Christmas Contract For His Cinderella (HQR Presents)

by Jane Porter

  She sighed and shivered as he kissed his way from her throat, to her collarbone, to her breasts, and tummy, and then finally between her legs. He settled there, too, and kissed and sucked and licked for an impossibly long time, making her arch and cry his name until he finally gave her the release she craved.

  They made love twice, and she fell asleep curled against him, but now it was almost morning and she was wide-awake and still lying in his arms, but she felt restless and anxious and as she struggled to not think, or feel too much, tears started to her eyes.

  This was madness coming to his room. She shouldn’t have done it, but she couldn’t stay away. She’d wanted him, and this, and he’d more than satisfied her last night, but now she felt sad, as well as strangely empty.

  Monet pressed her cheek to his warm chest and blinked back tears. If only she didn’t care for him. If only her feelings for him had been purely physical and making love with him could have satisfied her. Instead it had teased her heart, opening her to emotions she wasn’t prepared to face.

  She’d loved him since she was just a girl. She couldn’t imagine ever loving anyone but him. But Marcu didn’t love her back. Marcu would be able to take care of her, and give her enormous pleasure, but he’d never give her what she needed most—love. Endless, boundless love.

  “What are you thinking about?” Marcu’s deep voice broke the silence.

  She wiggled closer to him. “Nothing.”

  “I can feel the weight of your thoughts. You can talk to me. Tell me what is worrying you.”

  But she couldn’t talk to him. She didn’t want to change what was between them—the intimacy was lovely, and special, as well as fleeting. It wouldn’t last. Which is why she wanted to treasure it as long as she could. “I think I’m just tired. We don’t sleep much when we’re together.”

  He laughed softly, and stroked her hair, and then her back, his caress a comfort and a pleasure. “Then sleep.”

  * * *

  It had taken her a while, but Monet was sleeping now, curled close to his side. Marcu was glad she slept, but he couldn’t. He was lying on his back, an arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling, chest tight with bottled air.

  It hurt to breathe. His head ached. He couldn’t ease the pressure in his chest, while the difficult conversations with Monet played endlessly in his head.

  She said he’d never mentioned love to her, and it was true. Love. Such a difficult concept for him.

  He’d spent the past few days trying to figure out what love would look like, feel like. He loved his children, but even that was restrained and controlled. For him, love was duty and responsibility, love was loyalty. Had he ever truly been in love?

  He’d married Galeta because it was a smart decision, a good decision, and so it had proved to be in that they suited each other and had a strong marriage. He had been prepared to marry Vittoria because he’d considered that she would make a good wife and mother. He’d never felt any desire for Vittoria. She was a beautiful woman but he felt nothing resembling need, hunger, passion. The only person he had ever truly wanted like that had been Monet. But had that desire, that craving, been love? Or was it, as Monet said, just lust?

  He tried to think back, tried to remember who he’d been eight years ago. He’d changed so much it was hard to think back without some scorn because he’d been so much softer then, so unrealistic. He’d wanted Monet badly. He wanted her not just in a sexual sense but in a keep-her-close, and keep-her-safe way.

  She’d felt like his. His family, his home, his heart. No one knew him better. No one had talked to him more, or listened more. No one had smiled the way she’d smiled when he entered a room. Her face would light up, her eyes would grow bright. She’d radiated warmth and sweetness, energy and light. She’d made him think of orange blossoms and honey and sunshine.

  Had that been love?

  Had what he felt then been love, but he hadn’t known it? And yet how could he not know?

  How could he go through a life without love?

  How could he not know how to express love?

  Did his children not feel loved by him?

  What was his problem with love? Was it the word, or the action?

  Or both?

  Marcu eased away from Monet, put his robe on and went upstairs to the nursery to check on the children. They were all sound asleep, each in a different position. Rocca slept sideways, Matteo was straight as an arrow, and Antonio was a little ball.

  He went from bed to bed, straightening covers, pressing a quick hand to a small warm head, and each time he felt a twinge in his chest, adding to the ache already there.

  What had happened to him since Galeta died?

  But also, what had happened to him before he married Galeta to make a practical marriage so appealing to him? Surely it wasn’t just his father’s influence? His father had only had so much influence over him.

  Then what?

  Marcu knew he was more reserved than his younger brother and sisters. He was old enough to remember the day his mother left, and yet young enough to miss her profoundly. But he’d always been more reserved, hadn’t he?

  Or had losing her at twelve changed him? Hardened him? Numbed him? Made it more difficult for him to feel—and give—love?

  He wished he knew, and tonight as he went back around the nursery once more, to kiss each child on the forehead, he felt as if his chest was full of hot sharp shards of glass.

  He did love his children, very much. He simply struggled to show the depth of his feelings.

  Worse, he struggled just feeling feelings.

  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to express them. And he would. He had a plan—it’d take some work...but he could do it.

  He would do it.

