New Year at the Boss's Bidding

by Rachael Thomas

  She couldn’t look at him. ‘I’m not hiding or running, Xavier. I just want to be honest with myself and you. I can’t be with you, not how you want anyway.’

  ‘And how exactly do I want to be with you?’ The gruffness of his voice hinted at his frustration.

  ‘I can’t be just another woman, one you call when you are in London. I’m not that type of girl.’

  He took her swiftly in his arms, pulling her excruciatingly close to him. ‘I’ve tried to forget you, tried to put you to the back of my mind as nothing more than a memory. I have no idea who I was pictured with. I might have been there at the party, but in my mind I was still at the manor with you, the only woman I want.’

  * * *

  Suddenly everything became clear and Xavier could see why Tilly was so anxious. Since the accident he’d never had a serious relationship. He’d only dated a woman once, always avoiding anything more intimate, worried about his scarred body.

  ‘I see my recently acquired reputation has coloured your view of me.’ He didn’t know how to explain without scaring her away completely. All he knew was that he had to tell her.

  ‘Something like that, yes,’ she said, and looked back up into his face. He wanted to lower his lips to hers and kiss her to prove she was the only woman he wanted. Could a kiss prove how much he loved her? The whole concept of love was totally new to him. Her eyelashes lowered over her eyes as she looked down, the long dark lashes sweeping against the pale skin in an alluring way.

  ‘I was drowning in guilt and badly scarred. What woman would seriously want me? You are the only woman I have made love to since the accident.’ Each word was raw, pulling at his heart as if being ripped from it, dragging out emotions he’d kept locked away, preferring guilt and self-pity. ‘I wanted you so badly, Tilly.’

  ‘You did?’ The soft whisper caught his attention and he lifted her chin with his thumb and finger, forcing her to look directly at him. The blue of her eyes was shrouded in tears threatening to fall and he hated it that he’d made her cry.

  But she wasn’t fighting any more. She wasn’t resisting what had sprung to life between them the very first moment their eyes had met. She was here in his arms—exactly where he wanted her to be. Those two huskily whispered words whirled round in his head.

  ‘You are the only woman I ever wanted to stay after finding out about the accident, because you are the only woman I want. I love you, Natalie Rogers, and I intend to love you more each and every single day for the rest of my life—if you will let me.’

  ‘I want to say yes.’ She looked at him, a tear slipping from first one eye then the other. He caught them with his finger, wiped them away, cursing softly because he’d made her cry.

  ‘But what?’ He sensed the doubt, the reservations she was fighting.

  ‘Jason breaking things off was my fault. I didn’t want passion and he didn’t want only companionship.’ She looked down again, as if she was gathering her strength. When she looked back up her blue eyes glittered. ‘I can’t be who I was those two nights at the manor. That wasn’t me. Nothing seemed real then.’

  ‘Our passion was real.’ How could she deny that sexy and passionate woman had been her? Every time she’d caressed him she’d set light to him. Every time he’d touched her the intensity of it had risen.

  ‘Because we were different people, cut off from reality. I can’t give you passion and excitement, just as I couldn’t give it to Jason. I’m scared to.’

  Anger simmered to the fore. Damn that man. ‘What are you scared of?’

  It wasn’t making any sense. She’d given herself to him with passionate abandon. What had burned between them those two nights had been so hot it still fired his body now to think of it.

  ‘Loving and losing.’

  ‘Losing?’

  ‘My parents,’ she said quietly. ‘The love they had for one another was so all-consuming. They only had eyes for each other, but it didn’t stop them being wrenched apart. It didn’t stop my mother’s heart breaking after my father died.’

  ‘Natalie, Natalie.’ He pulled her against him, holding her tight and kissing her hair. He closed his eyes against the pain she must have felt as a child. A fluid flow of Italian left his lips and she pulled back to look up at him, her eyes moist with unshed tears.

  ‘I can’t be like that,’ she whispered softly. He knew then she hadn’t been able to love Jason because she’d been scared of the consequences. Joy at knowing she hadn’t loved the man she should have married, that she didn’t love him now, surged through him.

  ‘You don’t have to be.’ He lowered his lips to hers, brushing his over the plumpness of hers and enjoying the sensation that fizzed to life. ‘All I want is the woman who arrived at the manor, full of joy at the falling snow as I stood and watched her from the doorway. You just need to be you. The woman I love.’

  ‘Do you really mean that?’ Hope shone in her eyes and in his heart simultaneously.

  ‘I want you in my life always, Natalie. I want to be with you as you rediscover your family. I want you to be my wife.’

  Her gorgeous eyes widened and he laughed gently as he placed another light kiss on her lips. ‘Your wife?’

  ‘Yes, Tilly, my wife, and to prove it I will do it properly.’ He stepped back from her, reached into his pocket as he lowered himself to one knee. He took hold of her hand in one of his and held the ring box out to her. ‘Mi vuoi sposare, Natalie?’

