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

by Jennifer Hayward

He stepped closer, lifting her chin with his fingers. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She gave him a bright look.

  “If it’s the work stuff...”

  “It’s not the work stuff.”

  “Then, what is it?”

  Her emotions spiraled, swirled through the air as they gained momentum in the emotional storm sweeping over her.

  I need to know if you still love me. I need to know I’m not about to sacrifice the opportunity of a lifetime for you for this to fail. To end up just like my mother...

  She set her jaw, refusing to give in to the forces that wanted to destroy the fragile hope she’d been building. “I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  He stepped in close, bending his head to bring his mouth to her ear. “I know a good tension reliever I happen to have a specialty in.”

  His husky, fatigue-deepened voice wove its usual magic around her senses. She leaned back against the counter. “Sex doesn’t solve everything, Coburn.”

  He lifted a brow. “So there is something bothering you.”

  “I’m tired,” she reiterated, pressing a palm to his chest to move him out of the way. “I need to serve dessert.”

  He stepped back, his frown telling her it wasn’t the end of it. Frankie paused halfway into the kitchen, her gaze darting from Coburn to her. “Sorry, was just going to get some more mineral water.”

  Diana retrieved the bottle from the refrigerator. Coburn rejoined Harrison at the table while Frankie helped her serve dessert. When the two men had gone off to talk Grant business in the living room over a brandy, Diana and Frankie took their tea out onto the deck.

  “I seriously miss my wine.” Frankie sighed, curling up in one of the lounge chairs. “I’ll be happy when I can have a glass again.”

  “Me, too.” Although she could use more than a glass right now to help her unwind.

  “Are you going to go back to work until the baby comes?” Frankie asked.

  She lowered herself into the chair beside her. “I was going to until this recall happened. Now I think Coburn needs me by his side. My job is an all-consuming kind of thing.”

  “I think it’s great that you’ve been here for him.” Frankie shook her head. “He needs the support. I’ve never seen things get so ugly with the board. The pressure on him is immense.”

  “It’s been a bit of a ride.”

  Frankie was quiet for a long moment. Then she turned her striking blue-gray gaze on Diana. “He’s been different since you two have been back together. And by that I mean settled, grounded. Even with the insane amount of pressure he’s been under, he has a peace about him he hasn’t had since I came to work for him. It’s you, Diana.”

  Her gaze slipped away from Frankie’s, heat stinging the back of her eyes. It felt as if she and Coburn were rebuilding an amazing bond. Yet held up against Frankie and Harrison, who were so perfectly matched, it still felt wanting.

  She’d once thought she and Coburn were the perfect missing pieces for each other. He lightened her up when she got too serious. She grounded him. Until the ways they were alike, their twin ambitions they couldn’t temper, had torn them apart.

  She blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. She wanted all of her husband back. Not just the parts he chose to share. So badly her heart ached with it.

  Harrison and Frankie left shortly after that. Coburn went off to deal with a few emails before bed while she stowed the rest of the dishes in the kitchen, then took a hot shower.

  The punishing spray helped temper her emotions. She dried off and slid a nightshirt over her head. Attempted to channel a Zen she didn’t feel. But the minute Coburn walked into the room, her shoulders rose to her ears. His expression said his patience level with her was about a two out of ten. Hers was hovering right around there.

  He slid his gaze over the nightshirt. “I thought we decided that was going in the garbage.”

  “You decided that.” She walked past him, headed for the bottle of body lotion on the dresser. He snagged an arm around her and hauled her into him. “We also decided your hot-and-cold routine was finished.”

  “I wasn’t aware my choice of night clothing fell into that category.”

  He made a sound at the back of his throat. She pushed at his arm, but he sat down and hauled her onto his lap instead. “That kind of behavior is going to get you spanked.”

  The threat would usually have turned her on. Tonight it made her want to scratch his eyes out. She fixed her gaze on his. “Let me go, Coburn. Tonight is not the night to push me.”

  He raked his gaze over her face. “Why? You were in a perfectly good mood when I got home.”

  “I would still be in a good mood if you could accept the fact I just don’t want your hands on me right now.”

  His mouth thinned. She watched the loss of control happen in his eyes before he flipped her onto her back on the bed and came down on top of her. “I would spank you,” he breathed, pinning her hands above her head, “but that won’t help me figure out what’s going on in your head.”

  She fought against his hold, the tears stinging her eyes reaching a critical mass. “Goddamn you, Coburn, let me go. I’m not in the mood for this.”

  “Tell me what’s wrong and I will.”

  She called him the filthiest word she could come up with. He brought his mouth down on hers and kissed her. A hard, brutal punishment meant to command. She fought him for as long as she had it in her, her knee driving up against him ineffectually, her body twisting beneath his. Then she unraveled.

  Sobs rose in her throat. Her hands came up to push against his face. Coburn lifted his mouth from hers and stared down at her. Hot tears slid down her cheeks. She hated herself for it, for this show of weakness. But her defenses were long gone, annihilated by his persistent seduction that had knocked down each and every one of her barriers.

