Married By Christmas Bundle: Anthology

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Are you asking me to stay the night in the cottage?’ he questioned. Even in the strange white glow she could see the gleam in his eye. ‘With you.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I said you can’t drive. But there’s nothing to stop you sleeping in your car.’

  She turned and walked back inside, but she didn’t pull the door shut behind her. A moment later she heard Marco follow her in.

  The clunk as he closed the door reverberated through her like an omen. Fogbound in the tiny cottage with Marco, she knew she was in for a long night.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CLAUDIA took a deep breath and walked purposefully through to the bathroom. She didn’t want to talk to Marco. Maybe, if she looked busy, he’d leave her alone.

  She picked up the digital camera, which was lying on the floor near the door, gathered her wet clothes together and carried them through to the washing machine in the kitchen. Then she collected her laptop computer case from the bedroom and sat down at the kitchen table, looking at the camera.

  Despite the battering it had taken at the beach, it didn’t look to be in too bad shape. At the very least, she hoped the memory card would have survived—then she could transfer her photos on to the laptop and get on with writing her review.

  At that moment it seemed much easier to focus on her job than to think about the night ahead.

  ‘I need a drink.’ Marco’s voice right behind her made her jump. She wished he’d stop doing his cat impersonation, stalking silently round the cottage. ‘And something to eat—I suddenly feel ravenous.’

  The word ravenous, spoken in his sexy Italian accent, rumbled down her spine like thunder. She tried to suppress a shiver and spoke without looking up.

  ‘I haven’t got much food—I didn’t plan on entertaining.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to cook for me,’ he replied, unaffected by her sharp tone. ‘I knew I’d be staying the night, so I brought a few supplies myself. You can share them, if you’d like.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ she said crisply, irritated by his confident assumption that he would end up staying. If it wasn’t for the fog, he would already be on his way. ‘I’ve got work to do. Actually, if you’re going to be cooking, I think I’ll take myself into the other room.’

  Still without looking at him, she picked up her stuff and headed through to the living room. The coffee table would be just as easy to work on, and at least Marco would be out of the way for a while. She knew it wouldn’t take him all evening to cook and eat his supper. But she didn’t let herself think about the long hours that stretched out before her.

  She was surprised to notice a fire burning merrily in the hearth. She frowned, wondering when Marco had found the time to light it. It was burning so well that it must have been lit for a while. She hadn’t noticed it when she came downstairs, but then she’d been concentrating hard on making Marco leave the cottage.

  She sat down on the sofa, disconcerted to find that being around Marco still had the power to make her oblivious to her surroundings. When he looked at her, locking his rich espresso eyes with hers, it was as if the rest of the world ceased to exist.

  It had always been like that. But, four years ago, Marco had exuded an all-encompassing charm that had wrapped around her like a gossamer blanket, shutting out all of her worries and melting her heart. She closed her eyes and pictured his face as it was then, back when they were lovers—the crinkles around his eyes as he laughed and his wide generous smile.

  Now, when he looked at her, she was no longer transported away from her concerns. Instead, she felt a wave of anxiety rising within her. He had treated her so badly that she knew she could never let herself trust him again. But he still had the power to make her yearn to be with him.

  She shook her head, trying to clear her troubling thoughts, and busied herself with her camera. She was pleased to discover the memory card was all right and loaded the photos on to the computer. She began to scroll through them, feeling increasingly hungry as the delicious smell of cooking drifted in from the kitchen.

  ‘I thought you might change your mind,’ Marco said, placing a glass of mulled wine and a plate of grilled cheese and tomato on toast on the coffee table beside her.

  Right on cue, her stomach growled, making it impossible for her to refuse the food without looking churlish.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said briefly. She pulled the plate towards her, wondering if Marco had remembered that grilled cheese and tomato was one of her favourite light meals. It seemed a coincidence, but cheese and bread were easy foods to transport.

  She picked up her glass and took a sip of aromatic mulled wine. The spicy liquid slipped down her throat easily, creating a delicious glow inside her.

  They started to eat in silence, and Claudia found herself watching the orange flames flickering in the hearth as a way to avoid thinking about conversation. But as the minutes went by, she found herself becoming more relaxed in Marco’s company. She didn’t know if it was the warm mulled wine or the good food that helped to ease the tension, but by the time she finished the meal she felt a lot better.

  ‘That was delicious—much tastier than the sandwich I was planning,’ Claudia said, breaking the silence. ‘You made it seem so easy, and you got the fire started too.’

  ‘It wasn’t hard,’ Marco replied. He slipped off the sofa for a moment to prod the fire with the poker, making a shower of glowing sparks fly upwards. Then, once he’d arranged the burning logs to his liking, he sat down again and turned to look at her, his dark eyes glinting in the firelight. ‘It wasn’t exactly a three course meal.’

  ‘All the same, I probably would have burnt it.’ Claudia smiled, feeling slightly surprised that they seemed to be having a normal conversation.

  ‘I take it you still don’t cook much,’ Marco said. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of plain sandwiches and fruit?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ Claudia paused, taken aback that he remembered her tendency to live on simple uncooked food that took virtually no preparation. ‘There never seems to be much point cooking for one.’

