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She wanted to throw herself at him, but she asked, “Why in Sicilian?” Was he still trying to deny it in some way?
“Because, despite where I was born, my heart is Sicilian. If I am going to speak in the language of my heart it will come out in Sicilian first.”
“Oh.” Tears very different from the ones before burned her eyes. “What does più amato mean?”
“Best beloved. You are it for me, Audrey. Now and for all time.” He swept her into his arms and kissed her breathless, then whispered against her hair. “Ti vugghiu bini. I love you very much.”
“Me, too, Enzu.” She pulled back, taking his face in her hands like he so often did with her. “I love you with everything in me. To me, you are life.”
“And to me, you make life worth living. You make it real.”
Their lovemaking after that was world-shattering, leaving their separate lives annihilated, nothing left but what they were together.
*
Christmas morning dawned bright and cold, a layer of snow turning the world around the mansion into a winter wonderland.
Franca could barely decide what she wanted more: to open gifts or go outside and make snowmen with Toby. Toby, still very much a kid at heart in some ways, convinced the little girl that gifts were definitely more fun.
Vincenzo insisted the children open their gifts first. Audrey wanted to see each of their reactions, though she suspected the baby would enjoy the paper more than what was wrapped in it, so she didn’t argue.
Though she was eager to see what Vincenzo thought of his homemade truffles.
Toby’s shout of shocked delight after opening a gift from Vincenzo was loud enough to burst eardrums.
“What in the world…?” Audrey asked, unable to imagine this reaction to anything she and Vincenzo had picked out for her brother.
“It’s MIT, Audrey.” Toby jumped up and hugged the stuffing out of Vincenzo. “Thank you, Enzu. Thank you.” He broke away from Vincenzo and waved the paper at Audrey. “Read it!”
With a confused smile, she took the single sheet and started reading. Emotion welled with each word she read.
Vincenzo had started a scholarship fund for bright students who got accepted into top schools but did not have the funds to attend despite their drive and ability. The first recipient would be Toby’s best friend Danny.
Toby had got something even more, though. He’d got Vincenzo’s solemn promise that no matter what happened between him and Audrey, Vincenzo would send Toby to MIT and whatever graduate school and PhD program he wanted to follow. All schooling and living expenses to be taken care of on two conditions: an above-average grade point and no drug use of any kind.
So like Vincenzo to put stipulations for Toby’s benefit on the offer.
Audrey turned to Vincenzo, the paper dropping from her hand, her heart so full it could burst. “Thank you.”
“I want you to know that if you wish to attend graduate school for your master’s degree you will have my full support as well.”
So much for thinking she could not be a loving mother with interests outside the home. Vincenzo had made a sea change in his thinking. But love could do that.
“Thank you,” she said again. “Maybe someday.”
He dropped to his knees in front of her. “Do not thank me. This is pure self-interest.”
Both Audrey and Toby made identical sounds of disbelief.
Vincenzo just smiled. “Believe me. I have a question to ask you, Audrey, but I need your answer to have nothing to do with what is best for Toby.”
“Oh.” Audrey put her hand to her mouth, the emotion too big to contain.
Vincenzo presented her with a small wrapped box. She peeled the paper away with trembling fingers. Vincenzo helped her open the ring box—not because she needed it, but because it just felt right.
So, his big hands over hers, they opened the small velvet box to reveal a ring set beautifully with a cluster of chocolate diamonds.
“Your favorite,” she choked out with a laugh.
“Like your eyes. Chocolate and filled with light.”
“Oh, man. You are determined to make me cry.”
“More desperate for you to say yes, and mean it for the right reasons. I love you, Audrey, with the whole of my Sicilian and American heart. Will you do me the utmost honor and marry me?”
“Yes. I love you, too, Enzu. So, so much! Oh, yes. Always, yes, Enzu!”
Then they were kissing, and hers weren’t the only tears adding salty moisture to their lips.
