He smiled and kissed her fingertips. “Aren’t I, though? You deserve better.”
Except there wasn’t anyone better. If the feelings in her heart were to be believed, there never would be. “In case you didn’t notice, there were two people kissing,” she told him. “We both ignored our common sense.”
Armando shook his head. “Dear, sweet Rosa. You still won’t admit you are a victim.”
“Because I’m not a victim.” Not this time. “Last night, you made me feel more special in five minutes than I had ever felt in my entire life. I would trade all the common sense in the world for that.”
“If I could, I would make you feel special every day. You deserve nothing less.”
“Neither do you.”
He smiled sadly. “But apparently I do.”
The song ended, but they had stopped dancing long ago in favor of standing in each other’s arms. Rosa’s first assessment was right—it was much too similar to last night’s embrace. When Armando’s eyes dropped to her mouth, common sense was again poised to disappear.
“I love you, Rosa. I’m sorry I didn’t come to my senses sooner.”
He pulled away, leaving her to shudder from the withdrawal. She was still in a daze. Did he say he loved her? Loved?
The sound of a spoon against crystal rang across the ballroom. King Carlos had stepped up to the front of the room.
“Ladies and gentlemen, might I have your attention?” Instantly, the ballroom went silent.
“Arianna asked me to refrain from formal toasts and speeches during last evening’s dinner, and as you all know, while I rule Corinthia, she rules me.” Low laughter rippled through the crowd. Rosa sneaked a look at Armando and saw he hadn’t cracked a smile. “However, I cannot let this evening end without saying a few words, not as your king, but as a father.”
The king’s smile softened. “This family has seen its share of loss over the past few years. My wife. Princess Christina.” At the sound of her sister’s name, Rosa looked to the floor.
“But now, as I look at the faces around the room and I see the smile on my daughter’s beautiful face, my heart is filled with so much hope. Hope for new beginnings. Hope for the next generation, and the generations of Santoros to come. I’ve never been prouder of my children. Just as I am proud of my newest son, Maxwell. I hope also to add a new daughter soon as well.” Everyone but she and Armando looked in Mona’s direction. Armando kept his attention on his father, while Rosa lifted her eyes to watch Armando.
“I am getting older,” the king continued. “Older and tired. There may come a day in the future when I decide to step down.”
A gasp could be heard in the crowd. King Carlos held up a hand. “No need to be upset. I’m not worried. Because I see the people who will be taking my place, and I couldn’t be more pleased.”
The rest of his toast was a flurry of well wishes for Arianna and Max. At least that was what she assumed. Armando had turned to her, and she found herself transfixed by his blue stare. I’m sorry, his eyes were saying. I have no choice.
All Rosa could hear were the words she’d convinced herself he wasn’t going to say. I love you. A lifetime and she wouldn’t hear three more beautiful words.
She loved him, too.
What was she going to do come Monday? And the Monday after that? What about when Armando announced his engagement? Knowing he loved her might sound wonderful today, but how was she going to face him day in and day out when he belonged to someone else?
Simple answer was, she couldn’t. Not without the self-esteem she’d worked so hard to rebuild crumbling into pieces again.
There was only one answer.
CHAPTER TEN
“ALL ARE ONE...” The last words of the Corinthian national anthem rose from the crowd gathered below the balcony. Arianna and Max had been officially presented as a royal couple.
Leaving Father and the happy couple to greet their well wishers, Armando stepped back inside. There was only so much joy a man could take, and he had met his limit.
He was happy for his sister, truly he was, but if he had to watch her and Max gaze into each other’s eyes a second longer, he would scream.
A few moments alone in the empty gallery would clear his head. Then he would be ready to tackle the rest of Christmas Day. Mona and her father were joining the celebration. Another day being reminded of the hole he’d dug himself into. At least he’d apologized to Rosa, taking that guilt off his shoulders. Somewhat. He doubted he would ever be completely guilt-free.
Because part of him would never regret kissing her.
To his surprise, Rosa was in the gallery when he entered, studying one of the china cabinets. One look and his energy returned, even if she was wearing one of those ridiculous long blazers he hated. He hadn’t expected to see her for a few days. He’d wanted to—oh, Lord, had he wanted to—but common sense had made a rare appearance and suggested otherwise. If he went to her apartment, he would be tempted to pull her into his arms. Much like he was tempted right now.
When she saw him, she smiled. “Merry Christmas,” she greeted.
Something wasn’t right. He could tell by the sound of her voice. “The crowd sounds thrilled with their princess’s new husband” she said.
“So it would seem. If I were a gambling man, I would bet Max embraces his royal role very quickly.”
“That would be good for Corinthia.”
“Yes.” That was what mattered, wasn’t it? The best for Corinthia? “What are you doing here?” he asked. The question came out more accusatory than he meant. “I thought you were helping out at the shelter this afternoon.”
“I wanted to come by and give you your Christmas present.” She pointed to a wrapped box on the seat of a nearby chair.
