Mills & Boon Christmas Set

And there Angie had stood, at the edge of the old-growth forest, looking like an enchantment, looking every inch the angel he had always known she was, splendid in a white dress and a beautiful fur cape. Those curls had been sewn with tiny snowdrops, and she had come to him, through a path in the snow, her eyes never leaving his face, holding promises he could not have ever anticipated for himself.

They had spoken their vows on the shores of the lake, and now that spot was, forever, the most sacred of places. He could see it from where he stood at the window, now.

They had lit torches around the lake and strapped on skates, and that was where he had had the first dance with her. That year, the lake had frozen like glass, and they had been able to see the dark water far beneath them as they glided along. They had fire-roasted marshmallows instead of cake, and one of their friends had brought a guitar. They had sat by the fire singing and listening to the guitar and the flute dance with each other as the stars came out. He could not think of that day without his throat closing with pure emotion at how real every single moment of it had been.

Could it really have been three years this month? Sometimes he longed to stop the race of time, to hold each moment in his hand so that he could feel it more deeply, savor what he had been given.

He heard a shriek of laughter and grimaced good-naturedly. He turned back to what he was doing: painting this room a delicate shade of white that had the faintest blush of pink in it.

“It’s the very same color,” he had groused to Angie when she had shown it to him.

“No,” she had said, “it’s not,” and so that had become the color of the nursery. He slid a little glance at the crib he had assembled yesterday and he gulped.

Were they ready for this? Could you ever be ready?

Angie had said to him once, on the most important day of his life, that there was no love without courage. She had said that to choose love, even though it wounded, was the greatest courage of all.

But in a month, they were going to have a baby in this room, in that crib with its bumpers and blankets with vivid pink monkeys cavorting across the fabric as if it was all fun, somehow. Fun? A real, live, breathing, cooing, little girl. He was not at all sure he had the courage for this.

Not just for bringing the baby home, but for the first day of kindergarten, and for wiping away tears because some boy had been mean to her, and for deciding whether she should be in hockey or ballet.

Was he ready to be a daddy? So much potential for love. And so much potential for loss. And so much potential for the place where those two things met.

Because even now, with his baby girl still safe in the womb of her mother, Jefferson ached with awareness.

That there would come a day, when she might want a long, dress of white or she might not, but there would come a day when she would stand in a place of sanctuary, looking at a man who was not her daddy, with an aching love in her eyes.

The laughter came again, floating up the staircases as if the house was overflowing with it.

Jefferson contemplated that. His house, once a lonely fortress on a rock, was filled with the sounds of his friends and neighbors, gathering from far and wide to celebrate Christmas here at the Stone House. It was remarkably easy to breathe new life into an old tradition. But then, really, Angie made so much look remarkably easy.

Angie had never returned to teaching home economics in high school. Instead, after they had married, she had started an organization called Prom-n-Aid.

She remembered, so clearly, being the child of a single parent, unable to afford what other girls could have. Trust Angie to turn this into her gift to the world. She proudly headed an organization that did not give girls dresses, but showed them how to create them.

“I don’t just want to give them a dress,” Angie had told him in that earnest way of hers. “I want them to discover the power of their own creativity—their ability to use the force of creativity to make the world match their dreams.”

But really, for all those words, it was just a variation on love.

It had grown unbelievably. Angie taught seminars to teachers and clubs all over North America, showing them how to get sponsors to donate everything from thread to tiaras, how to reach out to the girls who needed this the most.

“There you are!”

Jefferson turned slightly. His wife—would he ever get accustomed to those words in relation to Angie—was glowing. For some reason, pregnancy had made her hair even curlier. How he loved the wild chaos of her hair. The maternity dress was of her own design, proudly hugging the huge roundness of her belly. She had been talking lately about starting a maternity division of Prom-n-Aid.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered of the color.

“It’s the same as it was before,” he said, just for the sake of argument, even though he could clearly see it wasn’t. The new shade had a delicacy and warmth that the old one had not had.

“Are you hiding?” she demanded, ignoring his invitation to argue with him, her eyes twinkling with the knowledge that she had his number.