Toby was whooping in the background and then so was Franca, and even the baby started his adorable giggling.
They were a family.
EPILOGUE
THEY WERE MARRIED on New Year’s Eve, with Christmas décor still gracing the church, and Audrey carried a bouquet of crimson and white roses mixed with mistletoe and evergreen.
Toby said Vincenzo just wanted an excuse to kiss her whenever he wanted so the billionaire had supplied his own mistletoe. Vincenzo did not deny it, but he did manage to make Toby speechless when he asked the teen to sign the adult adoption papers that would make Toby a Tomasi.
“I’m not calling you Dad,” Toby said, clearly overwhelmed with emotion.
“We are brothers, but you will be an official Tomasi and that is what matters. You belong to us.”
Toby’s grin split his face and he signed the papers with a flourish.
It was Audrey’s turn to be speechless when a wedding guest who turned out to be a judge stepped forward to sign adoption papers for Franca and Angilu, officially making both Audrey and Vincenzo Tomasi their parents.
“How did you get the adoption through so fast?” Some legalities could only be expedited so much.
“I started proceedings the afternoon of your initial interview.”
“What? How?”
“That non-disclosure agreement you signed?”
“Yes?”
“It may have included a power of attorney.”
“You knew then?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “I had Gloria cancel the other candidates’ interviews.”
“You’re a devious man, Enzu Tomasi, and in this case, I love you for it.”
“I am so very glad to hear it, più amato. And you? You are my Christmas miracle.”
She thought maybe that went both ways, but he was kissing her and she didn’t get the chance to say so. She thought maybe he knew.
*
Keep reading for an excerpt from A SCANDAL IN THE HEADLINES by Caitlin Crews.
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CHAPTER ONE
“WHAT THE HELL are you doing on my boat?”
Elena Calderon froze in the act of polishing t
he luxurious teak bar in the yacht’s upper lounge. The low growl of the male voice from across the room was laced with a stark and absolute authority that demanded instant obedience. And she knew exactly who he was without looking up. She knew.
She felt it slam into her, through her, like a sledgehammer.
Alessandro Corretti.
He wasn’t supposed to be here, she thought wildly. He hadn’t used this boat in over a year! He usually rented it out to wealthy foreigners instead!
“I’m polishing the bar,” she managed to say. She kept her tone even because that was how a stewardess on a luxury yacht spoke to the guests. To say nothing of the owner himself. But she still couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
He let out harsh kind of laugh. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“It’s no joke.” She tapped her fingers on the bar before her. “It’s teak and holly, according to the chief steward.”
She’d told herself repeatedly that what had happened during that one mad dance six months ago had been a fluke. More to do with the wine and the music and the romantic ballroom setting than the man—
But she didn’t quite believe it. Warily, she looked up.
He was half-hidden in the shadows of the lounge’s entryway, with all of that bright Sicilian sun blazing behind him—but she recognized him. A bolt of sensation sizzled over her skin, then beneath it, stealing her breath and setting off a hum deep and low inside.
Alessandro Corretti. The man who had blown her life to bits with one single dance. The man she knew was bad no matter how intensely attractive he was and no matter how drawn she was to him, against her will. The man who was even worse than her lying, violent, criminally inclined ex-fiancé, Niccolo.
Elena hadn’t dared go to the polizia when she’d fled from Niccolo, fearing his family’s connections. Alessandro’s family, however, made those connections seem insubstantial, silly. They were the Correttis. They were above the law.
And yet when Alessandro stepped farther into the lounge, out of the shadows, Elena’s chest tightened in immediate, helpless reaction—and none of it terror. Her breath caught. Her heart sped up. She yearned, just as she had six months ago, as if her body believed he was good. Safe.
“Was that an attempt at levity?” There was nothing in the least bit safe about his hard voice, or that look in his eyes. “Hilarious, I’m sure. But you still haven’t answered my question, Elena.”
