This Christmas and Forever: A heartwarming anthology of billionaire holiday romances...

by Clare Connelly

  The response was automatic. Her fingers seemed to throb with recognition, so strong that her eyes flew, startled, to his. Antonio’s reaction was unreadable, but how could he fail to feel what she felt?

  A picture of Alastair came to mind, with his intelligent eyes and sweet smile, and she yanked her hand free, rubbing it against the back of her skirt to remove any hint of the treacherous and strange whirlpool of desire that had overtaken her.

  Was he laughing at her? His eyes seemed to mock her reaction and Elizabeth’s cheeks warmed with embarrassment.

  “This way,” he drawled, almost sounding impatient.

  The kitchen was down another flight of stairs, and it was as cavernous and enormous as it was well-equipped. Mentally, she added a tick to the column she was making in favour of holding the Ball at Ravens Manor. A large kitchen like this would easily accommodate the caterers. Her eyes scanned the facilities until they landed on the electric dumb waiters in the center. Undoubtedly they would convey meals to a large banquet room upstairs. Perfect for the function.

  “Are you hungry?” Her host asked, his voice muffled by the refrigerator. He was rifling through containers and bottles, and as he bent to pull something out, muscles she hadn’t even known existed rippled on his back. She flicked her eyes back to the dumb waiter. Much safer.

  “No, thank you.”

  She didn’t see the way Antonio’s lips curved into a sneer of derision. He was used to women who starved themselves to fit into couture. His mother had been one of them, and many of the women he’d taken to his bed, also. Strange then, that he was now so sick of such a stupid vanity. This woman was so slim she looked as though she might blow away in the breeze. If ever he’d seen someone in need of a meal, it was her.

  “You will eat,” he said, pulling another tub out of the fridge. “If you want my attention, that is.”

  Elizabeth was taken aback. Even during her medical studies, she’d never been spoken to like that. As the lowliest intern at the hospital on Brompton Road where she’d met newly diagnosed Alastair, she’d been met with respect. Never, not once, had she had to deal with such imperious bad manners.

  “I said I’m not hungry,” she responded haughtily, tilting her head so that she could stare at him down the length of her nose.

  “And I said that you’ll have a meal with me, if you want another moment of my time.” His eyes were steel-like with determination and Elizabeth forced herself to see the bigger picture. The Ball was all that mattered. If she had to put up with this arrogant man, then so be it.

  “Are you going to force feed me?” She couldn’t resist asking, moving to the island bench and perching her rear on a timber stool.

  “If I have to,” he responded, dropping his eyes to her lips. His insolent inspection should have angered her, but it just made that strange lurching in her tummy all the more noticeable.

  “I’ll eat,” she rushed to assure him, watching as his fingers arranged various antipasti on a wooden board.

  “We’ll see.” His grin was strange, like he was judging her, or angry with her. It was a dark emotion; one that she, who had been adored her whole life, couldn’t possibly comprehend.

  Elizabeth had to start again. She forced a smile to her face, unconscious of how the expression made his gut clench with a strong force of attraction. He lowered his eyes to the ring she wore, reminding himself that his mother had spent her whole life disregarding the vows of marriage. He was not like her. Nicoletta hadn’t cared about anyone, especially not her children. And nor had the men she’d slept with. He wasn’t going to become one of those men to this woman, no matter how damned attractive she was.

  “My name is Lady Sanderson,” she began, looping a finger through her pearl choker and fingering the shiny orbs thoughtfully. “And I need your help.”

  Antonio raised his eyebrows, curious despite himself. “You need my help?”

  “Yes.”

  Antonio speared a piece of bocconcini and lifted it towards her. When Elizabeth didn’t take the fork, he pushed it further forward, pressing the creamy morsel against her equally rich looking mouth.

  Elizabeth gasped, her eyes wide, and her mouth open, so that Antonio was able to press the cheese inside. It was delicious, but she hardly tasted it. Her insides were churning with a strange mix of emotions, and a moist heat had formed in her most private core. His eyes held hers as she chewed and swallowed the circle.

