Enamoured

by Darling, Giana

  “I know,” I said before I sealed his promise with a kiss. “You are the best man I know, and I’ll spend the rest of my life proving to you that I already know just how worthy you are.”

  Alexander

  Four years later.

  Pearl Hall echoed like church bells in an ancient tower with the peeling, silver laughter of many children dancing, playing, and racing through its halls. Theodore and Genevieve Sinclair took turns sliding down the great, curving bannister of the staircase in the Great Hall as Riddick looked on as a stern supervisor, only cracking a smile when Genny demanded he stand at the bottom and high five her on her way down. Two of the Davenport triplets giggled ceaselessly as their aunt Elena and uncle Dante blew kisses into their sweet baby rolls of fat and tickled the swell of their little bellies from where they lay inside their playpen set up in the informal living room. The adults argued good-naturedly over which of the brothers was cuter, Edward or Dorian, and both babies screamed in delight as if adding their own opinions to the debate. Mama held the only Davenport girl, the last triplet born, a small thing made of golden skin and curling ink-stained hair with eyes already turned a brightly polished silver. She cooed to little Poppy in a serious tone, imparting wisdom in dialect Italian the eleven-month-old girl couldn’t yet understand. Still, Poppy pressed her little fist to Mama’s softly creased cheek as if she comprehended each word. Giselle sat on the loveseat before the fire curled up beside her husband, who read from ’Twas the Night Before Christmas aloud for the benefit of the preteen girl lying belly down on the Persian carpet with her chocolate-stained face cupped in her hands as she listened. When she interrupted the story to protest, Elena shot her daughter a long, lingering look that spoke volumes and shut down the girl with a grumbled apology as she settled back in to listen.

  I stood in the doorway between the Great Hall and the living room with my shoulder against the jamb, and my arms crossed as I took in the happy family tableau occupying my ancestral home.

  It was our first Christmas as a family in years, and my wife had somehow convinced her clan to travel across the pond and spend it here at Pearl Hall. Every year previously, we had flown to the States for the occasion, but Cosima was tired—three newborns would test a literal saint—and she wanted her family in her home to celebrate.

  I hadn’t properly understood her inclination until the current moment, watching my in-law’s children scurry around the imposing estate as if it was a playground, seeing my wife share the love of our home with her sisters and brother, and woo their partners with our history and amenities.

  Pearl Hall had felt like a true home the moment I’d reinstalled Cosima at my side as its mistress, and it felt like a palace once more the moment we’d brought Aidon home from the hospital, but this was the first time I understood that together, my wife and I were creating a new legacy for the place.

  It would never again be a cage for slaves or a prison for its heirs. Our children would grow up knowing it as a home as much as any other, a place of love and warmth with a new history built on loyalty and emotional generosity. They would impart this adage on to their children and from them their own, on and on until the legacy that had ended with Noel would be long forgotten and washed from the walls and grounds of Pearl Hall by many, many years of my family’s laughter.

  The scent of crushed autumn leaves and warm spice heralded her arrival before slender arms wrapped themselves around my middle, and Cosima pressed herself to my back.

  “Hullo, husband,” she said in a jaunty British accent.

  Her voice would never forget those last traces of her homeland, but more and more over the years, she had adapted to my British-isms and manner of speaking. I enjoyed the traces of my country in her speech. It was yet another reminder of all the ways I’d made her intractably mine.

  “Hullo, wife,” I replied, tugging her around to my front so I could take her face in my hands and look into her beloved golden eyes.

  In the first years of our reunion, I’d harboured a secret, horrifying belief that our love was too good to be true. That any minute, she would recognize the mistake she had made in choosing me and get the hell out of my life.

  But that moment never came.

  Instead, every day that I woke up beside her, it was to a particular look in her eye I’d come to understand was crafted only for me. It was a look that turned her eyes from solid gold to warm, honeyed butter, soft and pliable with love and submission for me.

  That expression was echoed in her money eyes then as I looked down into them, and I felt the mirror of that feeling take up inside my chest.

  “How did I get to be such a lucky bastard?” I asked her before taking her lips in a firm, punishing kiss.

  When I finally had my fill—for the moment—I pulled back and watched with wholly male satisfaction as she blinked dazedly a few times before recovering. She reached up to wrap her fingers around my wrists as they still held her face, and she smiled her million-dollar smile.

  “You know perfectly well how you managed it, Xan. You paid the price for me.”

  “Cheeky,” I scolded with a click of my tongue before I sobered and bent my knees slightly so that I was eye-level with her. “I paid the price not in wealth, but in sacrifice. Nearly four years without you was worse than any punishment had by Sisyphus or Tantalus.”

  “Agreed,” Cosima said with a firm nod before collapsing once more in a beatific grin. “Are you happy now, husband?”

  I looked over her head into the living room again as Cage Tracey began to play the piano, and Sebastian stood up to invite his mother to dance with him. Dante and Elena bickered over the game of chess they had started in the same spot Cosi had once played Noel before the fireplace while Aidon and Giselle carefully painted the trainset the former had received as an early Christmas present.

  It was so perfect as to be nauseating for a man who had not believed in love for the better part of his life.