  * * *

  Monet woke up to blinding sunshine. Warm golden light flooded the room, illuminating the floor and warming the bed. For a moment she couldn’t get her bearings and then she realized she was in Marcu’s room, and from the light pouring through the window, it was late.

  She sat up, and glanced around, discovering Marcu in sweatpants and a knit shirt, reading in a chair by the fire. “What time is it?” she asked, running a hand through her long hair, trying to smooth the tangles.

  “Almost nine.”

  “Nine? The children!”

  “Elise is with them. We’re sleeping in and in moments we’ll be having a lovely breakfast here together.”

  “In your room?”

  “In my bed.”

  She blushed. “It’s daylight. I can’t be here. If I’m caught having breakfast here, then the staff knows we’ve been together.”

  “And you don’t think they’ve known you slept in here the last two nights?”

  “No,” she said, thinking they’d been quite clever and stealthy.

  “There are cameras in the corridors,” he said, “for security.”

  “Oh.”

  “And then there were the sheets.”

  Monet closed her eyes, mortified. It was embarrassing to realize that everyone knew what she and Marcu had been doing. “I can’t imagine what they’re thinking.”

  “I don’t really care.”

  “But I do,” she said, throwing back the covers, to get her robe and gown, because the vexing thing was, she really did care. Having grown up listening to people whisper about her mother, Monet didn’t like being the subject of anyone’s conversation. She’d spent her whole life trying to avoid gossip and speculation.

  He rose from his chair and peeled his sweater off and carried it to her. “Put this on instead, it’s warm and will cover you as breakfast will be arriving soon.”

  She frowned at him but did it, and crawled back into bed. “Is this your normal routine?”

  “No.”

  “Have you had many women stay over here?”

  �
��None.”

  That gave her pause. “What about in Palermo?”

  “No one has ever stayed over at any of my family homes. I conduct my private life elsewhere.”

  “You mean in hotels?”

  He sighed. “Monet, you’re not like other women. And you are not convenient. You are actually most inconvenient as you demand things of me that no one else demands. You want things I have stopped believing in. You force me to rethink everything I have viewed as truth.”

  For a moment she couldn’t reply, was too busy processing his words and wondering what they truly meant. Was he trying to placate her? If only she didn’t doubt him.

  They were interrupted by a knock on the door, and Marcu pulled on a shirt and went to open the door. One of the kitchen staff carried in a huge tray and placed it on a side table before leaving. Breakfast was cappuccinos and a basket of warm rolls and fluffy scrambled eggs. Monet didn’t think she was hungry and yet she ate everything on her plate, and then had an additional roll with butter and jam.

  “This was most indulgent,” she said with a sigh, stretching. “Thank you.”

  He took her hand and carried it to his mouth, kissing her knuckles, and then turned her hand over, his lips brushing the inside of her tender wrist. “If you were my wife, we could do this every weekend.”

  “Marcu, don’t start on that again.”

  “Why not? I think we should discuss it, seriously—”

  “No. It’s not right, and it’s not real, and to be perfectly honest, this isn’t even about me. You don’t really want me—”

  “But I do. I want you. I don’t even know what that means other than I want you in my life, I want you in my home, I want you to be part of my future.”

  “And your children? How do they play into this?”

  “You like my children.”

  She drew her hand away, and pressed it to her chest, trying to slow the wild beating of her heart. “I adore your children, Marcu, but the last thing they need is confusion. And our relationship would confuse them, just as you confuse me.” She drew another short painful breath. “You told me in London you didn’t even want a wife. You told me you were marrying Vittoria just because you needed someone for the kids—”

  “And you said that was the wrong reason to marry. You said, hire better child care,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re right. I don’t need you for my children. I need you for me. I need you, Monet. I can imagine a future without you, but I don’t like it. I don’t want that future. I want a future with you.”

  She climbed off the bed and shook her head, feeling trapped and cornered and overwhelmed. “I have to go,” she said under her breath. “It’s time to go.”

  “The roads aren’t clear yet.”

  “They will be, soon.”

  “It’ll take a day, maybe two.”

  “What about your helicopter?”

  “They have to plow the roads to get to the helipad. That’s still a fifteen-to-twenty-minute drive from here.”

  She closed her eyes, hands in tight fists. “As soon as the weather permits, I would like to leave.”

  “Understood.”

  “I also ask that you say nothing to the children. They do not need to be part of this.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And when I do go, you must reassure them that I loved spending time with them, and that I am only going so that their Miss Sheldon can return.”

  “If that is the script...?”

  She hated his mocking tone. It only flamed her temper. “You dragged me into this.”

  “Yes, I did, and I’d keep you here, kicking and screaming, if it was the Middle Ages, but it’s not, so I will return you to London as soon as I can.”

  “Good.” She found her nightgown and robe and picked them up. “And we won’t do this again...we can’t. The children won’t understand, and it would only confuse them if they discovered me here with you.”

  “Whatever you think best,” he said, watching her from his side of the bed.

  “I don’t appreciate your sarcasm.”