  And despite his best intentions, which really were honourable, Antonio reached across the bench and caught a tiny drip of oil that had escaped from the corner of her mouth with the pad of his thumb. She was quite stunningly gorgeous, he thought, as he ran his thumb along her soft skin, chasing the drop back to her mouth.

  “This is quite inappropriate,” Elizabeth remarked, her voice thin as she pushed to her feet.

  “I don’t disagree.”

  Elizabeth stalked a few paces, away from him, and his seductive near nakedness. “This is a professional matter,” she said angrily, injecting as much coolness into her voice as possible, given she was completely awash with an out-of-nowhere lust.

  “And are you professionally desirable, Lady Sanderson?” He asked mockingly, his frustration directed at her as well as himself.

  “Stop it,” she implored, once more fingering her wedding ring. “I didn’t come here to be hit on.”

  “Then why did you come to my house, looking like that?”

  Her frown was infinitesimal. “Like what?”

  “Like you’ve just walked out of a fashion shoot. Dressed to impress.”

  Elizabeth’s laugh crackled through the electricity that was arcing between them. “Most certainly not for your benefit.”

  He shrugged, then lifted a piece of bocconcini to his mouth and bit into it. Elizabeth watched as he ate, grappling with the impact he was having on her.

  “You might have noticed the house next door has burned to a crisp?”

  “The house next door? Bashir?” Antonio nodded grimly. “I thought your name was familiar. You’re one of the people responsible for letting that historic property go up in flames?”

  “Yes,” she said simply. For she was. “It was an electrical fault.”

  “Not surprising. I heard some of the wires dated back to the turn of the twentieth century.”

  She grimaced. “It was on my list of things to do,” she said.

  “You’re as rich as Croesus, or so I’ve been told. Why the hell didn’t you get it seen to sooner?”

  She thought of sweet Alastair, who’d adored the home just as it was, even with its buzzing electricity and slow-to-respond lights, and a wistful smile blew across her face. “Silly reasons, really, in retrospect.” She wrapped her arms around her waist now, staving off the coldness of the kitchen and the grim chill of her thoughts.

  “In any event,” she said with a small shake of her head, “the charity Ball I host every year will need a new venue.”

  He had listened to her patiently, a little distracted, actually, by the way her breasts were pressed against the fabric of her coat, and the way her face infused with passionate colour as she spoke, but now, he forced himself to pay closer attention. “Surely you can’t be suggesting Ravens Manor as an alternative?”

  “Actually,” she said with a wry smile, “that’s exactly what I’m suggesting. And I should warn you, I don’t intend to take no for an answer.”

  Chapter 2

  Antonio leaned back against the fridge, crossing his legs at the ankles. “I don’t like the idea of opening my property, and life, to strangers. I can’t help you, Lady Sanderson.”

  “Call me Elizabeth,” she said automatically. The title had always felt heavy around her neck. She used it only as needs must, such as she had done that day.

  “Elizabeth,” he repeated, his accent slight as he repeated her name. “It is quite impossible.”

  She had expected objections. She was not deterred. “You haven’t even heard me out,” she said reasonably.

 
; “I don’t need to,” he said, his eyes boring into hers. “The last thing any of us need is an army of attention seeking socialites dragging the spotlight onto the Casacellis. Again. This family has had enough drama for a lifetime.”

  Elizabeth had no recollection of any such fuss. Then again, raising her daughter and running Alastair’s foundation had taken up most of her free time. She wasn’t sure she even knew who the president of the United States was. Whatever scandal had attached itself to this Adonis – and she was in no doubt women, and therefore all sorts of broken hearted mess – had paved his past, she didn’t frankly care.

  “It won’t involve drama. I’ll keep your name out of it.”

  His smile was derisive. “Hardly possible.”

  She arched a perfectly sculpted brow. “You obviously think rather highly of yourself and your importance.”

