Married By Christmas Bundle: Anthology

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘You are the last person I would want to comfort me!’ she heard herself rail, before she could stem the impulse.

  There was silence outside for a long moment, then Cristiano spoke again, his voice low and his words measured.

  ‘Maybe you would prefer it if it was my cousin standing outside this door talking to you? But as we both know that is not possible. You will simply have to make do with me. Open the door, Dominique.’

  ‘I don’t want Ramón!’ she answered, her tears coming faster. ‘Why would I want him? It was over between us a long time ago, and he walked out on me—remember? It’s just such a waste, that’s all—to die like that! A stupid, stupid waste!’

  Glancing at her stricken expression sidelong in the mirror, Dominique gulped down another sob and dabbed feverishly at her reddened eyes.

  ‘Sometimes it is hard to make sense of these things, even when one has faith…But life goes on, yes? And you have a beautiful baby daughter to remember him by. Not all is lost.’

  Strangely comforted by his words, Dominique took a deep breath, then shakily released the latch and opened the door. The handsome visage that confronted her was both grave and concerned, and she didn’t know why she should feel so guilty about yelling at him, but she did. He was, after all, throwing her a lifeline of sorts, as well as giving Matilde an opportunity to grow up knowing the family that had raised her father…

  ‘There is a park close by,’ Cristiano told her, dark eyes assessing her tear-stained face with intimate scrutiny. ‘The day is bright and cold—I think we should take a walk together and get some air. What do you say?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yes…all right.’ But even as she agreed, Dominique sensed her lip quiver uncontrollably and her face crumple. ‘I’m just so tired!’ she breathed mournfully, dipping her head. ‘So tired of everything!’

  In the next instant Cristiano had propelled her into his arms and was cradling her head against his chest, just over his heart. The steady, even throb of his heartbeat and the comforting sensation of warmth and strength that emanated from his hard, masculine body made Dominique curl her fingers into his fine wool sweater for added security, and she gratefully shut her eyes, feeling as if they stood together in the eye of a storm. She prayed it would soon pass. But her scalding tears would not be so easily contained, and they seeped from her eyelids in a steady trickle of pain and sorrow. What was the matter with her? After all this time of staying strong, telling herself she could cope come what may, she was suddenly falling apart.

  ‘Cry all you want, querida,’ the man who held her murmured in his compelling velvet-lined voice, his big hand cupping her head and stroking her hair as though tenderly giving consolation to a child. ‘Expressing our sorrows is sometimes necessary rather then holding them inside. You should not see giving in to grief as something undesirable, or feel that you have to put on a brave face when you are feeling sad. That would not be good for you or the little one!’

  For disturbing moments Cristiano felt as if his feelings were under siege as he held Dominique’s slender quivering body close to his own. The scent of her honey-laced shampoo was inexplicably alluring as it drifted beneath his nose, and he had never touched hair of such fine silk as hers before. The sensation was incredible. He was aware too of the soft fullness of her breasts as they pressed intimately into his chest, and was shocked by the entirely inappropriate sensations that swept violently through his body as a result of that close contact.

  It had been too long since he had held a woman in his arms, and no doubt that was why his body was reacting so strongly. All he had wanted to do was offer Dominique some comfort and reassurance, but now her body was awakening feelings in him that he’d thought long petrified. If the sensations were purely sexual he could handle them well enough—women had always been interested in Cristiano, and there had been no lack of opportunity for that kind of consolation since the tragedy that had stopped his world. But other, much more dangerous emotions were assailing him too, and Cristiano realised he would have to be on his guard against getting this close to the beguiling Dominique again. The risks were simply too terrifying to be contemplated…

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AS HER tears and sorrow started to abate, Dominique became disturbingly aware that she was actively enjoying being held in Cristiano’s arms. Not just because he was giving her the comfort she sorely needed, but because his body was hard and warm and strong, and the contact made her feel alive and human again, after being shut off from those vital sensations for too long.

