This Christmas and Forever: A heartwarming anthology of billionaire holiday romances...

by Clare Connelly

  There wasn’t much she could say she wanted more, in that moment, and so she nodded, falling into step beside him.

  A white, graveled path led away from the house, towards one of the citrus groves. “It’s so beautiful here,” she couldn’t help admiring, as they weaved beneath bows of trees, laden with fruit.

  He reached up so he could hold a branch back for her. “My mother had this grove planted,” he said, quite matter-of-factly. “She loved to make jams – it was something her mother had taught her to do as a child. Some of my strongest childhood memories are of my mother peeling oranges for hours, patiently chopping them and discarding the pips, then stirring them as the sweet, sticky smell filled the house.”

  His words created such a strong image in Bella’s mind that her heart ached for the loss of his mother, and the void it must have left in his life. She knew what that emptiness was like, what a battle it was to cope with. “Did she teach you to make it?”

  “She tried,” he said, his smile laced with memories. “I wasn’t a particularly willing pupil. There was always too much else to do,” he added, reaching up and plucking a blossom from a tree as they passed, bringing it to his nose and smelling it.

  “Such as?” She teased, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Exploring,” he responded in kind. “The whole island was my oyster.”

  “It must have been like catnip to a curious kid. I would have loved it.”

  “The homestead was hardly small. I imagine you did plenty of exploring of your own?”

  “Not as much as you’d think. Not as much as Sophia,” she added. “She was always the adventurer. One time, mom locked us in our bedroom – I can’t even remember what we’d done now. Something she obviously didn’t approve of, though for the life of me, I can’t imagine what. We were pretty good kids. Anyway, she’d locked us in our rooms. I went to the bookshelf and pulled out The Secret Garden – one of my favourites, as a child – and curled up in bed, determined to wait it out. Mom’s tempers never lasted long. But not Sophia! She wasn’t going to be punished for something we hadn’t done – Sophia abhors injustice and always has done. So she climbed out of the windows and onto the roof.”

  He laughed. “Seriously?”

  “I know, right? That place was three stories off the ground.”

  “What did she do up there?”

  “She sat there and she stewed and I’m absolutely sure she plotted mom’s demise. And I stood at the window ledge and did everything I could to cajole her in, half-terrified she’d fall to her death and half-terrified mom would come in and find her gone, and not knowing which would be worse…”

  She had expected him to laugh, but when she flicked her gaze to him he was watching her intently. “You sound as though you were afraid of her?”

  “Mom?” She clarified, lifting a hand and toying with her dark hair. His eyes followed the gesture and after a beat, he nodded.

  “I guess you could say I had a healthy degree of respect for her,” Bella agreed, diplomatically.

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” he murmured.

  “No.” Bella’s lips tugged downwards at the corner. “But I wouldn’t want the same relationship with my child that mom has with me.”

  He nodded slowly. “In what way?”

  “We’re just very different. And not at all close. Before I found out I was pregnant, I asked her what she wanted to do for Christmas. It’s never been important to her but after daddy died, I always feel like we should do something to mark the occasion. Do you… did you ever see my father at Christmas?” She prompted, stopping walking and looking up at him, her eyes assuming a faraway sheen.

  “No,” he shook his head. “I haven’t.”

  “He loved it.” Bella sighed. “He was like a child, every December. He’d go out and buy the biggest tree he could find and we’d spend all afternoon decorating it, using heirloom pieces that had been handed down his family. And he’d sing Christmas carols – his voice was so beautiful, like Frank Sinatra, all smooth and jazzy. Sophia and I would give him requests and he’d make up silly words that would have us in fits of giggles. And when we’d finished the tree, we’d sit down and look at the twinkling lights, drinking eggnog and eating brandy biscuits.” She sighed again. “Dad made Christmas so magical. It’s never been the same.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, honestly, and then his hand lifted and his fingertips ran over her cheeks, and he cupped it and without her realizing it, her face leaned into his palm.

  “My mom doesn’t share his affinity for all things festive,” she continued. “When I asked about Christmas, she told me she and Lorenzo planned to be somewhere tropical.” Bella laughed, but it was a husky, uneven sound. “It’s typical mom. It doesn’t matter, really. I don’t even know why I’m mentioning it. Only, I never want my child to feel like I don’t want…” her voice was thick with emotion and she had to swallow, to wipe away the tears that were suddenly threatening to cloy at her throat. “Christmas is a time for family,” she said, finally.

  He was very quiet, and the longer the silence stretched between them, the more she felt like an idiot. An overly-sentimental fool, for waffling on about the importance of Christmas time and family to a man who had married her just because of the baby she was carrying.

  “Your hair used to be blonde.”

  She blinked, the observation completely out of left field. She nodded, slowly.

  “Why did you colour it?”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Were you thinking it?”

  His laugh was a harsh sound of impatience. “Believe me to be a man who will always, without fail, say what he truly feels.”

  Heat suffused her cheeks.

  “I only wonder why you would have darkened your hair.”

