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

His expression held a subtle apprehensiveness that told her he wasn’t as relaxed as he was trying to appear.

“What did you have in mind?” Nyla asked.

“I’d like to go down to Rome, see the Colosseum, maybe reenact my favorite scene from Gladiator.” He curled his biceps. “I think I could have filled in for Russell Crowe as Maximus Meridius. What do you think?”

She couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not really gladiator material. But I’d still like to see it.” His voice took on a more serious note. “Look, Nyla. I know this is last minute, and I did just show up out of the blue. And as much as we’re trying to pretend that it’s just like old times, before...well...you know.” He shook his head. “We’re both aware of the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. If it makes you too uncomfortable to do this, just say the word.”

As she stared at him, Nyla told herself that enough time had passed since she’d had that horrible slip in judgment that had changed everything. She might not be ready to talk about it just yet, but she would hope that she had undergone enough personal growth that she could put her past mistakes behind her and just enjoy a few days with this person who had meant so much to her.

Maybe it would help to think about the girl she’d spotted in several of the pictures on his Facebook page. Young, petite and with obvious adoration toward Aiden, she looked like his perfect match.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to think of Aiden’s other woman.

She walked over to where he still leaned against the archway. Aiden straightened as she approached, the apprehension that colored his expression just a few seconds ago replaced with cautious hope.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to tackle that eight-hundred-pound gorilla yet, but if you’re willing to ignore it for now, so am I.”

“You’re sure about this?” he asked. “You did say on Facebook that you didn’t have any special plans for the holidays, but I don’t want you to feel obligated to do this just because I came all the way from Zurich. In the snow. Without knowing how to read a lick of Italian. And did I mention the snow?”

The grin twitching at the corner of his mouth wrung a laugh out of her.

“I am happy to do it,” Nyla said. “Honestly, I was planning to spend a quiet Christmas at home, but it’s been a while since I took a trip down to Rome. Besides, every man should have the chance to live out his gladiator fantasy.”

Nyla fought to ignore the tingles his rich, warm laugh generated along her nerve endings. She held up one finger. “However, there is a catch.”

Aiden’s smooth forehead creased with a frown. “What’s that?”

She grabbed an apron from the peg on the wall and tossed it to him. “I’ll play tour guide if you play baker’s assistant.”

Chapter 2

Aiden sprinkled coarse sea salt over the balls of dough lined along the slab of cold marble. “Is this too much?” he asked.

Nyla looked up from the dough she was stretching into a long rope. “It’s perfect.” With a grin, she said, “Someone must have taught you well.”

“I wonder who that could have been.” He let out a soft chuckle as he cupped the small mounds of dough in his hands, making sure they were evenly rounded. “I still remember when you found me hunched over my computer during midterms. I was ready to throw the thing out the window. You dragged me into my mom’s kitchen and showed me the therapeutic benefits of beating the crap out of bread dough instead.”

“Much cheaper and less damaging than beating the crap out of your computer. Tastier, too.”

“In more ways than one.”

The moment the words left his mouth Aiden wished he could rein them back in.

Nyla’s hands stilled, her shoulders stiffened. “Aiden,” she said, a hint of reprimand in her soft voice.

Every trace of the delicate camaraderie that had surfaced over the past half hour vanished in the uncomfortable silence that settled around them.

Aiden swallowed the groan of frustration that nearly escaped his throat. He couldn’t believe they were back to this, dancing around the attraction that had always hummed between them.

As if it hadn’t been hard enough to fight the first time.

In the beginning he really had tried to fight it, because Aiden figured any acknowledgment of his attraction to Nyla was a lost cause that would only lead to him looking like a fool for falling for his older brother’s girl. Who in their right mind would ever think a woman like Nyla—beautiful, successful, damn near a goddess in her own right—would take a second glance at a scrawny computer geek? Especially after she’d already caught the eye of his richer, handsomer, ex–professional NBA player older brother?

But she had looked his way.

