Hot Christmas Nights: Tuscan Nights / Christmas Tango / Tied Up in Tinsel

As she plucked a couple of sweater dresses and her calf-length boots from the closet, she tried to dismiss the anxiety creeping along her conscience.

“What are you doing?” Nyla asked the empty room.

On a list of bad ideas, this had to rank at the very top, right above jumping off a cliff. Which was how she felt with the way her emotions were all over the place. Had she not learned anything from the repercussions she’d suffered the first time she’d allowed herself to get close to him? Was she setting herself up for another fall?

“It’s just a couple of days,” Nyla reminded herself. She could handle a couple of days.

She reentered the living room and immediately rethought that assertion.

Aiden stood with his back to her, observing the framed photographs she’d taken when she’d tried her hand at photography.

Nyla was struck by the quiet confidence he now exuded. It was evident in the way he carried himself, standing strong with shoulders back and his head high. She’d caught glimpses of the young, sweet, slightly nerdy college student she remembered so well, but there was no denying that he’d come into his own. Or that he was all man.

As his eyes roamed the black-and-white stills of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the tree-lined Champs-Élysées, Nyla’s eyes roamed over him.

Her gaze immediately homed in on the way his soft brown corduroys cupped his backside. As her eyes traveled upward, she marveled at the way the wool sweater outlined the muscles in his back and shoulders. It was such a contrast to the slim, lanky body of a few years ago. His muscles weren’t as big as Cameron’s, but they were just as fine. Perfect, actually. She had never been a fan of huge muscles. Toned and trim was much sexier.

Nyla’s head jerked back as she realized where her train of thought had led her. She had to stop doing this.

Aiden turned, catching her off guard. “Hey.” He gestured to her bag. “You ready?”

“Uh, yes,” she said. “I am.”

His forehead dipped in a curious frown as he reached for her bag. “You okay?”

“Yes, of course,” Nyla lied.

She wasn’t okay. Not even a little bit. She didn’t know how she would survive the next few days. The swift rush of pleasure she experienced every time she saw him, along with the anguish she suffered knowing that he would eventually share all that she loved about him with someone else, was bound to overwhelm her.

Envy toward the woman who would one day be a part of his world had been a constant struggle during those first few months after she left. It still was. Although, now that she thought about it, maybe knowing he was off-limits could actually help her get through these next few days.

“I’ve been meaning to ask how things are going with your girlfriend,” Nyla said.

“Who?”

“The girl who was with you in your profile picture on Facebook for a while. She had that pretty light brown complexion and those green eyes.”

“You mean Erica.”

“I guess. Where did the two of you meet?”

“Work. She’s in Human Resources. But we’re not seeing each other anymore. We decided we worked better as friends and coworkers.”

“Oh.” Nyla staunchly ignored the sudden tingles that traveled across her skin. It shouldn’t matter that he’d broken things off with his girlfriend. “So, is there anyone special in your life?” she asked.

Aiden paused for a moment, his eyes trained on her. “Yes,” he answered.

She couldn’t ignore the way her heart deflated at that single word. “That’s wonderful,” she said, and tried to convince herself that she meant it.

She was happy for him. Of course, she was happy for him. Aiden was sweet, smart and funny; he deserved to have someone special in his life. And it was exactly what she needed to hear. Knowing that he was taken took the pressure off her. She wasn’t about to become the other woman for anyone. She could relax now and just enjoy this time with him.

“Nyla,” Aiden started. “That someone special—”

Her phone rang.

She held up a finger, grateful for the interruption. She was happy for him, but she wasn’t interested in hearing about his latest girlfriend.

“One minute.” She checked the phone, expecting to see Else’s number. Instead it was Guido Leoncini’s. “It’s the bakery owner,” she said. “I need to cover a few things with him before I leave.”

She turned and spoke to Guido in Italian, letting him know the bakery was locked up but that he should go in tomorrow to make sure the embers in the oven had completely burned out.