  Now she knew why babies failed to thrive when they were denied the most basic necessity of all…that of being touched and held. Surely something similar must happen to adults? And it was with genuine reluctance that she uncurled her fingers from the soft weave of Cristiano’s sweater and started to step out of the protective circle of his arms.

  Just before Dominique disengaged herself completely, he took her hands in his and stroked the pads of his thumbs back and forth across her fine, delicately boned fingers. His dark gaze was almost brooding.

  ‘It will get better, you know? You will find a way to manage it. I know it is hard to believe that right now, feeling the way you do, but you will. Every day the hurt will ease a little more. You are fortunate that you have little Matilde to draw comfort from.’

  He sounded as if he knew intimately what it was to lose someone you cared for. Staring back into the black velvet night of his arresting glance, Dominique felt her hands alive with electricity from their contact with his. Her grief and despondency had been stunningly transformed into a fascination that perplexed and frightened her.

  ‘I think I’ll give that walk a miss, if you don’t mind? I really ought to be getting back to Matilde,’ she heard herself announce, her voice sounding remarkably even and calm in spite of her turbulent feelings.

  Cristiano shrugged, his expression not easing in its disturbing intensity one iota. ‘When can I see you again?’ he asked.

  Her heart momentarily stalled at the question—for a second there he had sounded like an ardent lover, counting the minutes until he saw his paramour again—and Dominique sensed heat rush into her face.

  ‘Why don’t you come and join me for dinner this evening? You can bring the baby…I will see about a private room for us,’ he suggested when she did not reply straight away.

  ‘I can’t. I’m working tonight.’

  ‘Ring them and say that you are taking the night off.’

  ‘Are solutions always so black and white to you?’

  Dominique bet when this man dealt with clients he didn’t suffer fools gladly, or grant any quarter to anyone who dared disagree with him. The world must seem a very different place when you saw the answers to problems with such enviable clarity!

  ‘I’m already going to have to let them down when I tell them I can’t work over Christmas as it is. It would hardly be fair for me to phone in at the last minute and say I’m taking tonight off as well!’

  ‘I can see that you have a very admirable sense of duty, Dominique, and although I am disappointed you won’t be joining me tonight I cannot fault it. So…We will meet tomorrow for lunch instead, yes? We can go for a walk in the park first, then have something to eat afterwards. Does that plan appeal more to your sense of fairness?’

  His lips twitched teasingly upwards at one corner, and Dominique was transfixed by the blaze of light that humour brought to his otherwise smouldering dark gaze.

  ‘It does.’

  ‘So…if you insist you have to leave now I will ring down to Reception and organise a car to take you back home. I will send it again for you tomorrow at around midday.’

  ‘Okay…thank you.’

  ‘You are feeling a little better now?’

  As he brought his hand lightly down onto her shoulder, Cristiano’s touch almost made Dominique jump out of her skin.

  ‘I’m sorry I lost it like that.’ She grimaced, hardly daring to look at him and suddenly needing vital fresh air to help her
breathe.

  ‘There is no need for an apology,’ he said quietly, devastatingly holding her gaze, even though everything inside her was clamouring to be set free from it.

  When she could hardly stand the tension any longer, he gave a barely perceptible nod of his head and moved towards the telephone on the bureau just inside the door. Seconds later she heard him ring down to Reception to order the car to take her home…

  Having spoken to his family and given them the news that they’d been waiting on tenterhooks to hear, Cristiano strode restlessly through the hotel and made his way to the park. As he slid his ungloved hands into the pockets of his camel-coloured cashmere coat and made his way down paths strewn with the untended debris of faded and dead autumn leaves his thoughts turned like a magnet to Dominique and the baby.

  Both females were stirring things in him that he had rigidly striven to keep contained—an action that stemmed from his great desire to make himself impenetrable to hurt from another human being again. Up until Ramón’s shocking death he had more than succeeded. But now the big blue guileless eyes of the woman his cousin had abandoned, along with her fierce pride and that gorgeous baby girl, were making inroads into the previously impervious wall he’d built around his emotions. He knew he would have to fortify it if he was to stay immune.

