by Alison Kent
Faith leaned back against her sofa cushions and popped the top of her beer. “I’ll agree with that. What are you hopeless about today?”
Annie stopped pacing in front of the doorway that led down the stairs to Faith’s café just long enough to shoot her friend a dirty look. “What do you think?”
Faith put a finger against her cheek and cocked her head. “Hmm. Let me think. Brent?”
“Very astute.”
“So what’s the problem? From my perspective, you two are hitting it off just fine. Mission accomplished and all that jazz.”
“Except I think I got a little bit more than I bargained for.”
Faith took another drink, then spread her arm across the back of the couch. “Oh? Tell.”
Annie licked her lips, sure that she was blushing. “I think I’m falling in love with him.”
Faith laughed. Not exactly the response Annie had been expecting.
She propped her hands on her hips. “Do I laugh at your love life?”
“I’m sorry,” Faith said, clearly trying to hold back another round of chuckles. “It’s just that that’s so yesterday’s news.”
Annie frowned. “Excuse me?”
“You know. Old news.” Faith waved her hand in the air. “I could tell just from watching you two the other day. This is the real deal.”
She wanted to deny it, to say she couldn’t possibly be falling in love with Brent Carrington. But as fast as it had happened, as whirlwind as it had been, she knew it was true. Brent matched her and filled her in a way no other person ever had. They may have only spent a short time together, but she knew without a doubt that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.
“I guess the bigger question is, what are you going to do about it?”
Sucking in a deep breath, Annie stood up straighter, hoping good posture would give her the courage she needed. “I only see one option, really. I mean, it’s a risk. He might not want me.” She licked her lips, not liking that prospect at all.
“So what are you saying?”
“Just that as much as I want to move to New York, I want to make this work. I need to at least try.” She ran her fingers through her hair, sure in her heart that Brent was worth the sacrifice, and hoping beyond hope that he loved her, too. “I’m thinking I’ll keep my job and stay here in Bishop.”
Faith’s eyes went wide as she focused on something over Annie’s shoulder.
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” The familiar deep voice drifted over her from behind, and her pulse increased as her body reacted automatically to his nearness.
She spun around, wondering just how much of their conversation he’d heard. “Brent! Um, hi.”
“Am I interrupting?”
“No, of course not.”
“The door was open. I just walked up.”
Annie exhaled in relief. If he’d just arrived, he must not have heard everything. It might be the truth, but she wasn’t yet willing to share her realization that she was falling in love with this man. Not until she was sure that the feeling was reciprocal.
Brent’s earlier words settled in, and Annie faced him square on, her brow furrowed. “What do you mean, am I sure that’s what I want to do?”
“Staying here,” he said, and her stomach tightened. Had she read him wrong? Was this really just a fling for him, and he wouldn’t welcome having her near? “Considering your dream job’s in New York, staying here seems silly.”
“Silly?” She clenched her fists, hoping against hope that he wasn’t about to tell her there was nothing between them.
“Well, sure,” he said, taking her hands in his. His dimple flashed, and the band around her heart loosened. “What’s the point of you being here if I’m living in Manhattan?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
ANNIE HELD HER BREATH, wondering if she’d heard him right. “You’re moving to New York?”
“That’s my plan.” Brent shrugged. “I was kind of looking forward to you being there, too. But…” He trailed off, amusement dancing in his eyes.
Annie opened her mouth, but couldn’t seem to form words.
From behind her, Annie heard the shuffle of pillows. “I think that’s my cue to exit,” Faith said, then headed down the stairs.
He held out a hand for her, and she came willingly, knowing that in his arms was exactly where she wanted to be—and exactly where she belonged.
Slowly, as if savoring every tiny touch, he traced his finger down her neck, following the V line of her sweater. The room was toasty warm, but she shivered anyway.
His fingers dipped under the cashmere, then traced the lace of her bra. She moaned, low and in the back of her throat. More. She wanted to beg for more, but her voice didn’t work, and so she could only hope in silence that he understood her desire.
Of course he did, and she stifled a groan of pure pleasure as his rough fingertips met the soft skin of her breast. He grazed her nipple, teasing with the lightest of touches designed to drive her over the edge. “Oh, Brent,” she whispered.
“Mmm?”
She wanted answers—wanted to know why he was moving to New York. But she knew he’d tell her soon enough. And right then, she couldn’t think anyway. Couldn’t even focus. Heck, she could barely form words, managing only to force out her simple request—“More.”
With a low, guttural groan, he dipped his lips to her neck, tasting and teasing as he worked his way lower. “Are you very attached to this sweater?” he whispered.
In answer, she grabbed the hem and pulled it over her head. “You can burn it for all I care.”
He laughed. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” he said, then kissed a trail from her neck to her breast, teasing the sensitive skin.
His tongue laved her nipple, her skin puckering in a sweet parody of pain. He was torturing her with his hands, stroking and exploring. And with every little touch, she seemed to melt a little bit more.
