by Jennie Lucas
Shivering in her thin white T-shirt and tiny knit shorts, she closed the door, turning back inside. She had family, she told herself. Her sister had just texted her from Vermont, to tell her that the ski slopes were snowy and beautiful. Yuna’s family was already stuffing Nicole with Christmas cookies and eggnog.
I think I’m going to be all right. It might take a while. But the New Year is just around the corner.
Holly smiled wistfully. Her little sister had truly grown up.
Then with a shake of her head, she started tidying up the small interior of the rustic chalet. The Christmas decorations were still up from last month. Nothing had been changed. She blessed her former employer’s frantic schedule for keeping him too busy to arrange for her possessions to be packed and sent to New York.
Picking up her grandmother’s old quilt from the back of the tattered sofa, Holly wrapped it around her shoulders. Taking a freshly baked sugar cookie from her chipped ceramic Santa cookie jar, she bit into it and sat down, staring at the fire.
Even the fire was different here. At Stavros’s penthouse in New York, the flames had been white and without heat, fueled by cold gas, over elegant stones. Here, the fire was hot enough to warm up the cabin, fueled by split logs she kept on her porch.
When her neighbors had heard of Holly’s return, they’d rushed to welcome her. Elderly Horst, bright-eyed and spry, had brought her a small Christmas tree, which he’d hewn from the nearby forest. Kindly, plump Elke had brought sugar cookies, decorated by her grandchildren.
So Holly wasn’t alone. Not really. And she’d tried her best to make Freddie’s first Christmas special. Her eyes lifted from the roaring fire to the two homemade knit stockings hanging over it. Before she went to bed tonight, she’d fill them with the oranges and peppermints that Gertrud had brought her, and the bag of homemade candies from Eleni. Not that Freddie could eat them yet, but at least he’d know he was loved...
The car lights outside grew brighter. Holly wondered if someone was visiting one of her neighbors. Elke’s son from Germany, perhaps. Horst’s brother from Geneva.
Her gaze trailed to her Christmas tree, now sparkling between the stone fireplace and the small, frosted-over window. She’d decorated it with big colorful lights and the precious vintage ornaments from her childhood. The only thing she’d left untouched in her family’s old Christmas box was the garland of red felt stars. The tree seemed sparse without it. But she just couldn’t.
When she’d made Stavros his homemade red felt star, she’d hoped it would start a new tradition for their marriage—blending his sophisticated Christmas tree with her own family’s homespun style.
She’d only remembered her gift on the plane, when it was too late to take it back. She wondered if Stavros would even notice it, tucked amid the branches of his artificial tree, or if Eleni would toss it out with his other unwanted things.
Like Holly.
A lump rose in her throat. No, that wasn’t fair. Stavros had been clear all along that he would never love her. She was the one who’d tried to change the rules. She was the one who, in spite of all his warnings, had given him her heart.
She heard the sudden slam of a car door outside, followed by the crunch of heavy footsteps in the snow. Had another neighbor decided to visit, this late on Christmas Eve? It had to be. Who else could it be—Santa Claus delivering toys for Freddie from his sleigh?
She set down the barely tasted cookie on the saucer next to her cold cocoa. Rising to her feet in her fuzzy bootie slippers, she glanced down worriedly past her mother’s gold-star necklace to her old white T-shirt, so thin it was almost translucent, showing not just the outline of her breasts, but the pink of her nipples beneath. Her knit sleep shorts were so high on her thighs that they were barely better than panties. She’d dressed for solitary sobbing and brokenhearted cookie-snarfing, not to entertain guests.
A knock rattled the door, reminding her of Marley’s ghost in A Christmas Carol. Pulling her grandmother’s quilt more tightly over her shoulders, she came close to the wooden door. Quietly, so as not to wake the tired baby sleeping in the next room, she called, “Who is it?”
For a moment, there was no answer. She wondered if she’d somehow imagined the knock, by a trick of a passing car’s lights and rattle of the icy winter wind. Then she heard her husband’s low, urgent voice.