  He narrowed his laser like stare. “I was raised a Casacelli. I’ve never doubted the interest our family generates. It is a double edged sword. One I’m sure you’re familiar with.”

  She dipped her head in silent concession to the point he had made. She used her title and status as a society princess to further the aims of Alastair’s foundation though. Which made any inconvenience associated with her high-profile totally tolerable.

  “It’s for a good cause,” she said, trying another tack. Surely a man such as this would have a conscience somewhere beneath his chiselled chest?

  He made a grunt of disdain. “I’m sure. Women like you always have a good cause to rally behind.” He pushed up from where he was leaning, a study of casual elegance. “Does it make you feel good about an otherwise vapid existence? To put your name behind a charity or something?”

  A cold stone of pain lodged somewhere in Elizabeth’s ribcage as she digested his words. “You think I’m just a bored housewife, looking for a bit of feel-good titillation?”

  He walked with a languid grace, slowly bringing himself within a few feet of her. “You tell me.”

  “It’s not like that.” She tried to focus on the prize. She needed a venue. Arrogant piece of judgemental meanie aside, Ravens Manor was still the best option. Her voice was shaky when she spoke. Elizabeth had never enjoyed confrontation, but that didn’t mean she’d shy away from a fight. “You must have heard of the ball? It’s an institution.”

  Up close, she couldn’t help but be mesmerised by his face. It really was spectacularly unfair that someone with such a horrible personality should be so stunningly blessed in the looks department. Unconsciously, she stepped back a little.

  Antonio’s smile was pure hot lava. “I live in Rome. British society events don’t hold much sway for me.”

  She sighed exasperatedly. “It’s not a society event. Well, not simply a society event. It raises hundreds of thousands of pounds. It’s a dinner and an auction, attended by the crème de la crème of European celebrities and dignitaries. Even people from Rome,” she drawled pointedly. “And it’s beautiful. A truly lovely evening.”

  “You said you raise funds for a good cause. What is it?” He asked seriously, his eyes unreadable as he studied her face.

  “Cancer research.” Her words were steady but the loss she’d endured never failed to make her ache deep inside.

  “And what is your interest in cancer research?” He asked with an almost undetectable sneer. “Or is it just the most fashionable cause to parade under the banner of?”

  Her mouth dropped open. Clearly she’d underestimated just what kind of bastard she’d be dealing with. If he hadn’t hoodwinked her with his astounding good looks, she would have seen it sooner. He was horrible!

  “I’m a doctor,” she said quietly. “Or rather, I was. Oncology was my area of study.”

  Antonio was rarely surprised, and yet now, he felt oddly disconcerted. He had not expected her response. “I see,” he said with a small nod.

  “Do you?” She narrowed her eyes. “Somehow, I doubt it.”

  “Why did you stop studying medicine?” He asked, honing in on her use of the past tense.

  “I got married,” she said simply, forgetting for a minute that this man seemed to want to see only the worst in her.

  Sure enough, his lips curled in a sarcastic grimace. “And you thought becoming Lady Sanderson was more desirable than getting your hands dirty with a real job?”

  Elizabeth took in a deep breath, trying and failing to quell her temper. “What the heck happened in your life to make you such a cynical bastard?”

  Again, she had surprised him, and he fought the urge to recoil at her words. “I am simply observing what I see,” he responded throatily.

  “Yeah? You know what I see?” She dragged her eyes up the length of his body, and it occurred to her to wonder why the heck he wasn’t wearing a shirt on a freezing cold November day. But she pushed the irrelevant query from her mind. “I see a man who is small-minded, judgemental and ignorant. Someone who is determined to see the worst in everyone. How can you turn my work into something trivial and selfish? And to reduce my marriage to a… a… social advancement!” She spun her diamond ring around her finger, praying for the sense of closeness to Alastair that it usually afforded.

  “You have just admitted as much yourself. You were a doctor, or on your way to becoming one, and you quit to marry a man with a title. Or am I wrong?”

