Christmas Contract For His Cinderella. Jane Porter
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came together—the quirk of his lips, the creases at the corner of his eyes, the blue gleam in his eyes. She steeled herself against the curve of his lips and the piercing blue of his eyes now. “Was there?”
“I don’t understand,” he answered simply.
“You were a married man. I was a single woman. I didn’t see what good could come of us meeting.”
“I wasn’t coming to you for sex.”
“How was I to know? Your father did.”
“What?”
She shrugged again, exhausted by the day, and his appearance. Her exhaustion made her careless. Why keep all these secrets? Why not tell the truth? “Your father approached me a year before you did. He came bearing gifts.”
“Your mother had just passed away. He was just being kind.”
“Then perhaps a casserole would have been proper. But roses? A pink satin robe? It was wildly inappropriate.”
“He gave my sisters a similar robe each for Christmas one year—pink, even. Why must you make his gift sound scandalous?”
Because he didn’t like me, Monet thought, turning her head to stare out the window, regretting her words. Why share such a thing with Marcu? Of course he wouldn’t believe her. He’d always worshipped his father. Matteo Uberto could do no wrong.
Silence stretched. They sat forever at the next stop light. The snow was heavier, wetter, and it stuck to the glass in thick clumps.
“I wasn’t interested in making you my mistress,” Marcu said roughly, breaking the tense silence. “I came to see you as my wife had just died and I needed advice. I thought you could help me. I was wrong.”
His words created a lance of pain. Her stomach knotted and her chest grew tight. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“But you did know I’d married?”
She nodded. He’d married just six months after she left Palermo. She hadn’t wanted to know but it was splashed across the tabloids as well as the internet as the Uberto family was wealthy, glamorous, aristocratic, and very much darlings of the media.
Marcu’s wedding was held at the cathedral in Palermo, a place she knew well as that was where the Uberto family attended church services every Sunday. Marcu had married an Italian countess from northern Italy, although her maternal grandmother was Sicilian. Galeta Corrado was an only child and stood to inherit all the ancestral homes and estates of her family, a family that could be traced back hundreds of years. Marcu’s family was considerably older, his ancestors Sicilian royalty dating back five hundred years, a fact the tabloids mentioned ad nauseam in their coverage of the Uberto-Corrado wedding, sharing that Marcu’s great-grandfather had been a Sicilian prince, and Marcu could probably claim the title, but he was far too egalitarian.
He wasn’t.
Monet could scarcely stomach that one.
Marcu and Galeta’s wedding had been lavish, with Galeta’s bridal gown costing close to forty thousand euros. The silk train stretched for yards, with the hand-crocheted lace veil equally long, the delicate lace anchored to a priceless two-hundred-year-old pink diamond-and-pearl tiara. The bride had been a stunning vision in white, her slender form showcased by the luminous silk. The first baby came not quite nine months later. There was gossip that Galeta was pregnant at the time she married, and it was then Monet had refused to read the tabloids ever again. She was done. Spent. Flattened.
She didn’t want to know anything else. She didn’t want to live on the fringes of Marcu’s life. She didn’t want to know about his wife or children. She refused to look back, refused to remember, unwilling to feel the pain that washed through her every time his name was mentioned.
The pain baffled her, too, because when she left Palermo, she’d convinced herself that she hadn’t loved him, she’d merely been infatuated. She’d told herself she felt curiosity and desire, but not true love. So why did his name hurt? Why did his marriage wound? It wasn’t until he’d married Galeta and they’d had that first baby together, that Monet realized her feelings for him were stronger and deeper than she’d previously allowed herself to acknowledge. She couldn’t possibly hurt so much if she’d merely been infatuated. She wouldn’t miss him so much if she’d just been curious. No, she hurt because she loved him, and he was only the second person in her whole life she’d ever loved.
Monet turned back to Marcu again, still not quite able to believe he was here, beside her. She felt so many different things, and her chaotic emotions weren’t improved by his close proximity. Marcu had been handsome at twenty, and twenty-five, but now, at thirty-three, his face was even more arresting. He’d matured, the bones in his jaw and cheekbones more defined, the hollows beneath his cheekbones more pronounced, his skin lightly tanned, glowing with health and vitality.
“How did she die?” Monet asked, trying to organize her thoughts, never mind her impossible emotions.
“She had a stroke after childbirth.” He drew a breath. “I’d never heard of such a thing but our doctor said that while it’s uncommon, strokes cause ten percent of all pregnancy-related deaths.” He was silent another moment. “I wasn’t even there when it happened. I’d just flown to New York, thinking she was in good hands at the palazzo with the nanny and night nurse.”
“You don’t blame yourself, do you?”
“I don’t blame myself for the stroke, but I can’t forget that she died while I was on a plane over the Atlantic Ocean. It wasn’t right. It shouldn’t have been that way. If I’d been there, maybe I could have gotten her help sooner. Maybe the doctors could have saved her.”
Monet didn’t know how to respond and so she sat there with the distressing words resonating around her, listening to the soft rhythmic sweep of the windshield wipers moving back and forth, clearing the glass, even as her heart did a painful beat in her chest.
Of course Marcu would feel badly. How could he not feel partially responsible? But at the same time, that didn’t make his situation her problem. He needed help, yes, but why from her?
“Does your late wife have no family who could help with the children?” she asked as the traffic thinned. They were approaching London’s commercial financial hub, and during the week the streets bustled with activity but now the area was quiet and dark. “What of Galeta’s parents? No grandparents to lend a supportive hand?”
“Galeta was an only child, and her parents are both gone. My father is gone. I have my brother and sisters, but they all are busy with their own lives.”
“Just as I am busy with my own life,” she retorted lightly, unwilling to escalate things in the close confines of his car.
“I’m asking for a few weeks, not years.”
She glanced out the window and watched the grand Bank of England pass by. Lovingly referred to as the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street by some, Monet was always awed and reassured by its history and size. “It’s simply not a good time,” she answered, glancing from the bank to Marcu.
“Would any time be a good time?” he countered.
The car turned at the corner, passing more historic buildings that formed the heart of the city of London, making Monet wonder where they were going to eat in this particular neighborhood before her attention returned to Marcu.
“No,” she answered with a sigh, even as she reached up to tuck a long tendril behind her ear. She was tired and uncomfortable and she wanted out of her slim dress and heels. She wanted the delicate underwire bra off and the smoothing undergarments off so that she could climb into pajamas and eat warm comfort food and sip a big glass of red wine. Merlot. Burgundy. Shiraz. “I have no desire to work for you, ever.”
“I know,” he answered even as the driver pulled over in front of one of the big dark buildings, parked, and exited the driver’s side, again wielding the umbrella. He opened the