Million Dollar Christmas Proposal

by Lucy Monroe

  “No. Definitely not.”

  “Then we had best hurry.”

  He did not take her hand again as they left the pool paradise.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  TOBY WAS RIGHT on time.

  Audrey barely managed to get her hair brushed into a neat if wet ponytail and to put pajamas on under the robe before he arrived. He teased her about using the pool without him, but was easily placated by the promise they would be indulging the next day.

  Toby and the children thoroughly enjoyed their afternoon in the pool paradise. Toby was as impressed by the indoor jungle as Audrey, and he fell in love with the ocicats, but he really shone with Franca and Angilu.

  The baby adored the water and decided Toby was his favorite playmate in it.

  Vincenzo emulated some of Toby’s play with Angilu and seemed surprised but very happy when the baby responded just as well to him. All three of them had a blast together while Audrey and Franca worked on the little girl’s ability to float.

  Both children were going to have to have age-appropriate swimming lessons if they were going to live even part-time in a house with a pool. They might not have access to the pool room, but children got into places no one thought they could.

  Or so the parenting books Audrey had read suggested.

  They didn’t see Giovannu Tomasi until dinner that evening.

  “I do not understand why we are having dinner practically in the afternoon,” he complained to Vincenzo.

  “It is six-thirty in the evening, hardly the afternoon. I have explained my dinner hour has been shifted to accommodate the children, so we can eat together as a family before their early bedtime.”

  That had been one of Audrey’s suggestions and it made her happy he’d taken it and was clearly so protective of the change in his schedule.

  Giovannu frowned. “That can hardly be convenient with your business schedule.”

  “I make it work,” Vincenzo said with thinning patience.

  “You cannot neglect your business responsibilities in order to play happy families, Enzu.”

  Vincenzo grimaced and Audrey wanted to smack his father upside the head. “If you are very concerned, I am sure Enzu would appreciate you taking a more active role in running the bank,” she said.

  “As his most recent and hardly his last lady-friend, you are hardly in a position to have an opinion on the subject, Miss Miller,” Giovannu said with a double dose of condescension.

  Toby made a sound like steam escaping a boiling kettle, but Audrey shook her head at him. In a very real sense, Giovannu had a point.

  “On the contrary. In our time together, Audrey has proved to have a better understanding of myself and my business than you have ever been capable of, Giovannu.”

  The ice in Vincenzo’s tone would have frozen Audrey where she sat if it had been directed at her.

  Giovannu simply waved his hand, as if dismissing Vincenzo’s words. “I have a vested interest in the continued success of the bank and your company.”

  Vincenzo sat very erect, the blue gaze he directed at his father glacial. “First, let me be very clear, you have zero interest in my company. Neither you nor Frances will benefit financially, now or ever, from Tomasi Enterprises. Second, Audrey is absolutely right. If you are so worried about Tomasi Commercial Bank I will be happy to cede the presidency to you and you can run it into the ground for all I care.”

  Vincenzo gave his father a chilling star.

  “But do not think I will step back in to bail you out. It will not happen. Third, you will treat any guest I have invited to my table with the utmost respect, or you will lose the privilege of being a guest in my home at all. Do we understand each other?”

  Giovannu stood up, his expression one of affronted pride. “Perhaps it is time I returned to my own home. I expect better treatment from my son than this.”

  Vincenzo simply inclined his head. “Devon will arrange for someone to help you pack.”

  His son’s agreement clearly shocked the older man. His mouth opened in slack-jawed disbelief.

  It occurred to Audrey in that moment that Vincenzo had probably never stood up to his father like this. He’d made it clear that for the most part he practiced a live-and-let-live-with-an-allowance policy toward his parents.

  Vincenzo was driven by his obligation and care toward his family. It would take a great deal to force him to show this ruthless side to those he felt responsible for.

  She couldn’t help the way it touched her heart he was defending her role so mercilessly.

  Audrey looked around the table to see how the children and Toby were taking this altercation.

