The Italian Billionaire's Christmas Miracle

by Spencer, Catherine

  “You had me, Domenico. In Paris.”

  A flicker of anger ruffled his composure. “Disdain me if you must, Arlene, but do not try to cheapen what we shared in Paris. I will not allow it.”

  “And I will not allow you to manipulate me. I am not a plaything you may pick up or leave at whim.”

  She darted to a table next to an armchair by the fire, grabbed what he at once recognized as the contract he’d had drawn up, and flung it at him. Catching it in one hand, he said, “I’ve never treated you as such. Where you’re concerned, I have always acted in good faith.”

  “You have tried to buy me, and I’m not for sale.”

  “I have tried to help you because I care about you.”

  “I don’t want you to care about me, and I don’t need your help. So if you came all the way from Sardinia to dig me out of the hole you think I’m in, you’ve wasted your time.”

  “I was already in North America, and decided to stop by to see you, on my way home.”

  She shot him a look of pure disbelief. “Where in North America?”

  “My alma mater in Fresno, California.”

  “California?” She gave a hoot of laughter but it was belied by the desolation in her gray eyes. “I suggest you took a wrong turn somewhere south of the border!”

  He unbuttoned his overcoat. “That’s one of the perks of owning my own jet, Arlene,” he drawled. “Within reason, I get to choose in which direction it flies and where it lands. In this case, I chose here, because from everything I’ve heard—”

  “What have you heard?” she flared. “Who’s been talking about me behind my back? If it was Ralph McKinley at the bank—”

  “It wasn’t Ralph McKinley,” he said. “Dio, Arlene, I’ve got business contacts all over the world, including this little corner of it. A couple of phone calls were enough to confirm what I’d suspected all along. You’ve inherited serious trouble with this property and need a hefty infusion of cash to get you out of it.”

  “So you rushed in to save the day?” She shot the question at him, loaded with sarcasm.

  Steeling himself to patience, he said, “Somebody had to, and I didn’t see anyone else volunteering for the job. I wasn’t about to stand idly by and do nothing. That’s not how I operate, Arlene.”

  “I know exactly how you operate,” she said, her eyes suddenly bright with tears. “You use money to buy whatever you want, whether it happens to be things or people. You bought a château in France because, to quote you, it took your fancy. Then you bought a family to run it for you. You don’t live there, so to give the staff something to do besides rattle around in a place large enough to be a hotel, you sponsor underprivileged children to spend their summers there.”

  “Not just their summers,” he interrupted curtly. “They come at Christmas and Easter, too. They fill the rooms with their laughter, and they spill milk and cookie crumbs on the furniture. They race over the grounds, sail little wooden boats on the lake, climb trees and learn to swim in the pool. If you’re going to run an inventory of my perceived failings, at least do me the courtesy of getting all the facts before you condemn me.”

  She grimaced, disgust plain on her face. “The point is, you’re a collector, Domenico, and you particularly like collecting needy people because it makes you feel good. And if the flavor of the month happens also to hold a lease on a prime chunk of land, well, why not acquire the rights to that, too, while you’re at it? Not because it once belonged to royalty like your château. Not because its vineyards are flourishing. Not for any reason at all but because you fancy it.”

  Breasts heaving, she stopped just long enough to draw in an irate breath before firing a last shot. “But I’ll see you in hell before I let you have it!”

  Astounded by her outburst, he shook his head. “Do you hear yourself, woman? To suggest I’m after your land is ludicrous. Tell me what possible use I have for seven paltry acres when I have hundreds at my disposal all over the world, and every one of them doing what yours are not—namely producing quality wine grapes.”

  “Exactly!” she burst out, the tears slipping down her cheeks. “You have no use for them at all. You’re not driven by need. You just enjoy managing people’s lives. Well, you’re not managing mine, so take your money and take yourself out of here!”