  He wasn’t. But what he didn’t understand was that she’d met Alastair when he was already terminal. She’d loved him instantly, and her medical degree hadn’t seemed to matter as much as spending every moment she could with him. There would be time, she had reasoned then, afterwards, to return to her vocation. Only Rose had happened instead, and the hours required to establish a medical career had felt untenable, even with the help of her parents in law. None of these facts were things she was at all tempted to share with this man. He deserved no such enlightenment.

  “The Ball is Christmas Eve. I have everything organised. Caterers, accommodation in the town, or transportation back to London, insurance, advertising. Obviously, we don’t pay a hire fee for the use of Bashir, but I have a little room in the budget if you require a fee for the use of your venue.” She reached into the lining of her coat and fished out a business card. “Let me know by the end of the week what you decide.”

  Antonio tossed the card onto the kitchen bench. “I can tell you right now, Lady Sanderson, the answer is absolutely no.”

  It wasn’t Agnes’s fault. She was simply mopping the tiled floor outside his office. He appreciated the glean of the floor. This is what she was paid to do. But the sound of the water slopping against the floor was frustrating. It was incessant. With a muffled curse, he unfolded his six and a half foot height and strode to the door of his office.

  “Agnes?”

  “Sir?”

  He felt a strange stab of guilt. The housekeeper he’d inherited with the purchase of Ravens Manor had to have been in her sixties. She had told him, in those first few days, as he was deciding which staff to keep and which to let go, that it was the only job she’d ever had. And though he didn’t possess a remotely sentimental bone in his body, he had felt pity for her. Besides, she was good at what she did.

  He compressed his lips. “You don’t have to do that now, do you?”

  “Am I disturbing you, Signore Casacelli?”

  “Yes.” He shaped his lips into a smile to soften his curt response. It wasn’t Agnes that had him feeling restless and bad-tempered. Nor was it the embarrassment with his mother. And it wasn’t even his oldest brother Marcos’s irritating ability to call when it was least convenient, that had got Antonio riled. After all, as far as Marcos and Niko were concerned, Antonio had simply dropped off the face of the earth. He’d seen no reason to enlighten them to more of his spectacular personal drama than was necessary.

  No. This was something else entirely. A short, slender, shockingly beautiful woman, with eyes the colour of the azure ocean had been haunting him for three days, since she’d stormed out of his home in high dudgeon.
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br />   “Agnes,” he ran a hand through his hair, wondering absentmindedly when he had last cut it. “Lady Sanderson, who was here the other day. What do you know of her?”

  Agnes brought a whole new scope to the phrase ‘a stiff upper lip’. She was so quintessentially British, completely unemotional, yet he knew his request had surprised her.

  “Not much, sir. Just the basic facts, of course. She’s of a high profile family, and so one can’t help but hear bits of information from time to time. I’ve never cared much for local gossip, of course.”

  “Of course,” he conceded, fully aware he was asking her to enter into idle gossip now. “What of her husband?”

  Agnes pressed the mop into the stainless steel bucket then took great pains to wring her hands on the soft linen of her apron. “Such a sad story. Lord Sanderson. Alastair was his name. A kind man. I met him myself a few times.”

  “Was?”

  “Sir?”

  “You said it was his name?” Antonio probed impatiently.

  Agnes tutted wistfully. “Yes. I suppose he would have passed several years ago now. Amazing how that time has gone.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Yes. Cancer. Dreadful sudden, it was. His poor parents were so heartbroken they couldn’t stay in the area. They moved to the Lakes just afterwards.”

  Antonio focussed on a point in the wall behind Agnes’s bony shoulder. An odd sensation, something akin to remorse, frothed in his gut. He’d thought she was just a bored society wife, and he’d been wrong. For one thing, she was no longer married. Which meant she was available.

  He made a sound of angry frustration, at his own insensitive desire for the woman. How had he gone from hearing she had been widowed to deciding that made her available in the space of three seconds flat? Had he no morals? Apparently not.