Sicilian's Christmas Bride Read online

  To his amazement, he’d enjoyed the evening.

  “Pasta Carbonara,” she’d said, as she served the meal. “I remember you ordering it at Luigi’s and saying how much you liked it.” Her cheeks had pinkened. “I just hope my version is half as good.”

  It was better than good; it was perfect. So was everything else.

  The candles. The bottle of his favorite Cabernet. The flowers.

  And Taylor.

  Taylor, watching him across the table, her green eyes soft with pleasure. Taylor, blushing again when he said the food was delicious. Taylor, bringing out a cake complete with candles. And a familiar blue box. He’d given boxes like that to more women than he could count, but being on the receiving end had been a first.

  “I hope you like them,” she’d said as he opened the box on a pair of gold cuff links, exactly the kind he’d have chosen for himself.

  “Very much,” he’d replied, and wondered what she’d say if he told her this was the first birthday cake, the first birthday gift anyone had ever given him in all his life.

  He’d blown out the candles. Taken a bite of the cake. Put on the cuff links and felt something he couldn’t define…

  “Dante?” Taylor had said, her smooth brow furrowing, “what’s the matter? If you don’t like the cuff links—”

  He’d silenced her in midsentence by gathering her in his arms, taking her mouth with his, carrying her to her bed and making love to her.

  Sex with her was always incredible. That night…that night, it surpassed anything he’d ever known with her, with any woman. She was tender; she was passionate. She was wild and sweet and, as he threw back his head and emptied himself into her, she cried out his name and wept.

  When it was over, she lay beneath him, trembling. Then she’d brought his mouth to hers for a long kiss.

  “Don’t leave me tonight,” she’d whispered. “Dante. Please stay.”

  He’d never spent the entire night with her. With any woman. But he’d been tempted. Tempted to keep his arms around her warm body. To close her eyes with soft kisses. To fall asleep with her head on his shoulder and wake with her curled against him.

  He hadn’t, of course.

  Spending the night in a woman’s bed had shades of meaning beyond what he needed or expected from a relationship.

  Two weeks after that, he’d attended this charity ball without her, listened to people urge him to feed his mistress chicken soup…

  And everything had clicked into place.

  The birthday supper. The fantastic night of sex. The plea that he not leave her afterward.

  Taylor was playing him the way a fisherman who’s hooked a big one plays a fish. His beautiful, clever mistress was doing her best to settle into his life. She knew it, his acquaintances knew it. The only person who’d been blind to the scheme was him.

  “Excuse me,” he’d suddenly said to everyone at the table, “but it’s getting late.”

  “Don’t forget the chicken soup,” a woman called after him.

  Dante had instructed his driver to take him to Taylor’s apartment. It was time to set things straight. To make sure she still understood their agreement, that the rules hadn’t changed simply because their affair had gone on so long.

  In fact, perhaps it was time to end the relationship. Not tonight. Not abruptly. He’d simply see her less often. In a few weeks, he’d take her to L’Etoile for dinner, give her a bracelet or a pair of earrings to remember him by and tell her their time together had been fun but—

  But Taylor didn’t answer the door when he rang—which reminded him that she’d never given him a key. He hadn’t given her one to his place, either, but that was different. He never gave his mistresses keys, but they were always eager to give theirs to him.

  And it occurred to him again, as it often did, that Taylor wasn’t really his mistress. She insisted on paying her own rent, even though most women gladly let him do it.

  “I’m not most women,” she’d said when he’d tried to insist, and he’d told himself that was good, that he admired her independence.

  That night, however, he saw it for what it was. Just another way to heighten his interest, he’d thought coldly, as he rang the bell again.

  Still no answer.

  His thoughts turned even colder. Was she out with another man?

  No. She was sick. He believed that; she’d sounded terrible on the phone when she’d called him earlier, her voice hoarse and raw.

  Dante’s heart had skittered. Was she lying unconscious behind the locked door? He took the stairs to the super’s basement apartment at a gallop when the damned elevator refused to come, awakened the man and bought his cooperation with a fistful of bills.

  Together, they’d gone up to Taylor’s apartment. Unlocked the door…

  And found the place empty.

  His mistress was gone.

  Her things were gone, too. All that remained was a trace of her scent in the air and a note, a note, goddamn her, on the coffee table.

  “Thank you for everything,” she had written, “it’s been fun.” Only that, as if their affair had been a game.

  And Dante had swallowed the insult. What else could he have done? Hired a detective to find her? That would only have made his humiliation worse.

  Three years. Three years, and now, without warning, it had all caught up to him. The embarrassment. The anger…

  “Dante?”

  He turned around. Charlotte had somehow managed to find him. She stood on the loading dock, wrapped in a velvet cloak he’d bought her, her face pink with anger.

  “Here you are,” she said sharply.

  “Charlotte. My apologies. I, ah, I came out for a breath of air—”

  “You said you wouldn’t embarrass me.”

  “Yes. I know. And I won’t. I told you, I only stepped outside—”

  “You’ve been gone almost an hour! How dare you make me look foolish to my friends?” Her voice rose. “Who do you think you are?”

