Reunited for the Billionaire's Legacy: Christmas at the Castello (bonus novella)

by Jennifer Hayward

  “I have now,” she returned evenly. “It’s clear how little we actually communicated about what really mattered. We were too busy fighting about everything else.”

  He was quiet, his gaze raking over her face in an intense, indigo-blue perusal. “Why hasn’t your mother left Wilbur? Why does she let him humiliate her like that?”

  She blinked at the sudden turn in conversation. It was an answer she had to think about. “She said she loved him,” she finally responded. “That her marriage hadn’t turned out the way she’d expected it to, but that was life.”

  “That was life?” An incredulous look spread across his face. “Your mother is a beautiful, charismatic woman. She could find someone else in a heartbeat.”

  Her mouth flattened into a grim line. “My father kept telling her it was the last time and she kept believing him. When I called her on it, when I was old enough to understand just how twisted it all was, she asked me what she was supposed to do. She gave up her career for him. She gave up everything for him because his life was so demanding, because she had me to take care of. And then you’re fifty and it doesn’t seem so likely you’re going to walk out and find someone else.”

  He shook his head. “It still doesn’t make sense to me. Where was her pride?”

  “In appearances. My mother idolizes my father. She belongs to the cult of Wilbur Taylor. She thinks he’s just being a man. That every marriage has its issues.”

  “And you think I’m just like him.” He raised himself up on one elbow and scored her with his gaze. “You asked me that night on the terrace if those women were a salve for my embittered soul. You want the truth, Diana? The real truth? Yes. Yes they were. I used those women to try to forget you...to get over you. They were your collateral damage. Because I was hurting. My wife had walked out on me. My marriage was over.”

  She stared at him, her head spinning at the unexpected admission. She had always suspected the woman had been just that for him, but marking them her collateral damage?

  “Do not use me as an excuse for your behavior,” she said sharply. “You are fully responsible for that.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “I did it all on my own. I have to take responsibility for it. But you don’t get to act hurt and self-righteous about it, not when you relinquished your claim on me in such an abrupt and decisive fashion. The blame goes both ways, sweetheart.”

  She clamped her mouth shut. She had no idea she’d hurt him so badly. She’d thought he was looking for an excuse to get out of their dysfunctional marriage with that argument they’d had. But his raw emotion now came from the very heart of him—emotion she’d never seen him exhibit. And for the first time since she’d walked out on him, she allowed herself to consider the fact that she had been very wrong in leaving him. That he was as good at hiding his emotions as she was.

  He pushed himself upright, his hand reaching for hers to tug her to him. Her chest collided with the heat of him, her fingers coming up to grasp his biceps. His gaze when it latched on to hers ran roughshod through every defense she had. “You have to get over it,” he said roughly. “Those women meant nothing to me. I apologize, Diana. I apologize for unwittingly digging up your past and hurting you. I apologize for my behavior the night we conceived our baby. But now is the time to wipe the slate clean. Now is the time to build on what we do have to make this work for the sake of our baby. But you have to let me in.”

  Her stomach contracted. She knew he was right. But the thought of him making love to, having sex with those women... She wasn’t sure she could ever get over it.

  “I want to hate you for it...those women.” The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I see it in my head and I want to be physically ill.”

  His face grayed. “Then, we are both grappling with what we think is the unforgivable. For the sake of our child, we need to move past it.”

  She swallowed hard. He still had feelings for her, however much he tried to hide them. He was saying everything she’d wanted to hear that night she’d gone to that party before ending their marriage. Except that he still loved her.

  He was willing to slug it out together for their baby. To attempt to meet somewhere in the middle of their radically different approaches to life to make this marriage work.

  Was it enough?

  Would not having all of him ever be enough?

  She rolled to her feet. “You promised me time. Give it to me. No more subtle seduction, no more pushing, no more manipulation of everything I say. Just give me the time I need and I promise you I will consider this.”