She took pride in running Leoncini’s, even though she’d known she would leave, even if Murano weren’t returning. She had not put in so much time and effort into learning the craft of pastry making to spend the rest of her life in a small family bakery. Her dreams had always been so much bigger. She just wasn’t sure she was ready to take the step she had been contemplating.

Nyla glanced at the tiny desk in the corner. The yellow legal pad next to her laptop listed several vacant storefronts in downtown Atlanta and a few in some of the wealthier suburbs where a high-end bakery would thrive. She’d slashed through the ones that had been leased over the past few weeks, but the one she’d had her eye on was still available.

All it would take was a phone call to the real-estate agent. She’d purposely refrained from accumulating too many possessions. A few boxes and her suitcase, and she could be on her way to Atlanta and the pastry shop she’d had her heart set on opening since her dad brought her to one to celebrate her tenth birthday.

Her chest tightened just at the thought of returning home, back to the family she’d missed like crazy over the past three years.

Back to the place where so many people knew of the humiliation she’d suffered.

Could she do it? Did she have a choice?

She couldn’t stay hidden in Europe forever. And she didn’t want to. As much as she loved Tuscany and the life she’d built for herself, she missed the life she’d left back in the States. Maybe it was time she returned.

Now was not the time to think about this. She’d vowed to put all that stuff aside and just enjoy herself these next couple of days. It was Christmas, after all.

She pocketed her cell phone and clapped her hands together. “Ready?” she asked.

“Nyla, about what we were talking about before your phone rang.”

Yes. His new girlfriend.

If there was one thing she didn’t want to think about more than those impending decisions she had to make regarding going back home, it was Aiden’s new girlfriend.

She pointed to the digital clock on her DVD player and smiled a smile she wasn’t really feeling. “It’s already after six. We should probably get going.”

Aiden started to speak, then stopped. He stared at her for several long moments before taking her bag and heading out the door.

Chapter 3

“Can we at least both agree that it makes more sense if I took over at the wheel? You’ve been driving all day.”

“And you’ve been baking all day.”

Nyla flipped her hands in the air. Two hours into their three-hour trek down to Rome and she was still trying to convince Aiden to let her take over driving duties.

“I’ve been driving in Italy longer than you have,” she tried.

“Let’s see. There’s a road. It has lines on either side. As long as I stay between the lines, I think I’m good.”

The look she sent him was sharp enough to cut through leather. Not that it mattered; with his eyes focused on the highway he wasn’t looking at her anyway.

“Fine,” Nyla said, settling back in her seat. “If you want to continue driving, you’ll have to tell me the story behind that picture on Facebook.”

He glanced over at her and laughed. “How exactly does that work? If I don’t tell you the story, will the car magically stop moving?”

“Aiden,” she said in a warning tone.

He let out a sigh. “Were you always this bossy?”

“Come on.” Nyla pinched his arm. “I want to know how a picture of you stripped down to your skivvies ended up on Facebook.”

“I lost a bet,” he said. “I tried to get that stupid picture blocked, but no matter how many times I reported it, they never took it down. I had to threaten my friend Mike that I would post a video of him singing ‘Dancing Queen’ in drag on YouTube. He’s in his last year of law school and is clerking for the Georgia Supreme Court. He definitely doesn’t want links to that video showing up in the judges’ in-boxes.”

“Ouch. That’s cutthroat,” Nyla said with a laugh. “Knowing you, I should have guessed that the picture was the result of a bet, though I must admit I was sort of hoping you’d developed a bit of a wild side.”

He glanced at her. “I may not make a habit of swimming in the Atlantic in my underwear, but I’m not the quiet guy I used to be, either. There’s a little wild in me.”

She studied him for a moment. “How much?”

“Just enough.”

The effort it took to ignore the tingles those two words set off in her belly was exhausting. Yet she still spent the last hour of their drive contemplating what a little wild would look like in Aiden.

By the time they reached Else’s, the snow was once again falling, covering Rome in a rare blanket of pillow-soft whiteness that made it seem even more romantic and magical. Nyla declared it the first Christmas miracle of the season when they were able to find street parking across from Else’s building in the Trieste District.

