Million Dollar Christmas Proposal

by Lucy Monroe

  She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Their lovemaking was hotter than an active volcano, even the times they didn’t play any of his control games.

  She didn’t want to give that side of their lovemaking up, but she liked knowing it wasn’t necessary for intense sexual satisfaction. That they could have completely tender sessions that culminated in a pleasure so profound it was a spiritual experience, not just physical and emotional.

  She hadn’t known sex could be like that, but then she hadn’t known it could be so fun and kinky, either.

  No, the sex definitely wasn’t the problem. There was a problem, though. While Enzu and she continued to spend time together with the children daily, they spent almost no time alone that wasn’t dedicated to sex.

  He shut down any conversation that might actually lead to talking about feelings. And that worried her. Because her feelings just grew stronger and stronger.

  She couldn’t imagine he was even considering marrying anyone else, but why hadn’t he made it official? Was he waiting for Christmas? Did he have plans to propose under the tree Christmas morning, or something?

  Enzu did love his plans, but she almost laughed out loud at the idea regardless. She didn’t think he had that kind of romance in him.

  So, what was he waiting for?

  “What has you thinking so hard, biddùzza?”

  “How can you tell I’m thinking?”

  “Your body is not lax as in sleep. You are not initiating sex, or talking. So…thinking.”

  She looked up at his beloved features, barely discernible in daybreak’s shadows. His eyes met hers, but there was a wariness there she thought she’d glimpsed before.

  “Have you made your decision?” she asked baldly.

  His gaze flared with surprise and then that wariness again, before he pulled the emotionless mask she’d come to hate into place.

  “Do we need to talk about this now?”

  “I think we do.” She pulled out of his arms and sat up.

  He followed suit, increasing the distance between them in the bed. It was only inches, but it felt like a great chasm.

  “I do not think there can be any question that our test of sexual compatibility has been a success, can there?” he asked, his tone stilted unlike anything she’d heard from him before.

  She couldn’t think about the oddness of his delivery. Not when the words were so painful to hear. “Is that all the last weeks have been? A test?”

  She jumped out of the bed, searching for her robe. Needing the protection of a layer of clothing between them, she yanked it on and tied the belt with jerky movements.

  “No, più amato. That is not what I meant.” He was out of bed, too, but he stood there naked in the predawn light.

  He’d called her that before, on rare occasions, and only when their lovemaking was particularly intense. Another time she would ask what it meant, but right now her heart was threatening to shatter.

  “How do I believe you?” she demanded, pain bleeding into her voice. “We have amazing sex, but that’s all you let us have. We don’t spend any time together.”

  “We are together every day.”

  She refused to believe in the desperation her heart wanted to tell her was in his tone. “With the children. Not alone.”

  “We are alone now.”

  “For sex.”

  “We are not having sex right now. That I know how to do. This…” He gestured between them. “Us. Talking about feelings. I do not know how to do this.”

  “How can you say that? You’re an adult, a brilliant man. You’re fluent in two languages.”

  “But not the language of emotions.”

  “If you felt them you could talk about them.” Tears choked her throat and she went to turn away.

  She needed a shower. Something. Anything away from him.

  “No!” The word was loud, filled with power and with anguish.

  She turned back to him.

  “When would I have learned?” he demanded, fury and pain right there for her to see.

  “What do you mean? You don’t learn to love. You just feel it. And you can’t teach someone to love you.”

  If she could have, she would have. Because not having his love when hers all but consumed her hurt more than any other rejection in her life or even all of them combined.

  “You once said we are opposites,” Enzu replied, with a desperation she could not deny this time.

  But neither did she understand it. “Yes.”

  “I am a tycoon in business.”

  “And I’m a low-level employee for your company,” she said, unsure where he was going but unable to deny the entreaty in his blue gaze. “Our financial inequality certainly brought us together.”

  He frowned. “You don’t like that.”

  “I hate it.”

  “Has it occurred to you that there is very little a billionaire might need he could not buy for himself?”

  She’d only finished her Christmas shopping for him the day before. She was well aware of that fact. “Yes,” she said with blatant sarcasm. “I do know.”

  “So you should realize what a gift it is for you to give me someone on whom to spend that money.”

  Seriously? That was his argument? “You have Franca and Angilu now.”

  “And you will guide me in how best to use my fortune to make their lives the best they can be.”

  Was he saying he had made his choice?

  “It has been my delight to introduce you to the pleasures of the flesh,” Vincenzo offered. “Your innocence is another gift my money could not buy.”

  “I don’t understand where you are going with this.”

  “Indulge me, please.”

  She couldn’t deny him. “Okay.”

  “You are very impulsive.”

  “And you’re so controlled sometimes I think you could be a robot.”

  He winced. “With everyone and everything but you. You make me lose control.”

  “And that’s significant?”

  “Very much so.”

  “I love you,” she said, realizing that maybe he needed the words as much as she did. She’d said them before, but she felt the need to repeat them now.