  Her distress moved him more than he cared to admit. He had to hold himself back from cradling her body next to his and kissing away her anger, her suspicions and everything else that troubled her, along with her tears. But shocked by her lack of trust in his motives, he remained motionless. “If that’s how you see me—as some paternalistic figure using you to boost his own ego—then there’s nothing more to be said.”

  “Finally we agree on something!”

  “Except this.” He pulled his own copy of the contract from the inside pocket of his overcoat and, together with hers, ripped the papers in half and flung them on the fire. “There! You’re off the hook. No silent partner trying to control your fate. No first option clause to buy you out if you ever decide to sell. Your precious land is safe, and so are you. I’m out of your life, as of now.”

  “Good!” she quavered. “Take your money with you when you go.”

  “I’m afraid I can no longer do that. It’s deposited to your account and even I, world-class manipulator that I am, can’t access it.”

  “Well, I certainly don’t want it.”

  “Then give it to someone who does, burn it, do what the devil you like with it.” He swept his glance over the aging dogs snoozing by the fire; over the elderly caretaker who, obviously having heard the raised voices, had reappeared and stood now in the doorway, watching the final act of a fiasco the old Domenico would never have allowed to take place. “But if I had others depending on me, as you do, I’d put my pride aside and think about what’s best for them before I threw away the chance to make their days more comfortable.”

  She started to reply, but choked on the words and buried her face in hands no longer smooth and white, but red and chapped, with the nails clipped short. A working woman’s hands which it pained him to see.

  Finally, in a muffled voice, she said, “Why did you have to come back into my life? Why couldn’t you just leave me well enough alone?”

  “It’s called taking care of the people you love, Arlene, whether or not they care enough to love you back,” he said, the words torn so harshly from him that his throat burned. “And if that offends your sensibilities, as well as my many other transgressions, then sue me!”

  The force with which he slammed the front door as he stormed out made the dogs jump and the whole house shudder. “Pleased with yourself, are you?” Cal inquired calmly, into the ensuing silence.

  Arlene lifted her head and looked at him through streaming eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re on his side,” she wailed.

  “Can’t say as I see he’s done anythin’ so wrong—except take a load of abuse from you, that is. You pushed that man’s patience too far, missy. I’m surprised he didn’t walk out on you sooner. Reckon he’s just a fool for love under them slick city duds he wears.”

  “He only said that to justify his actions. He doesn’t really love me.”

  “Gave a dang good imitation of it then, is all I’ve got to say. In his place, I’d’ve hightailed it outta here the minute you got on your high horse and started accusing him of being the devil bent on making your life a misery. Which when I come to think of it, don’t make much sense, seein’ as how, most of the time, you’ve been plagued with misery anyway, mooning around the place like a lost lamb practically from the day you got here.”

  He crossed to the hearth and threw another log on the fire. “Reckon I know why now. What beats me is you lettin’ him get away when it’s as plain as the noses on them greyhounds that he’s the man you want. But then, I never did pretend to understand what makes a woman tick. Saved myself a load of grief by never trying, too.”

  Taken aback by his words, she plucked a tissue from her pocket and m
opped her eyes, then paced to the window and stared out at the thickly falling snow. The roads would be treacherous, especially out here in the country. “He’s not used to weather like this,” she said quietly. “I hope he drives carefully.”

  “He don’t strike me as the type to let a bit of weather get the better of him.”

  “Out here, he might. I don’t think it ever snows in Sardinia—at least, not the part where he lives. What if he has an accident, Cal?”

  Anxiety nibbled at her, eroding her indignation. She’d said harsh, unforgivable things. Things meant to wound, to inflame. She’d stirred the man she loved more than life to an anger even greater than her own. His mouth, which once had seduced her with its heat, had grown hard and cold; his eyes, stony. He’d driven away in a rage.

  Just two days earlier, a stranger traveling through the area had rounded a curve in the road too fast and ended up lying injured and half-frozen in the ditch, before someone came along and found him.