  His eyes darkened. He jerked his head in silent accord. She walked to the edge of the boat, slipped off her shorts and dived into the cool, heavenly turquoise water.

  Her head knew what she had to do. Now she just had to get her heart to agree.

  CHAPTER TEN

  COBURN WAS TRUE to his word. For three days and three nights he did not touch her, goad her or push her to discuss anything more pertinent than the weather and what they were going to do that day. They interacted like polite acquaintances who happened to have an intimate knowledge of every inch of each other they kept tightly in check as they explored the island by boat and foot.

  When they’d had enough of the ever-present baking heat, they headed for the crystal clear water and the coral reefs that surrounded the island. Diana could have spent days there swimming with the schools of brightly colored fish, avoiding her problems. And yet, funnily enough, by letting her mind go and relaxing, clarity came instead.

  Her life had been irrevocably changed when she and Coburn had conceived this baby. She had to give them a second chance. A chance to forgive each other their transgressions, as Coburn had said, and perhaps find some level of happiness.

  A clammy feeling attacked her appendages as she sat lounging by the pool with a book on yet another stunning Caribbean day while her husband worked in the office. She was terrified. A powerful voice inside her couldn’t help pointing out the parallels with her mother and father’s relationship. It would only ever be Coburn for her. Did her weakness for a womanizer like her husband make her as much a victim of the cult of Coburn as her mother was for her father?

  The realist in her knew she was risking her heart. The optimist was sure her husband felt more for her than he was willing to admit and they could build on that.

  Coburn finally made an appearance as the late-afternoon shadows chased each other across the surface of the pool. He wore the same distracted, aloof look he’d sported for days now, this new foreign version of her husband that eluded her attempts to reach him. Always with Coburn there had been emotion, whether positive or negative throughout their roller-coaster highs and lows. He was an extrovert, a man who needed to express himself as much as she needed to crawl inside herself at times.

  She swam toward the edge of the pool and clutched the side, studying the tension etched in his face.

  “I thought you were going to be in there all day.”

  “I’m sorry. There’s a lot going on.” His gaze singed her skin as it moved over her curves in the coral bikini. “You’re burning.”

  She looked down at her shoulders. They were a bit pink. Coburn offered her a hand and pulled her out of the pool. She bit her lip as he wrapped a towel around her. “You could share, you know.”

  “I won’t distract you from the choices you need to make.”

  She lifted her chin to look up at him. “I’m willing to give this a shot, Coburn. I’m willing for us to give this a shot. But this is it. We make it work this time or we walk away. I grew up in a war zone between my father and mother, and I won’t put a child through that.”

  The tense line of his mouth slackened. “And you are going to let me in? Trust me?”

  She nodded. “I am committed to making this work. But I won’t give up my job. A huge
issue in our relationship was not being able to give for the other person’s needs. I want to be there for my child, but I’m not prepared to put my career on hold until they’re in school. My skills would never recover from it.”

  A war went on in that dark blue gaze of his. “Nonnegotiable,” she underscored.

  “You don’t trust me. You don’t trust us.”

  “It’s not about trust. It’s about my identity, what I love doing. I need to practice.”

  He tucked the towel tight around her and let go. “All right. We compromise.” His gaze held hers. “We’ve screwed up a lot of things, Diana, but I promise you we will not screw this up. It’s too important.”

  Their marriage had been important, too. She forced herself to nod before the panic rising up in her throat enveloped her. “I know.”

  He inclined his head. “Arthur is back. He’s invited us to dinner tonight with some friends. Are you up for it?”

  Her mouth curved. “So you’ll let me loose now that I’ve fallen into line?”

  He moved his gaze over her. “I’d prefer to indulge myself on a whole other level and forget the socializing entirely. But since Arthur is a good friend, it will have to wait.”