“No. I just wanted to finish it, in case.”

She did not accept his answer, watching him.

“Maybe,” he admitted. “Maybe I’m hiding.”

“Why?” she whispered.

He put his hand to his face and pinched his nose at the bridge, as if he could stop the emotion he was feeling. “I don’t want everyone to see how scared I am to have this baby.”

Angie came and tugged his hand away and looked at him in that way of hers that made him feel as if he was the strongest man in the universe.

And just like that, something flared between them, the something that never cooled or grew old. That allowed his wife to wrap him around her finger!

He carefully balanced the paintbrush on the open tin and left his hand in hers.

He heard the noises from downstairs again, and Maggie’s laughter rose, joyous, above the others. She was so happy for him. They all were. It was as if he and Angie’s love had become a part of the house, and it drew people here, into its circle. This is what love did.

It expanded. It gave back. It served.

It made the world better in ways that were too numerous to count, in ways that were as infinite as the stars in the sky.

Suddenly, he didn’t feel afraid of having his own little girl at all.

Suddenly, he knew the biggest truth. His wife, his beautiful, wise, funny wife, could be wrong sometimes.

She had said, on the day she had come back for him, on the day she had refused to sacrifice him to the abyss of loneliness he would have chosen, that there was no love without courage. She had said to choose love, even when it wounded you, was the greatest courage of all.

But now, Jefferson saw a deeper truth.

It wasn’t the greatest kind of courage, after all.

Choosing love was the only kind of courage.

“Are you ready?” Angie said.

She could have meant anything. Was he ready to join the others? Was he ready for Christmas dinner? Was he ready to welcome a baby into their lives?

“Yes,” Jefferson said. He said it to the bigger question, the one that required the only kind of courage.

He said yes, again, just as he had three years ago, to the force that humbled a man completely, that was so much larger than anything he could ever be, that had plans for him that were so much bigger than anything he could have ever planned for himself. Jefferson Stone said yes to love.

* * * * *

Larenzo’s Christmas Baby

Kate Hewitt

‘What are you hiding from me, Emma?’

‘Nothing …’ But it sounded feeble.

Larenzo took another step towards her. ‘Tell me the truth. You’re hiding something. I don’t know what it could be, but—’

‘What do you think I’m hiding from you?’ She cut him off scornfully. She nodded towards the stairs. ‘A baby?’

The words hung there, seeming to echo through the sudden silence of the room. Larenzo stared at her, saw how bloodless her lips were as they parted soundlessly. The thought hadn’t fully formed in his mind until she’d said the words. He’d sensed she was hiding something, had felt her panic and fear, had heard a baby cry … And yet it hadn’t all come together for him.

But it did now, crystallising with shocking clarity, and without a word for her he turned from the room and bounded up the stairs.

‘Larenzo—’ She hurried after him, one arm flung towards him in desperate supplication. ‘Larenzo, please, don’t—’

He could hear the child crying, the voice pitiful and plaintive.

‘Mama. Mama.’

He threw open the door and came to a complete and stunned halt as he saw the baby standing in her cot, chubby fists gripping the rail, cherubic face screwed up and wet with tears.

And Larenzo knew. He would have known just by looking at the child, with her ink-dark hair and large grey eyes, the cleft in her chin. He turned to Emma, who was gazing at him with undisguised panic.

‘When,’ he asked in a low, deadly voice, ‘were you going to tell me about my child?’

One Night With Consequences

When one night … leads to pregnancy!

When succumbing to a night of unbridled desire it’s impossible to think past the morning after!

But, with the sheets barely settled, that little blue line appears on the pregnancy test and it doesn’t take long to realise that one night of white-hot passion has turned into a lifetime of consequences!

Only one question remains:

How do you tell a man you’ve just met that you’re about to share more than just his bed?