  Dante’s eyes narrowed. He moved toward her, and something dangerous must have shown in his face because she took a quick step back.

  “I know exactly who I am,” he said softly. “I am Dante Russo, and whoever deals with me should never forget it.”

  “Dante. I only meant—”

  He took her arm, quick-marched her down a set of concrete steps and away from the dock. An alley led to the street where he hailed a cab, handed the driver a hundred-dollar bill and told him Charlotte’s address. He’d left his topcoat inside the hotel but he didn’t give a damn. Coats were easy to replace. Pride wasn’t.

  “Dante,” she stammered, “really, I’m sorry—”

  So was he, but not for what had just happened. He was sorry he had lived a lie for the past three years.

  Taylor Sommers had made a fool of him. Nobody, nobody got away with that.

  He took his cell phone from his pocket and called his driver. When his Mercedes pulled to the curb, Dante got in the back and pressed another number on the phone. It was late, but his personal attorney answered on the first ring.

  He didn’t waste time on preliminaries. “I need a private investigator,” he said. “No, not first thing Monday. Tomorrow. Have him call me at home.”

  Three years had gone by. So what? Someone had once said that revenge was a dish best served cold.

  A tight smile curved Dante’s hard mouth.

  He couldn’t have agreed more.

  IT WAS A LONG WEEKEND.

  Charlotte left endless messages on his voice mail. They ranged from weepy to demanding, and he erased them all.

  Saturday morning, he heard from the detective his attorney had contacted. The man asked for everything Dante knew about Taylor.

  “Her name,” he said, “is Taylor Sommers. She lived in the Stanhope, on Gramercy Park. She’s an interior decorator.”

  There was a silence.

  “And?” the man said.

  “And what? Isn’t that enough?”

 
; “Well, I could use the names of her parents. Her friends. Date of birth. Where she grew up. What schools she attended.”

  “I’ve told you everything I know,” Dante said coldly.

  He hung up the phone, then walked through his bedroom and onto the wraparound terrace that surrounded his Central Park West penthouse. It was cold; the wind had a way of whipping around the building at this height. And it had snowed overnight, not heavily, just enough to turn the park a pristine white.

  Dante frowned.

  The detective had seemed surprised he knew so little about Taylor, but why would he have known more? She pleased his eye; she was passionate and intelligent.

  What more would a man want from a woman?

  There had been moments, though. Like the time he’d brought her here for a late supper. It had snowed that night, too. He’d excused himself, gone to make a brief but necessary phone call. When he came back, he’d found the terrace door open and Taylor standing out here, just as he was now.

  She’d been wearing a silk dress, a little slip of a thing. He’d taken off his jacket, stepped outside and put it around her shoulders.

  “What are you doing, cara? It’s much too cold for you out here.”

  “I know,” she’d answered, snuggling into his jacket and into the curve of his arm, “but it’s so beautiful, Dante.” She’d turned her face up to his and smiled. “I love nights like this, don’t you?”

  Cold nights reminded him of the frigid winters in Palermo, the way he’d padded his shoes with newspaper in a useless attempt to keep warm.

  For some reason he still couldn’t comprehend, he’d almost told her that.

  Of course, he had not done anything so foolish. Instead, he’d kissed her.

  “If you can get over your penchant for cold and snow,” he’d said, with a little smile, “we can fly to the Caribbean some weekend and you can help me house-hunt. I’ve been thinking about buying a place in the islands.”

  Her smile had been soft. “I’d like that,” she’d said. “I’d like it very, very much.”

  Instantly, he’d realized what a mistake he’d made. He’d asked her to take a step into his life and he’d never meant to do that.

  He’d never mentioned the Caribbean again. Not that it mattered, because two weeks later, she’d walked out on him.

  Walked out, he thought now, his jaw tightening. Left him to come up with excuses explaining her absence at all those endless Christmas charitable events he was expected to attend.

  But he’d solved that problem simply enough.

  He’d found replacements for her. He’d gone through that season with an endless array of beautiful women on his arm.

  On his arm, but not in his bed. It had been a long time until he’d had sex after Taylor, and even then, it hadn’t been the same.

  The truth was, it still wasn’t. Something was lacking.

  Not for his lovers. He knew damned well how to make a woman cry out with pleasure but he felt—what was the word? Removed. That was it. His body went through all the motions, but when it was over, he felt unsatisfied.

  Taylor was to blame for that.

  What in hell had possessed him, to let her walk away? To let her think she’d ended their affair when she hadn’t? A man’s ego could take just so much.

  By Monday, his anger was at the boiling point. When the private investigator turned up at his office, he greeted him with barely concealed impatience.

  “Well? Surely you’ve located Ms. Sommers. How difficult can it be to find a woman in this city?”

  The man scratched his ear, took a notepad from his pocket and thumbed it open.

  “See, that was the problem, Mr. Russo. The lady isn’t in this city. She’s in…” He frowned. “Shelby, Vermont.”

  Dante stared at him. “Vermont?”

  “Yeah. Little town, maybe fifty miles from Burlington.”

  Taylor, in a New England village? Dante almost laughed trying to picture his sophisticated former lover in such a setting.

