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

by Clare Connelly

  Bella nodded, but mentally, she sagged. Too much of it made sense. “She was going to leave my father for you.”

  Again, she’d surprised him. She saw the brutal flash of agreement on his features before he could contain it. “I didn’t know that until you told me, the day we did the tree.”

  Lorenzo made a snorting noise. “All lies,” he snapped, drawing Bella’s attention. She hadn’t remembered they weren’t alone.

  She stared at him – his face as broken as Vitalo’s now, and she shook her head. Two stupid men, fighting over a woman who didn’t deserve either of them. She began to shiver, all over. Her hands were numb and her brain heavy.

  “I’m going to go,” she said, nodding, as though committing the plan to herself. “I need to go.”

  “Don’t,” Vitalo begged, wrapping his hand around her wrist. “You need to stay.”

  “No,” she shook her head, but didn’t pull away. She looked down at their skin, their connection and felt nausea again. It was all a lie. It had all been a lie. She sobbed, then, giving into her grief for a moment, because it hadn’t been a lie for her. She’d fallen completely in love with him.

  Her fingers slid the wedding band from her hand and she pushed it into his palm. “Bella,” the word was thick with desperation. “Just wait. Just give me tonight. If you want to go tomorrow, I won’t say a word to stop you, but please, just stay…”

  “I can’t,” she said, shaking her head, moving away from him, away from Lorenzo. “Is your driver outside?”

  Vitalo sighed. “Of course, but…”

  “Lorenzo?” She turned to her mother’s husband. “Would you like a lift somewhere?”

  The Italian stood up, an unexpected ally in this dramatic evening. “Si, grazie.”

  “The Bentley outside,” she said, nodding to the door. “I’ll just be a moment behind you.”

  He left without a backwards glance, and Bella was conscious of everything, once more. The sound of their breathing, the breaking of her heart, the bruising on his face, the strength of his body, the movement as he came to her and lifted his hands, cupping her cheeks, holding her so he could see her and she would have to look at him.

  “I cannot let you go,” he said with vice-like determination, padding a thumb over her cheek. “I cannot accept it.”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “I will beg you to stay, to listen to me, I will beg you with all that I am, and I know you will listen to me because you are all that is good and kind and reasonable. I will beg you to stay and you will stay because you are the mother of my child and because you want me to say something that will make this okay. Please, Bella, let me take away this pain. Let me fix this for you.”

  She swallowed, her eyes hooking to his, her heart hoping – ridiculously. “What can you say, Vitalo? You have lied to me this entire time.” Anger sparked inside of her, and the words came out crisp and defiant. “You were furious the night we met. You wanted to sleep with someone because you wanted to forget. You wanted to forget my mother and her marriage. You were jealous. You were hurting.”

  A muscle jerked in his jaw and he glared at her, but he didn’t deny it.

  “My situation with your mother is complicated to explain,” he said finally, “but if I were to put it simply, I would say there is nothing between us. There has never been anything between us except a fantasy.”

  Perhaps he thought the words would make her feel better, but they didn’t. How could they? All Bella needed to hear was a blanket, and complete, denial.

  “She loves you.”

  His eyes glanced shut. “Perhaps.”

  “Did she come to you before her wedding?”

  “Yes.”

  Bella nodded, taking his admissions and folding them away inside of herself. “And did she spend the night, right before you proposed to me? When you discovered I was pregnant?”

  He hadn’t expected her to know that. His face blanched. “In the guest room,” he promised. “Your mother and I have never slept together, Bella. We have never touched, never kissed. Whatever we might have thought we wanted, at some point, our relationship was never physical.”

  Bella swallowed; her throat was like razors. “Did you think about how this would make me feel?” She whispered, lifting her fingers to her temples and rubbing them.

  He dropped his hands to her hips, then wrapped them around her back, but she stayed stiff in his arms, her body like a metal rod. “I have thought of little else, agape mou. I have wanted to tell you, to talk to you about it, to be honest with you, but I have been terrified of you reacting like this.”

