Mills & Boon Christmas Set

This was her life, at least for now, and she wanted to enjoy it. Ava started getting restless in the stroller, so Emma headed back. Once she was up in the apartment she brought the groceries into the kitchen and settled Ava onto the floor with a few wooden spoons and copper pans. While her daughter made as much noise as she possibly could, Emma bustled around, assembling the lasagne and tossing a salad.

She started to relax as she worked; she’d always enjoyed cooking, and it actually felt good to be mistress of her own kitchen, instead of an interloper in Meghan’s. As much as her sister had made her feel welcome, Emma had been conscious of how much of an imposition she really was. Here, at least, she had a job to do, a potential role. Perhaps she could act as Larenzo’s housekeeper. It would be a way of earning her keep and making herself useful.

She was just sliding the lasagne out of the oven when Larenzo appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. He’d taken off his suit jacket and loosened his tie, and his jaw was darkened with five o’clock shadow, all of it making him look deliciously rumpled and sexy.

He paused, taking in the sight of the kitchen, and Emma realised what a mess it was, with pots and spoons all over the floor for Ava’s entertainment, and the detritus from her cooking all over the counters.

‘Sorry, I’m not very good at cleaning up as I cook,’ she said.

‘No, it’s fine.’ Larenzo glanced around the room again, and Emma couldn’t tell anything from his expression. ‘I like it,’ he said at last. ‘Shall I set the table?’

He was already getting the forks and knives from the drawer, and Emma watched him, a strange pressure building in her chest. This was all so...normal. So cosy.

Ava had noticed her father and abandoned her pots and spoons to crawl over to him and pull herself up, clutching his legs. Larenzo glanced down at her, his whole face softening into a smile that made that pressure in Emma’s chest turn painful.

‘I’m afraid she’s dented a few of your pots and pans,’ she said stiltedly, turning her gaze to the salad she was needlessly tossing. ‘She doesn’t know her own strength.’

‘I don’t mind.’ Larenzo scooped Ava up with one hand, settling her on his hip as he took the cutlery to the table in the dining nook of the kitchen. ‘This is a bit more manageable than the dining room,’ he said as he laid the table. ‘I think the table in there seats twenty.’

‘Planning on having any dinner parties?’

‘No. I don’t think I know twenty people who would come to a dinner party I hosted, unless it was to gawp and gossip.’ He spoke tonelessly, without self-pity, and Emma eyed him curiously as she brought the lasagne to the table.

‘You don’t have many friends in America?’

‘I don’t have many friends, full stop,’ Larenzo answered. ‘A stint in prison shows you who your true friends are, and mine turned out to be rather few.’

He tried to put Ava in the high chair he’d brought to the table, but the toddler shrieked and arched her back, sticking her legs straight out. Emma watched, amused, as Larenzo tried his best before looking up with a wry smile.

‘She’s really quite strong.’

‘Yes, and she doesn’t like being strapped in.’ Emma plucked Ava from the chair and put her back down on the floor. ‘She’ll want to join us when we sit down.’

‘I suppose I have a lot to learn.’

‘Fortunately Ava provides a steep learning curve,’ Emma answered with a smile.

Emma brought the meal to the table and they both sat down. Just as she’d predicted, Ava crawled over to them, wanting to be part of things.

Larenzo glanced down at his daughter, smiling when she lifted her arms for him to pick her up. He settled her in her high chair this time without Ava making any protest. ‘Tell me about the last ten months,’ he said to Emma when he’d sat down again. ‘Or even before that. How was your pregnancy?’

‘Mostly uneventful, thankfully,’ Emma answered. ‘I was pretty nauseous for the first three months,’ she continued. ‘But then it settled down. She was quite the kicker, though. I couldn’t sleep most nights because it felt like she was playing football inside of me.’

Larenzo smiled at that, his whole face lightening, and Emma quickly looked down at her plate. Larenzo’s smile was dangerous.

‘And the birth? It went well?’

‘As well as these things go,’ Emma answered frankly. ‘It hurt. A lot.’

‘Why didn’t you get pain relief?’

‘No time. She came a week early; she wasn’t due until New Year’s Eve. And I didn’t think I could actually be in labour, because the contractions were irregular and they didn’t hurt all that much.’ She let out a sudden, embarrassed laugh. ‘I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.’

‘Why not? I want to hear it.’

