Christmas With Her Millionaire Boss. Barbara Wallace

All Year Round.

      James Hammond shuddered at the thought.

      He was the only one though, as scores of children dragged their parents by the hand past the nutcracker guards and toward the Bavarian castle ahead, their shouts of delight echoing in the crisp Michigan air. One little girl, winter coat flapping in the wind, narrowly missed running into him, so distracted was she by the sight ahead of her.

      “I see Santa’s Castle,” he heard her squeal.

      Only if Santa lived in northern Germany and liked bratwurst. The towering stucco building, with its holly-draped ramparts and snow-covered turrets looked like something out of a Grimm’s fairy tale. No one would ever accuse Ned Fryberg of pedaling a false reality, that’s for sure. It was obvious that his fantasy was completely unattainable in real life. Unlike the nostalgic, homespun malarkey Hammond’s Toys sold to the public.

      The popularity of both went to show that people loved their Christmas fantasies, and they were willing to shovel boatloads of money in order to keep them alive.

      James didn’t understand it, but he was more than glad to help them part with their cash. He was good at it too. Some men gardened and grew vegetables. James grew his family’s net worth. And Fryberg’s Toys, and its awful Christmas village—a town so named for the Fryberg family—was going to help him grow it even larger.

      “Excuse me, sir, but the line for Santa’s trolley starts back there.” A man wearing a red toy soldier’s jacket and black busby pointed behind James’s shoulder. In an attempt to control traffic flow, the store provided transportation around the grounds via a garishly colored “toy” train. “Trains leave every five minutes. You won’t have too long a wait.

      “Or y-you could w-w-walk,” he added.

      People always tended to stammer whenever James looked them in the eye. Didn’t matter if he was trying to be intimidating or not. They simply did. Maybe because, as his mother once told him, he had the same cold, dead eyes as his father. He’d spent much of his youth vainly trying to erase the similarity. Now that he was an adult, he’d grown not to accept his intimidating glower, but embrace it. Same way he embraced all his other unapproachable qualities.

      “That depends,” he replied. “Which mode is more efficient?”

      “Th-that would depend upon on how fast a walker you are. The car makes a couple of stops beforehand, so someone with…with long legs…” The soldier, or whatever he was supposed to be, let the sentence trail off.

      “Then walking it is. Thank you.”

      Adjusting his charcoal-gray scarf tighter around his neck, James turned and continued on his way, along the path to Fryberg’s Christmas Castle. The faster he got to his meeting with Belinda Fryberg, the sooner he could lock in his sale and fly back to Boston. At least there, he only had to deal with Christmas one day of the year.

      “What did you say?”

      “I said, your Christmas Castle has a few years of viability in it, at best.”

      Noelle hated the new boss.

      She’d decided he rubbed her the wrong way when he glided into Belinda’s office like a cashmere-wearing shark. She disliked him when he started picking apart their operations. And she loathed him now that he’d insulted the Christmas Castle.

      “We all know the future of retail is online,” he continued. He uncrossed his long legs and shifted his weight. Uncharitable a thought as it might be, Noelle was glad he’d been forced to squeeze his long, lanky frame into Belinda’s office furniture. “The only reason your brick-and-mortar store has survived is because it’s basically a tourist attraction.”

      “What’s wrong with being a tourist attraction?” she asked. Fryberg’s had done very well thanks to that tourist attraction. Over the years, what had been a small hobby shop had become a cottage industry unto itself with the entire town embracing the Bavarian atmosphere. “You saw our balance sheet. Those tourists are contributing a very healthy portion of our revenue.”

      “I also saw that the biggest growth came from your online store. In fact, while it’s true retail sales have remained constant, your electronic sales have risen over fifteen percent annually.”

      And were poised to take another leap this year. Noelle had heard the projections. E-retail was the wave of the future. Brick-and-mortar stores like Fryberg’s would soon be obsolete.

      “Don’t get me wrong. I think your late husband did a fantastic job of capitalizing on people’s nostalgia,” he said to Belinda.

      Noelle’s mother-in-law smiled. She always smiled when speaking about her late husband. “Ned used to say that Christmas was a universal experience.”

      “Hammond’s has certainly done well by it.”

      Well? Hammond’s had their entire business on the holiday, as had Fryberg’s. Nothing Says Christmas Like Hammond’s Toys. The company motto, repeated at the end of every ad, sang in Noelle’s head.

      “That’s because everyone loves Christmas,” she replied.

      “Hmm.” From the lack of enthusiasm in his response, she might as well have been talking about weather patterns. Then again, his emotional range didn’t seem to go beyond brusque and chilly, so maybe that was enthusiastic for him.

      “I don’t care if they love the holiday or not. It’s their shopping patterns I’m interested in, and from the data I’ve been seeing, more and more people are doing part, if not most of their shopping over the internet. The retailers who survive will be the ones who shift their business models accordingly. I intend to make sure Hammond’s is one of those businesses.”

      “Hammond’s,” Noelle couldn’t help noting. “Not Fryberg’s.”

      “I’m hoping that by the end of the day, the two stores will be on the way to becoming one and the same,” he said.

      “Wiping out sixty-five years of tradition just like that, are you?”

      “Like I said, to survive, sometimes you have to embrace change.”

      Except they weren’t embracing anything. Fryberg’s was being swallowed up and dismantled so that Hammond’s could change.

      “I think what my daughter-in-law is trying to say is that the Fryberg name carries a great deal of value round these parts,” said Belinda. “People are very loyal to my late husband and what he worked to create here.”

      “Loyalty’s a rare commodity these days. Especially in the business world.”

      “It certainly is. Ned, my husband, had a way of inspiring it.”

      “Impressive,” Hammond replied.

      “It’s because the Frybergs—Ned and Belinda—have always believed in treating their employees like family,” Noelle told him. “And they were always on-site, visible to everyone.” Although things had changed over the last few years as Belinda had been spending more and more time in Palm Beach. “I’m not sure working for a faceless CEO in Boston will engender the same feelings.”

      “What do you expect me to do? Move my office here?”

      He looked at her. His gaze, sharp and direct, didn’t so much look through a person as cut into them. The flecks of brown in his irises darkened, transforming what had been soft hazel. Self-consciousness curled through Noelle’s midsection. She folded her arms tighter to keep the reaction from spreading.

      “No. Just keep Fryberg’s as a separate entity,” she replied.

      His brows lifted. “Really? You want me to keep one store separate when all the other properties under our umbrella carry the name Hammond?”

      “Why not?” Noelle’s palms started to sweat. She