Christmas Contract For His Cinderella

She’d started downstairs at the register in hats and gloves, and then when they were short-staffed in bridal, went to the fifth floor to fill in, and had never left the bridal department. If others thought she was too young to be the manager of the department at twenty-six, no one said so, because despite her age, she had style and flair and an eye for quality. Monet wasn’t entirely surprised. She was her mother’s daughter after all.

“I know this is a lot to take in so I propose we postpone further conversation until you’ve finished here, and we can go to dinner and relax and have a civilized discussion.” Marcu gave her an encouraging smile. “It will give you an opportunity to ask the questions that I’m sure will come to you—”

“But I have no questions,” she interrupted, refusing to fall for his charm, painfully aware that in the past she’d found Marcu nearly irresistible—and he knew it, too. He knew exactly how to play her, just as he’d successfully played her eight years ago. She had no wish to fall in with his plans again and rose, indicating she was finished with the conversation.

“Marcu, I have no interest in this position. It’s pointless to continue as I have no wish to waste your time, nor do I wish to waste my own. I’m to return here early tomorrow morning and I still need to find a missing gown before Mrs. Wilkerson descends on us again.” She drew another short, tight breath. “I wish I could say it was good to see you, but that would be a lie, and after all these years there is no point in either of us lying to the other.”

“I never imagined you to be vindictive.”

“Vindictive? Not at all. Just because I can’t fall in line with your plans doesn’t mean I harbor you ill will. You were important to me once. But that was years and years ago.”

He rose as well, and he towered over her now. “You made me a promise, Monet. I’m afraid you can’t say no...at least not yet, not until you have heard me out, and you haven’t. You don’t know the details. You don’t know the time frame. You don’t know the salary, or the benefits.”

She threw up her hands. “There are no benefits to working for you!”

“You once loved us. You used to say that we were the family you never had.”

“I was young and naive. I know better now.”

“Did something happen after you left Palermo? Did something occur that I do not know about?”

“No. You know everything.”

“Then why so much scorn and hatred for my family? How did they hurt you?”

She couldn’t immediately answer, not when her emotions bubbled up, her chest too hot and tender. She had once loved them all. She had once dreamed of being part of them, a cherished member of the family. But that wasn’t to be. She wasn’t one of them. She hadn’t any hope of being one of them. Her eyes stung, and her throat ached. Monet fought to speak. “It was good of your family to tolerate me for so many years, especially in light of who I was. So no, I do not hate your entire family. I do not speak of your brother and sisters with scorn.”

“So your anger is with me, and my father, then?”

This is precisely what she didn’t want to do. Dredge up the past. Relive the old pain. She dug her nails into her palms, fighting for control. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t wish to discuss it. I don’t live in the past, and neither should you.”

“Unfortunately, it does matter to me, and unfortunately you are in my debt, so we will discuss it later, over dinner. I shall leave you now to finish up here. My car will be downstairs waiting for you. I look forward to continuing our discussion then.” He nodded at her and walked away, heading for the gleaming elevators against the distant wall.

She stood there watching him until the elevators opened and he stepped in. He never once turned around until he was inside the elevator and then, and only then, did he turn and look back to find her still standing where he’d left her. Their gazes met and held, a fierce silent challenge that was only broken by the closing of the doors.

He crossed his arms over his chest and exhaled in the privacy of the elevator. Marcu hadn’t missed the challenge in Monet’s eyes, or her defiant expression as she’d stared him down until the elevator doors closed, blocking the view. He’d expected some resistance from her but this was ridiculous. Monet Wilde needed to remember that she owed him, and not the other way around.

Further, she hadn’t been his first pick for child care.

He hadn’t even thought of her until after he’d exhausted every resource, trying to find someone already familiar with his children to take care of them over the Christmas holidays. Their nanny of the past two and a half years had a family emergency and needed to be with her own parents, and he understood that it was an emergency but Marcu was now in a terrible bind because he wouldn’t let just anyone be with his children. He was very selective, very protective, and he needed more than a warm body to mind his three young children over Christmas. Marcu hadn’t even thought of Monet until the last woman he’d interviewed for the position had exited the room and he’d faced the window, disappointed, and deeply troubled. He didn’t want his children to be with a stranger.