As much as Cameron had tried to play the victim, Aiden laid some of the blame for the relationship that had developed between him and Nyla at his brother’s feet. It had been at Cameron’s request that Nyla would often come over to their parents’ home in Druid Hills, which was halfway between where Cameron lived in Buckhead in North Atlanta, and Kirkwood, where Nyla lived, south of the city.

At first Aiden wanted to call his brother out for being an inconsiderate ass, making his woman meet him halfway so that he wouldn’t have to drive too far to pick her up. For purely selfish reasons, Aiden had decided to keep his mouth shut. He wanted her at his house. He’d started to fall in love with Nyla with a swiftness that, to this day, still shocked him.

He’d found himself spending more time studying at home than at the library on the off chance that Nyla would show up. Thoughts of her had occupied his brain every waking hour. He was lucky he’d passed a single class that final semester.

He was far from a ladies’ man, especially when compared to Cameron, but he’d had a couple of girlfriends by the time he met Nyla. It was only with considerable effort that Aiden could now recall those other girls’ names. Nyla’s hold on his heart was unyielding, leaving no room for anyone else. Even after she’d left and he’d finished school and moved out on his own, she was still the ideal by which all other women had been measured, and he had yet to find one that even came close.

He had finally decided to stop looking. She had never been his—not officially—but he was determined to change that. It might take a Christmas miracle, but one way or another he was going to convince her that they belonged together.

He just had to figure out how to make that happen.

He looked up to find her wiping her brow with the arm of her long-sleeved T-shirt. Her shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a ponytail holder, but several pieces had fallen out and now framed her face. She had the uncanny ability to look even more beautiful in a plain white shirt with a light dusting of flour on her forehead than she had dressed in a flowing wedding gown.

Of course, his memory of how she looked in that wedding gown was marred by the fact that she had been on the verge of marrying his brother. And that, prior to seeing her in that gown, his last encounter with her had been at her wedding rehearsal dinner, where she’d told him that the kiss that had been the most meaningful of his life had been the biggest regret of hers.

Hearing those words from her had been difficult, but he’d been just as wounded by the way she’d looked at him that night, as if he were a lovesick boy that she had somehow led on, instead of a man she had begun to have feelings for. It made him question everything about the time the two of them had shared.

Aiden shook those thoughts from his head. Dealing with the repercussions of everything that had happened back then was never easy.

He was not going to think about that now. It was water under the proverbial bridge. He’d grown a lot over these past three years. He no longer questioned the time he’d spent with Nyla. He was just grateful to have found her again.

Though he was surprised to have found her in a place like this.

“So, how did you end up baking bread in a tiny family bakery?” Aiden asked. “You completed one of the top pastry programs in all of France. Why aren’t you making cream puffs and macarons?”

“I spent nearly a year working at an exclusive hotel in Paris after I finished my training at Leôntre, but when I vacationed in Tuscany two years ago I fell instantly in love with it. Especially San Gimignano, with all its medieval towers and its rich history. I just had to be here.”

“I understand,” he said.

Nyla looked up from the dough she was braiding and smiled that soft smile that used to make his breath catch. Apparently it still did. He had to remind himself to pull in some oxygen.

In a quiet voice, she said, “I knew you would.”

A mutual love of history was just one of the things they’d discovered they had in common, which had led to exploring other interests they shared. Which had then led to Nyla breaking dates with Cameron so that the two of them could attend museum exhibits, foreign film showings at the Lefont Theater and quiet meals at her home.

Which had then led to Aiden falling so deeply in love with her that he ached with it.

“Nyla, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but we can’t pretend it isn’t there.”

“Aiden, please.” She slipped a wooden paddle underneath the two loaves of sourdough she’d put in the stone oven twenty minutes ago and transferred them to the countertop. “I just... I can’t right now. Please.”

His fingers clenched the sides of the marble table. He hated that they were back here, tiptoeing around each other. There was a time, only a few years ago, when she had been his best friend. How could one kiss change everything?