  * * *

  Her insides were still vibrating from her husband’s clear indication of exactly where their relationship was going in short order as Diana dressed for dinner with the Kents. She didn’t know why she was so nervous to embark on a physical relationship with Coburn again. She’d done it that night at his apartment when they’d conceived their child. But this time it was about walking into it with her heart open. Fully invested. She felt as if she was twenty miles out in that sea sparkling outside her window and being told to swim for her life.

  She pressed clammy palms to the soft, clingy fabric of her dress. Its sea-blue color reminded her of her husband’s eyes—rich and endlessly fascinating.

  Coburn was waiting for her on the terrace when she arrived, ridiculously handsome in a white shirt and dark trousers. His eyes as they ate her up suggested her nerves were highly warranted. Measuring, calculating, they swept over every curve of her body in the sexy dress, lingering on the swell of her newfound cleavage with an uncensored appreciation that made her knees wobbly.

  Her steps slowed as she approached him, hesitation written in every line of her body.

  His gaze moved back up to her face. Cataloged what he found there. “You look...devastating.”

  She swallowed past the dryness in her throat. “Thank you.”

  The polite response her mother had taught her to issue upon receiving a compliment rather than stammering out a quick denial as many of her teenage friends had came out stiff and unnatural. Coburn’s brow rose. He took the last couple of steps toward her, his fingers curving around her jaw as his other hand settled on her waist and pulled her close.

  “I’m getting the feeling my ever-poised wife is nervous.”

  “Hardly,” she denied, her reply coming out a bit too breathless for her liking.

  His fingers slid to the hollow of her nape. “I thought we were going for honesty here. If I was being honest I’d say that blowing off dinner to make love to my very beautiful wife is highly tempting.”

  Her insides dissolved into a pool of molten heat. “Coburn—”

  He dropped his mouth to her ear. “The only question would be how and where I would do that. I’d be willing to explore more than one option.”

  She put a hand to his chest and leaned away from him, her head and heart full of way too much everything. “But we are going to dinner. It would be rude not to.”

  His gaze studied her face. “Yes we are. But first I’m going to kiss my wife.”

  Her heart sped up in her chest. The hand she had pressed against his torso couldn’t decide whether it wanted to keep him at a distance or allow him closer. He took the decision out of her hands, splaying both palms across her jaw to hold her in place while he brought his mouth down to nudge hers apart. She froze, her lips immobile against his. It was like walking into a tsunami with your eyes wide-open. She wasn’t sure she could do it.

  His fingers tightened around her jaw. “Open your mouth,” he demanded. “Let me in.”

  The war went on in her head, the battle between her two selves loud and chaotic. And then she couldn’t fight it anymore. Her lips softened beneath his. He took them in a deep, drugging kiss that swept away all conscious thought except for the intoxicating, deliciously male scent of him, the tall, strong length of his body that brushed hers tantalizingly close, but not nearly close enough. His taste, his touch was achingly familiar and yet different somehow. As if the exceedingly tough, driven man he’d become had seeped into every part of him, and even his kiss couldn’t help but be affected by it.

  She drank him in, relearned every contour of his sensual, beautiful mouth.

  He murmured her name, his voice a velvety caress that slid across her sun-warmed skin. His hands shifted lower to her hips to drag her against him. She moved into him, luxuriating in the press of his strong, muscular thighs against her. Only with Coburn could a kiss be this soulful.

  His hands moved over her buttocks, shaping her against him. Froze. “You have nothing on underneath this dress?”

  Heat flared in her already warm skin. “It’s impossible with it.”

  He brought her chin up with the tips of his fingers, the heated shimmer in his eyes making her insides quiver. “It wasn’t a complaint,” he drawled softly. “Knowledge is power. Or pleasure, in your case...”

  She bit down hard on her lip. How could she forget what he did with such knowledge? A dinner party on a steamy night in Manhattan filled her head. Coburn had just been back from a business trip to Germany. He’d touched down, driven home and changed, just in time to walk out the door with her to a cocktail party. Intensely sexual in nature, her husband had spent the evening trying to keep his hands off her, but a week away from each other had taken its toll. She had excused herself to use the powder room when Coburn had discreetly followed her, slipped in after her and locked the door. He had taken her against the wall, swift and hard, his raspy voice in her ear telling her how much he’d missed her. How he had pleasured himself thinking about her in his big, lonely hotel room.