  “A style choice,” she said, knowing it wasn’t the truth but not exactly sure what was. “I wanted a change,” she said, closer to the real reason. “After the divorce.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Married to Xavier, I felt pleasantly invisible.” She smiled at the memory. “He’s an incredibly dynamic man, the kind of man who takes over a room. When he’s there, no one looks at anyone else.” She lifted her eyes to Vitalo, and felt a little shy as she added, “Kind of like you.”

  He arched a brow. “I do not know if your aim is to make me jealous or to flatter me?”

  She laughed softly. “Neither. I’m just being honest. You’re very similar, in some ways. I think you’d like him.”

  He flicked her a sidelong glance.

  “Xavier and I had known one another so long, and I’d never felt like I was an object of interest to men. I mean, I had no interest in meeting anyone, and then we were married. But once we divorced, I hated the way men would approach me. I loathed it.”

  “So you thought dying your hair would make you less attractive, somehow?”

  “Yes,” she bit the word out, knowing how ridiculous it was. “Or more invisible. Less…I don’t know.”

  He reached for another orange blossom and this time, slowed to a stop so she stopped with him, and he tucked it into her hair. “Blonde, brunette, or bald, I think you would always be the most beautiful woman in any room, anywhere.”

  Pleasure and warmth spread through her at his praise, but she honed in on the meaning of what she’d been saying. “It’s not so simple as that. It wasn’t about looks. It was… I wanted a change. I wanted to not be me, for a while. I wanted to be someone else.”

  “Did it work?”

  She pulled a face. “It turns out,” she drawled with self-directed sarcasm, “changing your hair colour really only changes your hair colour, not your fundamental personality type.” Her sigh was muted. “No matter what happens, I’ll never be the girl who climbs out onto the roof in defiance of her captor.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “It’s limiting,” she admitted. “And can lead to a lifetime of regrets.” She said
it lightly, with a wink to underscore the fact she was joking, but he didn’t smile.

  “You have regrets?” His words were hoarse, and the intensity of his attention eroded her lightness. So too did his nearness; he’d closed the distance between them and stood hip to hip with her, his powerful frame brushing against hers, making her want to soften and lean into him, to bring her body hard to his. His question buzzed around her brain, like a moth circling a flame. You have regrets?

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  His smile was noncommittal.

  “My mother liked to celebrate Christmas,” he said, changing the subject – and she was grateful for that. “She would, no doubt, have loved to see your father in action. For her, it was all about the Hallmark movies and American traditions. She had stockings made for us, and would play carols while she decorated the tree. She would shop until no more presents could squeeze under the tree, buying gifts for my father and me, but also for every domestic in the house. She loved to give.”

  “She sounds like an incredible person,” Bella said quietly. “I wish I could have met her.”

  Another smile, this one tight, and confined to his lips. “I do, too.”

  The mood around them was somber, despite the lovely winter’s morning. And then, he shifted a little, and his body brushed closer to hers, and flames danced beneath her skin right as the sun beamed from behind his head. “I’m sure there’s a box of decorations somewhere. Shall we look for them?”

  Something like happiness soared in her chest, and she smiled at him, her eyes lighting up. “I think that’s the best suggestion I’ve heard all day.”

  “Darling, it’s been an age. Where have you been?”

  Vitalo stared at the view from his office window, his phone held too-tight in his hand as Kat’s voice filled his mind, her breathy tones so familiar, so flirtatious. So wrong.

  Everything inside of him clenched. He held the phone to his ear and immediately wished he hadn’t answered it.

  A week after marrying Bella and he had no damned idea how he was going to navigate the Kat situation. His new mother-in-law also happened to be the woman he’d been coveting for a decade, the woman he would have said he’d fallen completely in love with as a twenty five year old man. The woman he’d denied himself, for love and loyalty of a dead friend.

  A woman he could have any time, if he snapped his fingers.

  His eyes narrowed in on a bird, flying along the beach, before it disappeared from view.

  “I’ve been calling and messaging. What’s happened?”

  Well, Kat, I got your daughter pregnant and then I married her. He winced. “I’m on the island,” he said, finally.

  “Why?” He could practically hear her pulling a face of disbelief. “You never go there this long.”

  “I’ve decided to spend more time here,” he said.

  “But it’s so far from me!” A pout was in the words. “And I miss you.”

  “How’s married life?” he asked, and regretted the tone of his voice almost immediately, because it had sounded accusing, as though he blamed her for re-marrying, when in actuality, he was glad.

  “Lorenzo is still cross with me,” she sighed.

  “I’m sure he will forgive you eventually.”

  “When will you be in Athens next, darling?” She turned the conversation back easily. “I miss you.”

  Panic rose inside of him, and it was an unwelcome and unfamiliar experience. He had the strangest sense the four walls of his office were closing in on him, pushing at his edges, squashing him into a tiny gap; air was scarce, and stars danced against his eyes.

  “Not for some time,” he said, surprised the words weren’t laced with self-condemnation.

  “It is only a short flight. Why don’t you send the helicopter for me, next time I’m in Greece. I’ll come for the weekend…”

  Danger lurched at his feet. “Kat, you’re married. And even if you weren’t, Andrew was my closest friend, and you were his wife. We have had this conversation many times. I cannot fathom why you think I will change my mind.”