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted it. It was silly to draw attention to the fact that she was on her own—Marco did not need to know that. And, now that she had agreed to get married, she soon wouldn’t be on her own. But in her heart she knew she’d be more alone than ever.

  ‘I may not cook much, but I do still enjoy baking. I took a cake into work for a colleague’s birthday last week,’ she rushed out, hoping to move the conversation on.

  ‘One of your grandmother’s recipes?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’ She drew her brows together without realising what she was doing and frowned at him. Did he remember everything about her?

  For some reason it bothered her. There were very few people who knew that her most treasured possession was her grandmother’s handwritten recipe book. It was an ancient thing, with fragile curling grease-stained pages. But within its brown covers were wonderful recipes that represented more to Claudia that she could ever explain.

  The lemon drizzle cake her grandma had made for Sunday tea when Claudia and her father, Hector, had escaped from Francesca for the afternoon. The large chocolate cake with expensive ingredients that meant it had only been made for birthdays. The cherry cake that Grandma said was Claudia’s mother’s favourite when she was a little girl. And Mother’s Christmas Cake—which was Grandma’s mother’s recipe—Claudia’s great-grandmother.

  She’d never met her great grandmother and she’d lost her own mother when she was very young. But somehow that recipe book made her feel close to them. When she made those recipes she as if like she was making a connection to the past—as if she hadn’t really lost them for ever.

  ‘I’ll get us a refill,’ Marco said, reaching forward to take the empty wineglass from Claudia’s hand. ‘And I’ll warm up some mince pies for dessert.’

  Claudia leant back on the sofa, thinking how wonderful it was to be waited on. For such a dynamic, successful man, Ma
rco was really very skilled in the kitchen and was not too proud to get down to work preparing food.

  One of the reasons Claudia never cooked was that she didn’t really know how to make even the most basic of meals. Her grandmother had taught her to bake cakes, but her stepmother, Francesca, had no interest in cooking and didn’t see it as a useful skill. As far as she was concerned, you employed a chef or always ate out.

  She heard a muted clang as Marco closed the oven door and for some reason Claudia found herself thinking about the many times his sister, Bianca, had sung his praises. There was no doubt that Marco had taken his role as his sister’s guardian very seriously, even to the point of preparing meals for her himself.

  She looked over her shoulder and saw him coming back into the room with two refilled wineglasses in his hands.

  ‘Bianca often told me how wonderfully you took care of her after the death of both your parents,’ Claudia said. ‘Is that when you learnt to cook?’

  A nasty jolt jarred through Marco at Claudia’s comment.

  She had no business talking about Bianca as if they were friends—not after the things she’d done. Also, hearing her mention his mother—the De Luca family’s shameful betrayer—was unacceptable.

  ‘My mother is not dead,’ Marco said shortly, holding the fierce rush of anger that powered through him in check. ‘I don’t know where she is now, and I do not care to know. She betrayed our family and abandoned Bianca, her only daughter, when she was still a child.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Claudia looked genuinely upset and confused as she pushed her hair back from her face with a shaky movement of her hand. Her eyes were wide with concern. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I looked after my sister, of course,’ Marco said, staring down at her coldly.

  He knew that wasn’t the answer she was looking for, but there was no way he was going to discuss how Primo Vasile had seduced his mother, tempting her into her treachery against his father.

  Although treachery was something that Claudia could understand—just like his mother, she had committed the same crime. But he wasn’t ready to accuse her of that now.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know,’ Claudia said quietly. ‘About your mother, I mean. I always got the impression she had died at the same time as your father.’

  ‘As far as I am concerned, she did,’ Marco said flatly.

  Claudia looked at his stony face in silence. It must have been awful for Bianca to lose her mother like that—worse, in many ways, than if she had actually died. No wonder they never talked about her.

  ‘Thank goodness, for Bianca’s sake, that she had such a devoted brother to look after her,’ Claudia said.

  For a long moment Marco was silent, staring into the crackling fire with dark eyes. She began to think that she’d made him really angry by bringing up a sore subject from his past. But then he seemed to shake off his black mood and turned back to her again.

  ‘I never learnt to cook—it always seemed instinctive,’ he said, finally sitting down on the sofa beside her.

  ‘Well, I guess I don’t have the right instincts,’ she said wryly, pleased that he was talking to her again. ‘Everything I try to cook comes out tough and overdone, or raw on the inside and burnt on the outside.’

  ‘You can bake cakes,’ Marco said. ‘But I think photography is where your true instincts lie. I’d love to see the photos you took this afternoon.’

  ‘Really?’ Claudia glanced at him, suddenly feeling shy. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted him looking through her photos. But there were still a lot of hours of the evening to get through and she should make the most of the quiet mood they seemed to have reached.

  ‘I’ll get some mince pies,’ Marco said. ‘Then we’ll look at them together.’

  It didn’t take him long to return with a plate of spicily fragrant mince pies, then she started scrolling through the beach photos. She was apprehensive to be looking at them for the first time in front of Marco, but at the same time very pleased with what she had achieved that afternoon.