  She jerked her head up to his, her eyes fiery. “You didn’t know who I was, when we slept together. But when you proposed? You knew. And you told me you wanted to keep it secret, because you wanted us to have time to get to know one another. It all sounded so reasonable. But really, you wanted time to work out how to keep mom happy, right?”

  “To keep you happy. The situation is not ideal,” he admitted, running a hand up her spine. She felt nothing. The familiar lick of desire was dead inside of her. “But I knew with time we would get through it.”

  “How?” She pushed at his chest then, hard, and he was surprised enough to be caught off balance, stepping backwards, his large frame bouncing away from her. “My mother is in love with you. Lorenzo says she’s loved you for over ten years. I have no idea if you love her, or have loved her, but how in the world would we ever ‘get through’ that?”

  He straightened, his expression taut.

  “I have no interest in taking part in some sort of Oedipal play,” she continued, her voice harsh. “I married you because I wanted our baby to have a family, because I wanted to avoid a messy custody dispute, and because I truly thought our chance at happiness together would be as likely as anyone else’s. And then,” she said, reigning her temper in a little. “I fell in love with you.” Her eyes latched to his, and she saw surprise cross his face – it brought her no pleasure. “Every time we slept together, I was in love with you. Every morning, every smile, every look.”

  A tear ran down her cheek.

  “You need to know that, so you can understand why I can’t be with you now. I’m not just sickened by the idea of whatever you and mom mean to one another. I’m not just angry about being lied to and used. I’m hurt. For every moment of love I felt in our marriage, betrayal scores me so much deeper. I am hurt and I am broken and I am done with you, and this.”

  “If you love me, stay and listen,” he begged, pushing past her words, knowing he couldn’t let her leave. “Please, please, stay.”

  “My father died knowing mom wanted to leave him for you.” She straightened, squaring her shoulders. “You haven’t just betrayed me. You’ve betrayed him. Do you think I could ever forgive you for any of this?” She glared at him, her expression laced with ice, and then she turned her back and walked to the front door.

  “I had no idea your mother was going to do that,” he said urgently, following behind. “I told her from the beginning that we could never be together. I loved your father, he was very important to me. Listen to me, please,” he begged. “You know what my own father was like, what he did to my mother. I would never knowingly cause anyone to feel that pain of infidelity, agape.”

  She paused, her hand on the door.

  “You asked me if I had any siblings out there I didn’t know about, if my father’s affairs had led to children. There has. There is. I have a sister, Cleopatra, and I have seen first-hand how affairs are like a ripple in a pond – one decision that leads to another and another and the damage is never contained. Your mother said she was in love with me and I was young and stupid and she was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen,” he reached for her, curving a hand around her elbow.

  “I thought I loved her, too. I realise now that it was just obsession, a sexual fixation because she was the original forbidden fruit.”

  Bella snorted, her stomach contorting with disgust.
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  “But all along I told her I wouldn’t be with her. Even after your father’s death, I knew I could never betray him like that.”

  “You continued to see her, though. To lead her on, even knowing how she felt about you?”

  “We were friends,” he defended uneasily.

  “You came to her wedding. You were angry. Jealous.”

  “I was… yes. She’d begged me to give her what she wanted. She’d told me she wouldn’t marry Lorenzo if I told her I loved her. I was angry at her. Not because she was marrying him, but because she was using him, using me. I was angry because I was starting to see that this was all a big game to her. That she’d played your father and me off against one another, that she was doing the same with Lorenzo. I saw that she was getting off on toying with us both, and I was very angry with her.”

  “So you’re entirely innocent in this situation?” She asked mockingly, rolling her eyes even as her heart was breaking and tears were threatening to rush down her cheeks like the Niagara falls.

  “No,” he shook his head. “You are the only innocent here.” He dropped his head forward, pressing his forehead to hers. “You do not deserve any of this, but I am begging you to stay anyway, because I am as much in love with you as you are with me,” he said, the words everything she’d wanted to hear, but ripping her apart now.

