Married By Christmas Bundle: Anthology

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘It’s just my way of thanking all of you for welcoming me and my daughter into your home.’

  ‘You were Ramón’s girlfriend and Matilde is his child…You are family whether you wish to be or not!’ Elena’s dark eyes twinkled. ‘And I am also very happy to see that you and my brother are getting along so well too. It has been quite some time since I have seen his eyes light up the way they do when you walk into the room, Dominique!’

  Feeling her face grow hot beneath the other woman’s teasing and if she was honest surprising observation, Dominique stared.

  ‘It doesn’t bother you?’

  Elena’s smile ebbed away and her expression became more serious. ‘Why should it bother me that my brother appears to have found something to make him smile again after so long of being so unhappy it would break your heart?’

  ‘He told me about what happened to his wife and baby.’ Lowering her gaze for a moment, Dominique hoped she had not transgressed some unspoken family code by mentioning it. But Elena did not look put out in any way.

  ‘The loss utterly devastated my brother,’ she confided. ‘And since losing our father he has felt much responsibility for everyone…too much. When Martina and the baby died he somehow believed he could have done something to prevent it. I told him, “You are not God! You do not have the power to say whether someone should live or die!” These things happen, and it is terrible for those who are left behind, but perhaps it was Martina’s time…you know what I mean? Perhaps it was Ramón’s time too. Who knows?’

  Shrugging her shoulders in her navy linen dress, Elena sighed, and the deep sadness in her demeanour was palpable. Inside, Dominique’s mind and heart were under serious siege at what she had just heard. It was heartbreaking enough that Cristiano had lost his wife and baby in such a shocking way, but to be living with such guilt for what had happened was almost more heart-rending.

  No wonder he had seemed initially so reluctant to discuss his marriage when Dominique had been studying the photo in the library and had seen him wearing a wedding ring! He had received a great emotional wound and was obviously still in the process of trying to heal. How that healing must be hampered by the idea that he could somehow have prevented his wife’s death—and Ramón’s death, as Elena had mentioned? How would his poor heart ever heal if he thought their deaths were due to some imagined fault or lapse in his vigilance? What a terrible burden for anyone to be carrying round!

  ‘I can’t believe what you’ve just told me, Elena.’ Dominique reached out her hand for the other woman’s and held it for a few moments in silent solidarity. ‘Your brother is a wonderful man, and he doesn’t deserve for the rest of his life to be so unhappy because he feels responsible for the people he loved who have died!’

  ‘We have tried telling him that so many times but he does not listen!’ Shaking her head a little forlornly, suddenly Elena looked straight at Dominique. ‘Perhaps…because it is clear that you and little Matilde have won a special place in his heart…perhaps he will listen to you, Dominique? Do you think you could try talking to him about this?’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SHE had never seen such a lovingly decorated and beautiful Christmas tree before. Dominique was certain. Standing in front of it that evening with Matilde, the sparkling lights and glittering baubles shiningly reflected in her baby daughter’s eyes, Dominique shook her head in silent awe.

  The rest of the family had dispersed after a happy and companionable couple of hours dressing the tree, and she welcomed these few minutes on her own to simply just stand and admire it with Matilde. All those difficult and emotionally sterile Christmases she’d spent with her mother faded away in the light of Dominique’s feelings now. Perhaps it was time to forgive and forget? If there was ever a time to extend forgiveness then this was probably the season in which to do it. She would write her mother a letter…or, better still, phone her. Life was definitely improving, she would tell her, and perhaps she would be pleased? With some distance between them, maybe some of the tension that was normally prevalent in their relationship would have eased a little?

  ‘You look deep in thought.’

  Startled by that compelling deep voice—she hadn’t even heard him enter the room—Dominique let her gaze fall into Cristiano’s. As was becoming a habit whenever she saw him, her heart seemed to skip a beat.

  ‘I was just enjoying a quiet few moments with Matilde.’

  ‘Then I am disturbing you?’

  He started to back away, and before she knew what she intended Dominique had laid her hand on his shirtsleeve to stop him.

  ‘You’re not disturbing me at all.’

  She’d spent most of the afternoon thinking about what Elena had told her, about him feeling so responsible for his family tragedies, and she’d longed for an opportunity to talk to him alone.

  ‘But you are definitely disturbing me.’ He moved in closer, smiling ruefully. ‘But then…you always do, Dominique.’

  ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘Something is troubling you?’

  ‘Not exactly. I just—’

  ‘Come and see something with me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You will see. Come.’

  Finding herself led back out into the cavernous hall outside the huge drawing room, Dominique sucked in her breath at the candlelit nativity scene that had been arranged there. Even Matilde stared at it, her little face alive with interest in the small perfectly made figures—both human and animal—amid the straw. Feeling Cristiano’s arm slip very naturally round her waist, Dominique knew a stunning moment when everything in her life seemed to suddenly mirror the most exquisite perfection. With her baby in her arms and the man she loved beside her, she was very close to crying with happiness—not to mention relief and joy.

  ‘It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen,’ she sighed.

  ‘Sí,’ Cristiano agreed, a faint smile touching his lips. ‘This, for me, is what Christmas is all about…this and being with my family.’

