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Bene, grazie, he thought. Great, thanks. And yet he was amused. Women chased him. He was never short of female company, most adored his wealth, his looks, his celebrity status, and yet here he was, sequestered with two who seemed impervious to his charms.
And then as Cristiano looked down into Gabby’s little face, her dark eyes so much like his, his heart ached. “I don’t play in snow very well,” he said gruffly.
“That’s okay. All you have to do is try your best.”
What a minx. She was certainly her father’s daughter. “Is that all?” he drawled, mocking her.
“Yes.” She reached for his hand, tugged on it, leading him toward the door. “Do you need your coat? It’s chilly out.”
It was as if she’d taken his heart in her small fingers, instead of his big calloused hand. He bit down on the inside of his cheek to hide the intense emotions filling him. He’d spent his life wanting family, craving a traditional family, but it had never been his to have. His father wasn’t the sort to settle down. His father wasn’t the sort to want anything but speed. Risk. Danger. Cristiano had it in his blood, too, but not to the extent his father did.
And Gabriela…
Cristiano shook his head, amazed by her bright eyes, quick mind, unflinching nature. He knew he’d never actually send her to boarding school, especially not after the miserable experiences he’d had. But Samantha didn’t have to know that. Let Sam think he was a brute. Let her think the worst. He didn’t need her approval, and he didn’t need her to like him. He just needed Gabriela to come home.
Sam blew on her fingers as Gabby led Cristiano out of the house by the hand. He, like Sam, didn’t have warm winter clothes, and she supposed she could have dug through the closets and bureau drawers at the Rookery to find heavier coats and caps and gloves, but it seemed wrong. The Rookery had been shut up so long, closed after Charles died, it felt more like a shrine to Charles than a place orphan children had once lived.
But Cristiano, even gloveless, tackled the snowman with Gabby, helping pack big snowballs and then stack the balls to form the snowman’s body. Together they hunted up sticks for arms and ransacked the kitchen for a carrot for the nose, but sadly all the carrots were used in the shepherd’s pie, but they finished with stones for the eyes and mouth and then Gabby’s cap and scarf.
Sam was just about to warm milk for hot cocoa when Cristiano and Gabby returned. They were laughing, shivering and discussing the merits of their snowman they’d named most originally, Mr. White.
“Let’s get out of your wet clothes,” Sam said, taking Gabby’s cold, damp hand in hers. “I think you’ll need a warm bath, too. You’re frozen through.”
“But it was fun!” Gabby cried, turning to look at Cristiano for affirmation. “Wasn’t it?”
He nodded, and his thick dark hair, worn long, formed inky ringlets on his brow. The curls hadn’t been so prominent earlier and Samantha suspected that tramping about in the snow had brought the curls to life.
And Gabby smiled broader, dimpling with pleasure. She couldn’t look away from Cristiano, her gaze riveted to his face.
He was very handsome, Sam admitted silently, reluctantly. With the chiseled features, the very strong nose, and dark lashed eyes, Cristiano was good-looking in that hunky Italian film star way, but Sam knew that’s not why Gabriela adored him.
Gabriela adored him because he talked to her, listened to her, made her feel important. And with a pang Sam realized Gabby had never had this before, not from a man anyhow.
Johann had spent very little time with Gabby, and the time they did spend together inevitably revolved around Johann’s mood, Johann’s temper, Johann’s problems. Tragically Gabby had been lost in the shuffle and it was only now that Sam began to understand how much the little girl had craved attention, and needed love, from a father. Gabby might have called Johann Papa, but Johann had never been her father. Not in name, not in word, not in deed.
“You’re not leaving now, are you?” Gabby asked him, as Sam tugged on her hand, trying to steer her toward the small bathroom.
For a moment Cristiano said nothing and then he shook his head slowly. “No.” His voice was sober. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
Gabby’s smile returned, and it was bright, all light and happiness. “Good. And we’ll take Sam with us when we go.”
We’ll take Sam with us when we go.
Gabby’s innocent words echoed in Sam’s head while Sam prepared the makeshift bath. Sam had essentially said the same thing to Gabby on their walk earlier in the afternoon, but it was different coming from Gabby.
Once Gabby was out of the bath and dry, Sam dressed her and towel-dried her hair, and let her sit close to the fire while Sam combed her wet hair. “I’ll bring your cocoa in here,” she said to Gabby. “Don’t sit too close to the fire, though. I’ll be right back.”
And even though Sam wasn’t gone more than a couple minutes, by the time she’d returned with the cup of hot chocolate, Gabriela was out, sound asleep in front of the fire, a fistful of old tin soldiers in her hand.
