Christmas Contract For His Cinderella (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Jane Porter

  “You love me. I know you do. I know you have always loved me, just as I have always loved you, but because I haven’t expressed my love correctly, properly, to your standards, it’s not enough.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “No? Then why refuse me? Why not give me a chance?”

  Her mouth opened, and then closed without making a sound because she didn’t have an answer for him. She didn’t know why she couldn’t consider his proposal. She just couldn’t...there wasn’t enough trust left inside her. “I’m all ready to go,” she said. “I just have those bags there.”

  His gaze swept the room, stopping on the wardrobe with the open door. Her red ball gown was on a hanger inside. “I’ll take your bags,” he said curtly.

  “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  Marcu tried not to think as he drove Monet to the helipad in the valley. His chest felt bruised, as if he’d taken a hard blow on the left side and he kept having to hold his breath to keep the pain at bay.

  He felt as if he was in Palermo driving her to the airport eight years ago. He’d hated that day, and he hated this one. The last thing he wanted was for her to leave, but he had made her a promise that when she asked to leave, he would let her go. He was letting her go.

  As he pulled up to the gates he could see his helicopter and pilots waiting. He ground his teeth together. His chest was already on fire and pain filled him, making every nerve and muscle hurt.

  He loved her and she didn’t believe him. He loved her and had tried to show her, organizing a festive party to demonstrate that he would try to be a better man. That he was willing to change. That indeed he was already changed.

  He didn’t need her for the children. The children were actually fine. They had a kind, devoted nanny who’d return soon from England, and they had a father who loved them.

  He was the one who needed her. He was the one whose life had never been the same after she’d left Palermo, and now she was leaving again. Leaving him again. And it burned within him, the pain and the need and the disappointment with himself for not being able to convince her.

  He slowed, and then shifted into Park, as they arrived on the tarmac.

  He hated to let her go. He hated that he had failed her not once, but twice. For a moment Marcu felt sick, nauseated by the past, and then he made a deliberate decision to let the past and the painful emotion go. He wasn’t who he’d been, and even though this was ending just as badly as it had in Palermo, he knew without a doubt this time that he loved her, and that there would never be anyone for him but her.

  Monet didn’t just own his heart. She was his heart.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SHE WAS BACK at work for the huge sales going on after Christmas, sales that continued into the New Year, and through the second week of January. During the week the store was less frantic, but on weekends the traffic always picked up and today was no exception.

  Monet was grateful that work had been so busy because it kept her from thinking too much, and prevented her from falling apart. Every day she questioned her decision to reject Marcu’s proposal. Every day she kicked herself, angry that she’d been so quick to refuse him instead of asking for more time.

  She’d been proud and stubborn, impulsive and frightened, and she had just possibly destroyed her last chance for true love, and happiness.

  Maybe if the time she’d spent with Marcu had been different. Maybe if it hadn’t been such a whirlwind trip she could have been more objective. Instead she’d felt swept into an Alpine fantasy, complete with adorable children and a handsome profoundly sexy bachelor father, with snow and snow and more snow, as well as that glorious Christmas proposal before the towering Christmas tree in the ballroom—and it was fantastic and impossible. It was fiction, just like The Nutcracker that Monet had read to Rocca every day.

  And so she’d turned Marcu down to make a point—she was fine, she was strong—but Monet feared she’d cut off her nose to spite her face.

  Marcu wasn’t prone to grand romantic gestures but he’d tried that Christmas night. He’d organized the party and sent everyone away so he could propose before the tree. It had been romantic, and she’d been wearing a perfect princess gown, but she wasn’t a princess. She’d never be a princess.

  Monet’s eyes grew hot and gritty and a lump filled her throat. She was so upset that her hands shook as she adjusted the delicate lace wedding gown hanging next to the cash register. She had to keep it together. There would be no breaking down at work. Which was why she couldn’t let herself think of him anymore. Easier said than done when everything in her missed him and had loved being with Marcu and his children. He did feel like home. He was the only home she’d ever known and she’d given it all up again because she had to be strong. She had to be—

  She turned at the sound of a violin, recognizing the first haunting notes, but not yet certain it was what she thought the song might be. And then as a voice began to sing, shivers coursed up and down her spine.

  Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. Her favorite opera.

  Voice after voice joined in. But was the song playing though the department’s speaker? Or was there a performance taking place in the store?

  She crossed the marble floor and discovered the musicians were on her floor, seated in folding chairs in front of the big arched window.

  Stringed instruments, a harp, wind instruments—the musicians were filling in from the sides.

  A woman stepped toward her, singing. It was the woman she’d just spoken to fifteen minutes ago, about mother-of-the-bride gowns. Monet’s mouth dropped open as she realized that half the people singing and playing instruments had been customers moments ago, or had at least been pretending to be customers...