  She expelled a soft breath, and he waited, holding his own, his body held stiff and tight, his mind on pause. “Because you’re a man,” she said, and laughed lightly. “And I’ve seen how you look at me. How you’ve looked at me for years. One of these days, you’re going to get sick of denying yourself what you really want.”

  His stomach clenched at the words that might have been true six months ago – words that revolted him now. And though he’d decided to wait, though he knew the situation required tender handling, he heard his drawled response: “I got married, Kat. Not long after your wedding.”

  Silence filled not just the room, but the whole world. Silence that was sharp and accusatory, and prickled with rage. “You what?”

  “I got married. I’m on the island with my wife, and I’ll be here for the foreseeable future.”

  “You … can’t be.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re… you don’t believe in marriage.”

  “On the contrary, I believe in it emphatically.”

  “The general idea, perhaps, but not for you,” she insisted. “You always said you didn’t want to marry until you were an old man.”

  “I changed my mind,” he said, and now the words were kinder, softer. “I met someone who changed my mind.”

  A harsh intake of breath made him pity Kat, and hate himself for hurting her. “Are you in love with her?”

  The walls closed tighter; nausea rolled through him. “You’re married,” he said instead. “You have Lorenzo, and I have… my wife. It’s time to put an end to this. These calls, the insinuation, the flirtation. It is no longer appropriate. I’m not sure it ever was. But I do know it will be the death knell to our friendship if you cannot accept this.”

  She sucked in a breath, and his heart hurt for her, for both of them. Most of all, for Bella, who was an innocent in this situation – she said she’d known what she was doing the night they’d slept together, but how could she have? She didn’t know he was using her body to obliterate Kat from his mind, to ravage his anger at the fact the woman he’d wanted for ten years had just got married.

  “Let it go, Kat,” he said, finally. “Just let it go.”

  “You’re going to change your mind,” she said, finally, softly, confidently. “You’ve slept with every woman under the sun and still you looked at me as though I am everything you want in this world. Nothing’s going to change that, not even this ‘wife’ of yours.” She laughed quietly. “And I’ll be waiting, as I have been since I met you…”

  She disconnected the call but Vitalo held the phone to his ear, his anger all self-directed. No. Not all of it. He felt rage for Kat, too. Rage for the fact there was a part of what she’d said that was right. He had wanted her with a ferocity that had sliced through him, he had coveted her when she was married to Andrew and then, after Andrew had died, he wanted her so much more – he had told himself it didn’t matter. She was free now.

  But he couldn’t act on it.

  He wouldn’t.

  So he’d done just what she’d said – he’d slept with countless women, hoping one day he’d find someone who’d replace Kat as the object of his sexual obsession and fantasy.

  He had.

  He’d met Bella.

  He swore under his breath, jack-knifing out of his chair as though nails were coming up from its seat.

  He had to protect her from this.

  He had to save her from getting the wrong idea. Because no matter what Kat might say and he might have felt, he had never, not once, given into temptation. His morals had prevented him from acting on his desires and that was the only saving grace he could hold tight to.

  He just hoped it would be enough.

  Chapter 7

  A WEEK AFTER ARRIVING in Greece, the weather turned frigidly cold. “I thought this was supposed to be some kind of paradise?” Bella stared out at the grey, stormy ocean, the c
louds that were thick and dark, punctuated by occasional bolts of lightning.

  “Not in winter,” he said from behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, so sparks of desire flooded her system. She turned in his arms, smiling up at him, and her heart stuttered in her chest, stammering with an extra beat, making her breath catch.

  “Really?”

  “Mmm,” he pulled a somber face. “Even here, in paradise, there is winter.”

  “I feel a little ripped off; I’m not going to lie to you.”

  His laugh was like melted butter running over her nerve endings. “How about we do something to improve your experience, Mrs Katrakis?”

  Heat infused her cheeks. “Such as?”

  But already desire was throbbing between her legs, and unconsciously her body swayed forward. She saw the way his eyes flared as awareness surrounded them.

  But he didn’t kiss her. He stepped backwards, putting physical distance between them. “Like,” he said, the word low and rumbling. “Decorate a Christmas tree.”

  Disappointment was quickly replaced by pleasure. “Really?”

  “Really.” He nodded. “I’m sure there’s a tree up in the attic.”

  “A plastic tree?” Her nose wrinkled with disapproval. “It can’t be a plastic tree.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Oh, Vitalo,” she sighed exaggeratedly, rolling her eyes. “What would my father say?”

  Vitalo didn’t even want to imagine.

  “Look outside,” she instructed, moving to the large windows. Rain had just started to fall, lashing against the glass panels. “I see trees everywhere.”

  “You want me to go and cut one down?”

  “No. Not now. I mean, it’s just started to rain. There must be something else we could do until its stops…” she murmured, the words low and seductive.

  But Vitalo’s expression tightened and he turned away from her. “I’ll go and see what I can find. Wait here.”

  Exasperated, Bella followed after him. “You can’t be serious? It’s blowing a gale. The tree can wait…”