  She felt stripped raw, ravaged.

  He let go of her hands and cupped her jaw. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  She bit her lip. Tried to resist, but the words slid out of her mouth under his insistent gaze. “I’m scared.”

  “About what?”

  “About us. About this baby. About what it will do to us...”

  He frowned. “What do you mean ‘what it will do to us’? We’re doing just fine.”

  “And what happens when you decide you don’t actually want a baby? When the stress of having a child puts more strain on our relationship than it can handle and we crumble?”

  “We aren’t going to crumble. And I do want this baby.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “You told Arthur you didn’t want to have kids. You’re going to resent me for this someday. Feel trapped.”

  His gaze softened. “I admit it took me some time to get my head around this baby. I hadn’t even remotely been in that head space with everything I’ve taken on. And you know my family history hasn’t been the best. But to say I don’t want what you and I made together? Impossible.”

  That stole her words. Her breath as she absorbed it. He shook his head. “And as for feeling trapped? Do you think I would have chased you halfway around the world if I didn’t have the feelings I have for you? I could have supported you and this baby without making a commitment to you. I would have if I didn’t think we were right.”

  “That’s just it.” She fixed an agonized look on his face. “I don’t know how you feel. You’ve accomplished your mission, Coburn. You’ve stripped me wide-open. Here I am, yours for the taking. Madly in love with you. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever stopped loving you, not for one minute. I think I went to that party hoping to see you. Hoping you still loved me.”

  Something shifted in his face. He was quiet for so long she could hear the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. She wanted to curl up in
a ball, like an animal protecting its fleshy underside, but his body still held hers pinned down.

  Finally, when she thought she could bear it not a second longer, his gaze claimed hers. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for you to let me in like this? It feels like a lifetime. In fact, I wasn’t sure it was ever going to happen.”

  She brushed away the tears streaming down her face. “When you said I left to protect myself, you were right. I abandoned us. I quit on us. But I’m not going to do it this time. I am in this for the long run, Coburn. But I need to know your heart isn’t closed to me. I need to know you can love me again.”

  His eyes darkened to a deep, midnight blue. “Why do you think I couldn’t sign the divorce papers? Because I couldn’t let you go. Because you own a part of me that no other woman ever will, Diana. What does that say to you?”

  She wasn’t sure. She wanted more.

  He brought his mouth down to hers. “My heart is not closed to you,” he murmured against her lips. “I wanted to hate you for leaving me. I tried very hard to. But I never could.”

  Her heart expanded in her chest, her relief at hearing him say those words making her feel as if it would burst right out of her. It was the closest to a declaration of love she was going to get right now. And it was enough.

  She curved her fingers around his nape and brought his mouth down to hers. Lost herself in the perfection they created together. He let her take the lead, kissing her back, but keeping his hands off her. She fisted his T-shirt, desperate to feel his skin against hers. Desperate to have him inside her sealing this bond they had remade.

  “You have too many clothes on.”

  “You told me not to touch you.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Is that so?” He lifted himself off her. “Get rid of the nightshirt and I might consider it.”

  She lifted herself into a sitting position and stripped it off. His eyes were pure wickedness as he ran his gaze over her body. “Now for your punishment.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. “You wouldn’t da—” She never got the words out because suddenly she was facedown on the bed, draped over Coburn’s lap.

  “Coburn—”

  “Relax, wife,” he growled, his palm closing over her buttock. “This type of spanking you’ll like.”

  She did. Too much.

  When he pushed her thighs apart, rid himself of his jeans and took her in a hot, hard possession that stole the breath from her lungs, she was with him every step of the way as he drove her to oblivion. To a place without shadows, only truth.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “JACK NIEMAN IS running ten minutes late.”

  Coburn scowled blackly at Frankie’s announcement that the billionaire investor and ruthless corporate raider, also known as his chief nemesis, was behind schedule.

  When he should have been home dressing for a charity event he was attending with his wife tonight, he was herding cats into a boardroom. Big fat cats with extensive personal fortunes amassed from their considerable brainpower, all of whom seemed to be overcommitted and unapologetic.

  “Let me know when he’s here,” he growled.

  He took the extra moments to anchor his thoughts for what would be the most important meeting of his life. He was ready for it. Determined to secure the board’s approval to make the announcement on Monday acknowledging Grant’s full responsibility for the massive recall and deaths associated with it, despite the potential catastrophic fallout it might have for his company.

  It had spun him in circles to be sure, the brutally hard decision he was making. But the one thing going very right in his life had kept him grounded: his wife, who seemed intent on prioritizing them for the first time in the history of their tumultuous relationship.

  To give them a chance at something extraordinary.

  Diana’s support over the past few weeks as he’d managed a living nightmare had been unconditional. She had been his rock in an ocean of uncertainty when he thought the sleepless nights and anguish might break him. She had not doubted him once, not even when the board had threatened rebellion and his head on a platter, always coming back to the same refrain. Doing what’s right is never wrong.