But it had. And if he wasn’t careful, he would scare her away again. He wasn’t willing to lose any of the ground he’d made in reclaiming the friendship they once shared.

It had been hard enough to get to this point. When he finally found her on Facebook, nearly two years after she’d left Atlanta, Aiden had debated for weeks whether to make contact. She’d made herself clear when she left—she didn’t want anything to do with him.

When he finally gathered up the nerve to contact her, she ignored his friend request for six months. Six months. He’d given up hope of ever speaking to her again.

And then, one day, there she was.

He could still feel the shock and desire that gripped his chest with every breath he took as he stared at her profile picture sitting in his friends list. He spent hours scrolling along her Facebook page, going through her photos, learning everything he could about the life she’d led in the two and a half years since he’d last seen her.

Gradually, their online friendship began to resemble the real-life one they’d shared. Nyla began to leave comments here and there. Aiden found himself scouring the Web for stories he figured she would find interest in—outdoor festivals, restaurant openings—with the sole purpose of garnering her attention. That’s just how desperate he was to have her back in his life again, that he was willing to resort to high-school crush tactics.

It didn’t seem all that pathetic right now. Just look what it had gotten him. Here they were, enjoying a pastime the two of them had engaged in more times than he could count.

As Nyla transferred the rolls he’d made into the stone oven, she told him about the history of the family bakery—both the business itself and the building that housed it, which was once rumored to be a boardinghouse for ladies of ill repute.

“Everything is aboveboard these days,” she said with a laugh. “Being so close to the Piazza della Cisterna, we get heavy foot traffic, but this rare snow has kept many of the tourists inside for the last couple of days.”

“So, if the bakery is closed until after Christmas, why are we baking all this bread?” Aiden asked.

“It’s for the ‘Concert of Good Wishes’ at Sant’Agostino Church,” she answered. “It’s a huge event for the holidays. Several schools sell refreshments to benefit their music programs and Leoncini’s donates the bread to help defray the cost. Yet another reason I love San Gimignano—the locals are always willing to pitch in to help each other.”

Even though it made him feel like an ass, Aiden couldn’t help the resentment slowly building within him toward the town. With its quaint little shops and rich history, it seemed like the perfect fit for Nyla. But it was half a world away from Atlanta, which made it the exact opposite of perfect in his eyes.

“Do you think the concert will still go on, even with the heavy snow?”

“Oh, yeah,” Nyla answered. “I don’t care how much it snows, there’s going to be a crowd.” She started filling several brown paper bags with long loaves of crusty bread. Then she nodded to a spot just beyond his shoulder. “Can you hand me that box over there? We can deliver the bread once these final loaves are done, and I can give you a quick tour before we head to Rome, or Roma, as it’s known here. That is, if you’re up for another three-hour drive after that long ride in from Zurich.”

“It was my plan to continue on to Rome tonight. I already have a room booked.”

“Thank goodness, because it will be impossible to find one this close to Christmas.”

“Nearly everything was taken. That’s why the room is only for tonight and tomorrow night. I was thinking that we could see as much as we could tomorrow, and then maybe leave around noon on Christmas Eve. I can drop you back here and head back to Zurich.” He paused for a moment before adding, “That is, unless you don’t mind me hanging around until Christmas Day.”

Her mouth opened, then closed. “I...I think I’d like that,” she said.

Aiden couldn’t stave off the smile that curled up the corners of his lips. “So would I.”

Nyla cleared her throat and returned to packing the breads. “So, which hotel did you book in Rome?”

“I can’t remember the name, but I know it’s in the Termini Station District.”

She looked up at him. “That’s perfect. My friend Else lives not too far from there. I can stay with her.” She tipped her head to the side and smiled. “I really am happy you invited me along. There’s something truly miraculous about Rome at Christmas.”

Aiden didn’t doubt it, but he already had his Christmas miracle. Having her there with him was the only miracle he needed.

* * *

“Are you sure you didn’t want to stay for the concert?” Aiden asked. He strolled alongside her, his hands stuffed in his pockets. They delivered the baked goods to the church, which was already filling up with both tourists and locals eager for the annual concert to begin, then took off for their walking tour of San Gimignano.