He still wore a jacket and T-shirt, and she reached out, urging the jacket over his arms until it dropped to the floor. She concentrated next on her bra, needing to feel nothing but Brent and air against her skin. Releasing the clasp, she wriggled out of the thing, even while managing to wriggle closer to Brent.
“Take your shirt off,” she demanded, wanting to melt under his heat.
He complied, then urged her to the couch. She tugged at his waistband. “You need to lose these.”
“A woman who knows what she wants,” he said. “I like that.”
“Yeah?” She cocked her head. “And what is it you want?”
“I figured that was pretty clear by now. I want you, Annie,” he said, his voice low and raw. “I want you now, and I want you in New York.”
It took every ounce of strength in Brent’s body not to make love to her right there. Etiquette, however, suggested that he wait until they reached his apartment, and so they simply cuddled together, curled up in each other’s warmth and enjoying the last few minutes before they braved the cold and let Faith have the apartment to herself.
As he stroked her skin, he knew he’d never be happier than when he was with Annie. She made him feel whole. As if he’d been looking for the other half of himself and had finally found it in her.
With a little sigh, she shifted off his lap, nestling against him on the couch as he tightened his arms around her. After a few minutes, she looked up, her eyes wide and questioning.
“Why?”
“Because I want to be near you. I don’t want to lose you, Annie. Not ever. Not if I can help it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the long velvet box. “Merry Christmas.”
Her eyes lit up. “But I haven’t gotten you anything.”
“You’ve still got time. According to my dad, there are plenty of shopping days left.” He nodded to the box. “Open it.”
She did, revealing the delicate chain and the silver heart pendant. “Brent, it’s beautiful. Thank you.”
“You’ll always be in my heart.�
� He grinned, lazily stroking her thigh. “And I hope you’ll be in my bed, too.”
She laughed. “You won’t get any argument from me.” She paused then, licking her lips.
His heart tightened. Surely she wasn’t having doubts. He’d bet his soul that she felt as he did, but what if he’d been wrong? “But?” he urged, taking the plunge.
“But New York.” She sat up, pulling away, but not letting go of his hands as she faced him. “How can you just pack up and leave?”
“Do you want me there?” He had to hear her say it.
“Of course. But you’ve got your job here. The family business. Everything.”
“You mean more.” He sighed, then kissed her palm. “I never wanted to work at Carrington’s. But Dad pushed, and I gave in, and I ended up with an M.B.A. I didn’t want and didn’t need. I had a long talk with him this afternoon. He doesn’t completely agree, but he’s supporting my decision.”
“What did you want?”
“Law school. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and I recently applied to four schools. I got into all of them. I’m planning on going to Columbia starting next semester.”
“Columbia’s in New York.”
He pulled a face of mock surprise. “You don’t say?”
She laughed, then turned serious. “Is that the school you want to go to?”
He saw the insecurity on her face. “It’s exactly where I want to be.” Brushing away a loose strand of hair, he met her eyes. “I don’t want to rush you. If you’re not ready, or if you don’t want—”
“No!” Her cheeks flushed a delightful shade of pink. “I mean, of course I want you, too. Can’t you tell?”
“I’d hoped.” Oh, how he’d hoped.
She nibbled at her lower lip. “What about your dad? I’m not exactly from the same breeding stock as a Carrington.”
He laughed, knowing that despite the sarcastic tone she was truly concerned about his relationship with his dad. “Don’t worry. We had a long talk. He knows how I feel, and he understands. And he’s pretty impressed with you, what with all your academic achievements and now this new job.” He shrugged. “My dad’s a tough nut, but eventually he cracks.”
She snuggled against him. “Good.”
He stroked her hair. “I love you, Annie. It hit me fast and hard, but I can’t deny the truth. And the truth is, I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said, as the weight of the world lifted from her heart. “I think I always have, and I know I always will.”
Snuggling back into his embrace, she let out a contented sigh. “Who would’ve believed it?” she asked.
“What’s that?”
“That all my Christmas wishes would come true. And it’s not even Christmas yet.”
Closing his eyes, Brent hugged her tighter, this woman who, for the first time he could remember, had brought pure joy to him for the holidays…and beyond.
A Sicilian Marriage
Michelle Reid
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
NINA did not want to listen to this. In fact she was so sure she didn’t that if she hadn’t been sitting in her own home she would have seriously contemplated getting up from the lunch table and walking out.
As it was, all she could do was stare glassy-eyed at her mother and silently wish her a million miles away.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Louisa said impatiently. ‘You may like to think that the state of your marriage is none of my business, but when it is I who has to listen to ugly speculation and gossip about it then it becomes my business!’
‘Does it?’ Her daughter’s cool tone said otherwise. ‘I don’t recall ever questioning you about the many reports on your various lovers throughout the years.’
