The Sicilian's Christmas Bride

Amazing, he’d thought. Everyone assumed that he and Taylor were living together.

They weren’t.

“I prefer that you keep your apartment,” he’d told her bluntly, at the start of their relationship.

“That’s good,” she’d said with a little smile, “because I intended to.”

Had she told people something else? Had she deliberately made the relationship seem more than it was?

He’d thought back a few weeks to his birthday. He had no idea how she’d known it was his birthday; he’d never mentioned it. Why would he? And yet, when he’d arrived at her apartment to take her to dinner, she’d told him she wanted to stay in.

“I’m going to cook tonight,” she’d said with a little smile. “For your birthday.”

He made a habit of avoiding these things, a homemade dinner, a quiet evening, but he couldn’t see a way to turn her down without seeming rude so he’d accepted her invitation.

To his amazement, he’d enjoyed the evening.

“Pasta Carbonara,” she’d said, as she served the meal. “I remember you ordering it at Luigi’s and saying how much you liked it.” Her cheeks had pinkened. “I just hope my version is half as good.”

It was better than good; it was perfect. So was everything else.

The candles. The bottle of his favorite Cabernet. The flowers.

And Taylor.

Taylor, watching him across the table, her green eyes soft with pleasure. Taylor, blushing again when he said the food was delicious. Taylor, bringing out a cake complete with candles. And a familiar blue box. He’d given boxes like that to more women than he could count, but being on the receiving end had been a first.

“I hope you like them,” she’d said as he opened the box on a pair of gold cuff links, exactly the kind he’d have chosen for himself.

“Very much,” he’d replied, and wondered what she’d say if he told her this was the first birthday cake, the first birthday gift anyone had ever given him in all his life.

He’d blown out the candles. Taken a bite of the cake. Put on the cuff links and felt something he couldn’t define…

“Dante?” Taylor had said, her smooth brow furrowing, “what’s the matter? If you don’t like the cuff links—”

He’d silenced her in midsentence by gathering her in his arms, taking her mouth with his, carrying her to her bed and making love to her.

Sex with her was always incredible. That night…that night, it surpassed anything he’d ever known with her, with any woman. She was tender; she was passionate. She was wild and sweet and, as he threw back his head and emptied himself into her, she cried out his name and wept.

When it was over, she lay beneath him, trembling. Then she’d brought his mouth to hers for a long kiss.

“Don’t leave me tonight,” she’d whispered. “Dante. Please stay.”

He’d never spent the entire night with her. With any woman. But he’d been tempted. Tempted to keep his arms around her warm body. To close her eyes with soft kisses. To fall asleep with her head on his shoulder and wake with her curled against him.

He hadn’t, of course.

Spending the night in a woman’s bed had shades of meaning beyond what he needed or expected from a relationship.

Two weeks after that, he’d attended this charity ball without her, listened to people urge him to feed his mistress chicken soup…

And everything had clicked into place.

The birthday supper. The fantastic night of sex. The plea that he not leave her afterward.

Taylor was playing him the way a fisherman who’s hooked a big one plays a fish. His beautiful, clever mistress was doing her best to settle into his life. She knew it, his acquaintances knew it. The only person who’d been blind to the scheme was him.

“Excuse me,” he’d suddenly said to everyone at the table, “but it’s getting late.”

“Don’t forget the chicken soup,” a woman called after him.

Dante had instructed his driver to take him to Taylor’s apartment. It was time to set things straight. To make sure she still understood their agreement, that the rules hadn’t changed simply because their affair had gone on so long.

In fact, perhaps it was time to end the relationship. Not tonight. Not abruptly. He’d simply see her less often. In a few weeks, he’d take her to L’Etoile for dinner, give her a bracelet or a pair of earrings to remember him by and tell her their time together had been fun but—

But Taylor didn’t answer the door when he rang—which reminded him that she’d never given him a key. He hadn’t given her one to his place, either, but that was different. He never gave his mistresses keys, but they were always eager to give theirs to him.

And it occurred to him again, as it often did, that Taylor wasn’t really his mistress. She insisted on paying her own rent, even though most women gladly let him do it.

“I’m not most women,” she’d said when he’d tried to insist, and he’d told himself that was good, that he admired her independence.

That night, however, he saw it for what it was. Just another way to heighten his interest, he’d thought coldly, as he rang the bell again.

Still no answer.

His thoughts turned even colder. Was she out with another man?

No. She was sick. He believed that; she’d sounded terrible on the phone when she’d called him earlier, her voice hoarse and raw.

Dante’s heart had skittered. Was she lying unconscious behind the locked door? He took the stairs to the super’s basement apartment at a gallop when the damned elevator refused to come, awakened the man and bought his cooperation with a fistful of bills.

Together, they’d gone up to Taylor’s apartment. Unlocked the door…

And found the place empty.

His mistress was gone.

Her things were gone, too. All that remained was a trace of her scent in the air and a note, a note, goddamn her, on the coffee table.

“Thank you for everything,” she had written, “it’s been fun.” Only that, as if their affair had been a game.

And Dante had swallowed the insult. What else could he have done? Hired a detective to find her? That would only have made his humiliation worse.

Three years. Three years, and now, without warning, it had all caught up to him. The embarrassment. The anger…

“Dante?”

He turned around. Charlotte had somehow managed to find him. She stood on the loading dock, wrapped in a velvet cloak he’d bought her, her face pink with anger.