He didn’t trust strangers.

But then, he didn’t trust many people, period.

He was well aware that his lack of trust was a problem. It had been a problem for much of his adult life, resulting in a tendency to overanalyze, which wasn’t a bad thing as a venture capitalist, but an issue when it came to his social life. Until very recently he’d refused to extend himself beyond his small, trusted inner circle, but when it became obvious that his inner circle would not provide him with a replacement wife to mother his young children, he’d been forced to go further afield. After a series of excruciating dates he’d found a suitable prospect in twenty-nine-year-old Vittoria Bonfiglio, and it was his plan to propose to her on Christmas Eve, but first, he needed some time alone with her, something difficult to achieve when his children were running wild while their nanny was at home in England with her family.

Which is when Monet came to mind. He hadn’t thought of her in years, and yet once he’d thought of her, she seemed to be the perfect solution.

He knew her, and she’d never once betrayed his trust. She’d always been good with his younger brother and sisters—why wouldn’t she be as patient and kind with his three?

And once Marcu set his mind on something, it was relatively easy to make things happen. It took him less than fifteen minutes to locate her—she lived in London, and worked at Bernard Department Store. She wasn’t married. She might have a boyfriend. Marcu didn’t care. He needed her for four weeks, five weeks tops, and then she could return to her life in retail and he’d have his new bride and his child-care issue would be permanently sorted.

It didn’t cross his mind that she’d say no, because she owed him. She’d left Palermo in his debt and he was calling in the favor.

Even after Marcu was gone, Monet couldn’t move. She was too stunned to do anything but wish the ground would swallow her whole.

All she’d wanted today was to go home after work, take a long hot bath, change into cozy pajamas and curl up on her couch and stream her favorite television programs, lost in the pleasure of diverting entertainment.

She wouldn’t be going home anytime soon now.

There would be no long hot bath or a satisfying hour or two of her favorite program.

Slowly she turned, her gaze sweeping the fifth floor. Over the years this elegant, luxurious space had come to feel more like home than her own flat. She was good at what she did. She knew how to soothe the nervous bride, and organize the overwhelmed one. Who would have thought this would be her gift, never mind her skill set?

The illegitimate daughter of a struggling French actress and an English banker, Monet had a most unusual and Bohemian upbringings. By eighteen, she had seen far more of the world than her peers, having lived in Ireland, France, Sicily, Morocco, and three different American states.

She’d spent the longest stretch in Sicily, Palermo being her home for six years from the time she was nearly twelve until she’d turned eighteen. Even after she’d left Palermo, her mother had continued to live with Sicilian aristocrat Matteo Uberto for another three years. But after leaving, Monet never returned to Sicily. She didn’t want to see any of the Uberto family, and she’d rebuffed Marcu when he tried to visit her in London three years ago, just as she’d rebuffed his father a year earlier when Matteo appeared on her doorstep with wine and flowers and a delicate negligee more appropriate for your paramour than your former lover’s daughter. It was that visit by Matteo that ensured she finally closed the door on the past, locking it securely.

She had nothing in common with this family she had lived with for six years of her life. Yes, they’d shared meals together, and yes, they’d gone to the movies, and various plays, ballets, and operas together, as well as shared holidays at the beach and Christmases at the palazzo, but in the end she was not one of them, not a member of the family, or a member of Sicilian aristocratic society.

No, she was the bastard daughter of a careless British banker, and a French actress more famous for her affairs and her wealthy lovers then her acting talent, and therefore to be treated as someone cheap and unimportant.

Monet could live with cheap. She couldn’t bear to be unimportant, though. She didn’t need to be valued by the world, but she’d craved Marcu’s love, and respect.

Instead he’d been the first to shame her, but Monet was a quick learner, and she vowed to never be dependent on anyone again, and she hadn’t been.