Armando walked over and fingered the cheerful silver bow. He didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t worry, it’s not booby-trapped, I promise,” she said. A halfhearted attempt to shake off the awkward atmosphere.
It wasn’t booby trapping that had him off balance—it was wondering whether he deserved the kindness.
“My gift for you is under the tree upstairs,” he said. A gold charm bracelet marking moments from their friendship.
“You can give it to me later. I can’t stay long, and I want to see you open yours. Go ahead,” she urged.
He peeled back the gift wrap. It was an antique wood statue of Babbo Natale. The colors were fading, but the carving itself was flawless.
“I found it in a shop outside the city. The owner thought he was handmade around the turn of the century. Silly, I know, but what else do you get the guy who has everything? You’ve already got plenty of ties,” she added with a self-conscious laugh.
“Don’t apologize,” Armando told her. “It’s beautiful. Truly handcrafted pieces are hard to find.”
“When I saw him, I thought he looked a little like you do when you’re wearing the costume. Around the eyes.”
He turned the statue over in his hands. “I’ll take your word for it.” It didn’t matter if the statue resembled him or the queen of England. She could have given him a paper doll and he would have treasured the piece. Because it came from her.
He longed to pull her into a hug. “Thank you. I love it.” And you.
“I...” All of a sudden, she stopped talking and pivoted abruptly so she stood with her back turned to him. Something was definitely wrong, he thought, his shoulders stiffening. “I thought it would make a good memory to share with your child,” she continued. “About those times you played Santa Claus at the shelter.”
“You talk as if I won’t be there anymore.” That was never going to happen. The shelter and its mission were too important to him. More so now that he knew her story.
“Not you,” Rosa replied, her back still turned.
“Me.”
Her? Armando’s stomach dropped. “What are you talking about?”
When she didn’t reply right away, he reached for her shoulder. To hell with not touching her. “What do you mean, you?”
“I-I’m leaving.”
No. She couldn’t be. Armando’s hand fell away short of its goal. “You’re not going to be my assistant anymore?”
“I can’t.” Finally, she turned around. When he saw her face, Armando almost wished he hadn’t. Her eyes were damp and shining. “I can’t come to work every day and see you. It’s too dangerous.”
“I don’t understand.” His mind was too stuck on her resignation to make sense of anything else. “Dangerous for whom?”
“Me,” she replied.
She started to pace. Rosa being the one to mark paths on the carpeting for a change would be amusing if the circumstances were different. “I thought about what you said last night, about my deserving better,” she said.
“You do. You deserve—”
She cut him off. “I know. Surprisingly. Fredo convinced me I would never deserve better than dirt, and for a long time I believed it.”
He watched as a tear dripped down her cheek. “Then you said you loved me. Loved. And I started thinking, if a man like you thinks he loves me...”
“I do love you,” he said, rushing toward her.
“Don’t.” With her hands in front of her chest, she shook her head. “This is why I have to quit.”
“You don’t want to be near me.”
“Don’t you understand? I want to be near you too much. You’re marrying someone else, ’Mando.
“And I get it,” she said when he opened his mouth to tell her she was—she would always be—his first choice. “I understand the responsibility you feel toward your country, and why you need to keep your word. I love your sense of honor.
“But if I stay, I’ll be tempted to be with you no matter what the circumstances, and I can’t be the woman you love on the side. I worked too hard on being myself again.”
She was shaking by the time she finished. With tears staining her cheeks. It killed him to stand there when every fiber of his being wanted to steal her away to a place where they could be together. It killed him, but he knew it was what Rosa wanted. Just as he knew he couldn’t fight her leaving.
“What will I do without you?” he asked instead.
“You survived without me for years, ’Mando. I’m sure you’ll survive again.” Armando hated to think the last smile he’d see on her face would be this sad facsimile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Where will you go? What will you do?”
“I don’t know yet. Right now, I’m going to focus on celebrating Christmas. I’ll figure out the rest tomorrow.”
“You survived once, you’ll survive again,” he repeated softly.
“Exactly.” Her fingers were shaking as she wiped her cheeks. “Merry Christmas, Your Highness. Happy New Year, too.”
Not without her in it.
With Babbo Natale cradled in his arms, he stood alone in the gallery and listened to the sound of the elevator doors closing. “Don’t go,” he whispered.
But like her sister had three years before, Rosa left anyway.
“Was that Rosa I saw getting on the elevator?” Arianna asked. She strolled in with Max and Father trailing behind. Her face pink from the cold, she shrugged off her coat and draped it over the arm of a chair. “I wish I’d known she was coming by. I have a Christmas present for her. Is that what Rosa gave you?” she asked, noting the wood carving. “It’s lovely.”
“What’s lovely?” Max asked.
“The carving Rosa gave Max,” Arianna replied.
“I’m not surprised,” Father said. “She’s always had impeccable taste.” He went on to tell Max a story about an ornament Armando’s mother bought the year Arianna was born. Armando continued to watch the doorway in case Rosa decided to return.