  ‘They’re amazing,’ Marco said, moving closer to her and angling the laptop screen for his benefit. A moment later his hand covered hers as he took control of the computer, moving through the photographs at a rate that suited him.

  A frisson passed through her as his fingers brushed hers, but she pulled her hand away carefully, trying not to let him notice the way that even that slight physical contact had affected her.

  ‘These pictures are really incredible,’ Marco said. Somehow he had manoeuvred the computer on the coffee table so that it was completely in front of him. ‘The way you’ve caught the surging elemental energy is amazing. I can all but feel the press of the brooding sky and hear the roar of the waves.’

  Claudia stared at him, startled by his praise.

  ‘Do you mind if I scroll back through some of your other photos?’ he asked, already starting to scan back through her files.

  The images flipped by, going backwards in time. December in a London park. Bonfire night fireworks in November. Autumn trees in the English countryside. The grape harvest in Piedmont with the Alps in the background.

  It might have seemed as if those pictures represented her life over the last few months. But they were just places she’d been—photos she’d taken for work. They did nothing to convey the distress that had been growing inside her after her father had been taken seriously ill.

  Suddenly she noticed she was watching images of the family home and vineyard near Turin flash past. They were personal photos and she should stop Marco looking at them. But then, at that moment, she found herself looking at a photo of her father.

  He was sitting in the courtyard by the fountain pool and he was smiling and looking happy. Not as robust as in his younger years—but there were no real signs of the illness that was about to strike him. He appeared cheerful and well—not the frail shadow of himself he had been in recent months since he had become so ill.

  She stared at the image, wishing herself back in time. Wishing her father still looked happy and fit. But that was never going to happen. He was never going to recover from his illness.

  All she could do was watch him fade away. And marry a man she detested. That way her father would not have to lose everything and face a criminal investigation, when it was almost more than he could do to simply hang on to the last fragile threads of his life.

  Her vision blurred and her eyes were full of tears. There was nothing she could do to stop them, so she squeezed her eyelids closed and turned away, trying to think about something different.

  Marco was looking at images of his old family home. Distinctly uneasy emotions were rumbling within him as he studied the pictures of the house and surrounding vineyards.

  He wasn’t seeing the elderly man in the foreground of the photo, although he’d recognised Hector Hazelton at once. He was staring at the fountain courtyard, remembering all the afternoons he’d spent there with his much younger sister, taking time to play with her before going off to meet his friends.

  A sudden burst of fury exploded in him and he felt his hands clench involuntarily into fists. That property should still belong to his family. His sister Bianca should have finished growing up there, with a loving mother and father—but instead Claudia had grown up in his rightful home with her father, Hector, and with that witch Francesca Hazelton.

  It was twelve years since the De Luca family had been destroyed, but the fury that had consumed Marco then continued to rage through him. His family had been torn apart from within—had suffered the ultimate treachery. Betrayed by one of their own—Marco’s mother.

  It had started when Francesca Hazelton insinuated herself into his mother’s life, pretending to be her friend and gaining her trust. Then she had introduced her cousin, Primo Vasile.

  It hadn’t taken long for the serpent, Vasile, to use his snakelike charm to seduce Marco’s mother. Afterwards, he had lured her into turning against her own family. She’d taken a vast amount of m
oney from Marco’s father and revealed crucial business secrets that had enabled Vasile to bring the family business down. He’d taken whatever he’d wanted and destroyed everything else.

  Marco’s father had been weak, blind to his wife’s treachery. He had not struck out against her when he had the chance, when he’d first discovered her duplicity. Marco would not make the same mistake.

  Now he knew that Claudia was a snake in the grass, and he would not fail to treat her in the way that she deserved. She would pay for everything she had done—to him and to his sister.

  Suddenly, despite the vengeful thoughts that filled his mind, Marco felt a change come over Claudia. She’d been sitting quietly beside him, making no comment as he looked through her photographs, but he realised that she must have seen his temper flare just now.

  With a supreme effort of will, Marco consciously forced his body to relax and removed signs of his anger from his expression. The need for revenge burned stronger than ever within him, but he had to lock it away inside for a short while longer.

  He turned and looked at Claudia.

  What he saw doused his fury as effectively as a bucket of cold water.

  Claudia was sitting with her eyes squeezed shut, huge tears rolling down her ashen face. She looked so sad and vulnerable that Marco reacted instinctively to her distress, momentarily forgetting what she had done to him and Bianca.

  He slid off the sofa and kneeled in front of her, the anger that had overtaken him a moment before completely gone.

  ‘Claudia.’

  He saw her shoulders stiffen as his voice penetrated her misery, then she opened her eyes to look at him.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, rubbing the flats of her hands self-consciously across her face and blinking to clear her eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to cry. It was just that the photo of my father got to me.’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ Marco said, catching her hands with his. ‘I didn’t realise looking at those photos would upset you.’

  ‘You weren’t to know that my father is ill.’ She smiled at him weakly, but he could tell she had a tenuous grip on her emotions and was only just holding back the flow of tears.