Determined to be different from her mother in every way, she not only rejected all things scandalous, but also pushed away her colorful, Bohemian past. She was no longer Candie’s daughter. She was no longer vulnerable, or apologetic. She was herself, her own creation and invention. Unlike her mother, Monet didn’t need men. It might not be fair, but it was easier to view them with suspicion than be open to their advances.

It didn’t stop men from pursuing her, though, and they did. They were intrigued by her very French cheekbones, pouting lips, golden-brown eyes and long thick dark hair, but they didn’t know her, and they didn’t realize that while she might look like a siren on the outside, she was British on the inside, and not about to indulge in meaningless affairs. She wasn’t interested in sex, which is why at twenty-six, she was still a virgin, and quite possibly frigid. Monet didn’t care if she was. She wasn’t interested in labels, nor did she care what men thought, aware that to most men, women were just toys—playthings—and she had no desire to be anyone’s plaything. Her mother, Matteo, and Marcu Uberto had made sure of that.

CHAPTER TWO

AN HOUR LATER Monet was outside, and the black car was where Marcu said it would be, parked in front of Bernard’s front doors. The driver appeared the moment she stepped outside, and he opened a large black umbrella to protect her from the flurries of snow. She murmured her thanks as she stepped into the car.

She glimpsed Marcu and held her breath, careful to keep a distance between them.

“So what exactly do you do here?” he asked, as the car pulled away from the curb, sliding into the stream of traffic.

She placed her purse on her lap, and rested her hands on the purse clasp. “Manage the department. Assist brides finding their dream gown. Keep mothers from overwhelming their emotional daughters.”

“An interesting choice for you, given your background.”

Her chin notched up. “Because my mother never married?” she asked, a dark elegant winged eyebrow arching higher.

Of course he’d find it ironic that she’d work as a bridal-gown consultant, but most people didn’t know her background. In fact, the only ones who knew her background were the father who’d never been part of her life and the Uberto family.

“Any problems closing?” he asked a moment later, his tone one of excessive politeness.

She nearly rolled her eyes. Surely they were beyond such superficial pleasantries. “No.”

“Were you working at Bernard’s when I reached out to you a few years ago?”

“I was. I’ve been there for four years now.”

“Why wouldn’t you see me when I reached out to you?” he asked.

Her shoulders lifted, and fell. “There was no point.” She turned her head, her gaze resting on his hard masculine profile illuminated by the streetlights. He had a perfect face—broad brow, straight, strong nose, wide firm lips, angled jaw, square chin. And yet it wasn’t the individual features that made him attractive, it was the way they came together—the quirk of his lips, the creases at the corner of his eyes, the blue gleam in his eyes. She steeled herself against the curve of his lips and the piercing blue of his eyes now. “Was there?”

“I don’t understand,” he answered simply.

“You were a married man. I was a single woman. I didn’t see what good could come of us meeting.”

“I wasn’t coming to you for sex.”

“How was I to know? Your father did.”

“What?”

She shrugged again, exhausted by the day, and his appearance. Her exhaustion made her careless. Why keep all these secrets? Why not tell the truth? “Your father approached me a year before you did. He came bearing gifts.”

“Your mother had just passed away. He was just being kind.”

“Then perhaps a casserole would have been proper. But roses? A pink satin robe? It was wildly inappropriate.”

“He gave my sisters a similar robe each for Christmas one year—pink, even. Why must you make his gift sound scandalous?”

Because he didn’t like me, Monet thought, turning her head to stare out the window, regretting her words. Why share such a thing with Marcu? Of course he wouldn’t believe her. He’d always worshipped his father. Matteo Uberto could do no wrong.

Silence stretched. They sat forever at the next stop light. The snow was heavier, wetter, and it stuck to the glass in thick clumps.

“I wasn’t interested in making you my mistress,” Marcu said roughly, breaking the tense silence. “I came to see you as my wife had just died and I needed advice. I thought you could help me. I was wrong.”