“She was determined to find the perfect ornament to mark Arianna’s first Christmas. We must have gone to every shop, craftsman and artist in Corinthia, and nothing was good enough. If I’d thought I could learn fast enough, I would have taken up glassblowing myself so she could design her own. It has to be perfect for our baby, she kept saying.”
Armando had already heard the ending. How his mother finally found the ornament in a gift shop in Florence, and it turned out to have been made by a Corinthian expatriate who insisted on giving the ornament as a gift for the new princess. The reverence in his father’s voice as he spoke was at near worship proportions. His words practically dripped with love.
Armando’s head started to hurt.
“I know she would be thrilled to look down and see the ornament on your tree, for your child.”
“I’m only sorry she isn’t here,” he heard Arianna say with a sniff.
“We can only hope she is watching right now, happy and proud of both of you.”
Would she be proud, Armando wondered. Would she be happy to know her eldest son had let the woman he loved walk away?
He worked up the courage to turn around, only to find a portrait of marital bliss. Max stood behind Arianna, arms wrapped around her to rest his hands on her bump. His father stood a few feet away, beaming with paternal approval. He tried to imagine himself in the picture, his arms around a pregnant Mona. Imagine himself content.
All he could see was Rosa’s back as she walked away.
It wasn’t fair. Father had said last night, their family had seen its share of dark days. Armando had buried his wife, for God’s sake. He turned off a machine and watched her take her last breath! Did that moment truly mean he would never have love again? If that was the case, then why wake his heart up? Why torment him by having him fall in love with Rosa after he’d agreed to marry King Omar’s daughter? Wouldn’t it be better to keep his heart buried? Or was loving and losing another woman his punishment for some kind of cosmic crime?
“Armando!” Arianna was staring at him with wide eyes. “What is wrong with you?”
“You’re choking Santa Claus,” Max added.
He looked down and saw he had a white-knuckle grip on the statue. A more delicate piece would have snapped in two.
“I...” He dropped the figurine on the closest table like it was on fire. Babbo landed off balance and fell over, his wooden sack of toys hitting the table first with a soft thud.
Arianna appeared by his side, reaching past him to set the statue upright. “Are you all right?” she asked him. “You’ve been acting odd since late last night. Did something happen between you and Rosa?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because you and she are usually joined at the hip, and the past few days...”
“I have a headache is all,” he snapped. The air in the gallery was feeling close. He needed space. “I’ve got to get some air.”
* * *
Of course he would end up sitting in the archway, under the mistletoe. Trying to put your head on straight always worked best in a room full of memories. Sinking down on the next to last step, he scrubbed his face with his hands, looking to erase the night of the concert from his brain. Instead, he saw Rosa, her face bathed in golden light.
What was he going to do? Leaning back, he stared up at the mistletoe sprig. “You have been nothing but trouble, do you know that?”
If the berries had a retort, they kept it to themselves. Bastards.
A flash of gold and green caught his eye. A few feet to his left, he noticed an angel perched near the top of the tree. Unlike the other ornaments, which were ornate almost to the point of ostentation, the angel was simple and made of felt with a mound of golden hair surrounding her face. He really must be losing his mind; the way the angel was hung, it looked like she was watching him. “What do you t
hink I should do, angel? Do I do the honorable thing and keep my promise to Mona? Or do I go against everything I’ve ever been taught to run after Rosa?”
Nothing.
That’s what he thought. As if a Christmas ornament would know any more than a branch of mistletoe.
Why then did he feel as though the answer was right there, waiting for him to see it? “Why did Christina have to die in the first place?” he asked the angel. “Life would be so much easier if she had just taken the curve a little slower. I wouldn’t have needed to enter an agreement with King Omar because I wouldn’t need a wife.”
And Rosa would still be with Fredo. Unacceptable. As much as he had loved Christina, he would never bring her back if it meant leaving Rosa married and fearful. Christina wouldn’t want to come back under those circumstances.
But she would tell you to follow your heart. That life is too short to waste time feeling angry and unhappy. Not when happiness is within your reach. All you have to do is to be brave enough to take a chance. To sneak out after dark and turn on the Christmas lights.
To leave the abusive husband. If Rosa could be brave enough to walk away from Fredo, if the other women could walk away from worse, then surely he could summon up enough bravery to be happy.
“Armando! Are you here?”
Looked like he would be tested sooner than he thought. “In the archway, Father.”
“I should have known.” King Carlos appeared at the top of the opposite stairs. “I swear you are as bad as your sister regarding these lights,” he said as he navigated the steps.
“It’s too cold to go outside,” Armando told him. “This is the next best thing.”
“You are aware you are sitting under the mistletoe?”
“Believe me, I know. Damn plant is following me.”
His father chuckled. “You, my son, might be the first person I have ever heard complain about kissing traditions. Or is it a more specific problem?” he asked, settling himself on the step as well. “Your sister is right. You’ve been out of sorts for a few days now. Did something happen?”
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