  ‘But we’ve only just met.’ Despite the protest, she was smiling.

  ‘Sì, and by next Christmas Eve we will be back at the manor for our wedding. There will be the biggest and most brightly decorated tree possible—and our families, so we won’t be quite so alone.’

  She took the ring from the box, a smile of wonder on her face, and he stood up and slipped it on her finger. It fitted perfectly. Yet another sign that they too fitted perfectly together.

  ‘Sì, lo ti sposerò, Xavier.’ Her acceptance in Italian warmed his heart more than anything and he crushed her to him with a demanding kiss. The woman he loved was going to be his wife.

  EPILOGUE

  TRUE TO HIS WORD, Xavier rented Wimble Manor for the next Christmas, requesting the biggest and most brightly decorated tree possible. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have Tilly in his life and he looked at her as she entered the grand hallway. The wedding dress she wore was beautiful and the faux fur-lined hood of the cape framed her face, one that shone with happiness as she looked at him.

  This time last year he had hated Christmas and anything to do with it. He’d thought he didn’t deserve to marry and settle down, but now he knew he’d just been waiting for Tilly to waltz into his life.

  ‘Hi,’ his beautiful bride whispered, as she joined him where he waited for her among their close friends and family. There was a nervous tremor in her voice and he knew it was after what had happened almost two years ago, but there was no possible way he was going to turn his back on her. How could he when he loved her so completely?

  ‘Sei bellissima.’ He took the tips of her fingers and raised them to his lips, not taking his eyes from her once as a blush crept over her cheeks. ‘You didn’t bring the snow with you this time?’

  She smiled up at him and whispered mischievously, ‘Not yet.’

  * * *

  Tilly’s heart swelled as her new husband kissed her for the first time. They were standing at the bottom of the stairs, next to a fantastically decorated tree that held pride of place in the centre of the large hallway. Exactly the same spot they had first shared a kiss and where Xavier had arranged for them to be married.

  Around them applause sounded and she turned shyly to see her mother, her father’s brother and his family and Vanessa, her maid of honour. It was a perfect day and soon it would be followed by a more than perfect night in the arms of the man
she loved so tenderly yet so passionately.

  There was a tinge of sadness because she would be leaving behind her mother and her best friend when she and Xavier moved to Italy in the New Year, but wherever he went she would go too. It was hard to recall that last Christmas had been so lonely and now, just one year later, she was married to the man of her dreams.

  She smiled up at him. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and his brows quirked in that sexy kind of way she’d come to adore.

  ‘What for, mia cara?’

  ‘For arranging all this. When you told me you would organise the wedding, I never imagined this.’

  ‘Wimble Manor is where I first met you, where I first fell in love.’ He lowered his voice so their wedding guests wouldn’t hear. ‘And where we first made love. It will always be a special place.’

  ‘I wish we were alone like that again.’

  He pressed his lips to hers, sending a shiver of awareness down her spine. ‘Soon, my beautiful bride, soon. Once our guests have gone, it can snow for as long as it likes.’

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THESEUS DISCOVERS HIS HEIR by Michelle Smart.

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  Theseus Discovers His Heir

  by Michelle Smart

  CHAPTER ONE

  JOANNE BROOKES COVERED her mouth to stifle a yawn and blinked rapidly to keep her eyes open. She was quite tempted to shove the thick pile of papers aside and have a nap at the small kitchen table, but she needed to read and digest as much as she could.

  The floor creaked behind her and she turned to see Toby poke his head around the door of the tiny living space.

  ‘What are you doing up, you little monkey?’ she asked with a smile.

  ‘I’m thirsty.’

  ‘You’ve got water in your room.’

  He gave an impish grin and padded over to her, his too-short pyjamas displaying his bare ankles. He hoisted himself up onto her lap and pressed his warm face into her neck.

  ‘Do you have to go away?’

  Wrapping her arms tightly around his skinny frame, Jo dropped a kiss in Toby’s thick black hair. ‘I wish I didn’t.’

  There was no point in explaining the finer details of why she had to leave for the island of Agon in the morning. Toby was four years old and any kind of rationalising normally went right over his head.

  ‘Is ten days a long time?’ he asked.

  ‘It is to start with, but before you know it the time will have flown by and I’ll be home.’ She wouldn’t lie to him, and could only dress her departure up into something bearable. Her stomach had been in knots all day, knitted so tightly she hadn’t been able to eat a thing.

  They’d only spent two nights apart since Toby’s birth. Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t even have considered going. It would have been a flat-out no.

  ‘And just think what fun you’ll have with Uncle Jonathan,’ she added, injecting a huge dose of positivity into her voice.

  ‘And Aunty Cathy?’

  ‘Yes—and Aunty Cathy. And Lucy.’

  Her brother and his wife lived in the local town with their year-old daughter. Toby adored them almost as much as they adored him. Even knowing that he would be in safe, loving hands, Jo hated the thought of being apart from him for such a long time.