  And these “customers” weren’t just singing any song, but “E Lui,” in which Gianni Schicchi refused to allow his daughter, Lauretta, to marry her boyfriend, Rinuccio, and everyone was fighting and arguing and the couple was distraught.

  Monet’s heart pounded as music soared, and the superb voices rose, overlapping, echoing off the ceiling, and filled the high domed ceiling of the fifth floor.

  Monet had used to attend the opera in Palermo with the Ubertos, and this had been her favorite. She’d spent hours listening to the recording in Marcu’s room, playing her favorite aria, “O Mio Babbino Caro,” over and over.

  As “E Lui” ended there was a beat of silence before a lovely young woman in a red dress—the bride Monet had been helping earlier—began to sing, the lyrics so familiar to Monet, with Lauretta pleading with her father to let her marry her beloved because she couldn’t live without him.

  Every great soprano had sung “O Mio Babbino Caro,” and Monet was moved to tears.

  Lauretta was poor. She couldn’t marry her Rinuccio because she had no dowry. And yet she loved Rinuccio so much that she told her father she’d die without him...

  The heart-rending aria filled the great glass dome with sound, the acoustics perfect, and Monet cried harder, wiping away tears but unable to catch them all.

  Only one person knew how much she loved this opera and this aria. Only one person knew she’d once compared herself to Lauretta, a girl from humble origins who’d never be accepted by her beloved’s wealthy family as she came without a dowry...

  As the soprano reached the end, the fifth floor was overflowing with people, the crowd spilling off the escalators and out of the elevators to watch, and listen. Then it was over, and there was a moment of rapt silence before thunderous applause.

  Monet clapped, and tried to dry her eyes, but she was a mess. This had to be Marcu’s doing. It had to be, but where was he?

  And then he was there, walking through the crowd, sophisticated and dashing in a black suit and black shirt, the shirt open at the throat, revealing his lovely lightly tanned skin. His gaze met hers and held as he approached, and she didn’t know what to think or feel,
not when she was already feeling so much, undone by the music and the memories and the past that she couldn’t ever seem to come to grips with, even though she’d tried. How she’d tried.

  “What have you done?” she choked, as he crossed to her, and took her hand. “Have you seen all these people?”

  “Yes.”

  “This was crazy. I’m shaking.”

  He put an arm around her and pulled her close. “You loved that aria, remember?”

  Fresh tears filled her eyes and she couldn’t speak, and so she nodded her head. “Why?” she whispered when she could.

  “I needed to get your attention. I hope I have.”

  She cried harder, and she didn’t know why she was crying, only that it felt so good to be in his arms. She’d missed him so much. Too much. It had been awful these past few weeks and she’d wanted to go to him so many times. “How did you manage this?” she said, cheek pressed to his chest.

  “Not easily. Hit a few roadblocks until I reached out to the English National Opera.”

  She laughed and blinked back tears. “It’s incredible, but also not private.”

  “Not at all private. Some might say it’s a spectacle.”

  “Indeed. You’ve put on quite a show, signor.”

  “I’m not finished, either,” he said, taking a ring box from his pocket and kneeling in front of her. “I want the world to know I love you, and have only ever loved you, and I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you—”

  She reached down and clasped his hands. “You don’t have to do this here, and you don’t have to say these things—”

  “But I do, because I love you, and I’m once again asking you to marry me, not because I need a wife, but because I need you, and only you, and if you’re not ready to accept me now, then I’ll wait, and I’ll ask you again in six months, and then again in another six months.”

  Monet straightened and clasped her hands together, pulse pounding.

  He looked up at her, his expression serious, his light blue eyes intently holding her gaze. “If you say you need six years, I’ll give you that, too, but there will never be anyone else for me. It is you, and only you.” He opened the ring box to reveal a stunning emerald cut diamond—that was huge, easily three or four carats in size—with smaller baguette diamonds on either side. “I will wait for you, because I love you, and life isn’t complete without you. In fact, life isn’t even life without you.”

  She glanced from the ring to his face. “I do love you,” she whispered. “Very, very much. But I’m scared—”

  “I know.”

  “I’ve been alone for so much of my life.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “I don’t trust easily.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “Yes.”

  “But I can’t imagine life without you. I don’t want to do this without you anymore.” She flexed her left hand, where she still wore her sixteenth-birthday ring. “I haven’t taken this off, because it’s been my last connection to you.”

  “Ring, or no ring, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “We can wait on setting a wedding date?”

  “As long as you want.”

  She smiled. “Then, yes. I accept your proposal. Yes.”

  He stood and slipped her birthday ring off, and put it on her right hand, before sliding the engagement ring onto her finger, and then he kissed her, a long searing kiss filled with heat and love, as the crowd applauded, and someone whistled, the sound echoing off the domed ceiling with its incredible acoustics.

