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The director hadn’t mentioned anything to her, though.
“Is everyone having a good Christmas?”
Uncanny. They even sounded alike. She looked in the glass hoping to catch a reflection, but it was too bright out. All she could see was a darkened silhouette in costume.
“Babbo needs your help, boys and girls.”
This was silly. Armando was not at the shelter playing Babbo. As soon as she turned around she would see that the person...
Was Armando.
Why? He was dressed in costume and surrounded by children. “There’s a very special person whose present Babbo forgot to deliver,” he was telling them in his boisterous Babbo voice, “and I’m afraid she thinks I decided to give her present to another girl. It’s really important I find her, boys and girls, so I can tell her that I would never pick someone else. That she’s the most important person in the world to Babbo. In fact, Babbo cares about her so much that he wants her to come back to the North Pole with him.”
Throughout his speech, Rosa moved closer. Spotting her, he dropped his voice back to normal. “Her name’s Rosa,” he said. “Do you know where I can find her?”
“Right there!” the children screamed, two dozen index fingers pointing in her direction.
Rosa was too stunned to breathe. “What are you doing?” she whispered.
“What do you think I am doing?” Armando said. “I’ve come to bring you back home where you belong.” He reached through the throng to catch her fingertips. “I love you, Rosa.”
Beautiful as those words were to hear, they were still only words. “I told you, Ar—Babbo. I can’t stay at the North Pole.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the children watching intently and lowered her voice to a whisper. “It hurts too much.”
“But you don’t understand,” he whispered back. “Mona’s gone. Come with me.” Grabbing her hand, he led her to the shelter’s lobby and closed the community room door. “I told Mona I couldn’t marry her.”
She had to have heard wrong. “What about your agreement with King Omar? You gave him your word.”
“It’s a long story. What matters is I love you and I don’t want to be with anyone else.”
Rosa couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was too unreal. “Are you saying that you damaged relations with one of your closest allies for me?”
“When you put it that way...yes.” He pulled off his hat and beard, leaving only his disheveled self. His beautiful, disheveled self. “I would do it again, too. Are you crying?”
“Like a newborn baby.” All those years married to Fredo, believing she wasn’t anyone special. How wrong she had been. Armando made her feel beyond special. Not because he’d nearly created an international incident on her behalf, or tracked her down dressed like Santa Claus, although both were amazingly romantic.
No, the reason he made her feel special was in his eyes. They were shining as clear and bright as a summer’s day without a trace of melancholy to be found. He was happy being with her, and that was all she needed. “I love you,” she told him.
Her reward was an even brighter shine. “Does that mean you’ll come back with me to the North Pole?”
“Absolutely, Babbo. Right after you kiss me under the mistletoe.”
“Forget the mistletoe,” he said, tossing the beard over his shoulder. Rosa gasped as he pulled her into his arms and dipped her low. “All I need is you.”
New Year’s Eve
“Five minutes left in the year. Will you be sad to see it end?”
Rosa took one of the glasses of champagne Armando was carrying. “Yes,” she said. “And no. I’ll be sorry to see December end. For all the ups and downs, it turned out to be a pretty wonderful month.”
“The last week certainly was.” Armando gave her a champagne-flavored kiss that quickly deepened. “Have I mentioned how glad I am that we decided to skip a formal courtship?” he asked, lips continuing to tease hers.
“Well, it did seem a little silly, considering...”
“Mmm, considering,” he said, kissing her again. What they were discovering was the intimacy that came from being friends before becoming lovers. There was a level of trust that made everything they shared feel deeper. Of course, the fact Armando was an amazingly enthusiastic lover didn’t hurt, either.
“You know what else I’ll miss,” Rosa said, turning in his arms. “Once Epiphany passes, this will become a plain old archway again.”
They were in their archway now, preferring to ring in the new year alone rather than in a ballroom full of dignitaries.