  If Domenico had an accident, it would be her fault. How would she live with herself then, knowing she’d acted not out of righteous indignation at all, but out of irrational disappointment that, despite everything he’d been willing to give, for her it still hadn’t been enough?

  She clutched the collar of her dressing gown tight around her neck, as if by doing so, she could chase away the cold finger of dread stealing up her spine. Domenico Silvaggio d’Avalos was impossible. Controlling. Devious.

  And if anything happened to him, she’d die.

  Why had she sent him away, when what she most wanted was to run into his arms and beg him to forget everything she’d said, that last day in Paris? He’d hinted then that he didn’t want their relationship to end, but even though he’d accepted her rejection gracefully enough at the time, she realized now that he’d never really given up on her.

  If all he’d wanted was to be her benefactor, he could have arranged it from anywhere in the world. He didn’t have to detour through Canada from California on his way back to Sardinia. He didn’t have to risk his life driving on snow-clogged, unfamiliar roads.

  “We miss you,” Renata had written in her Christmas card. “All of us.”

  Belatedly Arlene recognized the message for what it truly implied.

  A blast of cold air snaked around Arlene’s ankles. The dogs stirred, stretched and wagged their tails. Cal must have opened the door to let them out for a last run before turning in.

  “If he really loved me,” Arlene said, “why couldn’t he just say so, Cal, instead of trying to buy me off?”

  “Because you’re right,” a deep, familiar, beloved voice replied. “I am very good at managing other people’s lives—and just plain lousy at managing my own.”

  She spun around, her heart in her throat. He filled the doorway to the living room. Snowflakes glinted in his black hair, sprinkled his broad, black-clad shoulders. The light of battle shone in his eyes. He looked formidable. Dangerous.

  “You came back!” she whispered.

  “Just as well,” Cal drawled. “Saves me having to go out looking for him.” He squinted at them from beneath his bushy gray brows and brushed one hand against the other. “Reckon I’d better take the dogs and make myself scarce, five being a crowd and all that. The rest is up to the two of you.”

  Desperate to fill the silence he left behind, Arlene said, “It’s a good thing you turned back. It really isn’t a good night to be on the road. I have four bedrooms, not counting Cal’s, so there’s plenty of room for you to stay over, and—”

  “I didn’t come back because of the weather, Arlene.”

  She hardly dared phrase the question. “Why did you, then?”

  “The same reason I gave, the last time you asked. Because I can’t stay away, and heaven knows I’ve tried. When it came to recognizing what I needed to give my life true meaning, my fabled objectivity let me down badly.”

  He stepped closer. Trapped her against the window. Tilted her chin with his thumb so that she had to meet his gaze. “In the last two months, I’ve traveled to three continents and more than five countries, and you’ve followed me to every one. I’m here now because I’ve finally accepted that you’re with me, no matter how far or fast I run. I can’t live without you, Arlene. So unless you tell me to my face that you don’t want me, ever, for any reason at all, I’m here to stay—and not in a guest bedroom, either!”

  She stared at him, drowning in his summer-blue eyes. She’d been frozen inside. Gripped by hopelessness and fear. But with every word, every glance, every touch, he thawed a little more of the ice encasing her.

  “Well?” he murmured. “What’s your answer, cara mia? Am I wasting my time and yours, or do you care for me at least a little?”

  “You know I do,” she said on a trembling sigh.

  “Enough to make a life with me?”

  “How can I? Your home is in Sardinia.”

  “Yours could be, too.” He closed in on her. Touched her jaw, traced a path over her throat, his fingers cool and sure.

  “I can’t just walk away from here,” she protested. “When I accepted my inheritance, I made a commitment, to Cal and to the dogs. That might sound odd to you, but—”

  “It sounds like the woman I know,” he said. “The one who stands by her promises and who taught me that sharing everything but his heart makes a pauper of a man.”

  “What are you saying?” she breathed, afraid to read more into his words than he meant.

  “That I’m not asking you to break your word, or to give up this place. I understand how much it means to you.”