Sam covered Gabby with a blanket and went to hang up the towels and wet winter clothes to dry. Cristiano was still in the bathroom so Sam headed into his room first but on opening the door she discovered she’d been mistaken.
Cristiano wasn’t in the bathroom anymore. He’d already finished his bath and she’d caught him with his back turned toward her just starting to dress. Sam stopped short at the sight of a naked Cristiano. His back was broad and tan, his hips narrow, his buttocks muscular, hard, but paler than his back and legs. But it was his thighs that caught her attention. His thighs, though thickly muscled, were heavily scarred.
Burns, she thought. Burns and more. A long incision indicating he’d been cut. Surgery, yes. But whether for setting broken bones or a skin graft, she didn’t know.
Cristiano had heard the door open and he turned suddenly, covering his lower belly with his towel. “Thank God you’re not Gabby.”
She made a soft incoherent sound. His chest was as tan and muscular as his back, his biceps knotted with muscle but the front of his thighs were like the back—scarred, disfigured with scars that ran down his hard, carved quadriceps toward his knees.
He saw she was staring and she flushed, looked away and then up into his face. His gaze met hers, and he gave her a long level look but said nothing.
“I was going to dry Gabby’s wet things in here,” she said awkwardly. “They’re still so wet.”
“Leave them on the bed. I’ll do it.”
She nodded, a hasty embarrassed nod, before dropping the clothes and leaving.
But back in the living room Sam couldn’t forget what she’d seen. Cristiano’s skin, so tan and gorgeous above his hips, looked nothing short of tortured below. He’d obviously been badly hurt, burned in a fire. But how and when?
Cristiano reappeared moments later, dressed, his black hair combed, the curls tamed, the sage linen shirt open at the throat, the tails out over his sturdy khaki pants. He was so tall, so male that Sam found herself wanting to move toward him, to touch him and see if he was as warm and hard as he looked.
It was a crazy thought. It made no sense because she didn’t trust him, didn’t want to like him, and yet she was also so drawn to him, like a fly to sticky paper.
Her attraction, as well as her ambivalence, scared her. She hadn’t been attracted to a man in years and years…since Charles, actually, and yet as much as she cared about Charles, she’d never felt this kind of curiosity or interest. She’d never really thought of Charles as a man. In her mind, Charles was always just a good person—kind, compassionate, saintly—but not physical, and certainly not sexual.
“When did she fall asleep?” Cristiano asked, gesturing to Gabriela who was curled up on the floor.
“Right after her bath. I went to get her hot cocoa, and when I came back she was out.”
“I worry about her sleeping so close to the fire. I’ll carry her to bed.” Cristiano crouched down and scooped Gabriela into his arms as though she weighed nothing, and yet as he stood, she saw his jaw tighten, an almost imperceptible tensing of the muscles in his jaw.
He still hurt, she thought.
Funny, if she hadn’t seen the actual burns on his thighs, she wouldn’t have known he’d been injured. He compensated well, but now she could see things she hadn’t seen before, the adaptations he’d made to compensate for loss of agility, probably even muscle weakness. Like his slower walk. She’d thought it was arrogance, confidence. Instead it was practicality. And when he sat, he nearly always chose a chair with arms, sitting down by leaning on the chair’s right arm, and then dropping into the seat.
As he returned to the living room she studied his walk more closely, saw for the first time the slight hitch in his step, how he put a little more weight on one leg than the other.
Probably playing with Gabby in the snow hadn’t helped, she thought. He didn’t have boots and in his leather dress shoes he wouldn’t have had much traction.
He casually took a seat in one of the old leather chairs facing the fire. And he did just what she remembered: he leaned on the chair’s right arm, dropped his right hip onto the leather cushion and then the left. His thick hair, now nearly dry, looked glossy in the firelight and the dark beard shadowing his jaw emphasized his straight nose and his firm expressive mouth.
And Sam, who’d felt such conflicting, ambivalent things for Cristiano, felt something new. Tenderness. Admiration.
Despite everything, she liked him. But she had no desire to complicate an already complicated situation, so any attraction she felt would have to be suppressed. Gabriela came first. Gabriela’s stability was everything.
“I’m sorry I walked in on you,” Sam said, taking a seat on the couch. “I should have at least knocked.”
“It’s fine. I’m sure it’s not the first time you saw a naked man.”
She nodded, blushing a little, thinking there was no point in telling him that she actually hadn’t seen that many naked men. He probably wouldn’t believe that she was still a virgin at twenty-eight.
She waited a moment, hoping he’d say something about the burns she’d seen, but he didn’t, and it really wasn’t any of her business.
If change was required, it was on Sam’s part. Sam knew she was too sensitive, too shut-down, too controlling. She’d thought it was her nanny training, but it wasn’t the two years spent at nanny college that had made her so disciplined. It was fear.