  “There is where we are most dissimilar.”

  “Because you don’t love me?” she asked, agony exploding inside her.

  “Because you are driven by emotion. You understand it. You are conversant in it. Tell me, what do you believe drives me?”

  “Success.” But that wasn’t the whole truth. “Your desire to take care of your family.”

  “Yes, and in those things I am fluent.”

  “I know.”

  “But tell me, amore, who in my life has loved me? Who has allowed me to love them?”

  She opened her mouth to say the children, but stopped herself. He wasn’t talking about right now. He was talking about for his whole life up until now.

  “You loved Pinu.” She knew he had. “You love your parents. You took care of them. You still do.”

  “Pinu did not want my protection or affection. Neither do my parents.”

  “I think you’re wrong. I think Pinu was thankful for your love even if you never told him in words. And he loved you, too. He named your nephew after you.”

  “You really believe that?” The vulnerability in her billionaire’s expression was hard to see.

  “I do.”

  “You are certain you love me? It is not just sex? Or the knowledge I can make things easier for Toby?”

  She didn’t take offence at Vincenzo’s words. She couldn’t. He wasn’t fluent in the language of emotion. In fact he was as inept as a first-year language student in a foreign country.

  “Yes, I love you. Very much.”

  “How do you know?”

  She gave that question the full consideration it deserved. He needed her answer in a way she could never have foreseen.

  “Because being with you makes me happier than when we are apart,” she said
finally. “Because I crave your presence in my life. Your texts make me smile, every single time I get one.”

  “I like being able to text you.”

  She nodded. “I can tell. I know I love you because the thought of living the rest of my life without you hurts more than anything else ever has.”

  Tension drained out of his body like air escaping a balloon and the most beautiful smile came over his face. “T’amu.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked, thinking she knew but needing to be absolutely sure.

  “I love you.”

  She wanted to throw herself at him, but she asked, “Why in Sicilian?” Was he still trying to deny it in some way?

  “Because, despite where I was born, my heart is Sicilian. If I am going to speak in the language of my heart it will come out in Sicilian first.”

  “Oh.” Tears very different from the ones before burned her eyes. “What does più amato mean?”

  “Best beloved. You are it for me, Audrey. Now and for all time.” He swept her into his arms and kissed her breathless, then whispered against her hair. “Ti vugghiu bini. I love you very much.”

  “Me, too, Enzu.” She pulled back, taking his face in her hands like he so often did with her. “I love you with everything in me. To me, you are life.”

  “And to me, you make life worth living. You make it real.”

  Their lovemaking after that was world-shattering, leaving their separate lives annihilated, nothing left but what they were together.

  *

  Christmas morning dawned bright and cold, a layer of snow turning the world around the mansion into a winter wonderland.

  Franca could barely decide what she wanted more: to open gifts or go outside and make snowmen with Toby. Toby, still very much a kid at heart in some ways, convinced the little girl that gifts were definitely more fun.

  Vincenzo insisted the children open their gifts first. Audrey wanted to see each of their reactions, though she suspected the baby would enjoy the paper more than what was wrapped in it, so she didn’t argue.

  Though she was eager to see what Vincenzo thought of his homemade truffles.

  Toby’s shout of shocked delight after opening a gift from Vincenzo was loud enough to burst eardrums.

  “What in the world…?” Audrey asked, unable to imagine this reaction to anything she and Vincenzo had picked out for her brother.

  “It’s MIT, Audrey.” Toby jumped up and hugged the stuffing out of Vincenzo. “Thank you, Enzu. Thank you.” He broke away from Vincenzo and waved the paper at Audrey. “Read it!”

  With a confused smile, she took the single sheet and started reading. Emotion welled with each word she read.

  Vincenzo had started a scholarship fund for bright students who got accepted into top schools but did not have the funds to attend despite their drive and ability. The first recipient would be Toby’s best friend Danny.

  Toby had got something even more, though. He’d got Vincenzo’s solemn promise that no matter what happened between him and Audrey, Vincenzo would send Toby to MIT and whatever graduate school and PhD program he wanted to follow. All schooling and living expenses to be taken care of on two conditions: an above-average grade point and no drug use of any kind.

  So like Vincenzo to put stipulations for Toby’s benefit on the offer.

  Audrey turned to Vincenzo, the paper dropping from her hand, her heart so full it could burst. “Thank you.”

  “I want you to know that if you wish to attend graduate school for your master’s degree you will have my full support as well.”

  So much for thinking she could not be a loving mother with interests outside the home. Vincenzo had made a sea change in his thinking. But love could do that.

  “Thank you,” she said again. “Maybe someday.”

  He dropped to his knees in front of her. “Do not thank me. This is pure self-interest.”

  Both Audrey and Toby made identical sounds of disbelief.

