He sighed. “Monet, you’re not like other women. And you are not convenient. You are actually most inconvenient as you demand things of me that no one else demands. You want things I have stopped believing in. You force me to rethink everything I have viewed as truth.”
For a moment she couldn’t reply, was too busy processing his words and wondering what they truly meant. Was he trying to placate her? If only she didn’t doubt him.
They were interrupted by a knock on the door, and Marcu pulled on a shirt and went to open the door. One of the kitchen staff carried in a huge tray and placed it on a side table before leaving. Breakfast was cappuccinos and a basket of warm rolls and fluffy scrambled eggs. Monet didn’t think she was hungry and yet she ate everything on her plate, and then had an additional roll with butter and jam.
“This was most indulgent,” she said with a sigh, stretching. “Thank you.”
He took her hand and carried it to his mouth, kissing her knuckles, and then turned her hand over, his lips brushing the inside of her tender wrist. “If you were my wife, we could do this every weekend.”
“Marcu, don’t start on that again.”
“Why not? I think we should discuss it, seriously—”
“No. It’s not right, and it’s not real, and to be perfectly honest, this isn’t even about me. You don’t really want me—”
“But I do. I want you. I don’t even know what that means other than I want you in my life, I want you in my home, I want you to be part of my future.”
“And your children? How do they play into this?”
“You like my children.”
She drew her hand away, and pressed it to her chest, trying to slow the wild beating of her heart. “I adore your children, Marcu, but the last thing they need is confusion. And our relationship would confuse them, just as you confuse me.” She drew another short painful breath. “You told me in London you didn’t even want a wife. You told me you were marrying Vittoria just because you needed someone for the kids—”
“And you said that was the wrong reason to marry. You said, hire better child care,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And you’re right. I don’t need you for my children. I need you for me. I need you, Monet. I can imagine a future without you, but I don’t like it. I don’t want that future. I want a future with you.”
She climbed off the bed and shook her head, feeling trapped and cornered and overwhelmed. “I have to go,” she said under her breath. “It’s time to go.”
“The roads aren’t clear yet.”
“They will be, soon.”
“It’ll take a day, maybe two.”
“What about your helicopter?”
“They have to plow the roads to get to the helipad. That’s still a fifteen-to-twenty-minute drive from here.”
She closed her eyes, hands in tight fists. “As soon as the weather permits, I would like to leave.”
“Understood.”
“I also ask that you say nothing to the children. They do not need to be part of this.”
“Agreed.”
“And when I do go, you must reassure them that I loved spending time with them, and that I am only going so that their Miss Sheldon can return.”
“If that is the script...?”
She hated his mocking tone. It only flamed her temper. “You dragged me into this.”
“Yes, I did, and I’d keep you here, kicking and screaming, if it was the Middle Ages, but it’s not, so I will return you to London as soon as I can.”
“Good.” She found her nightgown and robe and picked them up. “And we won’t do this again...we can’t. The children won’t understand, and it would only confuse them if they discovered me here with you.”
“Whatever you think best,” he said, watching her from his side of the bed.
“I don’t appreciate your sarcasm.”
“I’m sure you don’t. Monet Wilde is clever and independent. She needs no man, and she’s certainly no pushover.”
She stiffened in outrage. “I don’t need a man, no. And I don’t need a minder, or a keeper, or someone to think for me. I’m not my mother—”
“Mio Dio,” he snapped, flinging back the covers and leaving bed. “Not this again.”
“You seem to think—”
“No! You seem to think, or fear, that you are like her. You are not like her. You have never been like her, and that’s neither criticism or praise. It’s just a statement of fact. You are you, and Candie was Candie and I would never ever confuse you for her, not for a second.”
Monet bit into her lower lip to keep it from quivering. “I think the less I have to do with you until I leave, the better.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll go see to the children now.”
“I wish you would.”
CHAPTER TEN
MONET SAW NEXT to nothing of Marcu for the rest of the day, as well as much of the following day, which was Christmas Eve and yet one wouldn’t know it from the lack of festivities.