  ‘Family is very important to you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Cristiano…Elena mentioned to me today that you’ve been carrying around so much guilt about what happened to your wife and Ramón. I was sad to hear it. You have no need to feel guilty in any way.’

  Her heart was beating so loudly that the roar of it was like an ocean in Dominique’s ears. It was too late to take back the statement, but in one sense she wished she could—because, seeing the forbiddingly angry expression that had stolen over Cristiano’s face, she knew that the exquisite moment she’d been blessed with just now had suddenly been relegated to bittersweet history. Now she clearly saw the bleak landscape that resided in his compelling eyes, instead of the calm sea that had previously been there, and when his arm left her waist Dominique was utterly bereft.

  ‘So this is what you discussed during your shopping trip?’ His mouth tightened in distaste. ‘I did not realise it was open season on casual discussion of my feelings!’

  Horror-struck, Dominique tightened her arms round her baby’s small body, afraid she might drop her because she was trembling so. ‘That’s not how it was at all! The subject only came up because we care about you, Cristiano! Elena has obviously seen what you’ve been going through first hand, and she’s concerned at how you’ve been coping.’

  ‘I do not need anybody’s concern! What happened was a terrible tragedy and I am coping with it in my own way—a way that does not require anyone else’s help or opinions on how I should be dealing with it! I am getting on with my life and I am doing my best to put the event behind me. I would ask that you would respect both my privacy and my feelings, Dominique, and not raise the matter again!’

  When Cristiano looked as if he might underline his angry statement by walking away from her, Dominique steeled herself with new resolve. She cared about this man far too much to leave him be and let him deal with his tragic loss in isolation, and worse still blaming himself for it. After
all…he hadn’t left her alone when she’d insisted she didn’t need his help, had he? Whether he knew it or not Cristiano needed her love and support, and she would get that point across if it killed her!

  ‘Are you going to blame yourself for your wife and Ramón’s death for the rest of your life, Cristiano?’ she burst out.

  ‘Who knows?’ He shrugged, his expression bleak as a Siberian winter. ‘Maybe I deserve to feel guilt? Did you ever ask yourself that…huh? My wife clearly felt she could not confide in me and so the fault is mine! Somehow I must have put out the message that she could not have trusted me with the knowledge of the risk she was taking by becoming pregnant…that I would have used the information against her!’

  ‘And would you have?’

  ‘Sí! I would! If it meant that she would have had her life, of course! But I am not a tyrant! I knew how much she wanted a baby. If she had told me the truth we could have explored other avenues…like adoption. I wanted children too, but I would not have had her put her life at risk to bear my child!’

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t! I know enough about you to realise that, and your family does too!’ Her throat aching at the pain he must be feeling, Dominique found it almost too hard to speak. ‘Your wife was an adult and she made her own decisions. You have to somehow make your peace with that and absolve yourself of all blame and guilt. I am certain she would have wanted that for you!’

  ‘And what about Ramón?’ Moving restlessly away from her, Cristiano walked down the corridor and back again.

  ‘What about Ramón?’

  ‘He needed help. He needed my help! But I was always too quick to judge him. I always expected the worst, and so what could he do but live up to my limited expectations? He was not a bad person. He was just a boy who missed his father and grew up amongst women who doted on him because they loved him and perhaps spoiled him a little too much. I could see that it grieved him that he could not please me the way he wanted to. He was so hungry to be what the world thought of as a success, and he was not happy that instead he was viewed as a spoiled rich boy who had neither sense nor morals! I have thought many times about his accident…I have wondered if in a state of depression he might have deliberately driven his car too fast that night along that treacherous road…That he might have—’

  ‘Taken his own life?’ Her eyes widening, Dominique vehemently shook her head. ‘Ramón would never have done such a thing! No matter what might have been going on with him, he loved life far too much to want to end it! Cristiano, you must have been driving yourself crazy with all these wild imaginings! You’ve got to let this go…please! For your own sake if not for your family’s! Because it would be a terrible shame—and not only that such a tragic waste too—if you were to continue to burden yourself with all this useless guilt!

  ‘Who knows how much time any of us are given when we arrive in this world? Crippling ourselves with “if onlys” is futile when we don’t ultimately control any of it! I am sure you were an amazing husband to Martina, and the best of cousins to Ramón—but you had nothing to do with the reasons they died! And if they loved you—as I am certain they must have—do you think they would want the rest of your life to be blighted with unhappiness because you believe you could have done something to prevent their passing?’