‘Really?’ She heard the scepticism in her voice, and Larenzo must have too, because he nodded firmly.

‘Absolutely. I missed this, Emma. I want to know now.’

But would he have wanted to know then? If Larenzo hadn’t gone to prison, would he have been an involved father? Would they be dating or even married now? Emma’s cheeks heated at the thought. She was glad Larenzo had no idea the turn her thoughts had taken. She cleared her throat and continued. ‘Well, Meghan had been telling me how first babies take for ever, and as it was Christmas Eve I was hoping the contractions might die down. I didn’t want to be in the hospital over Christmas.’

‘Understandable.’

‘But they didn’t, and by the time I realised we needed to go to the hospital, Ava was almost ready to make her arrival.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘Meghan was pushing me in a wheelchair into the delivery ward, and I was bellowing at the top of my lungs. I’m not so good with pain.’

‘I wish I could have been there,’ Larenzo said quietly, and Emma knew he meant it.

Before she could think better of it, she asked the question that had been dancing through her mind. ‘What do you suppose would have happened, if you hadn’t gone to prison?’

Larenzo frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I would have stayed on as your housekeeper. I would have told you I was pregnant right away.’ She held her breath, waiting for him to say something, although she didn’t know what.

Larenzo sighed and leaned back in his chair. ‘The truth is, Emma, if I hadn’t gone to prison, if I hadn’t known I was going to go to prison, there wouldn’t have been a baby. That night happened because I knew I was going to be arrested in the morning.’

‘Oh.’ Emma blinked, stupidly feeling hurt by this, and not quite sure what to do with that emotion. ‘I see.’

‘You gave me something precious that night.’

‘My virginity?’ she filled in, trying to joke, but it came out flat.

‘No, I didn’t mean that, although that of course is precious too.’

She really didn’t want to be having this conversation. She kept looking at her plate, focusing on the food she no longer felt like eating.

‘I meant comfort,’ Larenzo said quietly. ‘Human connection. Pleasure, not just physical pleasure, although there certainly was that. But pleasure in talking to you, and being in your company. Playing chess, seeing your photographs...that night made a memory that sustained me through many dark days in prison.’

‘Oh.’ And now she didn’t feel so hurt. She felt...honoured that she’d been that important to him, and deeply thankful that their one night together had meant something to him, as it had to her. ‘Well, I’m glad about that, I suppose.’

‘And look at the result.’ He glanced at Ava, who now had tomato sauce in her hair, before turning back to Emma with a smile. ‘I don’t have any regrets, since she came out of it. But I think she needs a bath.’

‘Do you want me to—?’ Emma half rose from her chair as Larenzo unbuckled Ava from her high chair.

‘I can do it,’ he said.

‘She can be pretty tricky in the tub—’

As if to prove her point, Ava started wriggling out of Larenzo’s grasp, and soon his shirt was splattered with tomato sauce.

Larenzo looked rather endearingly amazed by his daughter’s gymnastics and Emma rescued him. ‘I’ve found this is the best way sometimes,’ she said, and, tucking Ava under her arm as if she were a parcel, she took her to the bathroom.

Larenzo followed, standing in the doorway while Emma put Ava down and turned the taps on. ‘Fortunately she likes her bath,’ she said, and turned to look over her shoulder. Her breath dried in her throat as she saw he was unbuttoning his shirt. What, she wondered distantly, was so mesmerising about his long brown fingers sliding buttons out of their holes? Something was, because she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the sight.

‘I’d rather not get my shirt wet,’ Larenzo explained. ‘I have a feeling Ava is a splasher.’ He shrugged out of his dress shirt, revealing a plain white T-shirt underneath that clung to the defined muscles of his chest and abdomen.

‘She is,’ Emma answered, and finally managed to drag her gaze to Larenzo’s face. She couldn’t read the emotion in his eyes, and she hoped that he hadn’t noticed how she’d been staring. Wanting.

She knew she should go back to the kitchen and clean up their dishes, but she felt as if her feet were rooted to the floor, and all she could do was watch as Larenzo battled Ava out of her clothes and then plopped her in the tub, one strong hand resting on her back to keep her steady.

‘Is this right?’ he asked, and the uncertainty in his voice made Emma’s heart ache.

