Hudson slid the napkin from his lap, resting it on the table.
“Why don’t you hop on the L and come spend Christmas Eve with us? . . . No, it’s no trouble.” Allie was back at the table lifting the platter of scalloped potatoes as Nick was spooning into them. “Oh no, the food won’t be ready for another thirty minutes, so it works out great.”
Hudson and Nick shot each other a look that their own hunger might become a liability.
“Head on over,” Allie said before ending the call. Without pause, she turned to Hudson and Nick. “Will you give me a hand with the rest of these?”
“What the fuck?” Nick’s words rushed out under his breath as Allie left the dining room with an armful of platters.
“Just go with it.” With that they both worked on hauling plate after plate of food to the kitchen. Allie raced to set another place setting and Hudson reached for his phone.
“Max, there will be a feisty redhead arriving soon by the name of Harper Hayes. Send her up.”
Allie gaped at him. “Max is working tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Send the man home. It’s bad enough you’ve had him follow me everywhere for the past two weeks, but it’s Christmas Eve.”
“Crime doesn’t break for the holidays.”
“I’m in your penthouse. Nothing is going to happen to me here.”
Hudson exhaled. “After she arrives, you can leave for the night,” he told Max.
She lifted a brow.
“And I’ll see you on the twenty-sixth,” he added reluctantly before hanging up the phone. While he wanted Max on standby, Allie was right. He shouldn’t keep the man from enjoying time with his family.
“Thank you.” She kissed his cheek. “Maybe give Nick the rest of his presents?”
“I could think of a better way to spend the next half hour.” He wrapped his arms around her and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “Drop the cookie, Nick,” he said, without looking up. He turned to catch his brother red-handed, then kicked his chin in the direction of the tree. “There are more presents with your name on them.”
Chapter Twenty-one
“Sweet hell,” Hudson muttered under his breath when the elevator doors opened. Harper looked like she’d brought her whole damn closet in the guise of two suitcases the size of an Escalade. With his hands planted on his hips, he checked out the set of mix ’n’ match luggage. If he didn’t know better he’d have sworn the redhead was moving in.
Allie rushed to the elevator at the same time Harper started to unravel herself from the layers of clothes she’d armored herself with against the weather. All he could see at the moment was a set of bright green eyes.
“Oh my God, you must be freezing,” she said.
“Not too bad.” Harper’s teeth chattered and the snowflakes along for the ride dusted his wood floor. She sat down on the bench in the foyer and tugged off her . . . Christ, were those fire-engine red boots?
“And I didn’t know you had all this luggage.”
“Hello, have you met me?” Emerald-green gloves came next, falling to the floor with a wet slap.
“We should have met her at the L stop.” Allie shot a frustrated look at Hudson. “Come on, let’s get you in front of the fire.” She glanced over her shoulder at him and Nick as she ushered Harper toward the living room. “Will you take care of those?”
The two brothers looked at each other. Hudson ran a hand through his hair and bit back a curse. It was bad enough he was playing host-with-the-fucking-most, but now a goddamn bellhop? Jesus Christ, he was going to drag his brother down with him. “Well, don’t just stand there, make yourself useful.” He threw out his arm, slapping Nick against the chest with the back of his hand.
“Ouch.” Nick mock-flinched. “Know your own strength, bro?”
Hudson moved toward the elevator, and as soon as he reached it, jerked one extending handle up while Nick grabbed the other. The two brothers hauled Harper’s luggage—a multicolor polka-dot and a rainbow stripe—into the foyer and clicked the handles back down. When they were done, they found the two women sitting in front of a roaring blaze. Allie had obviously tossed in a couple more logs, turning the living room into an inferno.
“Why in the world do you need that much luggage?” she asked. “I thought you were only going for a few days.”
“One has the presents for my nieces, my mom’s Frango mints, and . . .” With her head finally free of outerwear, Harper fully took in her surroundings. She let out a descending whistle as her eyes darted around the Great Room, from the oversize tree that was visible from space to the Kapoor sculpture, to the Fazoli piano and the vaulted ceilings.
Hudson had only met Harper a few times, but gauging by the opportunities he had, he was sure as hell that few things ever cut off her capacity for speech.
“Holy cow,” she finally said.
“I sort of overdid it with the decorations, huh?”
“Sort of. But crap, this place is huge.”
Nick laughed. “There’s no half-assing it with my brother. It’s always ba—”
Hudson cut Nick a look, effectively silencing him from finishing what he knew was a sentence that would contain the word “balls.” “Something to drink, Harper?”
“Um sure, thanks. Maybe a glass of wine?”
“Red or white?”
“Whatever everyone else is having is fine by me,” Harper said. She shrugged out of her coat and any further thoughts on host duties were derailed by the outfit that was revealed. Allie’s friend was done up in a mixture of patterns and colors that might as well have been an outfit from 1985, with a retro twist of the hipster movement. Hudson was clueless when it came to women’s trends, but even he could tell this woman marched to the beat of her own drum.
“Get her something to warm her up a bit first,” Allie said. “She can have the wine with dinner.”
Demanding little thing. Hudson smirked at her, then lifted a brow at Harper. “Scotch?”
“Sure, why the hell not.”
He felt his stomach growl as he made his way to the bar. Cocktail time had expired about two hours ago, but the fact that he was pouring scotch and starving to death was proof he’d say or do anything to keep that look of happiness on Allie’s face. Hell, who didn’t deserve a good shot of happy?
“So what’s the story with the redhead?” Nick asked. Hudson cut his brother a glance out of the corner of his eye and as he poured the amber liquid, having a brief moment of concern over Nick being in such close proximity to the liquor.
“Allie’s . . .” He paused as he put the crystal stopper back in the decanter. “BFF.”
Hudson held back on doing the whole finger quotations, but Nick couldn’t stop himself. “BFF?”
“Yeah, ‘Best Friends Forever,’” he said, picking up two crystal glasses full of high-octane scotch.
Nick laughed. “How long did it take for you to figure that one out, bro?”
“Hell of a lot faster than you.” Hudson strode over to the two women huddled together by the fire, deep in some female, fast-as-lightening convo.
“So after three delays and an aircraft switch, we were all set to board and then the tower closed the runways.”
“Your mom must be so disappointed.”
“She’s been in a panic since this morning.” Harper mimicked her mom’s voice. “‘Al Roker is saying it’s going to be worse than the blizzard in 2011.’” She shrugged. “But hey, it could be worse. I could be like those people stuck at O’Hare, sleeping on a cot on Christmas Eve. At least I get to have dinner with my bestie and sleep in my own bed.” Hudson held out the tumbler and Harper took it without missing a beat. “Thank you.”