Several of the balconies of the high-rise were trimmed with twinkling Christmas lights, but Else’s, which she could see from street level, was bare. The window beyond, which led to her living room, was completely dark.

She tried Else’s number again as she and Aiden crossed the street. She breathed a sigh of relief when her friend answered on the third ring.

“Thank goodness I finally got ahold of you,” Nyla said. “I’m just outside your building. I hope you don’t mind company for a couple of days.”

Her steps halted as Else spoke.

“You’re kidding me,” Nyla said.

“What’s wrong?” Aiden asked.

She held up her index finger, asking him to wait. “No, no. It’s okay,” Nyla spoke into the phone. “The trip down to Rome was very last minute. I came on the off chance that you’d be here. Enjoy Thailand.”

“Thailand?” Aiden asked when she ended the call.

“Yes.” Nyla blew out a sigh. “She was invited to spend Christmas there with a couple of fellow faculty members. She offered to call the landlord of the building, but she said there have been several break-ins in the area and they’re hesitant about letting people into the building who were not previously on a visitors’ list.”

Nyla rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to ease the headache that had suddenly formed between her eyes. She slipped her cell phone into her pocket before hunkering in her coat, pulling the hood over her head.

“As far as contingency plans go, what are your options?” Aiden asked.

She shook her head. “Finding an available hotel room this close to Christmas will be impossible, and that’s not considering how outrageous the cost will be even if I do find one.”

In a low voice, he said, “You can always stay with me.”

Nyla looked up at him from underneath the brim of her hood.

There was a time when spending a couple of nights in the same place with Aiden wouldn’t have been a big deal. She’d done so not too long after she and Cameron first started dating. After a freak rainstorm made the roads too treacherous for her to drive home, Nyla had spent the night at his parents’ house.

She and Aiden had stayed up way too late debating politics. He’d played the devil’s advocate just to get a rise out of her. Nyla had held stubbornly to her positions for the very same reason. Talk of politics had soon turned to other things they disagreed on, like his affinity for fast food. Eventually, they began to discuss things they had in common.

That was the first time she’d started to see him as more than her boyfriend’s younger brother.

She should have tried her luck with the rainstorm.

Nothing that would have happened on the slick roads that night could have been worse than what eventually resulted from the lapse in judgment she made when she allowed herself to fall for Aiden.

It was going to be hard enough being around him for the next two days. The thought of spending the next couple of nights with him made Nyla’s breath catch in her throat and her skin warm, despite the snowflakes fluttering around them.

She was being ridiculous. This was Aiden. Kind, sweet, nerdy Aiden. Quiet, unassuming Aiden.

Grown and much-sexier-than-he-had-a-right-to-be Aiden.

No, she wasn’t being ridiculous. She’d managed to fall for him back when he was quiet, nerdy and unassuming. The fact that he now had the physical qualities she attributed to her ideal man made these feelings of attraction coursing through her impossible to ignore.

“What about that eight-hundred-pound gorilla?” she asked. “European hotel rooms are notoriously small. It could get pretty cramped with the three of us in there.”

“You’re the one who has a problem with it. I’m ready to face the eight-hundred-pound gorilla head-on. Don’t you think it would make the next couple of days less awkward?”

Nyla predicted it would do just the opposite. Resurrecting those past mistakes had trouble written all over it.

She shook her head. “No. Not yet.”

She knew they would eventually have to confront it. Maybe.

It would be idyllic if they could spend the next two days as they had done back when they were just two friends enjoying time together. Aiden would go back to Zurich, she would return to her quaint apartment in San Gimignano and they would stay in touch via Facebook, this time with memories of the Christmas they shared in Rome.

But, as she knew all too well, the ideal rarely happened.

Sooner or later, she would have to confront her past mistakes. If not over the next few days, then when she left San Gimignano, which looked as if it would be even sooner than she’d anticipated.

Nyla hunched her shoulder. “I guess there isn’t much choice. It’s much too late to try to find a hotel room.”

“Neither does it make sense for you to look for one,” Aiden said. “I’m pretty sure the room has two beds if it makes you feel any better.”