“Holly...”
Now she really knew she was dreaming. She ran a trembling hand over her forehead and looked back at the sofa, half expecting to see herself still sleeping there.
“Holly, please let me in. Please.”
It couldn’t be Stavros, she thought. Because he never talked like that. He didn’t plead for her attention. Please was a foreign word to him.
Frowning, she opened the door.
Stavros stood there, but a different Stavros than she’d ever seen.
Instead of his sharply tailored power suit and black Italian cashmere coat, he was dressed simply, in jeans, a puffy coat and knit beanie cap. And somehow—it didn’t seem fair—his casual clothes made him more handsome than ever. He looked rugged, strong. The vulnerability in his dark eyes, shining in the moonlight, made her heart lift to her throat.
“What are you doing here?” she breathed.
“May I come in?” he asked humbly. “Please.”
With a shocked nod, she stepped back, allowing him entrance to the cabin. Her knees felt so weak, she fell back against the door, closing it heavily behind her.
He slowly looked around the room, at the homespun ornaments on the Christmas tree and two stockings above the roaring fire.
“It’s Christmas here,” he said softly. He looked at her, and his black eyes glowed above his sharp jawline, dark with five-o’clock shadow. “The Christmas I always dreamed about.”
She said hoarsely, “What do you want?”
With a tentative, boyish smile, he said almost shyly, “I want you, Holly.”
Her heart twisted. Had he come all this way just to hurt her? To taunt her with what she’d never have? “You came all this way for a booty call?”
Slowly, he shook his head.
“I came to give you this.” Pulling his hand out of his jacket pocket, he opened it. The red felt star she’d made him as a gift rested on his wide palm.
Looking down at it, she felt like crying. Why had he come all this way? To reject her homemade gift? To throw it callously in her face? “Do you really hate me so much?”
“Hate you?” Shaking his head ruefully, he lifted her chin gently with his hand. “Holly, you had no reason to love me. I made my position clear. I was scarred for life. I had no heart to give you. All I could offer was my name, my protection, my fortune. That should have been enough.”
Holly couldn’t move. She was mesmerized by his dark, molten eyes.
“But it wasn’t.” His lips curved at the edges. “Not for you, my beautiful, strong, fearless wife.” He ran the tips of his thumbs lightly along the edges of her cheekbones and jaw. “You wanted to love me, anyway,” he whispered. “Even if it cost you everything, heart and soul.”
Holly shuddered beneath his touch, unable to speak.
“And now...” Stavros paused, and to her shock she saw tears sparkling in his dark eyes, illuminated by the firelight and the lights of the Christmas tree. “There’s only one thing left to say.”
She held her breath.
His dark gaze fell to the tiny gold necklace at her throat. Taking her hand in his larger one, he pressed something into her palm. Looking down, she saw the red felt star.
“You’ve changed my stars,” he whispered.
She looked up. His handsome face was blurry from the tears in her eyes. She saw tears in his gaze that matched her own.
“I love you, Holly.” Stavros put his hand against her cheek. “So much. And when you and Freddie left me, it was like I’d lost the sun and
moon and Christmas, all at once.”
She searched his gaze. “You...” Licking her lips, she said uncertainly, “You love me?”
He gave a low, rueful laugh. “I think I loved you since last Christmas Eve, when I first saw you in that red dress, standing in the candlelight of the old stone church.”
With a snort, she shook her head. “You didn’t act like it...”
“I hid my feelings, even from myself. I was afraid.”
“You didn’t want to be a conqueror,” she murmured.
“I didn’t want to be conquered.”
“Conquered?” She choked out a laugh. “As if I could!”
He didn’t laugh. “When I met you, for the first time in my life, I wanted marriage, children. I thought it was just because I wanted a legacy. Because I believed I was dying. But it wasn’t.”
“It wasn’t?”