Find out in:

Nine Months to Redeem Him by Jennie Lucas January 2015

Prince Nadir’s Secret Heir by Michelle Conder March 2015

Carrying the Greek’s Heir by Sharon Kendrick April 2015

Married for Amari’s Heir by Maisey Yates July 2015

Bound by the Billionaire’s Baby by Cathy Williams July 2015

From One Night to Wife by Rachael Thomas September 2015

Her Nine Month Confession by Kim Lawrence September 2015

Look for more One Night With Consequences coming soon!

If you missed any of these fabulous stories, they can be found at millsandboon.co.uk

After spending three years as a die-hard New Yorker, KATE HEWITT now lives in a small village in the English Lake District with her husband, their five children and a golden retriever. In addition to writing intensely emotional stories she loves reading, baking, and playing chess with her son—she has yet to win against him, but she continues to try.

Learn more about Kate at www.kate-hewitt.com.

CHAPTER ONE

THE SOUND OF the car door slamming echoed through the still night. Emma Leighton looked up from the book she’d been reading in surprise; as housekeeper of Larenzo Cavelli’s isolated retreat in the mountains of Sicily, she hadn’t been expecting anyone. Larenzo was in Rome on business, and no one came to the villa perched high above Sicily’s dusty hill towns and villages. Her employer liked his privacy.

She heard brisk footsteps on the stone path that led to the villa’s front door, an enormous thing of solid oak banded with iron. She tensed, waiting for a knock; the villa had an elaborate security system with a numbered code that was only known by her and Larenzo, and the door was locked, as Larenzo always insisted.

She held her breath as she heard the creak of the door opening and then the beep of buttons being pressed, followed by a longer beeping indicating the security system had been deactivated. As her heart did a queasy little flip, Emma tossed her book aside and rose from her chair. Larenzo never came back early or unexpectedly. He always texted her, to make sure she had everything ready for his arrival: his bed made with freshly ironed sheets, the fridge stocked, the pool heated. But if it wasn’t him...who was it?

She heard footsteps coming closer, a heavy, deliberate tread, and then a figure, tall and rangy, appeared in the doorway.

‘Larenzo—’ Emma pressed one hand to her chest as she let out a shaky laugh of relief. ‘You scared me. I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘I wasn’t expecting to come here.’ He stepped into the spacious sitting room of the villa, and as the lamplight washed over his face Emma sucked in a shocked breath. Larenzo’s skin looked grey, and there were deep shadows under his eyes. His hair was rumpled, as if he’d driven his hand through the ink-dark strands.

‘Are you—are you all right?’

His mouth twisted in a grim smile. ‘Why, do I not look all right?’

‘No, not really.’ She tried to lighten her words with a smile, but she really was alarmed. In the nine months she’d been Larenzo’s housekeeper, she’d never seen him look like this, not just tired or haggard, but as if the life force that was so much a part of who he was, that restless, rangy energy and charisma, had drained away.

‘Are you ill?’ she asked. ‘I can get you something...’

‘No. Not ill.’ He let out a hollow laugh. ‘But clearly I must look terrible.’

‘Well, as a matter of fact, yes, you do.’

‘Thank you for your honesty.’

‘Sorry—’

‘Don’t be. I can’t bear lies.’ A sudden, savage note had entered his voice, making Emma blink. Larenzo crossed the room to the liquor cabinet in the corner. ‘I need a drink.’

She watched as he poured himself a large measure of whisky and then tossed it back in one burning swallow. His back was to her, the silk of his suit jacket straining against his shoulders and sinewy back. He was an attractive man, a beautiful man even, with his blue-black hair and piercing grey eyes, his tall, powerful body always encased in three-thousand-euro suits.

Emma had admired his form the way you admired Michelangelo’s David, as a work of art. She had decided when she’d taken this job that she wasn’t going to make the mistake of developing some schoolgirl crush on her boss. Larenzo Cavelli was out of her league. Way, way out of her league. And, if the tabloids were true, he had a different woman on his arm and in his bed every week.

‘I wasn’t expecting you until the end of the month,’ she said.

‘I had a change of plans.’ He took out the stopper in the crystal decanter of whisky and poured himself another healthy measure. ‘Obviously.’

