V sneered, “She doesn’t matter, anyway.”
He smacked his fist on the table. His cup, spoon and plate jumped.
Vesuvia’s sculpted nostrils flared. But when she spoke again, still whispering, she had the sense to leave Lucy out of it. “You must stop being so stubborn. I want to get moving on our wedding plans. It’s going to be the wedding of the decade, Dami. And as of now, we have only a year to put it together.”
“There isn’t going to be any wedding,” he said.
For all the good that did. “Have you forgotten that you’ll be thirty-two in exactly a month? Next year will fly by. And then what? You’ll be thirty-three. Have you suddenly forgotten the Marriage Law?”
“I don’t care about the Marriage Law.”
“Of course you do.” She swore softly in Italian. “If you don’t marry soon, you’ll lose your inheritance and your titles, too. You’ll no longer be a prince of Montedoro.”
“How many ways can I say it? I’m not marrying you, V. It’s long over with us. When are you going to accept that and move on?”
She rolled her eyes and asked in a smug whisper, “Why should I accept it? You need me. You need to marry and I want to marry you. It’s all going to work out. You only have to stop denying the inevitable.”
He shook his head. “No.”
She stuck out her chin at him. “Don’t tell me no. I understand you. I know how you are. Yes, I have a temper. Yes, I am sometimes unreasonable. But in the end, I’m willing to forgive you, whatever you do. I will forgive you and we can move on. We both know how you are, Dami—born to stray.” He felt more than a little insulted. All right, he was no model of virtue, but he’d been faithful to V. It had mattered to him to be true to the woman he intended to marry. Even when they’d been on the outs, she’d been the only one in his bed until after it was undeniably over. Until Thanksgiving. Until Lucy. V sneered, “With you, Dami, there will always be someone new, and you will require a forgiving wife.”
And by then he’d had enough. “You have no idea what I require.”
“Yes, I do, I—”
“No. No, you don’t. I require love,” he said, and it was true. “I want forever, with the right woman.”
Vesuvia sighed heavily and tossed her hair. “Oh, please.”
“I want forever with Lucy Cordell.”
There was a moment. Huge. Endless. Vesuvia gaped at him. He stared back at her. He hadn’t planned to say it, hadn’t even known he would say it until the words were on their way out his mouth.
But now he’d done it, now he’d let himself say it, the stark, simple truth in it stunned him.
V whispered dazedly, “You can’t be serious.”
“I am completely serious,” he replied. “I’m in love with Lucy Cordell and I have been for a long time now. There’s no one else for me. Lucy’s the one.”
* * *
On Christmas night, Lucy gave a little party at her place. Tabby came with Henry after taking him to her parents’ house for an early dinner first.
“It could have been worse,” she told Lucy. “At least they didn’t yell. No heavy objects were thrown. I think we’re making progress.”
Shoshona and her husband, Tony, were staying with Viv until January, when they would take Viv back to Chicago to live. All three came to the party. Viv even brought frosted Christmas cookies that she and Shoshona had made together.
A couple who lived on the fifth floor, Bob and Andrew, came, too. Lucy also invited two new friends in their mid-twenties. Sandra and Jim were actors Lucy had met while making Christmas-show costumes for the Make-Believe and Magic Children’s Theatre Company.
It went well, Lucy thought. She served drinks and snacks and they played a game called Cranium that Bob and Andrew brought along. Everyone seemed to have a good time. They all stayed until well after midnight.
Sandra was the last to go. She offered to stay and help clean up. But Lucy hugged her and shooed her out the door. She would deal with the mess in the morning.
She took Boris and went to bed. As usual, since Dami had left her, sleep didn’t come easy. She missed making love with him, but she missed his big body wrapped around her in sleep even more.
That didn’t make a lot of sense, and she knew it. They’d been lovers for such a short time. Two nights in November, five in December. It was nothing. A blink of an eye, really.
And yet for her it didn’t seem to matter how few the nights had been. Her bed felt too big and too empty without him.
In the morning, the sun was shining, making the snow on the windowsills glitter like sequins on a white party dress. She plugged in her tree lights, made herself breakfast and counted her blessings. After a second cup of coffee, she started gathering up the dirty glassware and dishes from the night before.
When the doorbell rang, she assumed it had to be Bob or Andrew. They’d left the Cranium game behind last night. She grabbed the game from the coffee table and carried it to the door, disengaging the locks and pulling it open without even stopping to check the peephole.
Dami stood on the other side.
A strange, incoherent little sound escaped her at the sight of him. She gaped at him, not believing, certain she had to be seeing things, that she’d missed him so much she’d gone delusional.
Dear Lord, he looked good. It wasn’t fair that he looked so good. He wore a fabulous camel coat over one of those perfectly tailored designer suits of his. His dark eyes locked on hers and something inside of her went all wimpy and quivering. “Hello, Luce.”
She almost dropped the Cranium game. But then by some miracle, she managed to hold on to it. She backed up without speaking, clearing the doorway.
He came in, bringing with him the wonderful, subtle scent of his cologne and a bracing coolness in the air. He must have come up straight from outside.
She gulped as he shut the door. “Uh. Where’s your bodyguard?”
“I sent him on to the apartment.”
“Oh. Well.” Her mind seemed filled with cotton, her thoughts not connecting properly. At the same time, her whole body ached. She wanted to launch herself at him, grab on tight and never let go. But no way was she doing that.
Okay, he might really be standing in front of her after all. But his presence didn’t mean he’d come for her. He could be in New York for any number of reasons.
“Have a seat.” She set the game on a side table and gestured in the general direction of a chair.
He stayed where he was. “God. Luce.” He said it low. Soft and rough at the same time. As if he really had missed her. As if his arms ached to reach for her.
Or maybe that was only wishful thinking on her part. “What are you doing here?”
He stuck his hands in the pockets of his beautiful coat. He looked down at his Italian shoes, then lifted his head again and locked those amazing dark eyes on her. There was pain in those eyes. And hope, too. And longing. Wasn’t there?
She didn’t dare to believe.
But then he spoke. “I was wrong. So wrong. I didn’t know, not really. I didn’t let myself see. I’d convinced myself it wasn’t going to happen for me, that somewhere along the line, between one barely remembered liaison and the next, I’d lost whatever it takes, that willingness of the heart. I’d lost whatever chance I had of finding a woman to love, a woman I could love with everything in me, the way my father loves my mother. But then I met you.”
She put up a hand, palm out. “I don’t understand. You said you