Stavros shook his head. “It was because of you. You made me feel things I’d never felt before. And after we slept together, I knew you could crush me if you chose.” He took a deep breath. “So I pushed you away. I was afraid of hurting you. But more. I was afraid you could destroy me.” Cupping her cheek, he looked down at her intently. “But I’m not afraid anymore.”
“You’re not?” she whispered.
“My heart is yours, Holly,” Stavros said humbly. “My heart, my life, are both in your hands.” His voice became low as he looked down at her hands, clasped in his own. “Can you ever love me again?”
For a moment, Holly stared at him.
Then her heart exploded, going supernova, big enough to light up the entire world. Gripping his hand, she led him to the tree and gave him the red felt star. “Put it on our tree.”
With an intake of breath, Stavros searched her face. What he saw there made joy lift to his eyes. Tenderly, he placed the homemade star on a branch of the fresh-cut tree. Reaching into her family’s Christmas box, she pulled out her mother’s garland of red felt stars, which she wrapped beside it, around the tree.
“Now,” she whispered, facing her husband with tears in her eyes, “it’s really Christmas.”
Love glowed from Stavros’s handsome face. Then his expression suddenly changed. His dark gaze lowered to her breasts.
Holly realized that when she’d bent to get the garland, the quilt had slid off her shoulders to the floor. Her husband’s eyes trailed slowly over her thin, see-through white T-shirt and the tiny knit shorts. Her body felt his gaze like a hot physical touch.
“Stavros,” she breathed.
Pulling her into his arms, he kissed her, his lips hungry and hard. His jacket flew off, followed by his knit hat.
And as they sank together to the quilt on the floor, bodies entwined, Holly felt not just passion this time, but true love and commitment. The cabin was fragrant with pine and sugar cookies and a crackling fire. She’d never known joy could be like this.
And as her husband made love to her that night, on the quilt beneath the sparkling tree, Holly knew that even with the ups and downs of marriage, they’d always be happy. For there was nothing more pure than true love begun on Christmas Eve, when all the world was hushed and quiet, as two people spoke private vows, holding each other in the silent, holy night.
* * *
Three babies crying, all at once.
Stavros looked helplessly at his wife, who looked helplessly back. Then Holly’s lips suddenly lifted, and they both laughed. Because what else could you do?
“I’m sorry,” Eleni sighed, standing on the snowy sidewalk as she held the hand of Freddie, now fourteen months old, wailing with his chubby face pink with heat and lined with pillow marks. She continued apologetically, “I shouldn’t have woken him from his nap. But I was sure he’d want to meet his new brother and sister.”
Holly and Stavros looked at each other, then at their hours-old babies behind them in the third row. Stella and Nicolas had both seemed to agree, with telepathic twin powers, that they hated their car seats. They’d screamed the whole ride home from the hospital. After one particularly ear-blasting screech, Stavros had seen Colton, his longtime, normally unflappable driver, flinch beneath his uniformed cap. As if they hadn’t already shocked the poor man enough by trading in the Rolls-Royce for the biggest luxury SUV on the market.
And that wasn’t even the biggest change. Six months before, when they’d discovered Holly was pregnant with twins, they’d decided to move to Brooklyn, of all places.
“Our kids will need friends to play with,” Holly had wheedled. “And I want to live near the other secretaries from work.”
“You’re friends again?”
“Most of them were finally able to forgive me for marrying a billionaire.” She flashed a wicked grin. “In fact, when you’re grumpy at the office, they even feel a little sorry for me...”
“Hey!”
“The point is, I don’t want to raise our kids in a lonely penthouse. They need a real neighborhood to play in. Like Nicole and I had when we were young.”
Eventually, Stavros had agreed. Now, he shook his head. If his father could only see him now, living in Brooklyn, surrendering to domestic bliss—and liking it! Aristides would swear Stavros wasn’t his son!