  “Hot, wasn’t it?” Her husband’s husky taunt returned her focus to his face. He was studying the heat staining her body a bright red. “It was the most uninhibited I’ve ever seen you.”

  She pulled in a breath. “Behave.”

  “For now,” he agreed, a pirate-like smile curving his lips. “This time I want you very verbal, sweetheart, so I know I’m satisfying your frustration to a suitable level.”

  Her stomach contracted. Skipping the party suddenly sounded like a good idea to her, too, because his blunt seduction was going to have her in tatters after an entire evening of it.

  “But first,” her husband drawled, nixing that idea as he stepped back and reached into his pocket, “you need to put this on.”

  She stared at the shiny object sitting in his palm. The symbol of so much happiness and angst housed in a plain, shiny gold band gleamed back at her like a point of no return. Her wedding ring. Actually, her second wedding ring if you were to be technical about it. The first she’d lost scrubbing for surgery, something Coburn had never forgiven her for.

  “You kept it.”

  He picked up her left hand and slid the ring on her finger. She had never seen the practicality of a large diamond with the job that she had, so it had only ever been this simple band that had declared her his.

  Their gazes met and held as she looked up. “This time it stays, Diana. Through the good and the bad.”

  She wondered which would prevail for them. Coburn bent his head to her ear. “Stop thinking and enjoy the evening.”

  She gave it her best shot as he guided her to the car and d
rove up the hillside to the fabulous Kent villa perched on the cliff. Her speculation from that day in the sea was confirmed. The view from the low-lying, Italian-inspired structure was outrageously stunning. Sheer rock face plunged down to pristine, glittering stretches of golden-sand beach, where white-foamed waves crashed up onto the shore in a testament to the power of nature.

  Coburn had told her Arthur had purchased the island for ten million dollars five years ago. A ten-million-dollar view it certainly was.

  A butler directed them to the terrace that overlooked the sea. Torches burned brightly, illuminating a crowd of perhaps a dozen guests with champagne glasses in their hands. The wealthy elite of Arthur’s world, Diana pegged them, the perfectly coiffed hairstyles of the women and the exquisite cocktail dresses they wore as casually as if they’d stuck a hand in the closet and thrown on the first thing they came up with, telling. As were the jewels that sparkled from their well-tanned skin.

  A tall, thin man with an elegant stature broke away from the group and came toward them, a smile on his face. His features were expressive rather than handsome, a crooked nose highlighting his sharply drawn, aristocratic features. Arthur Kent, she surmised, from the warm greeting he gave her husband.

  Inquisitive hazel eyes turned to her. She had the sensation of being thoroughly analyzed before Arthur bent and pressed a kiss to both her cheeks. “So I finally get to meet the lovely Diana.”

  “You have a very beautiful home,” she said smoothly. “Thank you for allowing us to visit.”

  He lifted a hand. “You are welcome anytime. I keep telling Coburn that, but he is too caught up in the rush of being a big-time CEO now to take me up on it.”

  “Not too busy to pick your brain tonight,” Coburn responded, a wry smile curving his lips. “I would like to if you don’t mind.”

  She wondered if her husband wanted to ask Arthur for his advice on whatever was happening at Grant that was making him so distracted. She wasn’t to find out as Arthur’s wife, Dana, joined them along with their two young boys. Nine and seven, Maciah and James were utterly charming miniature versions of their dark-haired British mother, who was easily twenty years younger than the airline magnate. A trophy wife, she wondered, because surely she was stunning, but Diana quickly saw it was much more than that. The Kents were a vivacious, happy clan who had moved to the island upon Arthur’s early retirement to escape the pressures of their former life. It was clear they had learned the secret of living, and it was not based on how much money they had in the bank.