“Positive,” Nyla said. “Don’t get me wrong, I find watching a bunch of cute kids sing Christmas carols precious and all, but after about twenty minutes of standing in the cold my feet go numb. Besides, I want you to see the town.”

The snow had finally stopped falling as they traversed Via San Matteo, one of the town’s main arteries, but flakes continued to shuttle down the eaves of the shop roofs that lined the popular tourist route.

Nyla pointed to the structure at the southern edge of the narrow street. “You see that stone tower up ahead? That’s La Torre del Diavolo, the Tower of the Devil.”

“Huh, didn’t realize I’d get to see where the devil lives. I guess that’s cool, though not what I had in mind when planning my Christmas vacation.”

Nyla laughed. “Legend has it that the owner left for a trip, and when he returned, the tower had somehow grown taller. The townspeople attributed it to the devil, thus the name.”

“I think the townspeople just wanted the owner to think he was losing his mind. They probably had those bricks tucked away somewhere and started adding to the tower the minute he left.”

Nyla lolled her head to the side and released a tired sigh. “Your lack of appreciation for good folklore is such a disappointment.”

“Sorry,” he said, humor shading his voice. “I’ll try to lock away my pesky scientific side so I can be more open to your folklore and fairy tales.”

“It’s for your own good. It will make this trip much more tolerable, especially when we get to Rome with all of its ancient legends.”

“I can appreciate good history,” he said. “I hadn’t heard of San Gimignano before learning that you lived here, but I must admit I’m intrigued by these towers. The fact that they’ve survived this long and are still in such good shape is amazing,” Aiden said, his eyes focused on one of the town’s fourteen remaining medieval towers. “When you live in a country as young as the United States, it’s hard to comprehend structures that have been standing for several centuries.”

“I know,” Nyla said with a wistful sigh. “Even though I’m surrounded by it every day, it still takes my breath away.”

Aiden looked over at her and, after a moment, blew out a resigned sigh. “You really do love it here, don’t you?”

She nodded. “I do.”

He dropped his head and huffed out a humorless laugh. “Shit.”

“Don’t be that way,” Nyla said. “Tuscany has been good to me. It’s been good for me. I thought moving to Paris and following one of my lifelong dreams would solve everything, but it didn’t. I was still in such a dark place. There was something about San Gimignano that made me whole again.”

Aiden stopped walking, causing her feet to halt midstroll. He took her hands in his and, with an earnestness in his voice that touched her soul, said, “As much as I hate that you had to leave in order to feel whole again, I’m happy you were able to find a place where you could be happy. Over the tens of thousands of times I’ve thought about you these past three years, the thing I’ve wished for most is that you were happy.”

His words wrapped around her like a warm blanket, eliciting a measure of comfort that only Aiden had ever provided. It scared her as much as it consoled her. The feeling she experienced this very moment—the trust, the tenderness—it was the thing she feared most about being around Aiden again.

Three years ago, she’d fallen for him with amazing ease. As a result, her well-ordered life had been upended. It was only by some miracle that Aiden’s had not been destroyed, as well.

She would not be so stupid—so selfish—as to put them through that kind of turmoil again.

Two days.

She only had to get through two days. It would be a test of her will, but also a testament to how well she’d learned from her past mistakes.

They walked through the narrow arched passageway that led to the Piazza della Cisterna. Nyla gave Aiden a brief history of the triangular-shaped square.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the well in the center of the piazza.

“Probably one of the most visited sites in all of San Gimignano. For hundreds of years that well was where the town’s residents got their water.”

“It’s a cistern. That’s where the name Piazza della Cisterna must come from.” He looked over at her. “Am I right?”

“I knew it wouldn’t take long for that massive brain to catch on,” she said with a laugh. She breathed deeply and pointed to the café just off to the right of the well. “Mmm...do you smell that? That place makes the best ribollita you will ever eat.”