  While Franca sent worried glances toward the men, plainly aware of the tension between them, the actual meaning of their discussion had gone over the child’s head. She continued to eat her dinner while having a quiet conversation with Percy about the merits of fresh carrots with dip over the cooked ones on her plate.

  Toby was busy playing with the baby, ignoring the argument to the point he’d deliberately turned his back toward Giovannu.

  Audrey bit back a smile at her brother’s silent message of disgust for the older man. She shifted her attention back to Vincenzo. His eyes were on her. His father was standing silent dumbfounded to his right.

  She winked at Vincenzo. He jerked back as if startled, but then a smile started at his mouth and spread like sunrise to his oh-so-compelling blue eyes.

  “That won’t be necessary. There is no point in allowing a little tiff to drive a wedge between father and son,” Giovannu said, as if he and Vincenzo were still engaged in active discussion. “However, I do think I will have my dinner later. This early epicurean hour does not agree with me.”

  Vincenzo just shrugged, his gaze never leaving Audrey. “If that is your wish.”

  “Yes, well…” Realizing no one was going to ask him to stay, Giovannu left.

  Toby sent Vincenzo a look of understanding. “No offence, but I think your dad and mine went to the same school for jerkwads.”

  Vincenzo’s bark of amusement exploded into full-blown laughter and soon the whole room was laughing. Even the baby and Franca, though the confusion on her tiny face said she didn’t know why she was laughing.

  Audrey, however, gasped out Toby’s name in admonishment. “Language!” she prompted.

  He grinned and nodded, but the look he shared with Vincenzo said neither male was particularly repentant.

  *

  She’d just arrived at her desk on Wednesday morning when Audrey’s mobile made the sound of keys on a typewriter, indicating she had a text message.

  Smiling, she grabbed the phone, and a small laugh fell from her lips as she read what it said.

  R U packed? No PJs needed.

  She hadn’t seen Vincenzo since Sunday night, but he’d been texting her. Early morning “wake-up” messages right after her alarm went off. Quick reminders to eat, or take her breaks.

  Apparently Vincenzo and Toby were texting buddies now, too, and Audrey’s brother had ratted her out about skipping breakfast with her new early hours.

  Vincenzo was a lot more fluent in textspeak than Audrey and sometimes she spent more time deciphering his messages than answering them.

  She sent him pictures of Franca and Angilu from her afternoon visits with them. She shared little jokes about her day and was ridiculously pleased when he started doing the same with her.

  The sexy texts had started Monday night, right around bedtime. One-word reminders of their time together on Saturday. Oblique promises of what was to come over the holiday.

  Vincenzo had invited her and Toby to stay the four-day Thanksgiving weekend with him and the children at the mansion. Amazingly, the workaholic billionaire was taking almost the entire time off.

  Hence his packed schedule leading up to it.

  *

  Audrey curled in the chair beside the window in her guestroom.

  She was reading. Not watching for the arrival of Vincenzo’s car in t
he drive below. Not.

  Percy had arrived with the children in the afternoon. Audrey and Toby had driven up after she got off work. If she’d been thinking, she would have put off their arrival until the following morning.

  But Toby had been so excited to return to the mansion and Vincenzo’s indoor pool, not to mention the state-of-the-art workout facility. And maybe Audrey had hoped she would get to see Vincenzo.

  He was supposed to arrive sometime tonight, after a video conference with one of his West Coast subsidiaries.

  She’d had some vague idea about waiting up for him downstairs, until they had arrived and discovered that Giovannu Tomasi was still in residence. Not that he had joined her and the children for supper.

  Giovannu had, however, asked Audrey to keep him company while he ate. Since she’d already helped Percy put Franca and Angilu to bed, Audrey had not had a ready excuse for turning him down. Mindful of what Vincenzo had said in regard to learning to deal with his parents, Audrey had realized she shouldn’t make up one, either.

  It had not been a pleasant hour, but Audrey had not walked away bleeding, either. Giovannu had begun by pouring on the charm, apparently genuinely under the impression that he was utterly irresistible to the opposite sex.