  But Giles, her boss, had been desperate. Fiona Samaras, their in-house biographer, who was working on the commemorative biography of the King of Agon, had been struck down with acute appendicitis. Jo was only a copywriter, but that didn’t matter—she was the only other person who spoke Greek in the specialist publishing house she worked for. She wasn’t completely fluent, but she knew enough to translate the research papers into English and make it readable.

  If the biography wasn’t complete by a week on Wednesday there wouldn’t be time for it to be copy-edited and proofread and sent to the printers, who were waiting to print five thousand English language copies and courier them to the Agon palace in time for the gala.

  The gala, exactly three weeks away, was to be a huge affair, celebrating fifty years of King Astraeus’s reign. If they messed up the commemorative biography they would lose all the custom they’d gained from Agon’s palace museum over the decades. Their reputation as a publisher of biographies and historical tomes would take a battering. Possibly a fatal one.

  Jo loved her job—loved the work, loved the people. It might not be the exact career she’d dreamed of, but the support she’d received throughout the years had made up for it.

  Giles had been so desperate for her to take on the job that he’d promised her a bonus and an extra fortnight’s paid leave. How could she have said no? When everything was factored in, she hadn’t been able to.

  She’d been through the emotional mill enough to know she would survive this separation. It would rip her apart but she would get through it—and Toby would too. The past five years had taught her to be a survivor. And the money would be welcome. She would finally have enough to take Toby to Greece and begin the task of tracking down his father.

  She wondered if she would have any time to begin her search whilst she was on Agon. Although Agon wasn’t technically a Greek island, its closest neighbour was Crete and its people spoke Greek—which was why Jo had been the person her boss had turned to.

  ‘We’ll speak every day on the computer while I’m gone,’ she said now, reiterating what she’d already told him a dozen times that day.

  ‘And you’ll get me a present?’

  ‘I’ll get you an enormous present,’ she promised with a smile.

  ‘The biggest present in the world?’

  She tickled his sides. ‘The biggest present I can stick in my suitcase.’

  Toby giggled and tickled her neck. ‘Can I see where you’re going?’

  ‘Sure.’ She manoeuvred him around so that he faced her desk, pulled her laptop closer to them and clicked a button to bring it out of hibernation.

  Having had only a day to prepare for the trip, she’d spent hours making arrangements for herself and Toby while trying to familiarise herself with the biography she needed to finish. She hadn’t yet had the time to do any research on the island she was travelling to.

  Keeping an arm around her son’s waist to secure him on her lap, she typed ‘Agon Royal Palace’ into the search bar and selected images.

  Toby gasped when he saw what appeared and pressed a finger to the screen. ‘You’re going there?’

  Jo was just as taken with the images, which showed an enormous sprawling palace that evoked romantic thoughts of hot Arabian nights.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Will you have your own room?’

  ‘I’ll get an apartment in the palace.’

  Until that moment she hadn’t had time to consider the fact that she would be staying in a royal palace for ten nights. She moved her cursor down the screen slowly, looking for a better picture.

  ‘Will you meet the King?’

  She smiled at the eagerness in Toby’s voice. She wondered how he would react if she were to tell him that she and Toby were distantly—very distantly—related to the British royal family. He’d probably sp
ring to the ceiling with excitement.

  ‘I’ll be working for the King’s grandson, who’s a prince, but I might meet the King too. Shall I find a picture of him?’

  She typed in ‘King of Agon’ and hit the search button.

  She supposed she should send Toby back to bed, but she really didn’t want to—not when he was so warm and snuggly on her lap, and especially not when she knew he wouldn’t be warm and snuggly on her lap again for another ten days.

  The search revealed hundreds, if not thousands of pictures of the King. Scrolling through them, she thought how distinguished he looked. There were pictures of him with his late wife, Queen Rhea, who had died five years ago, others with his eldest grandson and heir, Helios, and one of King Astraeus standing with all three of his grandsons—one of whom must be Theseus, the Prince she would be directly reporting to...

  She stared hard at the picture of the King and his grandsons and felt the hairs on her arms lifting. With a hand that suddenly seemed to be filled with lead, she enlarged the photo to fill the screen.

  It couldn’t be.

  Making sure not to squash her son, she leaned forward and adjusted the screen so she could peer at it more closely. The picture was too grainy for her to see with any certainty.

  It couldn’t be...

  ‘Are those men kings too?’ Toby asked.

  She couldn’t speak, could only manage a quick shake of her head before she clicked on to another picture of the King with his grandsons.

  This photo was of a much higher quality and had been taken from less distance.

  Her head buzzed and burned, every pulse in her body hammering.

  Working frantically, she clicked through dozens of pictures until she found one that showed him alone. She enlarged it.

  It was him.

  For an age she did nothing but hold her son so tightly she could feel the thrum of his little heart vibrating through his back.

  How was it possible?