  “I’m sure you don’t. Monet Wilde is clever and independent. She needs no man, and she’s certainly no pushover.”

  She stiffened in outrage. “I don’t need a man, no. And I don’t need a minder, or a keeper, or someone to think for me. I’m not my mother—”

  “Mio Dio,” he snapped, flinging back the covers and leaving bed. “Not this again.”

  “You seem to think—”

  “No! You seem to think, or fear, that you are like her. You are not like her. You have never been like her, and that’s neither criticism or praise. It’s just a statement of fact. You are you, and Candie was Candie and I would never ever confuse you for her, not for a second.”

  Monet bit into her lower lip to keep it from quivering. “I think the less I have to do with you until I leave, the better.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ll go see to the children now.”

  “I wish you would.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  MONET SAW NEXT to nothing of Marcu for the rest of the day, as well as much of the following day, which was Christmas Eve and yet one wouldn’t know it from the lack of festivities.

  Monet had done her best to keep the children entertained and happy. Yesterday they’d built snow people—because Rocca didn’t believe they should be called snowmen when she only made snow girls—and this morning they’d gone sledding. After lunch they’d bundled up again and returned outside to go ice skating on the frozen pond behind the castello.

  They’d just laced up their skates when Marcu suddenly appeared at the pond, with his own skates. He looked dashing in his black parka.

  Monet’s heart jumped at the sight of him, and her hands shook as she finished tightening Antonio’s skates.

  “I’ve got that,” Marcu said, lifting Antonio’s skate to adjust the knot.

  Monet silently moved away, leaving him to tie the other skate.

  Rocca clapped her hands with pleasure, thrilled to have her father with them. The children swarmed Marcu as he got on the ice with them and Monet kept her distance, letting Marcu and the children play.

  Everyone skated for an hour before Marcu said it was time to go back to the castello and warm up. As they entered the castello they discovered that the staff had prepared a treat—hot chocolate and cookies awaited them—and again Monet hung back, feeling strange. She’d told him yesterday that she didn’t want to have anything to do with him, and yet she’d thought of him endlessly and missed his company. It was even worse when he was near and they weren’t speaking, or looking at each other.

  “Time for you to bathe and change,” Marcu said to the children. “It’s Christmas Eve and we’ll have our traditional dinner in two hours in the dining room.”

  The children smiled hopefully at each other as Monet steered them from the room. “You’re welcome to join us,” Marcu said casually. “But if our traditions make you uncomfortable, I understand.”

  Monet turned in the doorway. “I spent six years with your family in Sicily. Six Christmases and never once was I uncomfortable.”

  “Bene. I’ll see you with the children in two hours.”

  The Christmas Eve dinner was exactly as she remembered from Palermo—the same dishes, the same aromas, the same flavors—stirring past memories, and making her think of Sicily, and the lovely times she’d had there, as well as memories of her mother. She’d loved her mother, but it had been such a complicated relationship. Maybe that was okay. Maybe love was complicated and that was okay, too.

  She sipped her wine and listened to Marcu and the children talk, and then after the dessert—again, an Uberto favorite from Palermo—they went to the music room and Marcu shocked her by sitting at the piano and playing songs for the children, and not just any s
ongs, but Christmas carols.

  The children didn’t seem surprised to see him at the piano. They gathered around him and Antonio leaned against his father as Marcu’s fingers moved deftly over the keys. And then he began to sing, and she blinked hard, fighting a wave of emotion, thinking she hadn’t heard this song in years and years. It was an old carol, a haunting Italian carol, and it filled her with tenderness.

  Marcu and the children would be fine. Marcu loved his children. She didn’t have to worry about any of them.

  And then it was time for bed, and Marcu said he’d walk his children up to the nursery and tell them a story and listen to their prayers.

  Monet nodded, and smiled, happy for them. “Good night,” she murmured. “Buon Natale,” she said as they parted at the nursery door.

  “Buon Natale,” the children chorused.

  Marcu gave her a peculiar look but said nothing and she went to her room, and prepared for bed, and then fought tears for the next hour before she finally fell asleep.

  * * *

  Monet’s breakfast arrived on a tray the next morning, carried to her room by Marcu. She hastily dragged a hand through her messy hair, smoothing it. “Good morning,” she said huskily.

  “Buon Natale,” he said, placing the tray on the table in front of her couch. “I see you have the lights on your little Christmas tree plugged in.”

  “I’ve enjoyed my tree very much.”

  “I’m glad.” He hesitated. “We’re having a party here, later this afternoon,” he added carelessly, as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. “The guests will be arriving at four. The children have party clothes in the nursery if you don’t mind helping them dress before.”

  “Of course I don’t,” she answered, astonished. “And when did you decide to have this party?”

  “Over the weekend.”

  “You never mentioned it before.”

  “I wasn’t sure if the weather would hold, and I didn’t want them disappointed.”

  He gave her a pointed look. “This was Rocca’s idea. Apparently you’ve been reading The Nutcracker to my children, and Rocca very much wants to be Clara.”