocket and
took out his wallet. After he lay another two dollars down in front
of him, he picked up his gun and aimed it. He was a fast learner. I
wasn’t surprised. I couldn’t help but smile at the determined look
on his face. I wish I had a picture of it to show him.
     
    “Okay now, you’ve got this one,” I
told him. The other two boys had gotten up and wandered away
leaving only Aaron and the red-haired boy down at the
end.
     
    “The heck he does!” the cocky little
boy said, holding his gun in one hand and looking like he was ready
for a shoot-out.
     
    His attitude seemed to give Aaron an
even more determined look. He set his shoulders and clamped down on
the trigger of his water gun. When the bell rang, he came out
shooting. His balloon was filling fast, but so was the boy’s. “Come
on Aaron! You’ve can do it!” I cheered him. Unfortunately, his
balloon had different ideas. The little red-haired boy got a bigger
Santa Claus that time and before the man turned back around, Aaron
had lay down another two dollars. I put my hand on his shoulder and
said,
    “It’s okay; you don’t have to keep
trying.” He glanced over at the little boy whose freckled face was
drawn up into a huge smile.
     
    “The heck I don’t,” he said, mimicking
what the boy had said earlier. I laughed. I could suddenly see that
competitive spirit that led him to becoming a billionaire. He
wasn’t willing to give up when he knew he had a chance. Kind of
like the way I felt about him.
     
    He played three more times before his
balloon finally popped. When it did, you would have thought he’d
won the lottery. He jumped up off his stool and wrapped me up in a
tight hug. He swung me around and I squealed and giggled. The
little boy was looking at us like we were crazy as he clutched onto
his giant Santa Claus. The man running the game lay a tiny little
key-chain sized stuffed Santa down in front of Aaron. He looked as
proud of it as if it had been a lottery check.
     
    He held it up for me to see and smiled
broadly. “Congratulations,” I told him.
     
    “You’re making fun of me,” he said.
“But that kid was tough. I’m thinking of offering him a job. He
would make a great HR supervisor.”
     
    I laughed, “I’m not making fun of you.
I think it’s adorable.” I held out my hand to take the Santa and he
pulled it back. With a pout I said, “I thought you were winning it
for me.”
     
    “I was, but I believe that you owe me
something first,” he said.
     
    “What?”
     
    “An explanation about the Santa
fetish?”
     
    Giggling, I said, “It’s definitely not
a fetish. That makes it sound so sordid.”
     
    “Okay, it’s not an obsession or a
fetish, but if you want