His father had replaced him with a son more to his liking, anyway. After Nicole and Oliver’s divorce was settled last summer, his cousin had soon found himself dumped by his wealthy lover. Facing the daunting prospect of finding a job, he’d gone to visit his Uncle Aristides in Greece, and never come back.
Now Oliver would never have to work, and Aristides had the perfect wingman to help pick up girls in bars. It was a perfect solution for them both, Stavros thought wryly.
Luckily, his wife’s family wasn’t as embarrassing as his own. Nicole was apparently settling in nicely to her new life in Vermont, working as a schoolteacher and dating a policeman. The relationship didn’t sound serious yet, but he was sure he’d hear all the details when Nicole arrived tomorrow morning for Christmas breakfast. Whether he wanted to or not.
“Oh, dear,” Eleni said, pulling him from his thoughts as she peered into the SUV’s back seat with worried eyes. Freddie continued to noisily cry in harmonic counterpoint to his younger siblings. “Do you need help, Stavi?”
“May I help with the babies, Mr. Minos?” Colton offered. For Eleni to offer help wasn’t unusual, but for his grizzled driver to offer to provide baby care was unprecedented. The crying must be even louder than Stavros thought.
“Yes. Thank you.” In a command decision, Stavros snapped Stella’s portable car seat out of the base first, then Nicolas’s. He handed the first handle to Eleni, who capably slung it over one arm, and the second to his driver.
“We can manage,” Holly protested beside him.
“I have someone else to worry about.”
“Who could be more important than our babies?”
Stavros looked at his wife. “You.”
She blushed, and protested, “I’m fine.”
Fine. Stavros shook his head in wonder. Holly had spent most of yesterday, her twenty-ninth birthday, in labor at the hospital, then given birth to twins at two that morning. She should have remained in the hospital for another week, relaxing and ordering food as nurses cared for the newborns. But it was Christmas Eve, and she’d wanted to come home.
“We have to be with Freddie for Christmas, Stavros,” she’d insisted. “I want to be in our new home, waking up together on Christmas morning!”
Even though mother and babies were healthy, Stavros had been doubtful they’d be allowed to leave the hospital just twelve hours after delivery. But Holly had been adamant. The instant she’d gotten her doctor’s slightly bemused approval, she’d insisted on coming home.
That was his wife, he thought, shaking his head in admiration. Determined their family would be happy, and letting nothing stand in her way.
“Wait
,” Holly called as Eleni and Colton and Freddie started up the steps of their brownstone. “I can help—”
Now it was Stavros’s turn to be adamant. “No, Holly. Be careful!”
“Wait,” she cried after her children, pushing herself up from the seat before he saw her flinch and grimace with pain.
Setting his jaw, he lifted her from the SUV in his powerful arms, cradling her against his chest.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“Taking care of you.”
“It’s not necessary—”
“It is,” he said firmly. “You look after everyone else. My job—” he looked down at her tenderly “—is looking after you.”
And he carried her up the stoop, into their five-story brownstone.
The hardwood floors creaked, gleaming warmly as the fire crackled in the hundred-year-old fireplace. Holly had decorated the house for Christmas with her family’s homemade decorations. They hadn’t expected the babies to arrive early. They weren’t due until January. Although when, he thought ruefully, did any Minoses let other people’s expectations stand in their way?
When Holly had gone into labor yesterday, she’d stared at the three stockings on the fireplace with their embroidered names, and cried, “The twins can’t be born before Christmas. I haven’t made them stockings!”
Now, as Stavros carried his wife past the five stockings hanging on the fireplace, he smiled with pride when he heard her gasp.
“Nicolas... Stella—you got them Christmas stockings!” Holly looked up at him in shock. “Their names are even embroidered!”
His smile widened to a grin. “Merry Christmas, agape mou.”
“But—” She looked at him helplessly. “How? You were with me at the hospital the whole time!”
Stavros looked down at her. “I have my ways.”
“Santa? Elves?”
Lifting a dark eyebrow, he said loftily, “Call it a Christmas miracle.”