  She’d shut him down in a way guaranteed to get her point across: by pretending not to even notice the flirting and responding to him as if he was a particularly trying older uncle.

  She’d dropped unsubtle hints that she considered him too old to be seen in that way. And wasn’t he lucky to have a wife of so many years? After all, many men of his advanced years faced a lack of companionship.

  As she’d thought they would, her comments had fallen on the fertile ground of the true egoist’s latent insecurities.

  She’d looked into his break with his last mistress and discovered that the gossips were convinced the much younger woman had dropped him cold for a younger man with a less impressive financial portfolio.

  Giovannu had shifted his approach in what Audrey had come to realize was an attempt to eject her from Vincenzo’s life, even if she did not understand why.

  She’d ignored the barbs, insinuations and blatant accusations that she was an unsophisticated nobody who had no place with a man like Vincenzo. Audrey had had twenty-one years of experience dealing with superior attitudes and verbal put-downs before her parents had cut her from their lives.

  Giovannu Tomasi was merely a more spoiled example of the breed with a deeper sense of entitlement. Even if she hadn’t known her relationship with Vincenzo was based on his plan to provide a loving mother to Franca and Angilu, Audrey would not have given Giovannu Tomasi the satisfaction of letting him get to her.

  Infuriated by her unconcerned reaction, he had quit the field.

  Audrey had thought she might take a swim to relax before bed, but had discovered quickly that the memories the jungle paradise evoked when she did not have the distraction of the children were going to be anything but calming.

  It would have been different if Toby had joined her, but he’d taken his swim earlier and was indulging in a late-evening workout in Vincenzo’s gym.

  So Audrey had returned to her room, determined to read until she was settled enough to sleep. Now it had hit midnight and she’d read the same paragraph at least a dozen times before giving up on her book. So she simply sat.

  Not waiting.

  But definitely in no shape to sleep, either.

  The sound of an approaching helicopter arrived scant seconds before its lights swept the front of the mansion as it headed to the helipad in the back.

  Audrey surged to her feet. Vincenzo had arrived.

  Uncaring that she wore only her favorite masculine-style black and white striped silk pajamas, she rushed for the door of her bedroom. She grabbed the matching black robe just before she exited the room.

  Tugging it on and tying the sash haphazardly, she hurried down the corridor. She realized she’d left her slippers behind when her bare feet slapped against the cold marble of the staircase.

  It was only as she reached the bottom of the steps that it occurred to Audrey she had no idea where to go from here.

  “If I may, Miss Miller?” the majordomo spoke from Audrey’s right.

  “Oh, Devon. I’m so glad you’re here. I thought I’d meet Mr. Tomasi, but…” She let her voice trail off with a shrug.

  “Is he expecting you?”

  “Um…no.”

  “I see.”

  “You do?”

  The majordomo nodded. “You have no plans to meet Mr. Enzu, however, it is likely he is aware of your impulsive nature and may well be expecting you.”

  Audrey didn’t even blush. Much. “Right.”

  “Come this way.” Devon led her to a smaller, more warmly decorated version of the formal living room. “It is Mr. Enzu’s habit to indulge in a single-malt whiskey in here before retiring to his suite when he arrives after the dinner hour.”

  “I’ll wait for him here, then.”

  “That would be best,” Devon said with a significant look to her unslippered feet.

  Audrey’s toes curled instinctively into the rich pile of the carpet. “Yes, well, um…”

  Devon didn’t seem to expect her to finish her thought as he lit the gas fireplace and poured a finger of amber liquid into a rock glass before placing it on a table by the chair nearest the fire.

  “Would you like a nightcap?” he asked her.

  “No, thank you.” She’d had wine earlier and wasn’t much of a drinker.

  Devon inclined his head in acknowledgement. “I will leave you, then.”

  Audrey sat in the wingback chair nearest the door, her feet tucked under her. The minutes dragged and she wondered if Vincenzo would forgo his drink tonight. Perhaps Devon hadn’t thought to tell him she was waiting?

