Christmas Day
‘WE’REHERE. I guess Aldo’s place is the house on the left.’
Ellie watched Alex’s jaw clench as his gaze roamed over the row of houses in the up-and-coming Brooklyn neighbourhood. Fairy lights hung from the porches of the wood-framed buildings that stood in an orderly line on top of sloping snow-covered lawns. Three storeys high, Aldo’s house was painted in dark green with white trim, had a wraparound porch and a peaked roof with dormer windows. To add to the building’s vintage charm, a couple of crooked snowmen stood in the front yard.
Alex looked so uncomfortable Ellie still couldn’t quite believe he’d agreed to accept Mia’s invitation yesterday evening. Or that he’d followed through on that decision this morning.
So far the day had been everything she could have hoped for. Fun and magical but also unbearably poignant.
She’d woken up, groggy and a little emotional, surprised to find the bed empty beside her. But also glad. They’d made fast frantic love last night when they’d returned from the restaurant, after a meal she’d barely been able to swallow. Basking in the afterglow, she’d almost blurted out the truth about how she felt to Alex.
But luckily, she’d managed to hold back. She wanted above all to end this affair with dignity. Which meant she needed to get her emotions under control. She’d almost blown it completely when—after a breakfast of fat pancakes and fresh berries—Alex had handed her a slim black velvet box in front of the Christmas tree. The beautifully designed silver lattice necklace inside, studded with what she was very much afraid might be real sapphires, had taken her breath away.
And made her eyes sting with unshed tears.
Her first instinct had been to refuse the lavish gift. Where on earth would she ever be able to wear it? Plus it had probably cost him about five thousand times what she had spent on the knitted beanie cap she’d found to replace the ones of his she’d managed to trash in the last few weeks.
But when he’d lifted the stunning necklace out of the box and hooked it around her neck, then pressed his lips to her nape—making the familiar fire sparkle and leap over her skin—she hadn’t been able to find the words to refuse the gift. They’d made love again, with her wearing only the necklace, but she could still feel the distance growing between them—his detachment, the air of wary tension as real and vivid as the way he could command her surrender with the strong overwhelming thrust of his body into hers.
And so as they’d showered and got dressed for the trip to Brooklyn she’d said nothing about the stupidly over-the-top gift, because it seemed to fit perfectly with the nature of their whole relationship. Beautiful and giddily exciting but ultimately a fantasy.
She would keep the necklace with her always—even if she would never wear it again—as a memento of the first man she had ever loved. And a reminder not to beat herself up too much for making such a fundamental mistake. Alex Costa was an overwhelming man, in so many ways, so was it really any surprise she’d let her reckless heart get the better of her? Despite all her best intentions.
The good news was, she wouldn’t have had it any other way. He’d given her so much in the short time they’d been together and she refused to regret it. After all, anything this good was always bound to hurt when it was gone.
‘Looks like he did a good job of the remodelling,’ Alex said absently.
‘Mia said you bought all the houses on this block for your family?’ she said. ‘That was incredibly generous of you,’ she added, thinking it wasn’t the actions of a man who didn’t care.
Alex frowned. ‘Not really, I bought the block at a knock-down price eight years ago, because it was ear-marked for demolition. Seemed a shame as a lot of these buildings are historic. They just needed some care. The family were still living in the Bronx, wouldn’t have looked good for my corporate image if the press had got hold of the story. So I gave them a budget to do their own building works—they came in well below budget. Costa Tech has a share in the equity. So it’s a win-win financially and my PR team was in heaven. Believe me, it wasn’t a gift, it was a smart business decision. I didn’t do it out of the goodness of my heart.’
‘Okay,’ Ellie murmured, wondering why he found it so hard to admit he cared about his family. The siblings now all lived together in a beautiful area of Brooklyn, something they couldn’t possibly have financed on their own, but he’d also found a way to preserve their pride by letting them contribute their labour.
‘Unfortunately, they refuse to see it that way,’ he murmured, turning back to stare at the row of beautifully preserved houses. He gave a heavy sigh. ‘They’ll be back from Mass by now, let’s get this over with,’ he said.
‘We don’t have to go in there, if you don’t want to,’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘It’s not that big a deal,’ he said, and she wondered if he was trying to persuade her or himself. ‘And we don’t have to stay too long.’
But after they got out of the car, and she retrieved the bottle of wine and the bunch of winter blooms they’d bought as a hostess gift, she could tell itwasa big deal. He took hold of her hand and squeezed her fingers as he led her up the path to the porch, then tensed at the sound of laughter and conversation from inside the house.
She could see him struggling to relax as he pressed the bell.
Seconds later a woman flung open the door, wearing jeans and a Christmas sweater covered by an apron, and with a tinsel crown perched on a tumble of dark curls. Tall and statuesque with the same lavish good looks as and similar colouring to Alex, the woman had to be one of his sisters.
Her chocolate-coloured eyes widened, her cheeks flushing with colour as she gasped.
‘Hey, Arianna,’ Alex said, his voice gruff and deceptively casual.
The woman, who Ellie now realised was Alex’s oldest sister, pressed a hand to her mouth, the raw emotion in her eyes making them shine.
‘Sandro,’ she whispered. A brilliant smile split her features, turning stunned emotion to fierce joy. ‘I can’t believe you’re here.’
‘Me either,’ he replied, still tense, still wary, but his tone rough with emotion now too. And suddenly Ellie knew what he had told her all those weeks ago in Central Park wasn’t true. Maybe he wanted to believe he didn’t need this connection, didn’t want to be a part of this family, but this reunion meant as much to Alex as it did to his sister.
Arianna shrieked and threw her arms around his neck. He caught her, his hands holding her steady, as tons more people began crowding into the doorway—men and women all with the same stunning bone structure and dark good looks shouted greetings, slapped Alex on the back and introduced themselves to Ellie while a gaggle of children ranging in age from early teens to the newborn in their host Aldo’s arms made as much noise as possible.
As they were led into the house surrounded by so many people of all ages the smells of roasting meat and garlic, herbs and spices infused the bright airy space filled with conversation and laughter. The love these people had for Alex was so real and all-consuming and the welcome they gave her too—for ‘finally getting Sandro to take his head out of his ass and come see us’, as his brother Matteo had put it—so warm and generous, she found herself blinking back tears herself.