  “No.” She straightened, pulling away from him and jerking the door inwards. “You’re not the man I thought I loved. I don’t know you.” She glared at him, her intent resonating in every line of her body. “I need space. Don’t contact me. Don’t call me. Don’t message me. I’ll let you know anything to do with the pregnancy via text message; but I don’t want you to reply anything other than an ‘okay’ in acknowledgement. I don’t want to think about you, I don’t want to know you exist until I’m ready to see you again.” She drew in a shaking breath. “We’re having a baby together and I get that you’ll want to be a part of his or her life.”

  She bit down on her lip, trying to hold it together. “I’ll work out a way to make that happen and if you truly mean what you’ve just said – if I’m the innocent in this situation – then you’ll respect my wishes and do as I say. Okay?”

  He shook his head, and she swore, for a second she thought she saw his own eyes moisten. “No.” The word was graveled. “It is not okay. It is absolutely not okay.” He closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms and she was sad and hurting so she went, her heart tender and needing something even when she realised Vitalo would never be able to deliver it.

  “I made a mistake when I was twenty five years old. I got pulled into a game I didn’t understand, with a woman I thought I cared for. I have paid for that mistake again and again and again, tormenting myself for what I did to your father, for how I betrayed our friendship. I cannot lose you because of that same mistake. Until I knew you, Bella, I didn’t understand a thing about myself. I didn’t understand women and love and happiness. You brought me to life, you made me who I am. I cannot lose you. Please, don’t leave me.”

  “How can I stay?” She whispered, and his mouth sought hers, his kiss gentle, loaded with his hopes and needs.

  “Stay because you want to,” he said, simply. But it wasn’t simple. Nothing about it was simple.

  “God, Vitalo, I can’t.” She broke away from him with a guttural noise of pain. “She’s my mother. I know she’s flawed and I get that she’s hurt you, but I can’t just… Did you even think about what you were doing to my relationship with her? About whether I’d want to get in the middle of whatever you and she have?”

  “We have nothing,” he said urgently.

  “It doesn’t sound like nothing.” She stared up at him for several long seconds and then moved through the door. It was cold outside, and fairy lights were strung overhead.

  “Don’t call me,” she reminded him, turning away quickly and fumbling her way down the steps, to the waiting car. She had no idea where she would go, but she knew she couldn’t stay here in Athens a moment longer.

  Chapter 10

  “I’LL CANCEL,” SOPHIA MURMURED, stroking Bella’s dark hair, her enormous blue eyes roaming Bella’s face with concern. “We can push it back.”

  Bella’s smile was weak. “Don’t be silly. You can’t cancel.”

  “I can delay.”

  “It’s your wedding ceremony,” Bella pointed out quietly, shaking her head and leaning back on the sofa. “The whole country’s invited.”

  “Not quite the whole country,” Sophia corrected. “Only the al-hashaman.”

  “What’s that, for those of us not fluent in Abu Fayan?”

  “You’re going to have to learn to speak the language one day,” Sophia chided gently.

  “I know. And I will.”

  “The al-hashaman is the parliament,” Sophia explained, her smile tight. “And foreign dignitaries. That kind of thing. But I can move it. The most important thing was the betrothal, and that’s all been finalized. Like it or lump it, I am to marry the king of Abu Faya.”

  Bella pushed up and peered at her sister through hair that was in need of a wash. They’d been in Colorado three days, and Bella couldn’t remember when she’d last showered. “You want to marry him, though.”

  “Yes,” Sophia nodded calmly.

  “So why would you put it off? To watch me wallow?”

  “Yes.” Sophia nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “You bet.”

  And ridiculously, Bella laughed. “You have to go. And honestly, I just want to be alone.” She winced, softening the rejection from the words. “I love you, and I’m so thankful you’ve been here, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to process any of this until I’ve had a few days of complete silence.”

