Page 1 of Lucien & Olivia

CHAPTER ONE

LUCIEN

I usually drive us everywhere we go, but this time I opted to have a driver take us from the jet to the hotel. I want to sit beside my wife. It’s cold out and Olivia is snuggled against my side, wrapped in a thick blanket. Ice makes patterns over the window, but in the back seat, the heat of her body as she sleeps keeps me warm.

I shift in my seat, leaning back against the door. She clears her throat, eyes still closed, and flips to her side. Her cheek settles on my thigh. My fingers ghost up her hair, pulling her in as she snuggles close. I run my touch absently through her dark waves, tracing the streak of gray through her bangs.

She mentioned one night while we were cleaning up after dinner about a year ago that she wanted to start dyeing it. I said no right away, pulling her in to touch that line of silver. When I’d married her, one of the first things I’d noticed was her thick curtain bangs. They weren’t in fashion at the time, but she understood her angles, she knew what looked good on her face, so she kept them. Sometimes she cut her hair short, sometimesshe had it long, but she always kept that soft feathering of bangs. Framing her face in flyaway curls.

Over the last several years, I watched the gray creep down the center. Just a few strands, but they’re so pretty on her. Reminding me every time I lay eyes on her of how far we’ve come.

She begrudgingly agreed not to touch it for at least another few years. I have plenty of silver in my hair as well, so it’s not like she’s the only one. And she understands where I’m coming from. She loves to sit on my lap and run her fingertips over my temples.

“You’re such a silver fox,” she says, biting her lip.

As long as it makes her happy, I’m satisfied. I’m getting older, but other than an extensive collection of scars from being shot, stabbed, and blown up and a limp from jumping off a cliff into a river, it hasn’t slowed me down enough to worry about.

Objects in motion tend to stay that way. And I haven’t stopped going yet. Maybe having a wife in her early forties is keeping me young.

I touch her cheek, brushing her hair back. She has the prettiest lines around her eyes. Her beauty matured to that of a woman who knows her place in the world. She’s confident in her body, in her accomplishments. There’s peace in her eyes. It’s such a contrast to the scared girl I married.

The car slows as it makes a careful turn of the snowy corner. Up at the top of the mountain, I see the Mount Placid Hotel glittering with holiday lights. The huge, curved building with hundreds of rooms lit up with a golden glow makes a circle with a decorated quad at the center. Pines strung with lights line the road that ends in a circular drive by the glittering front door.

“Liv,” I whisper.

She murmurs and I gently shake her shoulder. Her lids flutter and close again.

“What?” she blurts out, pushing her brows together.

“Baby, you’re missing the lights.”

Her eyes snap open and she leans across my lap. Instantly she goes from being sleepy and grumpy to staring in awe through the window. She’s wanted to come up to this hotel since our eldest, Marco, started attending the nearby university. It’s his last year there and he invited us up to visit on Christmas Day because he couldn’t make it home. Our three other boys are with our close family friends, Peregrine and Rosalia. They invited them to spend Christmas at their second house in Austria and I took them up on that right away.

Olivia balked, but I came up behind her and put my hands on her shoulders.

“That would be perfect,” I told Rosalia. “Please, take them.”

“Lucien!” Olivia said, frowning.

Rosalia started laughing. “We’d love to have them. They’ve never been to Europe, it’ll be fun for them to spend it there with their cousins.”

Olivia agreed, but only because I promised she could video chat with them whenever she wanted. Of course, I love my sons. But they’re all high energy mischief makers who need a lot to stay entertained. Sometimes, I just want a break and the opportunity to have my wife to myself for a few nights.

We park and I open the door, stepping out. It snowed last night and there’s even more to be expected by morning. It looks like the hotel staff tried to shovel it, but it’s still piled high in drifts. I lift Olivia from the car and carry her, in my arms, to the front step.

She’s blushing when I set her down. “There’s no need to carry me,” she whispers.

“I’ll do whatever I please,” I murmur, pressing a quick kiss to the side of her neck.

Olivia’s cheeks flush pink. The concierge and the valet look away, busying themselves with taking our bags out. I can tell she wants to say something, but after all this time she knows better. And she knows if she talks back, I have her all to myself for the night so she’ll have to pay the price sooner rather than later.

I pull her coat tighter and we climb the huge stone steps. The front doors swing open and a young man in a tuxedo stands aside.

“Welcome to the Mount Placid Hotel, Mr. and Mrs. Lucien Esposito,” he says brightly.

For a second as the doors sweep aside, I see all the lights glitter in my wife’s eyes. Gold, red, white, and silver. Her lips part and she turns her head, taking it all in.

This is her element.

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