She looked at him as if he had lost his mind, but he had to forge ahead.
“We both grew up too fast, neither of us fitting into the world we lived in. I was alone despite all my brothers and sisters, just like you were alone in your world of privilege.”
The urge to touch her had become overwhelming. Only sheer ironclad control kept his hands to himself. She had to come to him. She had to reach out. Not because of his pride. But because he understood that he couldn’t force her to love him.
“I realize I should have told you that I had known you forever. But you have to understand that it was you who got me through the years of wanting to run. Just seeing you, reading about you, reminded me of the goal. Yes, you reminded me of the kind of prize I could have if I became a strong, important man—the kind of man, whether moneyed or not, who would gut it out and take care of those kids. Like or not, it was the tease of you that made me want to be a man that I can be proud of today.
“But what I’ve learned since you walked into my office is that the reality of you is far different from any photograph. You’re a fighter, a survivor. You don’t have a pampered bone in your body. Instead of whining and taking money from me or anyone else, you pushed up your sleeves and did what you had to do.”
His control was barely held. He wanted to pull the ponytail holder from her hair and peel their clothes away until he could sink his body into hers, finding the peace he had never known until her.
But still she stood apart from him, her expression hard and set. His heart pounded with the thought that maybe this would be one battle he could never win, that she would always turn away from him.
Habits died hard, and he nearly stopped right then, his pride surging up. But he quashed it.
“The minute you took the job as the girls’ nanny I saw that you weren’t a pampered princess. You were never the shallow person I wanted to believe you were. I love you. And I have since I was ten years old. Can you forgive me for taking so long to admit it?”
He was almost certain he saw her wall crumbling.
“I love everything about you,” he added relentlessly.
Her delicate brow furrowed. “Everything? No matter what I wear?”
He smiled and nearly touched her cheek. “I love you, Vivienne. I love everything about you, including your blue sky ceilings, your jangle of bracelets . . . and the incredible enthusiasm you have for other people and the unique passion for life that burns through every inch of you.” He saw a flicker of something that told him to keep going. “If you can love me just a fraction of how much I love you, I promise it will be enough.”
She looked at him, her pearl white teeth sinking into her lower lip. “Even if I wear my Girl Scout Honor T-shirt?”
“Especially if you wear your Girl Scout Honor T-shirt.”
She dropped the unused paintbrush onto the paper, her lip beginning to tremble with a fragile smile. “I mean really, what are the chances that either one of us will ever change a whole lot? I’m not sure I can see you not giving commands. And truth to tell, I really am more sequins and feathered mules than khakis and respectable shoes.”
Unable to help himself, he took a step closer until they stood just inches apart. “I can live with that. Can you? Can you accept me for who I am?”
Her eyes went wide with understanding—each of them had to accept the other. Then she was in his arms, holding on tight.
“Yes, I can,” she whispered. “Oh, Max, I love you.”
A tide of relief swept through him, and he laughed as he swung her around. “Then say you’ll marry me. Say you’ll be my bride.”
Epilogue
The room was dark except for the single flicker of a flashlight, casting a tiny face in an eerie glow.
“Shhhh, let me finish,” Lila whispered, her voice hushed, as each of the eight seventh-grade girls in their sleeping bags huddled closer. “The storm got worse, with snow and wind coming through an old vent as she sat alone.”
Jennie Harland, the most popular girl at Morehead Middle School, shivered in her girl-power nightshirt. Cheerleader Tiffany Sewell pulled her sleeping bag up to her chin, then leaned closer to Missy Crandall, who wasn’t all that popular but was really smart and had become an important part of Lila’s new circle of friends. No one could deny that Lila’s twelfth birthday was an unmitigated success.
But none of that mattered just then.
“What happened next?” Jennie wanted to know, her pretty face scrunched up in anticipation.
“Just then the door burst open, bringing the hero in with a gust of swirling white snow.”
The girls squealed their delight.
“How did he find her?” Tiffany breathed.
“He was given her diary. A good thing, as it turned out. Which led him to her.”
“What did they do then?”
“He swept her up in his arms and carried her out of the old building like a knight in shining armor.”
“Ahhhh,” the girls sighed.
“But that’s not all.” Lila leaned forward dramatically. “He brought her home to his hacienda and set her in front of the fire.”
Each of the girls turned dreamy.
“Then he kneeled before her, taking her hands in his.”
Jennie sat up straight. “And he kissed her!”
Tiffany came up on her knees. “He pulled her down onto a bearskin rug and had his way with her!”
“No way!” Missy stated, pushing her glasses up on her nose, much as Lila did. “I bet he opened his shirt and placed her ice-cold hands against his chest to warm them.”
The adolescents got wide-eyed and nearly swooned.
“Actually,” Lila interjected in her no-nonsense voice, “he proposed.”
Instantly the girls sighed.