  He ran a palm over the stubble on his chin. He hadn’t been ready to tell her he loved her the night she’d broken down and confessed her feelings to him, because he’d had to be sure if he ever said those words again he meant them. Had to know the bitterness he’d harbored in his heart for so long had lifted.

  It had. Now he had to make them right. Take a page from his wife’s courage and say the words he’d sworn he’d never say again.

  Harrison arrived in the foyer, fresh off a plane from Iowa, where he’d been campaigning. His face was just this side of haggard as he bent and kissed his wife. It was a hard, possessive kiss that spoke to the bond they shared.

  The bittersweet feeling he’d been experiencing a lot lately grabbed at his heart. His brother was a different person from the hard, jaded man he’d come to know since his father’s death. Frankie had made him a better man.

  He suspected his wife was doing the same for him.

  Harrison dropped his briefcase by Frankie’s desk and walked into his office. “You look like hell. When’s the last time you slept?”

  “Probably around the same time you did.”

  A wry smile twisted his brother’s face. “You got a plan of attack?”

  “Total and complete surrender,” Coburn said grimly. “You’d better hope it works so you can keep glad-handing the crowds.”

  “It will work. The times have changed. It’s no longer enough to batten down the hatches and hope the public has a short memory. The potential repercussions of not taking full responsibility are too great a risk.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Why haven’t they figured that out by now, then?”

  “Because it’s their job to hold you accountable. Make you see things from all angles. Stand your ground. They’ll come around.”

  “Says the man who threatened me with a mass revolt a few weeks ago.”

  Harrison smiled. “That was before you picked this up, stamped yourself all over it and made a bold, courageous statement that will define you going forward.” He rested his dark, fathomless gaze on him. “You’re doing this with a hell of a lot more guts than I would have, Coburn. It’s the kind of thing that either tears a man apart or shows what he’s made of. You are doing the latter.”

  Something shifted inside him, a part of him he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for a decade. “What do you think he would have done?”

  He didn’t have to say whom he was referring to. Harrison knew, because his father was a ghost always hovering on the fringes, a complex icon whose brilliance had both haunted and inspired them in equal parts.

  “He would have done what I would have,” his brother said flatly. “He would have sought to minimize the damage to this company. And it would have been wrong. You have a perspective that’s bigger than both of us, Coburn. Why do you think he struggled to understand you so much? He didn’t get your humanity, your ability to see the life picture.”

  Because they had been polar opposites. A dull ache penetrated the protective armor he’d built around himself. “That was hard.”

  His brother’s gaze softened. “It made you aspire to greatness. It made you need to be better than the rest. It led you to the right decision today. But now you have to let it go, just like you said I needed to. Pretending you don’t care isn’t going to release you. Following your destiny is. Prove him wrong.”

  His fingers tightened around the armrests of the chair. He wished he didn’t have to prove himself to a ghost. Wished he’d been given the same trust his brother had from the beginning. But you couldn’t talk to a phantom. You had to banish it instead.

 
Frankie stuck her head in his office. “Nieman’s here.”

  He nodded and stood up. He had always taken his own path. This shouldn’t be any different. Except it was. This time it was personal. It was about doing what was right. It was about saving his hundred-year-old legacy.

  * * *

  The venue for the annual Viennese Chamber of Commerce ball was the exquisite Great Hall in Lower Manhattan, a New York City landmark considered to be an Italian neo-Renaissance masterpiece. Designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris and completed in 1921, the space featured sixty-five-foot-high ceilings, soaring marble columns, magnificent inlaid floors and murals painted by Ezra Winter.

  Diana might have been enjoying herself for once, amid her and Coburn’s insane social schedule, if it wasn’t for her husband’s volatile mood. The venue was utterly spectacular, the music from the orchestra excellent and her husband undeniably striking in his black tuxedo. Instead, she was worrying about him. He had come home from his board meeting tense and edgy, the weight of the world on his shoulders, utterly preoccupied to anything and everything around him.

  She would have insisted they skip the fund-raiser if an important customer of Grant’s hadn’t been in attendance. Instead, she put on her most striking ankle-length gown in midnight blue and focused on being a light foil to her husband’s dark, intense focus as they networked their way through predinner cocktails.

  Coburn finished his conversation with the Austrian ambassador. She braced herself for yet another introduction; instead, he laced his fingers through hers and pulled her through an arch to a deserted alcove.

  “Have I told you how jaw-droppingly beautiful you look tonight?”

  His husky rumble sent a fission of awareness through her. “No, you haven’t,” she reprimanded, her lips skimming the stubble on his cheek. “You’ve been far too preoccupied. What happened in the meeting?”

  “We’re going ahead with my plan. No turning back now.”

  The tension in his tone made her draw back. “No second-guessing yourself. You knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”

  “Jack Nieman said it was either the gutsiest or the most reckless strategy he’d ever witnessed.”