‘Yes...yes, that’s perfect.’ She felt as if her feelings were a kaleidoscope that Larenzo twirled every time he spoke. In these unguarded moments of honesty everything in her swelled with feeling, ached with loss.

What if things could have been different? What if that night had still happened, without the arrest, and she and Larenzo had built a relationship? What if they’d become a proper family, rather than this awkwardly constructed temporary one?

Emma knew she shouldn’t torment herself with such thoughts. She’d never been looking for that kind of relationship, and, in any case, there was no going back. And yet as she gazed helplessly at Larenzo bathing their daughter, she almost wished there were.

Half an hour later Emma had cleaned up the kitchen when Larenzo emerged from the nursery with Ava in her pyjamas.

‘You’ve buttoned up her pyjamas wrong,’ she remarked in amusement as Larenzo raked a hand through his hair.

‘Those things are worse than a straitjacket. There are a million buttons.’

‘It’s a learned skill.’

‘Clearly.’ He pulled his damp T-shirt away from his chest, and Emma tried not to stare at his perfect musculature, or remember how warm and satiny his skin had felt, how she’d once put her lips to his taut abdomen...

‘She’s ready for bed, I think,’ Emma said. ‘I’ll get her bottle ready.’ She’d brought a can of infant formula from Meghan’s, and now she poured cooled boiled water into a bottle and added a few scoops of the white powder. ‘You were a little low on groceries, by the way,’ she said. ‘I don’t think there’s anything for breakfast.’

‘I can arrange for food to be delivered, unless you’d prefer to do it yourself.’

‘Actually, I was thinking about that,’ Emma said. She’d finished making the bottle and Ava was reaching for it with both hands. ‘I’m not comfortable just living off your generosity, and one thing I know how to do is be a housekeeper.’

Larenzo stilled. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I could be your housekeeper. You don’t have to pay me, but at least it will make up for mine and Ava’s room and board.’

Larenzo’s face had darkened as she spoke. ‘Ava is my daughter, Emma, and you are her mother. This isn’t a question of room and board.’

Emma took a deep breath, knowing she needed to say this even if part of her didn’t want to. ‘It is for me, Larenzo.’ He didn’t answer and she continued, keeping her voice steady with effort, ‘Look, you said yourself you aren’t interested in a relationship. You want to get to know Ava, and I respect that. But the only reason I’m here is because Ava is. So it makes sense for me to have a role. A job.’

Still Larenzo didn’t speak, and Emma could see the emotions battling on his face. She just didn’t know what they were. Did he want there to be more between them? Or was that just her foolish, wishful thinking? Sighing, she hoisted Ava more firmly on her hip. ‘I’m going to put her to bed. Think about it, at least.’

She was at the door when Larenzo finally bit out, ‘Fine, you can act as housekeeper. But I don’t want any responsibilities you needlessly put on yourself to take away from Ava’s care.’

‘Many women manage a home and a baby,’ Emma answered, doing her best to keep her voice mild. ‘I think I can too.’ Larenzo said nothing and as she headed to the nursery with Ava, Emma wondered why this didn’t feel more like a victory.

CHAPTER NINE

ANOTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT. By now Larenzo was well used to insomnia. He’d slept badly in prison, on a thin mattress in a tiny cell with a thousand other prisoners shifting, coughing, and groaning around him. Ironic that he slept just as badly now that he was free, lying on a king-sized bed with the apartment quiet and still.

And Emma sleeping across the hall.

Although he knew he shouldn’t, he imagined rising from his bed, opening his door, and going into Emma’s room. Watching her sleep, her golden-brown hair spread across the pillow, her lithe body clad in those scanty pyjamas he remembered from their night in Sicily.

Then he imagined sliding into that bed with her, taking her in his arms, burying his face in her sweet-smelling hair, burying himself inside her body...

With a groan Larenzo rose from the bed and went to the en-suite bathroom to splash some cold water on his face. He had no business thinking of Emma that way. His libido might have leapt to life since he’d seen her again, but he had nothing left in his heart to give her. No ability to have a relationship, to trust or to love someone.

He loved Ava, because she was sweet and innocent, and she was his. His love for his daughter was rock solid, utterly unshakeable. But loving a woman? Trusting someone with the heart that had shattered into tiny fragments of nothingness?

Impossible.