  He didn’t doubt for a moment that he was doing the right thing in taking them home with him to Spain—his sense of duty and familial loyalty confirmed it, if nothing else—nevertheless Cristiano knew that their unexpected presence in his life was going to test his resolve as nothing had before.

  As he sighed into the frigid air, his warm breath made a curling plume of steam. A well-dressed couple strolling past from the opposite direction wished him good afternoon, and Cristiano politely inclined his head in acknowledgement. As he walked on, he was blindsided as his mind’s eye caught and held the vision of another woman’s beautiful face. The pain it wrought inside him almost made him stagger.

  Unable to fight off the scene that unfolded in his head, he devastatingly recalled the passionate, loving words that woman had called out to him from her hospital bed just two years ago. A seemingly straight forward labour had taken an unexpected turn for the worse, and the next thing Cristiano had known was that his wife was fighting for her life—and their baby’s. Just before the medical team had rushed her off to surgery Martina had called out to him. ‘Te amo, Cristi! Te amo!’ Her stunning brown eyes had been full of tears and so had his own as he’d stood there, icy dread robbing him of all life and turning him to stone, nauseous with the realisation that he was in the middle of a nightmare he might never wake from…

  All his faith, personal influence, professional know-how and wealth had served him to no avail that terrible day, and by the time he’d received the news that his wife and baby had not survived the emergency operation that had been undertaken to save them Cristiano had felt as if he had been driven to his knees by the most vicious, merciless storm imaginable.

  The pain of it was as fresh now as it had been that day, despite the platitudes he had spoken earlier. Gritting his teeth, he lengthened his stride and began to head down a path that he saw led to a large wintry lake flocked by squawking birds, and with a determined upsurge of strength he managed to ride the crest of the terrible emotion that had so cruelly racked him. Eventually sensing it subside, he renewed his vow never to leave himself so vulnerable again.

  Knowing they were going to the park, Dominique had hoped they would go by the lake, so she’d brought with her a paper bag full of stale crusts of bread to feed to the birds. Cristiano seemed quite happy to go along with this idea and, despite being dressed more appropriately for lunch at the Ritz than to take a casual stroll through the park, he walked alongside Matilde’s pushchair closely enough to look as if he belonged there. It gave Dominique quite an odd feeling. And even odder was the fact that she realised she couldn’t really imagine Ramón undertaking the same ordinary action and taking pleasure in it. He would have been too impatient to go on and do something far more exciting, and would probably have spoiled the outing with a sulk.

  Guiltily Dominique pulled herself up short. Was she being disloyal to the father of her baby by thinking such an uncharitable thing? Disturbed, she pushed the thought away and glanced sidelong at Cristiano instead. This morning she’d woken with a strange fluttering sensation in the pit of her stomach and had realised it was excitement at the idea of going to Spain. Somehow this man walking beside her had persuaded her it would be a very good idea for her to go, and for some reason Dominique had started to believe him.

  Whether it was the thought of spending a Christmas like the one he had so vividly described, amongst people who genuinely cared about her daughter’s wellbeing, or just the opportunity to consider starting life afresh in a new country with a ‘clean slate,’ she couldn’t have said for sure, but she knew she had to give it a try. There was certainly nothing holding her in the UK if she decided to move there permanently, and that included her mother. Talking of which…

  ‘By the way, I spoke to my mother this morning and told her I was going to Spain with you for Christmas.’

  ‘And how did she take the news?’

  ‘She was strangely quiet, actually. Not the reaction I expected at all. She said we should talk when I get back.’

  ‘Perhaps she has finally realised how selfish of her it is to leave you to your own devices during the holiday?’