Just the mention of beds made her stomach flutter; she felt like a teenage virgin preparing to spend the night with her high-school sweetheart.

Nyla mentally rolled her eyes. She was neither a teenager nor a virgin, and at five years his senior she had already been out of high school before Aiden even entered. It was time for her to face this like the adult she was.

“Come on,” she said, starting for the rental car. “It’s already late and if you’re going to see Rome in a day and a half, we’ll have to get started early in the morning.”

As they headed for the hotel, Nyla took in the charming lights and holiday decorations draped along the buildings. Because Italy’s national colors were red, white and green, many of the businesses really played it up during Christmastime. She truly loved this city, with its rich history and many legends that Aiden was so fond of teasing her about.

Maybe when Murano kicked her out of her apartment next month, she could move in with Else and look for a forno here in Rome.

Get a grip.

The likelihood of finding an available storefront was minimal at best, and the probability that she would be able to afford it was zilch. Besides, those euros she’d managed to save over the past couple of years would stretch much further in the United States than they would in Europe.

The Hotel Villa delle Rose was within walking distance of Termini Station, the transportation hub that would take them just about anywhere they wanted to go in the city. They checked into the hotel and went up to the room, which thankfully did have two beds.

“Are you hungry?” Nyla asked. “It’ll probably be a chore to find something opened this late, but I’m starving.”

“Let me take a guess...no McDonald’s?”

“You’re in Italy, Aiden! There will be no Big Macs while you’re here with me.”

They found a small trattoria a couple of blocks down from the hotel. Just as they walked up to the door, a hand appeared from behind a curtain and turned the open sign to closed. Nyla thumped on the door until a balding man who was nearly as wide as he was tall appeared.

She explained their plight in Italian, describing their drive down from Siena in the cold and snow. After a few minutes of listening to her whine, the trattoria owner agreed to whip up a quick carbonara and pack it in takeout containers. Nyla grabbed two bottles of chinotto, the bittersweet citrus soda popular among Italians.

She knocked Aiden’s hand out of the way when he tried to hand over his credit card.

“Hey!”

“You’re paying for the hotel. The least I can do is pay for the meal.”

“Are you forgetting that the only reason you’re here is that I begged you to come? You shouldn’t have to pay for anything.”

Nyla put a hand up. She wasn’t arguing with him.

It was after 10:00 p.m. by the time they arrived back to their room. She sat, cross-legged, in the middle of the bed, balancing the aluminum container in her lap. Aiden butted his back against the headboard, his feet crossed at the ankles out in front of him.

They were just two friends having dinner in the hotel room they would share for the next two nights. She could handle this.

God, please let me be able to handle this.

“Give me a list of what you want to see tomorrow,” she said as she twirled fettuccini around her plastic fork. “Other than the Colosseum.”

Aiden shrugged. “The normal sites, I guess. The Forum, the Vatican. According to the website, the Vatican will be open for touring up until Christmas Day.”

“Most of the touristy spots should be,” she said.

“Well, call me a typical tourist, but I’m excited to see all the places I’ve seen on TV and in the history books.”

“I was the same way the first time I visited.” She tapped her fork against her lips. “Come to think of it, I’m still that way. There’s so much to see and do in this city, and to be here at Christmastime, and with snow? You are one lucky man, Aiden Williams.”

His steady gaze caught her eyes and held them. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

It took some effort to tear her eyes away from his. Nyla pulled in a shaky breath.

“I, uh, I do have a couple of places that are off the beaten path that I think you’ll enjoy,” she said. “If we have time we should check them out.”

“We should make them a priority,” he said in that same low voice. “If you think I’ll enjoy them, then I know I will, seeing as you know me as well as just about anyone.”

Nyla tilted her head to the side, considering his words. “Why is that?”

He didn’t answer, just continued to stare at her. She decided to press him on it.

“You once told me that you were always home studying because you didn’t like opening up to people, but you always seemed to open up to me. Why?”

After several moments passed, he finally said, “You made it easy.”

He set his food on the nightstand between the beds and folded his hands over his flat stomach.