And the alternative, some kind of fling or affair, would only further complicate what was already a tenuous arrangement. His face settled into a scowl as he thought of Emma’s suggestion. Housekeeper. He didn’t want her here as a housekeeper. She wasn’t his damned employee. She was here because she was the mother of his child, because she belonged—

Larenzo let out his breath in a hiss as he bowed his head. Emma belonged with Ava, but not with him. Not like that. Never like that.

So perhaps, much as he had instinctively disliked the idea, it was better that she act as housekeeper. Perhaps having a clearly defined role would help them navigate this arrangement with a minimum of awkwardness.

A soft cry interrupted the wrangling of his own thoughts and Larenzo realised that Ava had woken up. Quickly he left his room and went to the nursery. His daughter was standing up in her crib, her face streaked with tears. Larenzo’s heart twisted with a powerful mixture of love, protectiveness, and sorrow. Sleeping in a strange place had to be a frightening experience for the child.

He picked her up, and again his heart twisted as Ava settled against his bare chest, her cheek resting over his heart. Larenzo stroked her back and without even realising what he was doing, he began to croon a lullaby in Italian. ‘E dormi, dormi, dormi, bambin de cuna. To mama no la gh’è la a-sé andà via.’

The words came to him unbidden, from a deep well of memory. He stroked Ava’s hair and watched as his daughter’s eyelids eventually drooped.

After several minutes when he was sure she was deeply asleep, he laid her back in the crib and watched her for a moment, her thick, dark lashes fanning her plump baby cheeks.

‘That’s a beautiful lullaby.’

Larenzo stiffened, his gaze moving from his sleeping daughter to the woman standing in the doorway of the nursery. Emma’s hair was tousled about her shoulders, her golden-green eyes wide and luminous. Larenzo dropped his gaze and saw with a hard kick of desire that she was wearing just what he’d imagined: a thin T-shirt that moulded to the shape of her breasts and a pair of boy shorts. He felt his body respond, and in only a pair of drawstring pyjama bottoms he knew Emma would be able to tell if she lowered her gaze just as he’d lowered his.

‘She’s asleep,’ he whispered, and moved quietly out of the nursery, brushing past Emma as he did so. He sucked in a hard breath as her breasts nudged against his chest, and her hair whispered against his cheek. He inhaled the scent of her, sweetness and sleep, and he averted his face from the temptation of hers.

Emma closed the door behind him and they stood in the hallway, only a few inches separating them, the only light coming from a lamp Larenzo had left on in the living room, its warm glow spilling onto the floor.

It was so reminiscent of that night in the villa, the way things had shifted between them in the quiet and dark. Barriers had disappeared, defences had dropped. In that bubble of solitude and intimacy there had only been the two of them, seeking and finding both solace and pleasure.

And there were just the two of them now, standing so close together, the only sound the sigh and draw of their breathing.

‘What did it mean?’ Emma asked in a whisper, and Larenzo forced himself to meet her gaze, to hold himself still, when all he wanted to do was drag her into his arms, forget everything but this, them, for a little while.

‘What did what mean?’

‘The lullaby. I couldn’t make out the Italian. I’m rusty, I suppose.’

‘Oh... Sleep, sleep, sleep, cradle baby. Your mother is not here, she has gone away.’ Belatedly he realised how it sounded. ‘It’s the only lullaby I know. I didn’t even realise I knew it until I started singing.’

‘Is it from your childhood?’ Emma asked, and Larenzo blinked.

‘I suppose it has to be. But I don’t remember anyone singing me any lullabies.’ He heard the note of bitterness that had crept into his voice and he tried to shrug it off. No point in dwelling on the past, just as he’d told Emma. ‘Anyway, Ava seemed to like it.’

‘Thank you,’ Emma said softly, and she reached out and laid a hand on his arm. The touch of her fingers on his skin was electric, jolting his senses as if he’d stuck his finger into a socket. He held himself still, staring down at her hand, her slender fingers curled around his biceps.

She’d touched him like this back in Sicily. And he’d put his hand on hers, and for a moment he hadn’t felt alone. He’d felt as if someone was on his side, someone actually cared...

But that was a lifetime ago, and it hadn’t been true anyway. Their night together had been a moment out of time, out of reality. An aberration.

Larenzo forced himself to shake off her hand. ‘It was nothing,’ he said and without saying anything else he turned and went back to his bedroom.