She didn’t press the point, because, while they’d developed a fairly amicable working relationship over the last nine months, he was still her boss. She couldn’t actually say she knew Larenzo Cavelli. Since she’d taken the job as housekeeper he’d come to the villa only three times, never more than for a couple of days. He mostly lived in Rome, where he kept an apartment, or travelled for work as CEO of Cavelli Enterprises.

‘Very well,’ she finally said. ‘Will you be staying long?’

He drained his glass for a second time. ‘Probably not.’

‘Well, the night at least,’ she answered briskly. She didn’t know what was going on with Larenzo, whether it was a business deal gone bust or a love affair gone bad, or something else entirely, but she could still do her job. ‘The sheets on your bed are clean. I’ll go switch the heating on for the pool.’

‘Don’t bother,’ Larenzo answered. He put his empty glass on the table with a clink. ‘There’s no need.’

‘It’s no trouble,’ Emma protested, and Larenzo shrugged, his back to her.

‘Fine. Maybe I’ll have one last swim.’

His words replayed through her mind as she left him and walked through the spacious, silent rooms of the villa to the back door that led to a brick terrace overlooking the mountains, a teardrop-shaped pool as its impressive centrepiece. One last swim. Was he planning on leaving, on selling the villa?

Emma gazed out at the Nebrodi mountains and shivered slightly, for the air still held a pine-scented chill.

All was quiet save for the rustling of the wind high up in the trees. Larenzo’s villa was remote, miles from the nearest market town, Troina; in the daylight Emma could see its terracotta-tiled houses and shops nestled in the valley below. She went there several times a week to shop and socialise; she had a couple of friends amidst the Sicilian shopkeepers and matrons.

If Larenzo was planning on selling the villa, she’d miss living here. She never stayed anywhere long, and she would have probably started feeling restless in a few months anyway, but... She glanced once more at the night-cloaked hills and valleys, the mellow stone of the villa perched on its hill gleaming in the moonlight. She liked living here. It was peaceful, with plenty of subjects to photograph. She’d be sad to leave, if it came to that.

But maybe Larenzo just meant a swim before he left for Rome again. She switched on the heating and then turned to go inside; as she turned a shadowy form loomed up in front of her and her breath came out in a short gasp. She must have swayed or stumbled a little, for Larenzo put his hands on her shoulders to steady her.

They stood like that for a moment in the doorway, his strong hands curling around her shoulders so she could feel the warmth of his palms through the thin cotton of her T-shirt, and how her heart pounded beneath it. She didn’t think he’d ever actually touched her before.

She moved one way, and he moved another, so it was almost as if they were engaged in a struggle or an awkward dance. Then Larenzo dropped his hands from her shoulders and stepped back.

‘Scusi.’

‘My fault,’ she murmured, her heart still thudding, and moved quickly through the kitchen to flick on the lights. Bathed in a bright electric glow, things felt more normal, even if she could still feel the imprint of his hands on her shoulders, so warm and strong. ‘So.’ She turned to him with a quick smile, a brisk look. ‘Have you eaten? I can make you something.’

He looked as if he was about to refuse, and then he shrugged. ‘Why not? I’ll go change while you cook.’

‘What would you like to eat?’

Another shrug as he turned away. ‘Whatever you make will be fine.’

She watched him disappear down the hallway, her lips pursed in an uncertain frown. She’d never seen Larenzo like this. Not that they’d actually had that much conversation, beyond discussing pool maintenance and house repairs. But even when talking about such mundane matters, Larenzo Cavelli had exuded a compelling charisma and energy, a life force. He was a man who, when entering a room, made everyone turn and take notice. Men tried to suppress their envy, and women undressed him with their eyes. Emma counted herself as wilfully immune to the man’s magnetic vitality, but its absence now made her uneasy.

Her frown deepening, Emma opened the fridge and stared at the few items inside. She always did a big shop right before Larenzo arrived; she bought all the ingredients for gourmet meals for one and made them for him to eat alone, usually out on the terrace overlooking the mountains.

Now she glanced askance at the half-dozen eggs, a few slices of pancetta and the end of a wedge of cheese that comprised the entire contents of the fridge. With a sigh she took it all out. A bacon and cheese omelette it was.