  EPILOGUE

  SHE DIDN’T NEED six years or even six months to know she wanted to marry him. They decided to continue working and then spend weekends together, and after just a month of Marcu bringing the children to London to see her, followed by her traveling to Sicily to see them, she knew the sooner they came together as a family, the better. The children did need her and so did Marcu, who worried more and slept less when she was in London on her own.

  The wedding took place the first weekend in June at the great cathedral in Palermo, the one the family had always attended. The weather was perfect for a wedding, too, the sky a stunning azure-blue with just a few wispy clouds overhead. It was warm but not too warm and the cathedral’s bells rang joyfully as Monet and Marcu stepped from the cool interior into the glorious sunshine, her hand tucked in the crook of Marcu’s arm.

  Man and wife.

  Married.

  She looked up at him, and he smiled his dazzling heart-stopping smile, before his head dropped and he kissed her thoroughly, making her tingle from head to toe. “La mia adorabile moglie,” he said huskily. My lovely wife.

  She couldn’t hide her blush, or her smile, as he lifted his head. Wife. She was his wife.

  The children came running toward them then, Matteo, Rocca, and Antonio, all throwing themselves at the bridal couple, and there were hugs all around. loz.

  “I love you,” Monet said, kissing each of the children, one by one. “You are mine now, forever and ever.”

  “And you four are all mine,” Marcu said, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I have everything now, love and family. I am, without a doubt, the luckiest of men.”

  Coming next month

  BILLIONAIRE’S WIFE ON PAPER

  Melanie Milburne

  ‘But you don’t want to get married.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  A shadow passed through his gaze like a background figure moving across a stage. He turned back to face the view from the windows; there might as well have been a ‘Keep Away’ sign printed on his back. It seemed a decade before he spoke. ‘No.’ His tone had a note of finality that made something in Layla’s chest tighten.

  The thought of him marrying someone one day had always niggled at her like mild toothache. She could ignore it mostly but now and again a sharp jab would catch her off guard. But how could he ever find someone as perfect for him as Susannah? No wonder he was a little reluctant to date seriously these days. If only Layla could find someone to love her with such lasting loyalty.

  ‘What about a marriage of convenience? You could find someone who would agree to marry you just long enough to fulfil the terms of the will.’

  One of his dark eyebrows rose in a cynical arc above his left eye. ‘Are you volunteering for the role as my paper bride?’

  Eek! Why had she even mentioned such a thing? Maybe it was time to stop reading paperback romances and start reading thriller or horror novels instead. Layla could feel a hot flush of colour flooding her cheeks and bent down to straighten the items in her basket to disguise it. ‘No. Of course not.’ Her voice was part laugh, part gasp and came out shamefully high and tight. Her? His bride of convenience? Ha-di-ha-ha-ha. She wouldn’t be a convenient bride for anyone, much less Logan McLaughlin.

  A strange silence crept from the far corners of the room, stealing oxygen particles, stilling dust motes, stirring possibilities…

  Logan walked back to where she was hovering over her cleaning basket, his footsteps steady and sure. Step. Step. Step. Step. Layla slowly raised her gaze to his inscrutable one, her heart doing a crazy tap dance in her chest. She drank in the landscape of his face—the ink-black prominent eyebrows over impossibly blue eyes, the patrician nose, the sensually sculpted mouth, the steely determined jaw. The lines of grief etched into his skin that made him seem older than he was. At thirty-three, he was in the prime of his life. Wealthy, talented, a world-renowned landscape architect—you could not find a more eligible bachelor…or one so determined to avoid commitment. dpg!

  ‘Think about it, Layla.’

  His tone was deep with a side note of roughness that made a faint shiver course through her body. A shiver of awareness. A shiver of longing that could no longer be restrained in its secret home.

  Layla picked up her basket from the floor and held it in front of her body like a shield. Was h
e teasing her? Making fun of her? He must surely know she wasn’t marriage material—certainly not for someone like him. She was about as far away from Susannah as you could get. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  His hand came down to touch her on the forearm, and even through two layers of clothing her skin tingled. She looked down at his long strong fingers and disguised a swallow. She could count on one hand the number of times he had touched her over the years and still have fingers left over. His touch was unfamiliar and strange, alien almost, and yet her body reacted like a crocus bulb to spring sunshine.

  ‘I’m serious,’ he said, looking at her with watchful intensity. ‘I need a temporary wife to save Bellbrae from being sold or destroyed and who better than someone who loves this place as much as I do?’

  Continue reading

  BILLIONAIRE’S WIFE ON PAPER

  Melanie Milburne

  Available next month

  Copyright ©2019 by Melanie Milburne

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