  I told my wife that.

  She tipped her head back and laughed her raucous, genuine laughter. I let it wash over me as I held her in my arms, and when she righted herself, I gave in to the impulse to kiss her once more.

  The doorbell trilled throughout the house, causing everyone to pause in the revelry.

  We were all together, not a loved one forgotten, so it was curious that anyone would arrive on Christmas Eve to the closed estate.

  I was surprised the guard had let whoever it was through the gates without permission.

  That was until my wife smiled like the cat who was about to eat the bloody canary.

  “Topolina,” I drawled dangerously. “What have you done?”

  Her smile was wicked as she ducked out of my arms and scurried away to answer the door, impatiently shooing away Riddick as he tried to take the duty from her.

  I caught eyes with Sebastian as he stood with his mother in his arms, and we shared a moment of apprehension.

  We both had an inkling who Cosima might have invited into our home.

  Not who, but whom.

  A moment later, a male and female voice sounded from the Great Hall, and a moment after that, Giselle and Sin’s daughter and son were dragging in two people by the hand with Cosima following in the rear.

  “Look, papa,” Theo crowed to his dad. “Adam and Linnea are here!”

  The air in the room went flat, the jovial atmosphere doused with gasoline before it lit on fire a second later when the tall, admittedly gorgeous woman holding Theo’s hand said softly, “Hi, everyone.”

  I didn’t have to look at Sebastian to know he was bursting with rage and run through with hurt. Everyone else unfroze from their shock and gave in to their impulse to be polite despite the awkward situation. I remained standing in the door as the others greeted Sebastian’s ex-best friend and ex-lover, offering my solidarity to the brother-in-law I’d grown to respect and love.

  His eyes cut to me, and he tilted his head slightly in thanks.

  “Sebastian,” Adam Meyers said, his voi
ce strong and confident as he stepped forward after exchanging hellos with the rest of the family, eyes locked on the man across the room. “Come here and greet us.”

  “We just came to wish you a Merry Christmas, Seb,” Linnea said in her soft, lyrical voice, beseeching where Adam was commandeering.

  They made a striking couple standing there. Adam’s regal, stern bearing a result of his British aristocratic upbringing, whereas Linnea was faintly exotic and entirely beguiling with all that blond hair and bombshell physique tucked in a cashmere dress.

  Sebastian’s dark looks were a perfect foil and complement to the two, but standing across the room as he was, it was impossible to tell how physically or emotionally compatible they could have been together. Then or­—if the two newcomers had anything to do about it—now.

  “Sebastian.” Adam’s voice cut clean through the air between them like a bullwhip. “Come here.”

  Instantly, Sebastian moved forward even though his posture spoke of recalcitrance and humiliated anger. He reminded me of Cosima when I’d first brought her to heel, defiant and noble but deeply drawn to domination.

  I looked for her behind Adam and noticed her twin expression of bewilderment.

  Adam and Sebastian clearly had a greater history than we’d previously understood.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” I mouthed to my wife.

  She bit her lip and shrugged.

  Sebastian reached Adam, stopping toe to toe with him in belligerent defiance. They stared at each other for a long moment, energy crackling in the room so profoundly even the triplets were quiet in their crib.

  Finally, Linnea stepped forward, placing a hand on each of their vibrating chests like a lightning rod grounding them both.

  “Stop,” she ordered quietly. “You’re both making a scene, and this is Christmas. Give me a kiss, Sebastian, and then a tour of this gorgeous house.”

  The men stared at each other for another long second before Seb’s shoulders rounded slightly in defeat, and he turned to press a brief kiss to Linnea’s cheek.

  “Start with the east wing,” Cosima suggested, sweeping closer to place a comforting hand on her brother’s arm. “I’m sure they’ll both enjoy the chapel.”

  Sebastian gave her a tight nod and then made forward with Linnea’s hand tucked into his arm. Adam reached out and clamped his fingers on Sebastian’s shoulder so that he froze in his tracks. Without looking back at him, Seb stepped slightly out of the way and let Adam take the lead even though he didn’t know his way through the Hall.

  Cosima and I shared another look as the trio left the room and the air flattened like stale pop.

  “Well, cazzo,” Dante said, shattering our shocked silence. “That was more sexual tension than I’ve seen since Elena first met me.”

  Elena socked him in the arm and then laughed when Cage nodded in agreement.

  We’d all had our fair share of romantic turbulence, and apparently, according to my meddling wife, it was time for Sebastian to finish out his.

  I lifted an arm so she could fit into my side when she came to me and then pressed my lips into the fragrant hair over her ear to murmur, “I think I’ll have to punish you for that little stunt, my beauty. We were looking forward to a peaceful Christmas.”

  The love of my life looked up at me out of the corner of her golden eyes, a cheeky smile creasing her cheek as she said, “Do you think the only reason I did that was for Seb? I was looking for a reason for you to punish me. I was tired of being good.”

  “Ah,” I said as Aidon called out for me to look at his trains. “When everyone is tucked into bed, I’ll have to tuck you into the St. Andrews cross and remind you just what happens when you’re bad.”

  The End.

  Thank you so much for reading ENAMOURED!

