An ebony brow shot up. ‘Are you joking? Marzia didn’t return her engagement ring and even if she had I hope I would’ve had more class than to ask you to wear it.’
‘You never loved her?’ Holly was challenged to credit that fact because it ran contrary to everything she had assumed about his engagement.
‘When I met Marzia, I had never been in love in my life,’ Vito admitted ruefully. ‘I got burned young watching my mother trying to persuade my father to love her. I spent my twenties waiting to fall in love, convinced someone special would eventually appear. But it didn’t happen and I was convinced it never would. I decided I was probably too practical to fall in love. That’s why I got engaged to Marzia the week after my thirtieth birthday. At the time she looked like the best bet I had. Similar banking family and background.’
‘My word…that sounds almost…almost callous,’ Holly murmured in shock. ‘Like choosing the best offer at the supermarket.’
‘If it’s any consolation I’m pretty sure Marzia settled for me because I’m extremely wealthy.’
Vito yanked loose his tie and shed his jacket. Holly’s dress slid down her shoulders and for an instant she stopped its downward progress and then she let it go and shimmied out of it. In many ways she was still in shock from Vito’s honesty. He had never fallen in love? Not even with the gorgeous Marzia, who by all accounts had irritated him in spite of her pedigreed background and family. She swallowed hard, trying not to wonder how much she irritated him.
‘You’re definitely not joining me in the shower,’ Vito breathed in a roughened undertone as he took in the coffee-coloured silk lingerie she sported below the dress that had tumbled round her feet. ‘You can’t deprive me of the fun of taking those off.’
His shirt fell on the floor and she lifted it and the trousers that were abandoned just as untidily to drape them on a chair along with her dress. Sharing a bedroom with a male as organised as Vito had made her clean up her bad habits. Vito had paused to rifle through his jacket and he strode back to her to stuff a jewellery case unceremoniously into her hand. ‘I saw it online, thought you’d like it.’
‘Oh…’ Holly flipped open the case on a diamond-studded bracelet with a delicate little Christmas tree charm attached. ‘Oh, that’s very pretty.’
‘It’s very you, isn’t it?’ Vito remarked smugly.
‘Why didn’t you give it to me downstairs over dinner?’ Holly exclaimed, struggling to attach it to her wrist until he stepped forward to clasp it for her.
‘I forgot about it. You swanning down to greet me dressed like Marie Antoinette put it right out of my mind.’
‘And then you just virtually threw it at me,’ Holly lamented. ‘There’s a more personal way of giving a gift.’
‘You mean romantic.’ Vito sighed as he strode into the en-suite bathroom, still characteristically set on having his shower. ‘Shouldn’t the thought behind the gift count more?’
Holly thought about that and then walked to the bathroom doorway to sigh. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s a cute, thoughtful present and I love it. Thank you.’
‘My thank you was your face. It lit up like a child’s when you saw the Christmas tree,’ Vito confided with amusement before he turned the water on.
Holly kicked off her shoes, stared down appreciatively at the bracelet encircling her wrist and lay down on the bed. He had never loved Marzia. Marzia was wiped from Holly’s standard stock of worries for ever. Marzia was the past—a past Vito neither missed nor wanted to revisit. That, she decided, was a very encouraging discovery.
All of a sudden hiding her love, being so painfully careful not to let those words escape in moments of joy, seemed almost mean and dishonest. Vito loved Angelo so freely. She witnessed that every day. Her husband hadn’t even had to try to love his son and Angelo loved his father back. Perhaps in time Vito could come to love her too, she reflected hopefully. When he had told her that he much preferred her to just be herself around him without the fancy clothes or any airs her heart had taken wings. He liked her as she was. Wasn’t that wonderful?
Vito strode out of the en suite, still towelling dry his hair. ‘We’ll have a very special Christmas this year. For the first time I’ll happily celebrate the season. That’s the effect you and Angelo have had on my Scrooge-like outlook.’
‘I’m grateful because I will always love Christmas.’
‘Because that’s how we met,’ Vito reasoned. ‘And I’ve never forgotten how appealing you looked dressing that little tree at the cottage.’
‘Is that so? And yet you made me fight for the opportunity,’ Holly reminded him.
‘You gave me a fresh look at the world and it’s never been the same since,’ Vito intoned very seriously as he settled down on the bed beside her and closed her into his arms.
‘Meaning?’
‘Remember I said I went through my twenties waiting for someone special to appear?’
Holly nodded and rubbed her cheek against a damp bronzed shoulder.
‘And then she came along when I was thirty-one years old and, unfortunately, incredibly wary and set in my ways.’
Her brow furrowed because she thought she had missed a line somewhere. ‘Who came along?’
‘You did,’ Vito pointed out gently. ‘And I wasn’t waiting or looking for love any more, and my practical engagement had gone belly-up. So, when you appeared and you made me feel strange I didn’t recognise that it was special. The sex was incredible but I was blind to the fact that everything else was incredible too.’
‘I made you feel…strange?’ Holly exclaimed in dismay.