She was just sliding it onto a plate when Larenzo came downstairs, dressed now in faded jeans and a grey T-shirt, his hair damp and spiky from a shower. She’d seen him casually dressed before, many times, but for some reason now, perhaps because of how different Larenzo seemed, her heart gave a weird little flip and she felt awareness shiver over her skin. Clearly he still possessed some of that charisma and vitality, for she felt the force of it now.

‘Sorry it’s just an omelette,’ she said. ‘I’ll do a big shop tomorrow.’

‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘But—’

“Aren’t you going to join me?’ He arched an eyebrow, nodding towards the single plate she’d laid out, a challenge simmering in his eyes.

In the handful of times he’d been at the villa, Larenzo had never asked her to eat with him. The two of them alone on the terrace would have been awkward, intimate, and Emma happily ate leftovers in the kitchen, one of her photography books propped against the salt and pepper shakers.

‘Um...I’ve already eaten,’ she said after a second’s pause. It had to be past ten o’clock at night.

‘Come have a glass of wine. I don’t feel like being alone.’

Was that a command? Emma shrugged her assent; she wouldn’t mind a glass of wine, and perhaps Larenzo would tell her what was going on.

‘Okay,’ she said, and she fetched two glasses while Larenzo selected a bottle of red wine from the rack above the sink.

While Larenzo took his plate of eggs out to the terrace, Emma retrieved her sweater from the sitting room, slipping her arms through the sleeves as she stepped outside. The moon was high and full above the pine-blanketed hills, the Nebrodi range’s highest peak, Mount Soro, piercing the night sky. Larenzo was already seated at a table overlooking the pool, the water glimmering in the moonlight, but he rose as Emma came forward with the two glasses and proffered the bottle of wine. She nodded her assent and sat down while he poured.

‘This is very civilised,’ she said as she accepted the glass.

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ Larenzo answered. ‘Well, let’s enjoy it while we can.’ He raised his glass in a toast and Emma lifted hers as well before taking a sip. The wine was rich and velvety-smooth, clearly expensive, but she put her glass down after one sip and gave her boss as direct a look as she could.

‘You’re sure everything is all right?’

‘As right as it can be,’ Larenzo answered, taking a sip of wine.

‘What does that mean?’

He set his glass down and stretched his legs out in front of him. ‘Exactly that. But I don’t want to talk about myself, not tonight. For a few hours I’d just like to forget.’

Forget what? Emma wondered, but clearly Larenzo didn’t want her to ask.

‘You’ve been my housekeeper for nearly a year and I don’t really know the first thing about you,’ he continued, and Emma stared at him in surprise.

‘You want to talk about me?’

‘Why not?’

‘Because...well, because you’ve never expressed an interest in knowing anything about me before. And actually, I’m quite a boring person.’

He smiled, his teeth gleaming in the darkness. ‘Let me be the judge of that.’

Emma shook her head slowly. This evening was becoming almost surreal. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Where did you grow up?’

An innocuous enough question, she supposed. ‘Everywhere, really. I was a diplomat’s kid.’

‘I think I remember you mentioning that in your interview.’ He’d interviewed her in Rome, where she’d been working as a chambermaid in a hotel, just one in a string of jobs she’d had as she moved from city to city, exploring the world and taking photographs.

‘And you haven’t minded being stuck up here in the hills of Sicily?’ he asked, his wine glass raised to his lips. ‘All by yourself?’

She shrugged. ‘I’m used to being on my own.’ And she preferred it that way. No ties, no obligations, no disappointments. The occasional bout of loneliness was not too high a price to pay for that kind of freedom.

‘Even so.’

‘You obviously like it,’ she pointed out. ‘Since you own this place.’

‘Yes, but I travel and spend time in cities. I’m not up here all the time.’

‘Well, as I said, I like it.’ For now, anyway. She never remained anywhere for too long, always preferring to move on, to find new experiences, and from the sceptical look on Larenzo’s face he seemed to guess a bit of her natural wanderlust.