Lila enjoyed the attention as much as she was enjoying her new friends. Without warning, the difficulties of junior high had become less difficult. Even Nicki had a new friend, one she had yet to tell Max about, but that would come. And the sisters knew that Vivi would pave the way, since the new friend was none other than Steve Bonner. While he wasn’t a freshman, he was a completely respectable sophomore, and if she had to, Lila was fully prepared to inform Max that he should feel lucky that Nicki had switched brothers.
“Hurry, hurry, tell us how he proposed,” Jennie said.
Vivi stood out of sight, her robe wrapped close around her against the springtime chill. She sighed, much like the girls did, as she leaned her head against the doorjamb, remembering.
She felt the instant Max stood behind her, felt his heat. He smelled like wild summer grasses—and joy. He was her hero, and her love.
Pulling her back against him, her whispered in her ear. “What are you doing out of bed?”
“Just checking on the girls.”
“Is Lila telling ghost stories?”
Vivi smiled. “No, she’s telling the romantic story of how Maximilian and Viviandi got married. She calls it ‘The Wedding Diaries.’ ”
Max chuckled, the sound warm and deep against her skin. “Has she mentioned yet Viviandi’s wicked stepmother fighting at the reception with her flaky mother?”
“My mother is not flaky.”
“I would never call your mother flaky. I’m referring to the fair Viviandi’s mother. Especially when I can say much worse about your parents, since they left shortly after the first toast at the reception.”
“They’re traveling.”
“They’re always traveling.”
“True,” she said with a shrug.
He kissed her hair.
The girls suddenly sighed again and Max chuckled. “They must have gotten to the part where Maximilian swept Viviandi up in his arms and carried her to bed and made love to her all night long.”
“I hope not,” she scoffed in a whisper. “They’re only twelve.”
She could feel his heated smile, and when he lifted her in his arms, she protested. “I want to hear the rest.”
“Not to worry,�
� he offered, carrying her upstairs, laying her in the bed they had shared since their wedding night. “I just happen to know how it ends.”
Max came over her, supporting his weight on his elbows, his strong palms cradling her face.
“All right,” she said, with a grin. “What comes next?”
“As the story goes”—he kissed the delicate skin above her eyes—“the gallant, extremely good looking Maximilian kneeled before the kind of wenchy Vivi—”
“I am not a wench.”
“—knowing that he couldn’t live another day without her at his side.”
A shiver raced through her. “Despite her smart mouth?”
“Because of her wonderful mouth.” He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. But when she would have melted into him, the tale forgotten, he pulled back and chuckled. “Don’t you want to hear the end?” he teased.
Vivi giggled, much like the girls downstairs. “Yes, yes, tell me what he said.”
“I’ve waited a lifetime for you, and I won’t let you go again.”
Vivi’s smile turned into a swooning sigh.
“And even if it takes the rest of my life, I will do whatever it takes to make you my bride.”
Vivi felt tears burn in her eyes, half-joyful, half-embarrassed. The story had become something of a legend in the short time she had been Max’s wife. He had indeed made her his bride, marrying her on Christmas Eve, just as she had always dreamed, in a surprise ceremony that had moved her as nothing had in her life.
“I love you,” she whispered. She bit her lip. “I love you because you’re good and kind. And I love you because you accept me despite my silly dreams.”
Every ounce of humor fled, his face growing dark. “It wasn’t a silly dream, Vivienne. And I was a fool to have thought it was—I realized that the minute I found you in that rundown office building while your parents stayed at the Camino Real.”
She felt confused. “What are you talking about? What did you realize?”
“That your dream of marrying at Christmas had nothing to do with being spoiled. You wanted to marry at Christmas so that for the rest of your life you didn’t have to spend the holiday alone.”
A piercing happiness filled her, and she felt amazed again and again at how this man understood her, this man who she had been certain was everything she didn’t want.
Suddenly he leaped up from the bed like an excited kid.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I have a surprise.”
He looked young and carefree as he pulled out a box. Her breath caught when he came back to her, and she sat up on the bed.
Reverently she pulled off the top and found a beautifully tooled leather-bound book.
“What is this? The Baby Diaries?”
His smile crooked at one corner, his hand running up her calf beneath her long flannel gown. “I thought it was time you had something else to write about.”
“But I thought that after raising your brothers and sisters, you weren’t ready for children.”
Suddenly the diary was tossed aside and he had her on her back, his strong body arching over hers. “I wasn’t ready for a lot of things until I met you.”
He kissed her then, and Vivi held on tight, relishing the feel of him.
“You know,” she whispered, “they say it takes courage to find a happy ending.”
Max laughed out loud. “Then with you around, we’re guaranteed to find one.”
And when he kissed her again, she knew she had already found her happy ending—in this man, and in whatever else the future tossed their way.
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The Wedding Diaries is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
An Ivy Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2003 by Linda Francis Lee
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