  “The lady has an interior decorating business.” The P.I. turned the page. “And she’s done okay. In fact, she just applied for an expansion loan at—”

  The P.I. rattled on but Dante was only half listening. He knew where to find Taylor. Everything else was superfluous.

  How surprised she’d be, he thought with grim satisfaction, to see him again. To hear him tell her that she hadn’t needed to leave him, that he’d been leaving her—

  “…just for the two of them. I have the details, if you—”

  Dante’s head came up. “Just for the two of what?” he said carefully.

  “Of them,” the P.I. said, raising an eyebrow. “You know, what I was saying about the house she inherited. A couple of realtors suggested she might want something newer and larger but she said no, she wanted a small house in a quiet setting, just big enough for two. For her and, uh…I got the name right here, if you just give me a—”

  “A house for two people?” Dante said, in a tone opponents had learned to fear.

  “That’s right. Her and—here it is. Sam Gardner.”

  “Taylor.” Dante cleared his throat. “And Sam Gardner. They live together?”

  “Well, sure.”

  “And Gardner was with her when she moved in?”

  The P.I. chuckled. “Yessir. I mean—”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Dante said without inflection. “Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.”

  “Yeah, but, Mr. Russo—”

  “Most helpful,” Dante repeated.

  The detective got the message.

  Alone, Dante told himself he’d accomplish nothing unless he stayed calm, but a knot of red-hot rage was already blooming in his gut. Taylor hadn’t left him because she’d grown bored. She’d left him for another man. She’d been seeing someone, making love with someone, while she’d been with him.

  He went to the window and clasped the edge of the sill, hands tightening on the marble the way they wanted to tighten on her throat. Confronting her wouldn’t be enough. Beating the crap out of her lover wouldn’t be enough, either, although it would damned well help.

  He wanted more. Wanted the kind of revenge that her infidelity merited. How dare she make a fool of him? How dare she?

  There had to be a way. A plan.

  Suddenly, he recalled the P.I.’s words. She’s done well. In fact, she’s just applied for an expansion loan at the local bank.

  Dante smiled. There was. And he could hardly wait to put it into motion.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TAYLOR SOMMERS POURED a cup of coffee, put it on the sink, opened the refrigerator to get the cream and realized she’d already put it on the table, right alongside the cup she’d already filled with coffee only minutes before.

  She took a steadying breath.

  “Keep it up,” she said, her voice loud in the silence, “and Walter Dennison’s going to tell you he was only joking when he said he’d change those loan payments.”

  Dennison was a nice man; he’d been a friend of her grandmother’s. He’d shown compassion and small-town courtesy when Tally fell behind on repaying the home equity loan his bank had granted her.

  But he wasn’t a fool and only a fool would go on doing that for a woman who behaved as if she were coming apart.

  Was that why he wanted to see her today? Had he changed his mind? If he had, if he wanted her to pay the amount the loan called for each month…

  Tally closed her eyes.

  She’d be finished. The town had already shut down the interior decorating business she’d been running from home. Without the loan, she’d lose the shop she’d rented on the village green even before it opened because, to put it simply, she was broke.

  Flat broke.

  Okay, if you wanted absolute accuracy, she had two hundred dollars in her bank account, but it was a drop in the bucket compared to what she needed.

  She’d long ago used up her savings. Moving to Vermont, paying for repairs to make liv
able the old house she’d inherited from her grandmother, just day-to-day expenses for Sam and her had taken a huge chunk of her savings.

  Start-up costs for INTERIORS BY TAYLOR had swallowed the rest. Beginning a decorating business, even from home, was expensive. You had to have at least a small showroom—in her case, what had once been an enclosed porch on the back of the house—so that potential clients could get a feel for your work. Paint, fabric, wicker furniture to make the porch inviting had cost a bundle.

  Then there were the fabric samples, decorative items like vases and lamps, handmade candles and fireplace accessories…Expensive, all of them. Some catalogs alone could be incredibly pricey. Advertising costs were astronomical but if you didn’t reach the right people, all your other efforts were pointless.

  Little by little, INTERIORS BY TAYLOR had begun to draw clients from the upscale ski communities within miles of tiny Shelby. Taylor’s accounts had still been in the red, but things had definitely been looking up.

  And then the town clerk phoned. He was apologetic, but that didn’t make his message any less harsh.

  INTERIORS BY TAYLOR was operating illegally. The town had an ordinance against home-based businesses.

  That Shelby, Vermont, population 8500 on a good day, had ordinances at all had been a surprise. But it did, and this one was inviolate. You couldn’t operate a business from your house even if you’d been raised under its roof after your mother took off for parts unknown.

  Tally’s pleading had gained her a two-month reprieve.

  She’d found a soon-to-be-vacant shop on the village green. Each night, long after Sam was asleep, she’d worked and reworked the costs she’d face. The monthly rent. The three-months up-front deposit. The fees for the carpenter, painter and electrician needed to turn the place from the TV-repair shop it had been into an elegant setting for her designs.

  And then there were all the things she’d have to buy to create the right atmosphere. Add in the cost of increased advertising and Tally had arrived at a number that was staggering.

  She needed $175,000.00.