Hot Christmas Nights: Tuscan Nights / Christmas Tango / Tied Up in Tinsel

His expression held a subtle apprehensiveness that told her he wasn’t as relaxed as he was trying to appear.

“What did you have in mind?” Nyla asked.

“I’d like to go down to Rome, see the Colosseum, maybe reenact my favorite scene from Gladiator.” He curled his biceps. “I think I could have filled in for Russell Crowe as Maximus Meridius. What do you think?”

She couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not really gladiator material. But I’d still like to see it.” His voice took on a more serious note. “Look, Nyla. I know this is last minute, and I did just show up out of the blue. And as much as we’re trying to pretend that it’s just like old times, before...well...you know.” He shook his head. “We’re both aware of the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. If it makes you too uncomfortable to do this, just say the word.”

As she stared at him, Nyla told herself that enough time had passed since she’d had that horrible slip in judgment that had changed everything. She might not be ready to talk about it just yet, but she would hope that she had undergone enough personal growth that she could put her past mistakes behind her and just enjoy a few days with this person who had meant so much to her.

Maybe it would help to think about the girl she’d spotted in several of the pictures on his Facebook page. Young, petite and with obvious adoration toward Aiden, she looked like his perfect match.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to think of Aiden’s other woman.

She walked over to where he still leaned against the archway. Aiden straightened as she approached, the apprehension that colored his expression just a few seconds ago replaced with cautious hope.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to tackle that eight-hundred-pound gorilla yet, but if you’re willing to ignore it for now, so am I.”

“You’re sure about this?” he asked. “You did say on Facebook that you didn’t have any special plans for the holidays, but I don’t want you to feel obligated to do this just because I came all the way from Zurich. In the snow. Without knowing how to read a lick of Italian. And did I mention the snow?”

The grin twitching at the corner of his mouth wrung a laugh out of her.

“I am happy to do it,” Nyla said. “Honestly, I was planning to spend a quiet Christmas at home, but it’s been a while since I took a trip down to Rome. Besides, every man should have the chance to live out his gladiator fantasy.”

Nyla fought to ignore the tingles his rich, warm laugh generated along her nerve endings. She held up one finger. “However, there is a catch.”

Aiden’s smooth forehead creased with a frown. “What’s that?”

She grabbed an apron from the peg on the wall and tossed it to him. “I’ll play tour guide if you play baker’s assistant.”

Chapter 2 (#ulink_275de1e7-a83b-5712-8dc5-de196170a8d4)

Aiden sprinkled coarse sea salt over the balls of dough lined along the slab of cold marble. “Is this too much?” he asked.

Nyla looked up from the dough she was stretching into a long rope. “It’s perfect.” With a grin, she said, “Someone must have taught you well.”

“I wonder who that could have been.” He let out a soft chuckle as he cupped the small mounds of dough in his hands, making sure they were evenly rounded. “I still remember when you found me hunched over my computer during midterms. I was ready to throw the thing out the window. You dragged me into my mom’s kitchen and showed me the therapeutic benefits of beating the crap out of bread dough instead.”

“Much cheaper and less damaging than beating the crap out of your computer. Tastier, too.”

“In more ways than one.”

The moment the words left his mouth Aiden wished he could rein them back in.

Nyla’s hands stilled, her shoulders stiffened. “Aiden,” she said, a hint of reprimand in her soft voice.

Every trace of the delicate camaraderie that had surfaced over the past half hour vanished in the uncomfortable silence that settled around them.

Aiden swallowed the groan of frustration that nearly escaped his throat. He couldn’t believe they were back to this, dancing around the attraction that had always hummed between them.

As if it hadn’t been hard enough to fight the first time.

In the beginning he really had tried to fight it, because Aiden figured any acknowledgment of his attraction to Nyla was a lost cause that would only lead to him looking like a fool for falling for his older brother’s girl. Who in their right mind would ever think a woman like Nyla—beautiful, successful, damn near a goddess in her own right—would take a second glance at a scrawny computer geek? Especially after she’d already caught the eye of his richer, handsomer, ex–professional NBA player older brother?