“You never treated me like I was weird just because I preferred looking through a telescope instead of watching a basketball game or doing other things that ‘regular guys’ did. You got me. You understood me better than my own family did.” He looked up at her and, with a grim smile, said, “You can probably do without my poor, neglected son monologue.”

A sad smile formed on her lips. “It couldn’t have been easy living in Cameron’s huge shadow.”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad.”

Nyla wasn’t fooled by his nonchalance. She’d observed early on how differently Aiden was treated from his older brother.

“I love Lynda and Russell, but I could tell from early on that they had crowned Cameron the golden boy. I’m smack in the middle of five kids, so I know about having to grab whatever attention you can, but with it being just you two boys, it’s so obvious. Having them dote on him the way they do must be hard for you.”

“I’m used to it,” he said with another lift of his shoulders. “My earliest memories are of spending countless hours at Cameron’s elementary-school basketball practices. The focus of the Williams family has always been about nurturing Cameron’s talent and his career.”

“Even though his career only lasted a few years,” Nyla said.

By the time she and Cameron started dating, his NBA career had already been cut short by injury. He’d transitioned to the business side of things, working as a scout for Atlanta’s professional basketball team, where she’d worked as a senior account executive in the corporate ticket sales department. Even though he was no longer on the court, Cameron’s larger-than-life personality kept him in the spotlight.

The shadow he continued to cast was far and wide, leaving very little light to shine on all Aiden had achieved in college and graduate school. His tolerance of his family’s disregard of his many accomplishments made him that much more extraordinary in Nyla’s eyes.

“You really are special, you know that? Most people would be bitter, but you’re not.”

“Not too bitter. I have my moments,” he said, a wry grin tipping up the corner of his lips. “I can’t really complain, can I? Just look where I am.” He gestured to their surroundings. “I’m spending the holidays in Rome. And I’m with you.”

His penetrating gaze locked on her, making the confines of the small hotel room even more apparent. “Seeing Rome at Christmas is one thing, but having the chance to spend the holiday with you—anywhere—means even more. I know I’ve said it already, but I can’t say it enough. Thank you for doing this, Nyla.”

“You’re welcome,” Nyla said, her voice suddenly huskier than it had been a minute ago. She averted her eyes, concentrating on her dinner. She glanced up to find that, thankfully, Aiden had gone back to his. He picked up his drink, took a sip and started choking.

“Good God!” He held the bottle out and stared at it. “What the hell is this?”

A peal of laughter tumbled out of Nyla’s mouth. “It’s soda. I know it has a bit of a bite, but it’s really popular here.”

“A bit of a bite? It damn near snatched my lips off.” He set the bottle on her side of the nightstand. “You can have the rest of that. I’ll stick to water,” he said, tipping back the half-full bottle of water he’d taken from her apartment earlier. “Good call on dinner, though. Whether it would make me give up Big Macs entirely is debatable, but I can stand to eat a meal like this five days a week.”

“I told you,” she said with another laugh. “Just wait until tomorrow. Your taste buds are in for the experience of a lifetime.”

His gaze dropped to her lips. “I hope that applies to more than just my taste buds,” he said, his voice low, husky.

It was obvious they were no longer talking about food. The air in Nyla’s lungs constricted as she stared at Aiden’s mouth. He swept his tongue along his bottom lip, clearing a droplet of water. A tingle started in her belly and moved lower.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” she returned in an equally hushed tone.

The lightheartedness of a few moments ago evaporated. In its place stood a heady dose of desire. It pulsed around them, saturating the air, and bringing the reality of their impending night together in this small hotel room into stark relief.

A silent warning rang through Nyla’s head. This felt all too similar to what she’d experienced three years ago, when their playful banter soon escalated into something much more serious.

Yet, in the face of every consequence she’d suffered for falling for Aiden once before, the yearning to climb into bed with him and explore all the new dips and contours of his body was so strong Nyla could barely stand it. The devil on her shoulder urged her to give in to the impulse. Everyone thought they’d done more than they had anyway; couldn’t she give in this one time?