Her mother’s narrow shoulders tensed inside the fitted white jacket she was wearing, which did so much for her fabulous dark looks. At fifty-one years old, Louisa St James could still pass for thirty. Born in Sicily, the youngest of five Guardino children, Louisa had taken the lion’s share in the beauty stakes, along with her twin sister Lucia. As small girls they’d wowed everyone with their black-haired, black-eyed enchantment, and when they’d grown into stunning young women besotted young men had beaten paths to the Guardino door. Now in her middle years, and with her twin sadly gone, Louisa could still grab male attention like a magnet. But a lifetime spent being admired had made Louisa so very conceited that Nina could sometimes see by her expression that she was bewildered as to how her womb had dared to produce a child that bore no resemblance to her at all.
Nina was tall and fair, and quiet and introverted. She looked out on the world through her English father’s cool blue eyes, and when trouble loomed she locked herself away behind a wall of ice where no one could reach her. In her mother’s Sicilian eyes the burning fires of all the passions were alien to her daughter, and she tended to treat Nina as if she did not know what they were.
‘Your father made me a widow ten years ago, which means I am allowed to take as many lovers as I choose without raising eyebrows,’ Louisa defended, completely ignoring the way she’d been taking lovers for most of Nina’s life. ‘Whereas your marriage is barely out of the honeymoon stage and already gossip about it is hot!’
Hot? Nina almost choked on the word, because the last thing she would have called her marriage was—hot. Cold, more like. A soulless waste of space. A mistake so huge it should be logged as an official disaster!
‘If it’s just gossip you’re concerned about then you’re talking to the wrong person,’ she responded. ‘Rafael is your culprit—go and talk to him.’
With that she got up, not quite finding the courage to walk out of the room but doing the next best thing by going to stand in front of the closed glass doors that led out onto the terrace.
Behind her the thin silence feathered her slender backbone. Her cold indifference to whatever her husband was doing had managed to shock her mother into stillness—for a moment or two.
‘You are a fool, Nina,’ she then announced bluntly.
Oh, yes, Nina agreed, and she stared out towards the glistening blue waters of the Mediterranean and wished she was on the little sailboat she could see gliding across the calm crystal sea.
‘Because it is not only gossip. I saw them together for myself, cara and even a blind woman could not mistake the chemistry they were generating it was so—’
Hot, Nina supplied the word because it seemed much more suitable now than it had earlier.
Her mother used a sigh. ‘You should keep him on a much tighter leash,’ she went on. ‘The man is just too gorgeous and sexy to be left to his own devices—and you know what he’s like! Women fall over themselves to get closer to him, and he doesn’t bother to push them away. He could charm a nun out of her chastity if he put his mind to it, yet how often are you seen at his side? Instead of isolating yourself up here on your hilltop you should be out there with him, making your presence felt—then she would not be trying to get her claws back into him and I would not be sitting here having to tell you things that no mother wants to—’
‘Where?’ Nina inserted.
‘Hmm?’
Turning around, Nina was in time to watch her mother blink her lovely long black eyelashes, having lost the main plot of her exposé because she’d been so much more comfortable lecturing her daughter on things she knew very little about.
‘Where did you see them?’ She extended her question.
‘Oh.’ Understanding returned, sending those slender shoulders into an unhappy shrug. ‘In London, of course…’
Of course, Nina echoed—London being the place Rafael spent most of his time these days, which was pretty ironic when she was the Lond
oner and he was the Sicilian.
‘I was eating out with friends when I spotted them across the restaurant. Someone’s mobile was ringing. When it just kept on, I looked up, and that is when I saw them. I was so shocked at first I just stared! I watched him pick his ringing cellphone up off the table, and without taking his eyes off her face he switched it off and put it in his pocket!’ Louisa took a tight breath. ‘I had this horrible feeling that it was you calling him, so to watch him do that made me—’
‘It wasn’t me,’ Nina said, though she had a good idea who the caller had been.
‘I am so relieved to hear you say that. I cannot tell you how it felt to think that you might need him and he—’
‘Did they see you?’ she cut in.
Her mother’s smile was dry, to say the least. ‘Darling, they were being so intense across that candlelit table for two that they didn’t see anyone,’ she said. ‘I thought about going over there to confront them—but, well…It was just a bit embarrassing to witness my son-in-law getting it on with my niece in public.’
‘So you left them to it?’
‘It could have been innocent.’
But it wasn’t, Nina thought—and how did she know that? Because this particular woman was more than just her mother’s niece.
‘And that is not all of it,’ Louisa pushed on. ‘I saw them again later on, going—going into your apartment building.’
‘How unfortunate for them,’ Nina drawled. ‘Did you follow them there, by any chance?’
Dark eyes gave a flash of defiance. ‘Yes, if you must know. I did not like what I was seeing, so I thought I would keep an eye on them! She should not even be in London,’ she tagged on stiffly. ‘New York is her hunting ground, and it would have been better for all of us if she’d just stayed there.’
‘So you spied on them going into our apartment building…?’ Nina prompted.
Louisa looked pained suddenly. ‘I could see them through the glass doors, Nina! They were standing there, waiting for the lift to come. He—he was touching her face while she gazed up at him. It was all so…’