* * *

Emma woke to sunlight pouring through the windows of her bedroom, and the sound of Ava gurgling with laughter from the adjoining nursery. She stretched, savouring the moment’s relaxation before the day with all of its demands began.

Then she heard Larenzo’s answering laughter and realised he was in the nursery with Ava. Just the rumbling sound of his voice as he talked to their daughter brought the memory of last night back with slamming force. Emma didn’t think she’d seen or heard anything as beautiful, as desirable, as Larenzo cradling their baby to his bare chest as he sang her a lullaby in lilting Italian.

Watching him in the darkened nursery, she’d wanted him almost as much as she’d wanted him that night back at the villa. Wanted to feel his hot, hard skin against hers, his lips on hers as he treasured and cherished her with his body...

For a few seconds, when she’d touched his arm, simply because she had no longer been able to keep herself from it, she’d thought he was battling the same kind of temptation. Thought, and even hoped, that he might give in to it. In that moment she’d known if he’d kissed her she’d be lost, just as she had been before. Nothing would have kept her from him.

But he’d walked away instead, and Emma had spent a restless night trying to banish the ache of longing inside her. Now she got out of bed and hurriedly dressed in jeans and a sweater before going into the nursery.

Larenzo was dressed in an elegant and crisp suit, and he’d already changed Ava’s diaper and was now wrestling her into a bodysuit. Ava was resisting him, her whole body rigid as she stared up at him in stubborn determination.

‘I think she’s winning,’ Emma said, and Larenzo glanced up, his mouth curving wryly.

‘There’s no thinking about it. It’s definite.’

‘Do you want me to—?’

‘Please.’ He stepped aside and with a smile Emma finished dressing Ava, who saw that the jig was up and relaxed her body as she blew a raspberry.

‘Clearly you have the touch,’ Larenzo observed.

‘Years, or rather, months of practice.’ She turned to face him, her heart bumping against her ribs as she realised how close he was. The woodsy scent of his aftershave tickled her nostrils and made heat lick low in her belly. ‘You look smart. Are you going somewhere?’

‘I have a few meetings at the office. But...’ He hesitated, a note of uncertainty creeping into his voice. ‘We can have breakfast first, if you’d like. I went out early this morning and bought some bagels and coffee.’

‘Okay.’ Emma followed him into the kitchen, Ava balanced on one hip. The smell of freshly brewed coffee and toasted bagels made her mouth water. ‘So if you’re not CEO of Cavelli Enterprises,’ she asked, ‘what are you doing exactly?’

‘I’m starting a new company,’ Larenzo answered as he poured them both coffees. Emma settled Ava into her high chair with a few torn-off pieces of bagel. ‘LC Investments.’

‘And what are you going to do?’

‘I hope to invest in start-up businesses, the kind of places that might have trouble getting loans from one of the big banks.’

‘That sounds rather noble.’

He shrugged and handed her a mug of steaming coffee. ‘I have some sympathy for the underdog.’

Because he could relate? And yet Larenzo Cavelli was so powerful, so charismatic, so arrogant. He’d even seemed so back in Sicily when he’d been handcuffed and at the police’s mercy. Standing there now, one hip braced against the counter, his large hands cradling a mug of coffee, he managed to look like the lord of all he surveyed, his confidence careless and yet utterly assured. And yet this man had come from the street.

‘Did you feel like the underdog as a child?’ she asked after a moment.

Larenzo pursed his lips as he considered. ‘I suppose I would have, if I’d thought about it. I was just trying to survive.’

‘I’m amazed at how far you’ve come. You should be incredibly proud of yourself, Larenzo, going from street orphan to CEO.’

His mouth tightened and he shook his head. ‘I had some help.’

Who from? she wanted to ask but decided not to. ‘Even so.’

Larenzo put his empty coffee mug on the dish drainer. ‘I should go,’ he said shortly, and Emma felt his emotional withdrawal like a palpable thing. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be home,’ he added. ‘Don’t wait for me.’

Emma nodded, feeling the rejection even though she knew she shouldn’t, and Larenzo left. He kissed the top of Ava’s head before he went, and Emma sat down at the table to finish her coffee, caught between missing Larenzo and enjoying the prospect of a day spent in the city. She was looking forward to going out and exploring New York, and yet, even though he’d just gone, she already missed Larenzo. She was so curious about him—this man who was hardened and suspicious, who could be so ruthless and cold, and yet also showed such gentleness and kindness.