Monet had done her best to keep the children entertained and happy. Yesterday they’d built snow people—because Rocca didn’t believe they should be called snowmen when she only made snow girls—and this morning they’d gone sledding. After lunch they’d bundled up again and returned outside to go ice skating on the frozen pond behind the castello.
They’d just laced up their skates when Marcu suddenly appeared at the pond, with his own skates. He looked dashing in his black parka.
Monet’s heart jumped at the sight of him, and her hands shook as she finished tightening Antonio’s skates.
“I’ve got that,” Marcu said, lifting Antonio’s skate to adjust the knot.
Monet silently moved away, leaving him to tie the other skate.
Rocca clapped her hands with pleasure, thrilled to have her father with them. The children swarmed Marcu as he got on the ice with them and Monet kept her distance, letting Marcu and the children play.
Everyone skated for an hour before Marcu said it was time to go back to the castello and warm up. As they entered the castello they discovered that the staff had prepared a treat—hot chocolate and cookies awaited them—and again Monet hung back, feeling strange. She’d told him yesterday that she didn’t want to have anything to do with him, and yet she’d thought of him endlessly and missed his company. It was even worse when he was near and they weren’t speaking, or looking at each other.
“Time for you to bathe and change,” Marcu said to the children. “It’s Christmas Eve and we’ll have our traditional dinner in two hours in the dining room.”
The children smiled hopefully at each other as Monet steered them from the room. “You’re welcome to join us,” Marcu said casually. “But if our traditions make you uncomfortable, I understand.”
Monet turned in the doorway. “I spent six years with your family in Sicily. Six Christmases and never once was I uncomfortable.”
“Bene. I’ll see you with the children in two hours.”
The Christmas Eve dinner was exactly as she remembered from Palermo—the same dishes, the same aromas, the same flavors—stirring past memories, and making her think of Sicily, and the lovely times she’d had there, as well as memories of her mother. She’d loved her mother, but it had been such a complicated relationship. Maybe that was okay. Maybe love was complicated and that was okay, too.
She sipped her wine and listened to Marcu and the children talk, and then after the dessert—again, an Uberto favorite from Palermo—they went to the music room and Marcu shocked her by sitting at the piano and playing songs for the children, and not just any s
ongs, but Christmas carols.
The children didn’t seem surprised to see him at the piano. They gathered around him and Antonio leaned against his father as Marcu’s fingers moved deftly over the keys. And then he began to sing, and she blinked hard, fighting a wave of emotion, thinking she hadn’t heard this song in years and years. It was an old carol, a haunting Italian carol, and it filled her with tenderness.
Marcu and the children would be fine. Marcu loved his children. She didn’t have to worry about any of them.
And then it was time for bed, and Marcu said he’d walk his children up to the nursery and tell them a story and listen to their prayers.
Monet nodded, and smiled, happy for them. “Good night,” she murmured. “Buon Natale,” she said as they parted at the nursery door.
“Buon Natale,” the children chorused.
Marcu gave her a peculiar look but said nothing and she went to her room, and prepared for bed, and then fought tears for the next hour before she finally fell asleep.
* * *
Monet’s breakfast arrived on a tray the next morning, carried to her room by Marcu. She hastily dragged a hand through her messy hair, smoothing it. “Good morning,” she said huskily.
“Buon Natale,” he said, placing the tray on the table in front of her couch. “I see you have the lights on your little Christmas tree plugged in.”
“I’ve enjoyed my tree very much.”
“I’m glad.” He hesitated. “We’re having a party here, later this afternoon,” he added carelessly, as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. “The guests will be arriving at four. The children have party clothes in the nursery if you don’t mind helping them dress before.”
“Of course I don’t,” she answered, astonished. “And when did you decide to have this party?”
“Over the weekend.”
“You never mentioned it before.”
“I wasn’t sure if the weather would hold, and I didn’t want them disappointed.”
He gave her a pointed look. “This was Rocca’s idea. Apparently you’ve been reading The Nutcracker to my children, and Rocca very much wants to be Clara.”