  ‘It is not so easy to just let go of the guilt, as you suggest.’ His dark eyes glittering, Cristiano’s sculpted features were taut with pain. ‘When my father died it fell to me to take on the mantle of head of the family. That entails being someone they can rely and depend on! They told me at the hospital afterwards that Martina had always carried a high risk of having complications in childbirth—she had pleaded with the doctors not to tell me about it! Can you imagine? She carried that burden all by herself, when if she had shared it with me I could have—’

  ‘Saved her?’ Dominique didn’t know how she dared even say the words when the man in front of her seemed so furious, but say them she had to. ‘Think about what you’re saying, Cristiano…please! You are a wonderful man, dependable and reliable—the kind of man anyone would want on their side—but that doesn’t mean you have the power to control every single event that happens in your loved ones lives or your own! I’m sure your wife only wanted to spare you pain by not telling you about her condition. She must have loved you so much. Ramón too. He had a car accident, Cristiano. Accidents happen every day. How could you possibly have had anything to do with that? It was in his nature to take foolish risks sometimes, with no regard for his safety! I knew him too, remember? But you, Cristiano…you have the whole of the rest of your life ahead of you, and you have to forgive yourself for the imagined failings in your past and move on…Just as I am learning to move on.’

  Silence fell. A silence broken only by the harsh drawn-out breaths that came from Cristiano. Praying she hadn’t somehow made things worse by speaking out, Dominique could only wait in soundless anguish for the outcome of their passionate exchange. In her arms Matilde wriggled, and then let out a sharp cry. Her attention diverted, Dominique tenderly touched her lips to her baby’s velvet-soft forehead.

  ‘What is it, my darling? Are you hungry? Is that what’s wrong?’

  ‘Go and feed the child.’

  The tiniest flicker of a smile raised the corners of Cristiano’s mouth. He looked resigned and a little weary, perhaps, but not angry any more. A shaft of the most dizzying hope raced through Dominique’s insides.

  ‘Will you come with me?’ she asked.

  He sighed heavily. ‘Not right now. I need some time alone to think. But we will talk again later, I promise.’

  Wishing fiercely that he would change his mind and join her, Dominique tried to corral her frustration and give him a smile. ‘Well…when your thinking is done, perhaps you’ll come and find me?’

  Giving her an enigmatic smile in return, Cristiano turned his back and walked away down the corridor…

  He drove for miles, hardly paying attention to where he was going. Somehow the act of driving, of steering the car and working the controls, helped free his mind so that he could think with more clarity. It was said that Einstein had had his best and most creative thoughts when he was shaving. Cristiano allowed himself a small grin at this, one of the more obscure facts he’d collected over the years. Then, as a bundle of dried grasses rolled by in the warm gusty wind, his expression grew more serious again.

  The emotionally charged encounter he’d had with Dominique while admiring the belén had struck a loud chord inside him. For a man who had once given absolute credence to the idea that there was a purpose and a meaning to every life it was amazing how he could have gone so wildly off course with his guilt-ridden beliefs. Dominique, his mother, Consuela and Elena—they had all been right in their assertion that the power to control events did not lie with him…as it did not lie with any man or woman, for that matter. That being the case, there was no blame.

  He had always done his best for the people he loved. Always. If it still nagged at him a little that perhaps he should have made himself more avail able to talk to Ramón than he had done then Cristiano told himself it was about time he let that thought go and realised that even if he had spent more time with his troubled cousin he probably would not have been able to change anything. Just as knowing what Martina had faced would not have changed anything either. His wife had always longed for children. Even if Cristiano had per suaded her that with the risks involved it was probably not a good idea for her to become pregnant she would have fought him tooth and nail to get her own way. And if he had tried to stop her she would have been dreadfully unhappy, possibly even blamed him for not letting her try to have a baby.

  In the end, it was just not meant to be… Letting out a deep sigh to free the sensation of tightness in his chest, Cristiano focused on the dusty road ahead, the glorious sight of the sun-struck mountains giving a little ease to the painful emotions that beset him. Dominique was right. She had learned some hard lessons in her own life and had not emerged from them
without gaining some valuable insight. Nobody knew how much time they were allotted on earth. All one could do was live each day in the best way that they could and trust that there was indeed a plan for everyone.

  To Cristiano’s mind it now seemed somewhat ungrateful to waste another day of the life he had been given in guilt and regret. Especially when his future could possibly be far brighter than he had ever dared to hope…

  A wave of tiredness hit her later on that afternoon, and Dominique went to have a lie-down in her bedroom. At Consuela and Luisa’s insistence she left the baby with them while she rested.

  All she could think about was Cristiano and whether, after what they had discussed, there would be room in his life for her and Matilde after all. Not just as their ‘guardian and protector’, but as something deeper and more meaningful…something that would require him to make a more lasting commitment to them than he might have envisaged?

  If such a thing could not be achieved, then Dominique would have no alternative but to return to England after Christmas and just pay a visit now and again, as she had suggested once before. It was too bad if he did not like that plan. She needed to survive too, and she could not do that if she was around Cristiano without the deep connection between them that she craved…

  Worn out with thinking and hoping, she eventually dozed off.

  When she came downstairs about an hour later, she found the women gathered together in the drawing room, talking companionably. There was no sign of Cristiano. Elena had told her earlier that he’d gone out for a drive, and Dominique’s stomach had been tied up in knots at the idea that he was driving to try and get away from the deep unhappiness that consumed him. What if he never resolved the guilt and regret that dogged him about his wife’s death? What if he remained a widower for the rest of his life, never allowing himself the chance of being with someone new? Someone who adored him with every fibre of her being? Someone who wanted the opportunity to show him how good life could be again?