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  If you loved reading about Cosima’s dark love story with her enigmatic Master Alexander, you’ll want to find out what happens to his mafioso brother, Dante!

  Add Dante’s Book to your Goodreads TBR now so you don’t miss his epic mafia romance!

  You can also read about Cosima’s sister Giselle right now for a chance to uncover the mystery of her affair! Find out what happens when Giselle takes a vacation before reuniting with her family in New York City, and meets the French billionaire Sinclair. He is everything she never knew she wanted, but he’s also taken…

  One-click The Affair now!

  5 HOT STEAMY AFFAIR STARS!! Get ready for a hot steamy one-week holiday affair with twists and turns. Sexy Sinclair knows what he wants which is beautiful Giselle and he goes for it. These two will heat the pages up and suck you into their story.—Goodreads reviewer 5 stars

  Turn the page for an excerpt from The Affair…

  Preview of The Affair

  (The Evolution of Sin Trilogy, Book 1)

  Excerpt

  Meet Cosima’s sister, Giselle, and her Frenchman in The Affair!

  Is a week of passion enough to warrant changing their lives forever?

  Italian born Giselle Moore is reinventing herself for the second time in her short twenty-four years of life, trading in her bohemian artist’s life in Paris for the grit and glamour of New York City where the family she hasn’t seen in years awaits her. But before beginning her new life, she travels to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico searching for a week of relaxation and reprieve before barreling into her turbulent future.

  She never expected to meet the handsome and enigmatic Frenchman Sinclair on the plane and she certainly never would have imagined herself accepting his proposal for a weeklong, no-strings-attached affair. Giselle has never experienced anything as heady as Sinclair’s controlled seduction and cool yet devastatingly erotic commands and she finds herself powerless to stop the ferocity of their passions, even when she discovers he has a partner back home. The last thing she needs in her life is another complication, yet as the week wears on, she finds it surprisingly easy to relinquish control to Sinclair, a man she knows nearly nothing about. And to her horror, the one thing she promised never to submit, her battered heart, is just as easily captured in the business mogul’s unyielding hands.

  Chapter One

  Rain pounded against the steaming tarmac and the force of the wind slapped each drop against the oval window beside my head so that the grey of the runway, the rolling clouds and the Vancouver skyline blurred into one. The rain calmed my nerves, and I closed my eyes to better hear the tap and whistle of weather outside the tin machine that had—somewhat precariously—carried me from Paris to Vancouver in just fewer than seven and a half hours. We were deplaning a third of the passengers and then refueling to make the last leg of the journey to my final destination, Los Cabos, Mexico.

  I took a deep breath and tried to focus on my happy place while the economy passengers filtered off the plane. The flight was necessary and after twenty-four years of travelling, I should have been used to the bump and grind of air travel.

  In theory, I was. Before every flight I waited calmly in the endlessly snaking line to check my bags, greeted the attendant with a genuine smile and agreed that yes, I would have a pleasant flight. It wasn’t until I was on the plane, secured in my seat by the tenuous hold of the belt, that the fear kicked into supercharge. I was intensely grateful to my younger brother Sebastian for loaning me the money for the first class flight. At least now, if the plane went down, I would have a bigger seat to cushion the fall.

  “You still look a bit green, cherie.” The middle-aged gentleman beside me leaned forward and offered me his unopened water bottle. “The worst is over, though. I hope someone is picking you up in Mexico, you are in no shape to drive after all of…” He waved politely at the remaining travel sickness bags the flight attendant had passed to me twenty minutes into our flight.

  I managed a weak smile for Pierre. He was a fifty-year-old bachelor, quite distinguished really, with
steel grey hair and cunning brown eyes. And maybe, under different circumstances, he would have propositioned me. As it was, he had offered to pay someone to switch seats with him when he discovered how sick I was. Failing that, he had settled in with relatively good grace and lectured me on the tricks of international trade law to distract me. Everything considered—I had managed to drool on his Hugo Boss blazer while I dozed between throwing up—I was grateful to him.

  “No, but I’ll catch a taxi to the resort.” At the moment, I wasn’t looking forward to my enforced vacation. All I wanted was to step off the plane back in my familiar Paris and slip into the small wrought iron bed in my studio apartment in St-Germain-des-Prés.

  Pierre nodded, and shot me a sidelong look. “Are you going to be alright now?”

  He was getting off now to visit his daughter and newborn grandson. He didn’t like North America, and I got the feeling he was lingering just to eke out a few more words in his native tongue before switching to English.

  I nodded meekly but before I could respond the deeper voice of someone behind us spoke, “If you will allow me, I think you are leaving her in capable hands.”

  I opened my eyes when Pierre nudged me indelicately with his elbow and cleared his throat. Immediately, I blinked.

  The man who stood before us dominated the entire aisle. His dusky golden skin stretched taut over his strong features, almost brutally constructed of steeply angled cheekbones and a bladed nose. I had only the vague impression that he was tall and lean because his eyes, a deep and electric blue like the night sky during a lightning storm, held me arrested. The way he held himself, the power of his lean build, and the look in those eyes reminded me of a wolf, caged within the confines of civility but eternally savage.