“I make it a point not to eat anything I can’t pronounce,” Aiden said.

She pinched his arm, even though she couldn’t do much damage through his heavy suede coat. “There’s more to life than Quarter Pounders with cheese,” she said, remembering his ridiculous love of McDonald’s. “Ribollita is a thick soup made with beans and topped with fresh red onions to give it a crunch. It’s perfect on cold nights like tonight.”

“I think I’ll stick with the burgers and fries.”

Nyla rolled her eyes, but she had to admit it was nice to see some things about him hadn’t changed.

She pointed out several more structures as they walked through the narrow streets leading back to the bakery. They climbed the stairs behind it, which led to the small apartment she sublet from her boss’s son.

Murano Leoncini had been living in San Francisco for the past two years. But he would be back in San Gimignano at the end of January, which meant she had an important decision to make.

“Well, this is home,” Nyla said, shutting off thoughts of Murano’s return and gesturing for Aiden to enter ahead of her.

He unwrapped his scarf from around his neck, took off his jacket, and draped them both over the arm of her living-room chair.

Nyla took in the size of his shoulders and marveled at how much he’d changed, at least physically, since the last time she’d seen him. His body resembled his brother’s more athletic build, but he wasn’t overly muscular as Cameron had been. Those nicely defined muscles looked very good on him, too good. So good that she was starting to question the wisdom of being confined in a car with him for three hours as they drove down to Rome.

He walked over to the scraggly three-foot Christmas tree she’d placed on a stand atop an end table. A crooked smile tilted his lips as he trailed a finger along the string of popcorn garland she’d made in a fit of nostalgia.

“Give me a few minutes to throw some clothes in a bag,” Nyla said. “Can I get you something to drink while you wait?”

Aiden waved off the offer. Leaving the tree, he plopped down on her sofa, leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Nyla’s breath hitched as memories assailed her. How many times had he assumed that pose after “dropping in” at her home in Kirkwood, exhausted from a day of challenging classes at Georgia Tech? She’d accepted his excuses about not wanting to face the traffic heading home to north Atlanta, and never questioned when an hour of hanging out soon led to two or three. And eventually overnight.

On those few occasions when he told his parents that he was bunking in a friend’s dorm room, Nyla convinced herself that the little white lie wasn’t all that bad. It wasn’t as if they’d spent those nights doing anything untoward. They’d watched old movies, or played Scrabble until after midnight. When it was time for bed, she would sleep in her room and Aiden on the sofa. Nothing ever happened.

But she knew Aiden wanted it to. And as much as she’d tried to turn a blind eye to what was happening, she knew that she had wanted something more to happen, too.

She should have stopped it long before those feelings got so out of hand. But she had not wanted it to stop, because never in her life had she felt more alive, more true to herself, than she had when she was with Aiden. Even though their relationship had never become physical, what had started as just a friendship had blossomed into more.

That she had allowed her heart to become involved had made her into the thing she most loathed—a cheater. After suffering through the hurt of a philandering ex-lover, Nyla had thought it incomprehensible that she could ever do something remotely similar.

That’s why she continued to feed herself the lies that what she and Aiden were doing wasn’t cheating. There was nothing wrong with spending time with someone who shared her interests, especially when Cameron had shown a complete lack of enthusiasm for many of the “boring” things she enjoyed. Aiden had filled a void, and eventually he began to fill crevices in her heart she hadn’t known were empty.

He’d made falling for him so damn easy.

Nyla’s eyes fell shut. She would not go there again. She couldn’t. She’d suffered enough guilt to last a lifetime; she would not put herself through that again.

She grabbed her weekender bag from the top shelf of the hall closet on the way to her room. As she snatched a couple of sets of bras and panties from her underwear drawer, she pulled up Else’s number. She knew Else, a college professor originally from Phoenix, wouldn’t have a problem with her bunking at her place for a few days, but Nyla would do her the courtesy of asking first. Her call went to voice mail, so she left a message, letting Else know that she would be darkening her doorstep in a few hours.