His words created a lance of pain. Her stomach knotted and her chest grew tight. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“But you did know I’d married?”

She nodded. He’d married just six months after she left Palermo. She hadn’t wanted to know but it was splashed across the tabloids as well as the internet as the Uberto family was wealthy, glamorous, aristocratic, and very much darlings of the media.

Marcu’s wedding was held at the cathedral in Palermo, a place she knew well as that was where the Uberto family attended church services every Sunday. Marcu had married an Italian countess from northern Italy, although her maternal grandmother was Sicilian. Galeta Corrado was an only child and stood to inherit all the ancestral homes and estates of her family, a family that could be traced back hundreds of years. Marcu’s family was considerably older, his ancestors Sicilian royalty dating back five hundred years, a fact the tabloids mentioned ad nauseam in their coverage of the Uberto-Corrado wedding, sharing that Marcu’s great-grandfather had been a Sicilian prince, and Marcu could probably claim the title, but he was far too egalitarian.

He wasn’t.

Monet could scarcely stomach that one.

Marcu and Galeta’s wedding had been lavish, with Galeta’s bridal gown costing close to forty thousand euros. The silk train stretched for yards, with the hand-crocheted lace veil equally long, the delicate lace anchored to a priceless two-hundred-year-old pink diamond-and-pearl tiara. The bride had been a stunning vision in white, her slender form showcased by the luminous silk. The first baby came not quite nine months later. There was gossip that Galeta was pregnant at the time she married, and it was then Monet had refused to read the tabloids ever again. She was done. Spent. Flattened.

She didn’t want to know anything else. She didn’t want to live on the fringes of Marcu’s life. She didn’t want to know about his wife or children. She refused to look back, refused to remember, unwilling to feel the pain that washed through her every time his name was mentioned.

The pain baffled her, too, because when she left Palermo, she’d convinced herself that she hadn’t loved him, she’d merely been infatuated. She’d told herself she felt curiosity and desire, but not true love. So why did his name hurt? Why did his marriage wound? It wasn’t until he’d married Galeta and they’d had that first baby together, that Monet realized her feelings for him were stronger and deeper than she’d previously allowed herself to acknowledge. She couldn’t possibly hurt so much if she’d merely been infatuated. She wouldn’t miss him so much if she’d just been curious. No, she hurt because she loved him, and he was only the second person in her whole life she’d ever loved.

Monet turned back to Marcu again, still not quite able to believe he was here, beside her. She felt so many different things, and her chaotic emotions weren’t improved by his close proximity. Marcu had been handsome at twenty, and twenty-five, but now, at thirty-three, his face was even more arresting. He’d matured, the bones in his jaw and cheekbones more defined, the hollows beneath his cheekbones more pronounced, his skin lightly tanned, glowing with health and vitality.

“How did she die?” Monet asked, trying to organize her thoughts, never mind her impossible emotions.

“She had a stroke after childbirth.” He drew a breath. “I’d never heard of such a thing but our doctor said that while it’s uncommon, strokes cause ten percent of all pregnancy-related deaths.” He was silent another moment. “I wasn’t even there when it happened. I’d just flown to New York, thinking she was in good hands at the palazzo with the nanny and night nurse.”

“You don’t blame yourself, do you?”

“I don’t blame myself for the stroke, but I can’t forget that she died while I was on a plane over the Atlantic Ocean. It wasn’t right. It shouldn’t have been that way. If I’d been there, maybe I could have gotten her help sooner. Maybe the doctors could have saved her.”

Monet didn’t know how to respond and so she sat there with the distressing words resonating around her, listening to the soft rhythmic sweep of the windshield wipers moving back and forth, clearing the glass, even as her heart did a painful beat in her chest.

Of course Marcu would feel badly. How could he not feel partially responsible? But at the same time, that didn’t make his situation her problem. He needed help, yes, but why from her?