  Vincenzo just smiled. “Believe me. I have a question to ask you, Audrey, but I need your answer to have nothing to do with what is best for Toby.”

  “Oh.” Audrey put her hand to her mouth, the emotion too big to contain.

  Vincenzo presented her with a small wrapped box. She peeled the paper away with trembling fingers. Vincenzo helped her open the ring box—not because she needed it, but because it just felt right.

  So, his big hands over hers, they opened the small velvet box to reveal a ring set beautifully with a cluster of chocolate diamonds.

  “Your favorite,” she choked out with a laugh.

  “Like your eyes. Chocolate and filled with light.”

  “Oh, man. You are determined to make me cry.”

  “More desperate for you to say yes, and mean it for the right reasons. I love you, Audrey, with the whole of my Sicilian and American heart. Will you do me the utmost honor and marry me?”

  “Yes. I love you, too, Enzu. So, so much! Oh, yes. Always, yes, Enzu!”

  Then they were kissing, and hers weren’t the only tears adding salty moisture to their lips.

  Toby was whooping in the background and then so was Franca, and even the baby started his adorable giggling.

  They were a family.

  EPILOGUE

  THEY WERE MARRIED on New Year’s Eve, with Christmas décor still gracing the church, and Audrey carried a bouquet of crimson and white roses mixed with mistletoe and evergreen.

  Toby said Vincenzo just wanted an excuse to kiss her whenever he wanted so the billionaire had supplied his own mistletoe. Vincenzo did not deny it, but he did manage to make Toby speechless when he asked the teen to sign the adult adoption papers that would make Toby a Tomasi.

  “I’m not calling you Dad,” Toby said, clearly overwhelmed with emotion.

  “We are brothers, but you will be an official Tomasi and that is what matters. You belong to us.”

  Toby’s grin split his face and he signed the papers with a flourish.

  It was Audrey’s turn to be speechless when a wedding guest who turned out to be a judge stepped forward to sign adoption papers for Franca and Angilu, officially making both Audrey and Vincenzo Tomasi their parents.

  “How did you get the adoption through so fast?” Some legalities could only be expedited so much.

  “I started proceedings the afternoon of your initial interview.”

  “What? How?”

  “That non-disclosure agreement you signed?”

  “Yes?”

  “It may have included a power of attorney.”

  “You knew then?” she demanded.

  He shrugged. “I had Gloria cancel the other candidates’ interviews.”

  “You’re a devious man, Enzu Tomasi, and in this case, I love you for it.”

  “I am so very glad to hear it, più amato. And you? You are my Christmas miracle.”

  She thought maybe that went both ways, but he was kissing her and she didn’t get the chance to say so. She thought maybe he knew.

  *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from A SCANDAL IN THE HEADLINES by Caitlin Crews.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  “WHAT THE HELL are you doing on my boat?”

  Elena Calderon froze in the act of polishing t
he luxurious teak bar in the yacht’s upper lounge. The low growl of the male voice from across the room was laced with a stark and absolute authority that demanded instant obedience. And she knew exactly who he was without looking up. She knew.

  She felt it slam into her, through her, like a sledgehammer.

  Alessandro Corretti.

  He wasn’t supposed to be here, she thought wildly. He hadn’t used this boat in over a year! He usually rented it out to wealthy foreigners instead!

  “I’m polishing the bar,” she managed to say. She kept her tone even because that was how a stewardess on a luxury yacht spoke to the guests. To say nothing of the owner himself. But she still couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

  He let out harsh kind of laugh. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “It’s no joke.” She tapped her fingers on the bar before her. “It’s teak and holly, according to the chief steward.”

  She’d told herself repeatedly that what had happened during that one mad dance six months ago had been a fluke. More to do with the wine and the music and the romantic ballroom setting than the man—

  But she didn’t quite believe it. Warily, she looked up.

  He was half-hidden in the shadows of the lounge’s entryway, with all of that bright Sicilian sun blazing behind him—but she recognized him. A bolt of sensation sizzled over her skin, then beneath it, stealing her breath and setting off a hum deep and low inside.

  Alessandro Corretti. The man who had blown her life to bits with one single dance. The man she knew was bad no matter how intensely attractive he was and no matter how drawn she was to him, against her will. The man who was even worse than her lying, violent, criminally inclined ex-fiancé, Niccolo.

  Elena hadn’t dared go to the polizia when she’d fled from Niccolo, fearing his family’s connections. Alessandro’s family, however, made those connections seem insubstantial, silly. They were the Correttis. They were above the law.

  And yet when Alessandro stepped farther into the lounge, out of the shadows, Elena’s chest tightened in immediate, helpless reaction—and none of it terror. Her breath caught. Her heart sped up. She yearned, just as she had six months ago, as if her body believed he was good. Safe.

  “Was that an attempt at levity?” There was nothing in the least bit safe about his hard voice, or that look in his eyes. “Hilarious, I’m sure. But you still haven’t answered my question, Elena.”