  ‘Why should she think that?’ Shrugging, Dominique countered the sting of her mother’s rejection of both her and her baby with a fresh spurt of anger. ‘It’s what she usually does! It would be a bit late in the day for her to develop a conscience!’

  ‘You have never mentioned your father?’ Interestedly, Cristiano glanced at her. ‘I am presuming he is not in the picture any more?’

  ‘He left when I was two. God knows where he is now! He never kept in touch, and I doubt whether my mother would have even wanted him to. She’s been furious with him for most of my life! It’s her main motivation for getting up every day…just so she can be mad at him all over again!’

  Not commenting, Cristiano merely looked thoughtful, and Dominique concluded that he was obviously thinking what a screwed up family she came from!

  Biting her lip, she tightened her hands a little round the handlebars of the pushchair.

  Reaching the lakeside, Dominique carefully positioned Matilde where she had the best view and, checking that the cheerful knitted blanket to safeguard her from the cold was securely in place, she crouched down low beside her and laughingly threw the crusts to the accumulated feathered throng.

  ‘Look, Tilly! Look at the lovely birds, darling! How happy they are to see you!’

  Watching them both with growing fascination, and a secret pleasure he could not deny, Cristiano stood protectively by, his gaze moving now and again to the other small groups of families dotted round the perimeter of the lake, also feeding the birds. His connection to the young woman beside him was for once allowing him entry to an experience that they perhaps took for granted. He valiantly steered his mind away from the distressing recollection that had assailed him yesterday and concentrated instead on this new memory that Dominique and her sweet child were helping to create.

  ‘Make yourself useful!’ she chided him suddenly, passing him a handful of crusts and gazing up at him with teasing mirth in her brilliant blue eyes. ‘I’ve literally got enough here to feed the five thousand!’

  ‘If you ask me’ Cristiano responded drolly, ‘those birds already look overfed. Any more food and they will not be able to take off!’

  ‘A sense of humour, Señor Cordova? I didn’t expect that!’

  ‘You think I am too serious?’ he asked, frowning, not quite knowing how to take her criticism.

  ‘Perhaps…I don’t really know. It’s just that you seemed like you were miles away, that’s all.’

  ‘I was merely observing the other people doing what you are doing and wondering how it is that
a simple pastime such as throwing some bread to birds can bring so much pleasure.’

  ‘When you do it with your children it’s the best thing in the world!’ Dominique announced, leaning into Matilde’s pushchair to plant a sound kiss on her daughter’s plump pink cheek. ‘Isn’t it, Tilly?’

  Cristiano remained silent in bittersweet agreement, but as his gaze locked with Dominique’s a palpable sensation of warmth seemed to flood his insides. His previous disquiet vanished and he knew he was staring. The icy wind that was blowing had stung her cheeks into two bright pink spots of colour, and some fine strands of honey-brown hair, freed from her plait, danced wildly across them.

  She glanced quickly away, clearly discomfited by his intense regard. ‘When we’ve got rid of all the bread, do you think we could go and eat?’ she asked him, her gaze now firmly on the lake and the diving birds as they braved the near-frozen surface to reach the semi-submerged crusts.

  Concerned that he had neglected his duties, Cristiano agreed straight away. ‘Of course! Do you like Indian food?’ he asked her. ‘There is an exceptionally good Indian restaurant nearby, where I have reserved a table for us. If you do not like that particular cuisine then we can go somewhere you’d like better.’

  ‘Indian is great…as long as you think I’m dressed okay? It’s not somewhere really posh, is it?’

  ‘No…it is not “posh”.’ His lips curved into an amused smile. ‘It has an authentic Indian ambience, and you can go dressed casually—as we are.’

  ‘What you’re wearing is casual?’ Now it was Dominique’s turn to be amused.

  Glancing down at his smart chinos, handmade Italian shoes, black cashmere sweater and three-quarter-length black leather jacket, Cristiano was genuinely perplexed by the question. ‘My outfit is certainly not formal, if that is what you are suggesting!’