  Sophia nodded thoughtfully. “So mom’s in love with him?” Sophia prompted, reaching for her tea cup and wrapping her fingers around it. The enormous diamond ring she wore, an engagement present from Addan, glistened in the gentle evening light of their cabin. Beyond the windows, the mountains were white with snow, and enormous pine trees jutted out of the ground like real-life Christmas trees.

  “I haven’t spoken to her,” Bella said quietly. “But yes. I believe so.”

  “And he loves her?”

  The question – entirely natural given the situation – still felt as though Bella was being scalped. “I don’t know.” A hoarse whisper, and then a sob, and her hand dropped to her stomach. “I don’t know, but I can’t get the idea of them out of my mind. How could I have fallen in love with him when he was … God, Fi. I’m so angry with myself.”

  “Why?” Sophia demanded, her expression stern. “You did nothing wrong, just like he said. You’re the innocent in all of this. You met some hot guy in a bar and hooked up. Who hasn’t?”

  “You,” Bella said, smiling in spite of herself.

  “I might as well have been engaged to Addan since I could walk,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “But what you did was totally normal. And then you tried to tell him about the baby, but he was a total douche. And when he came to you in Edinburgh, you were reasonable and polite and you even agreed to marry the guy, because you wanted what was best for the baby – never mind that he’d treated you like crap. Bells, you have behaved in a way you should be completely proud of.”

  Bella fixed Sophia with a dubious stare. “I fell in love with him.”

  The confession sat, heavily, in the room for a minute, and Sophia sighed. “With your own husband? How dare you?” The words were teasing, yet sad. “What is the world coming to where a woman might actually love the man she’s committed to spend the rest of her life with?”

  Bella laughed again, even when there was nothing funny about it. “I just mean, I fell in love and I never asked the questions I should have asked. I should have gone deeper, I should have asked him more about mom and dad. I shouldn’t have trusted him so soon,” her voice broke. “I shouldn’t have believed him.”

  “Why?” Sophia challenged.

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nbsp; “Because he lied to me.”

  “So? How could you have known that then? You listened to a man you loved. Better that than going through life cynically disbelieving everyone you meet and everything they say.”

  Bella bit down on her lower lip, and leaned back against the sofa. She was exhausted. She’d been sleeping fitfully, just big enough now to feel uncomfortable in bed overnight, her mind too active, so that even when she was bone-weary, she’d drop off to sleep and then wake with a start less than an hour later.

  “Why don’t you go take a shower,” Sophia encouraged. “I’ll make some eggnog and we’ll put on carols. Come on. It’s so close to Christmas. Surely that can cheer you up a little bit?”

  Bella nodded, but it was a lie – because Christmas just reminded her of Vitalo now, and the tree they’d decorated together, the ornaments she’d put around his bedroom. What a gullible fool she’d been, thinking it would be so simple to start a new life, a happy life, with a man she knew nothing about.

  “Okay,” she said, pushing up from the sofa inelegantly.

  Sophia followed suit, and wrapped her arms around her older sister. “I love you, Arrie. So much. You’re going to get through this. You know you can move to Abu Faya with me.”

  “Oh, yeah, Addan would love that,” Bella laughed. “Having your sister third-wheeling in your marriage.”

  “Hey, it’s a big palace,” Sophia shrugged. “You’ve been there. You remember.”

  “Yeah,” Bella smiled. “I remember.” And she belatedly recalled that she was the older sister, that she should have been supporting Sophia as well. “Are you okay? You’re happy about the wedding?”

  She nodded. “I really am.”

  “You love him, right? That’s why you’re marrying him?”

  “We’re marrying,” Sophia smiled brilliantly. “Because I will become incredibly rich and powerful, and get a wardrobe stuffed with expensive couture and diamond tiaras,” she said with a wink. “Oh, and, you know, Addan’s my best friend.”

  “And the evil brother?” Bella prompted, wiggling her brows.