Sam was afraid of life. Afraid of death. Afraid of everything in between.
“I don’t even know what you do,” she said breathlessly, trying to regain some sense of control. “Who are you?”
Grooves formed on either side of his mouth as he fought his smile. “Cristiano Bartolo—”
“Yes. I know your name. But who are you? Why do people know you? And people do know you—that night at dinner in Monte Carlo—people approached you. Gave you their blessings. Even Johann thought I should know you. What do you do?”
His head tipped, thick lashes dropping, before he looked up at her. “I’m a Formula 1 driver.”
He said it simply, no arrogance in his voice or answer. In fact, his voice was expressionless but he was watching her closely. “Do you know what that is?”
“You race cars.”
Sam suddenly wished she hadn’t asked the question. “Isn’t that terribly dangerous?”
She could have sworn he smiled but then the smile was gone and his features were so hard he looked like someone else altogether. “Can be,” he said coolly.
When he didn’t elaborate, Sam realized that was all he was going to say.
CHAPTER NINE
“I’M GOING to tell her.” Cristiano said the next morning while Sam boiled water for tea and Gabby sat on the floor near the fire making snowflakes from paper Cristiano had in his briefcase. “She should know the truth.”
Sam glanced uncertainly at him. “I agree…”
“But?”
So he’d heard the reservation in her voice. Sam rearranged the cups and saucers on the counter. “But she’s only just lost her father.”
“He wasn’t her father.”
“She thinks he is.”
“That’s why she should know the truth.”
“Don’t you think it’s just a lot for her to take in? Out with the old house, the old school and the old father and in with the new?”
He gave her a hard look. “I won’t tell her about school yet.”
“That’s good.”
He leaned close to Sam, so close that her middle filled with heat and her lower belly grew tight and even her breasts felt strange, the bra chafing her now very sensitive nipples. “Your sarcasm isn’t helping,” he said.
She swallowed hard. “I don’t want her upset.”
“It’s natural for her to be upset. What’s happened is upsetting. But the good news is that I’m not going away. I’ve found her, I have her, and she’ll always have me.”
Sam suddenly resented him for making so much sense. She’d been the one trained at Princess Christian College in Manchester. She’d been the one that wore the sturdy brown uniform for two years. She’d been the one who’d undergone rigorous training in how to cope with difficult situations and all kinds of children.
The kettle whistled and Sam grabbed a pot holder and moved it off the heat. “When will you tell her then?” she asked, just able to see far enough into the living room where she caught the motion of Gabby folding the paper again and then snipping, and then folding once more, and snipping.
“Now,” he answered.
And suddenly Gabby’s life looked as delicate as the paper snowflake she was making. Fragile. Ethereal. “Oh, Cristiano, can’t we wait a little longer—”
But he didn’t let her finish the thought. He walked out of the kitchen into the living room and crouched next to where she was still fashioning her snowflake. “Gabby, if the roads are clear enough later, we’re going back to Monaco today.”
Gabby set the paper and scissors down. “Do you think the roads will be cleared?”
“I’m hoping.”
She nodded. “Me, too. I miss the sun.”
Cristiano’s expression suddenly eased. “I feel the same way.” He crouched next to Gabby. “But when we go back, you’re not going home to your old house. You’ll be coming to live with me—”
“And Sam?” Gabby interrupted, looking at Sam where she stood in the doorway.
“I’m going, too,” Sam said, gently reassuring.
“Oh, good.”
“And are you going to get married?” Gabby asked.
Sam blanched, hastily shook her head. “No. No. Cristiano and I are just friends.”
“But you will get married, right?” Gabby persisted.
“No, Gabby.” Sam’s tone sharpened even as her body prickled with heat. This was getting really uncomfortable. “We’re going back to Monaco so you can return to school and we’re going to take care of some business. But there’s no wedding.”
Gabby frowned grumpily. “Why not? I like Cristiano better than Papa.”
“About that,” Sam said after a brief, and very awkward silence, “there’s something we need to tell you. Something about your father.”
“I know what it is,” Gabby answered.
“Um, no Gabriela, I don’t think you do.”
The girl sighed, leaned back in her chair, her small features set in lines of exasperation. “Papa’s not my real father.”
Sam nearly lost her balance. She put out a hand, braced herself on the door frame. “You know?”
Gabby smiled but the smile didn’t reach her eyes and for a moment she looked very small, and very young, every bit the vulnerable five-year-old. “I used to have a baby book. My mommy made it for me. But Papa Johann took it away.” Gabby hesitated and rare tears shone in her eyes. “The book said my real papa’s name is Enzo Bartolo. He’s a race car driver like Cristiano. But I never met him.”