  The sound of two masculine voices in tense conversation approached the opened door.

  “I am very sorry to have to tell you, Enzu. But you must believe me. You are my son, after all. I care about you,” Giovannu was saying, his smarmy voice doing a remarkable job of sounding sincere. “She made a pass at me.”

  “Did she?” Vincenzo asked, his tone so void of emotion Audrey had no clue what he was thinking.

  Who had made a pass at that old letch? One of the maids? Audrey couldn’t believe it. Devon wouldn’t hire someone so lacking in taste.

  “It was very upsetting, Enzu. There’s a wild side to that little Miss Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt-In-Her-Mouth. I’m ashamed to say I was tempted, Enzu. You know my weakness for aggressive younger women.” He sounded ashamed, and so concerned.

  Audrey wanted to puke. She had no doubts that, whatever poor female Giovannu was talking about, she hadn’t been the aggressive one.

  “Audrey tried to seduce you?” Enzu asked in that same dispassionate tone.

  “No!” Audrey said forcefully at the same time Vincenzo’s father claimed an affirmative.

  That disgusting, deceitful toad.

  She jumped up from the chair and stormed to the doorway, noting the expressions on both men’s faces. Giovannu’s showed shock before he quickly masked it with that fake troubled caring.

  Vincenzo’s gorgeous face showed no more emotion than his voice, his blue eyes entirely shuttered.

  “You’ve got an amazing poker face,” she told him.

  The facade cracked with the tiniest fissure of barely-there amusement. “Do I?”

  “What are you doing here? Dressed like that?” Giovannu indicated her PJs as if Audrey had come downstairs in a see-through negligee. “Do you see what I mean, Enzu? She couldn’t have known you would be home. She was lying in wait for me.”

  Audrey stomped up to the older Tomasi and glared. “You are an ass.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And what’s more you’re an idiot if you don’t think your son knows it.”

  “How dare you?” Giovannu drew himself up. “I am a Tomasi. You are nothing. A nobody.”

  “In that you are very wrong, Giov
annu.” Vincenzo gently pressed Audrey back so he stood between her and his father still in the hallway. “Audrey is my guest and I warned you what would happen if you disrespected my invited guests.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? She tried to—”

  “Seduce you?” Vincenzo laughed, the sound cold as the Arctic. “I do not think so.”

  “You are calling me a liar?” his father demanded in what sounded like genuine outrage. “You would take her word over mine?”

  “In a heartbeat.” Vincenzo lifted his phone to his ear, pressing a button. “Devon, arrange to have Giovannu’s things packed. He will be leaving within the hour.”

  “What? You cannot kick me out of your house, Enzu. You are my son!”

  “Keep saying it. Someday I might believe it means something to you.” Vincenzo sounded tired.

  “Of course it does. Your mother and I care about you. We care about our grandchildren.”

  “So much that you couldn’t be bothered to even check in on Franca or Angilu once since they arrived this afternoon.”

  “She told you that!” Giovannu glared daggers at Audrey.

  “Mrs. Percy told me.” Vincenzo shook his head, an expression of disgust coming over his features. “Do you honestly believe I would put two innocent children in your care?”

  What was he talking about? Giovannu didn’t want to take care of his grandchildren. That was patently obvious.

  “If I believed I could not do an adequate job of raising them,” Vincenzo continued, “I would sooner put them in the care of our family in Sicily. You will never take control of Franca and Angilu, or the shares in the bank Pinu left them.”

  “Enzu—”

  “Don’t try to deny your plans. I’ve had my investigator looking into things. You and Frances have decided you want control of Pinu’s wealth and you used the breakup of your latest affair to show up on my doorstep.”

  The disgust in Vincenzo’s tone was mirrored in his expression.

  “Only you’re such a rotten parent model you didn’t even know how to ingratiate yourself as potential caregivers. Let me give you a hint. Being on the outs with your wife over an extramarital affair and ignoring your grandchildren completely isn’t even in the ballpark.”