“Does your late wife have no family who could help with the children?” she asked as the traffic thinned. They were approaching London’s commercial financial hub, and during the week the streets bustled with activity but now the area was quiet and dark. “What of Galeta’s parents? No grandparents to lend a supportive hand?”

“Galeta was an only child, and her parents are both gone. My father is gone. I have my brother and sisters, but they all are busy with their own lives.”

“Just as I am busy with my own life,” she retorted lightly, unwilling to escalate things in the close confines of his car.

“I’m asking for a few weeks, not years.”

She glanced out the window and watched the grand Bank of England pass by. Lovingly referred to as the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street by some, Monet was always awed and reassured by its history and size. “It’s simply not a good time,” she answered, glancing from the bank to Marcu.

“Would any time be a good time?” he countered.

The car turned at the corner, passing more historic buildings that formed the heart of the city of London, making Monet wonder where they were going to eat in this particular neighborhood before her attention returned to Marcu.

“No,” she answered with a sigh, even as she reached up to tuck a long tendril behind her ear. She was tired and uncomfortable and she wanted out of her slim dress and heels. She wanted the delicate underwire bra off and the smoothing undergarments off so that she could climb into pajamas and eat warm comfort food and sip a big glass of red wine. Merlot. Burgundy. Shiraz. “I have no desire to work for you, ever.”

“I know,” he answered even as the driver pulled over in front of one of the big dark buildings, parked, and exited the driver’s side, again wielding the umbrella. He opened the back door and Marcu stepped out and then reached in to assist her. She avoided his hand, neatly stepping away to make sure there was no contact between them.

He shot her a sardonic glance but said nothing as the driver walked them to a plain wooden door. Marcu reached out and touched one gray stone. There was a long pause and then the door silently opened. They stepped inside a dimly lit, severe-looking entrance hall. The door closed behind them and Monet gazed around, curious but also confused by the stillness and emptiness of the impersonal cream-and-gray space. There were stairs at the back of the hallway and a service elevator to their right but that was all.

“I normally prefer the stairs,” Marcu said, “but you’ve been on your feet all day, so I suggest we take the elevator.”

They did, traveling down, but it was impossible to say how far down they went, before the doors silently opened, revealing a black-and-white marble parquet floor, massive columns, and what looked like the entrance to a huge bank vault. Walls glimmered gold and silver on the other side of the vault entrance. She glanced at Marcu, an eyebrow lifting in silent enquiry.

He gestured for her to proceed through the open vault door, where they were greeted by a gentleman in a dark suit and black shirt. “Mr. Uberto,” the man said. “It’s good to have you back.”

They were ushered past an elegant bar of stainless steel and thick glass where a bartender was mixing drinks, then through another archway to a dining room dotted with chandeliers. The chandeliers were an eclectic mix of styles and time periods, and hung from a silver ceiling casting soft pools of light on pale lavender velvet chairs and upholstered booths. There weren’t more than a dozen tables in the room. There were men at some tables, and couples at others. Monet and Marcu were taken to yet another room, this one small and private, with just one table. The chandelier was all pink glass, and the upholstery on the high back chairs was gray.

Monet sank into her well-upholstered chair with an appreciative sigh. It felt even more welcoming than it looked. “This is quite a place,” she said, as waiters appeared in quick succession with bottles of chilled mineral water, olives, and pâté with slivers of toasted baguette.

“It was once part of the Bank of Sicily. It’s now a private members’ club.”

“I suspected as much.” She reached for an olive and popped it in her mouth, suddenly ravenous. “Let me guess, your father used to have a membership here, and they extended an invitation to you?”

“My grandfather used to own the bank, my father closed it, and when he couldn’t find someone to buy the building for its proper value, I took it on and turned the Vault into a private club five years ago.”

“What happened to the rest of the building?”

“It’s now a members-only hotel and spa.”

“Do you use the same door to access the hotel and spa?”

“No, there is a different entrance.”

“Why?”

“Because membership to the hotel doesn’t give one automatic membership to the Vault.”

“Is this where you stay when you’re in London?”

“The top floor is my apartment, yes.”