  “Not just to me. It’s the only home Cal knows. He loves it here. He understands the land, and knows more about growing grapes here than I ever will. It’s not his fault everything’s so run-down. He wants nothing more than to see the vineyard brought back to how it used to be, before my great-uncle let it slip away, but he’s too old to take on the job by himself.”

  “We’ll find him the help he needs. It can be done, tesoro. We can spend part of the year here, if that’s what you want. I see how beautiful your country is, and I understand the roots we all have for our native land. But I meant it when I said that long distance relationships don’t work for me. I need you by my side, Arlene, wherever home happens to be.”

  Take what he’s offering and make it be enough, because a little with him is better than nothing at all. “As what?” she said, clinging by a thread to the edge of the precipice of reason. Desperately wanting to fling herself over and listen only to the urgent pleading of her heart.

  “As my wife, of course!”

  “Why?”

  “Dio! That question again! Why do you think?”

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.”

  “I love you. I already told you that.”

  “Not really. You threw the words at me, a little while ago, but they sounded more like a curse than a blessing.”

  “Then let me say them again now. I love you! I know that’s not a magic formula, that there are problems we have to iron out. And I’d take them all away, if I could—”

  She placed her hand against his mouth, hushing him. “No, Domenico! That’s how we went off track in the first place. I’m not a child. You don’t have to shield me from reality. Life comes with problems. That’s just the way it is. But a couple learns to solve them together.”

  He smiled and slid his hand around her neck. “That poses some very interesting possibilities,” he said, inching his mouth closer to hers.

  She pulled back, knowing that if he kissed her, she’d agree to anything. “You make it all sound so simple, and it’s not.”

  “Yes, it is,” he said flatly. “The lesson I’ve learned is that finding the right one to love is difficult. The rest is very simple indeed.” He drew her close a second time. “Must I beg?” he whispered against her hair. “Is it not enough that I offer you all that I am? That what I most want in this world is to make you happy? Can you not understand how it destroys me that you keep me
at such a distance, that you refuse to let me show you, in every way, how much I treasure you?”

  “Don’t!” she begged, the last of her resistance washed away in a flood of scalding tears. “Please, please don’t talk like that! You make me so ashamed.”

  “Of what? Your moral integrity? Your loyalty to those relying on you? Arlene, mia innamorata, these are among the reasons I fell in love with you. You are the woman I’ve been searching for almost half my life. Don’t ask me to let you go, now that I’ve found you. Make my life complete. Say you’ll marry me.”

  “Yes,” she said, the last shard of ice in her heart melting under the impassioned heat of his gaze. “Oh, yes please!”

  Chapter 12

  The pain of remembering those Paris nights had been so acute that she’d willed them to die. Gradually, painstakingly, she’d buried them under the cumbersome, everyday concerns needing her attention at her new home, even likening the pang of regret that sometimes attacked, to the ghost of an amputated limb seeking to reconnect itself to its host. She’d told herself that what she’d had with Domenico was over. Nothing could bring it back again.

  How quickly he taught her the error of her beliefs! In the shadowed warmth of her bedroom, with only the snowflakes nudging at the window to witness the miracle, he sealed their reconciliation, reacquainting himself with her body, and stoking the embers of buried desire with such finesse that they roared back to new life, all the wilder for their enforced hibernation.

  Not an inch of her escaped his attention. “I have missed your silken skin, your scent,” he murmured, and pinning her hands above her head, took first one, then the other nipple in his mouth.

  Sensation streaked through her, wild and hot; lightning that ignited every cell in her body and left her throbbing and pooling in liquid fire. “Please, Domenico,” she moaned, reaching for him. “Don’t make me wait…it’s been so long…please…!”

  He was big and hard and ready. But he would not let his hunger dominate. “I have missed how you taste,” he whispered. “The memory has haunted me through every long night, and I have woken up starving for you.” And running his palms down her flanks, he buried his face between her thighs. Stroked his tongue over her slick and eager flesh.