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Oh, how he’d loved his soldier! He’d kept it safely buried in the pocket of his sagging jeans, bloodied the nose of a bigger boy who’d tried to steal it.
Was that what Taylor’s daughter faced? Improvised toys? If she were lucky, a broken, discarded doll to call her own?
Dante scowled.
Talk about giving in to your emotions! The child—Samantha—was not the Poor Little Match Girl. Neither was her mother. Taylor was perfectly capable of earning a living.
Yes, he’d started the legal procedures that would take her house from her, but she’d reneged on the terms of the loan. It was business, plain and simple. She’d understood the risks when she signed those loan papers.
Besides, she wasn’t destitute. She had possessions. She could sell them. She had friends in that town, people who’d help her and the child.
Then, why had her coat looked worn? The house, too. Even by candlelight, he could tell it needed work. The walls needed fresh paint. The wood floors needed refinishing. The furnishings were shabby. And where were the shiny, high-tech gadgets women always had in their kitchens?
Had Taylor deliberately simplified her life…or had fate done it for her?
A muscle flexed in his jaw.
Not that he cared. For every action, there was a reaction. That was basic science. She had deceived him, and he had repaid her.
The child was not his problem. Neither was Taylor. He had no regrets or remorse, and if her daughter didn’t have a particularly merry Christmas this year…
Something bumped against his leg.
It was a child. A little girl, older than Samantha, clutching a cloth doll almost as big as she was in her arms.
“What did I tell you, Janey?” A harassed-looking woman caught the child’s hand. “You can’t see around that thing. Tell the man you’re sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Dante said quickly. “No harm done.”
The child’s mother smiled. “I told Janey that Santa’s going to bring her some wonderful surprises in just a few weeks but she saw Raggedy Ann and, well, neither she or I could resist. You know?”
He didn’t know, that was just the point. He’d never had surprises from Santa, never fallen in love with a goofy bear, like Samantha, or a rag doll like Janey.
Even if he had, who would have understood how important such a simple toy could be?
Dante watched the little girl and her mother fade into the crowd. He stood motionless, long after they’d disappeared from his sight.
Then he made his way out of the store, took out his cell phone to call his chauffeur…And, instead, called his P.A. to tell her he wasn’t returning to the office.
He felt—what was the word? Unsettled. Perhaps he was coming down with something. Whatever the reason, walking to his apartment building on such a cold, crisp day might clear his head.
“You’re home early, Mr. Russo,” said his housekeeper when he stepped from the private elevator into the foyer of his penthouse.
Dante shrugged off his coat and told her he didn’t want to be disturbed. Then he went into his study, turned on his computer and did what he could to further prepare for the meeting he’d have over drinks in just a few hours.
For the first time in his life, he couldn’t get interested in the complex facts and figures of an imminent deal.
What kind of Christmas morning would Taylor and her child awaken to? There was a time he’d have assumed Taylor viewed the holiday with as much cynicism as he did. After all, he’d spent six months as her lover. He knew her. He knew her likes and dislikes…
Or did he?
She’d shown him a side of her he’d never suspected. Had she really grown up in a small town? If he hadn’t seen her in that shabby little house with a child in her arms, even imagining Taylor in that kind of life would have been impossible.
People didn’t even call her by that name in Shelby. She was Tally, not Taylor. A softer, more vulnerable name for a softer, more vulnerable woman.
Dante went to the window and looked down at Central Park. Thanks to the influx of out-of-towners, it was alive with people, even on a weekday afternoon. There were probably more people in the park right now than lived in the entire town of Shelby, Vermont.
If Taylor had stayed in New York, if she’d opened her business here, she’d be turning a handsome profit by now. She had contacts in the city, a reputation.