But she had looked his way.

As much as Cameron had tried to play the victim, Aiden laid some of the blame for the relationship that had developed between him and Nyla at his brother’s feet. It had been at Cameron’s request that Nyla would often come over to their parents’ home in Druid Hills, which was halfway between where Cameron lived in Buckhead in North Atlanta, and Kirkwood, where Nyla lived, south of the city.

At first Aiden wanted to call his brother out for being an inconsiderate ass, making his woman meet him halfway so that he wouldn’t have to drive too far to pick her up. For purely selfish reasons, Aiden had decided to keep his mouth shut. He wanted her at his house. He’d started to fall in love with Nyla with a swiftness that, to this day, still shocked him.

He’d found himself spending more time studying at home than at the library on the off chance that Nyla would show up. Thoughts of her had occupied his brain every waking hour. He was lucky he’d passed a single class that final semester.

He was far from a ladies’ man, especially when compared to Cameron, but he’d had a couple of girlfriends by the time he met Nyla. It was only with considerable effort that Aiden could now recall those other girls’ names. Nyla’s hold on his heart was unyielding, leaving no room for anyone else. Even after she’d left and he’d finished school and moved out on his own, she was still the ideal by which all other women had been measured, and he had yet to find one that even came close.

He had finally decided to stop looking. She had never been his—not officially—but he was determined to change that. It might take a Christmas miracle, but one way or another he was going to convince her that they belonged together.

He just had to figure out how to make that happen.

He looked up to find her wiping her brow with the arm of her long-sleeved T-shirt. Her shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a ponytail holder, but several pieces had fallen out and now framed her face. She had the uncanny ability to look even more beautiful in a plain white shirt with a light dusting of flour on her forehead than she had dressed in a flowing wedding gown.

Of course, his memory of how she looked in that wedding gown was marred by the fact that she had been on the verge of marrying his brother. And that, prior to seeing her in that gown, his last encounter with her had been at her wedding rehearsal dinner, where she’d told him that the kiss that had been the most meaningful of his life had been the biggest regret of hers.

Hearing those words from her had been difficult, but he’d been just as wounded by the way she’d looked at him that night, as if he were a lovesick boy that she had somehow led on, instead of a man she had begun to have feelings for. It made him question everything about the time the two of them had shared.

Aiden shook those thoughts from his head. Dealing with the repercussions of everything that had happened back then was never easy.

He was not going to think about that now. It was water under the proverbial bridge. He’d grown a lot over these past three years. He no longer questioned the time he’d spent with Nyla. He was just grateful to have found her again.

Though he was surprised to have found her in a place like this.

“So, how did you end up baking bread in a tiny family bakery?” Aiden asked. “You completed one of the top pastry programs in all of France. Why aren’t you making cream puffs and macarons?”

“I spent nearly a year working at an exclusive hotel in Paris after I finished my training at Leôntre, but when I vacationed in Tuscany two years ago I fell instantly in love with it. Especially San Gimignano, with all its medieval towers and its rich history. I just had to be here.”

“I understand,” he said.

Nyla looked up from the dough she was braiding and smiled that soft smile that used to make his breath catch. Apparently it still did. He had to remind himself to pull in some oxygen.

In a quiet voice, she said, “I knew you would.”

A mutual love of history was just one of the things they’d discovered they had in common, which had led to exploring other interests they shared. Which had then led to Nyla breaking dates with Cameron so that the two of them could attend museum exhibits, foreign film showings at the Lefont Theater and quiet meals at her home.

Which had then led to Aiden falling so deeply in love with her that he ached with it.

“Nyla, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but we can’t pretend it isn’t there.”

“Aiden, please.” She slipped a wooden paddle underneath the two loaves of sourdough she’d put in the stone oven twenty minutes ago and transferred them to the countertop. “I just... I can’t right now. Please.”