Page 23 of Cinderella's Christmas Secret 1
But this was different.
He narrowed his eyes. Echoing the bright holly berries, the table was spread with what looked like the scarlet velvet throw which had adorned her naked body that very morning. Matching red ribbons were tied in festive bows around two snowy linen napkins and everywhere there were candles. Tall candles and squat candles. Some which were near the end of their natural life and others which were clearly brand-new. Their flames flickered upwards and wove intricate shadows against the walls, while more flames came from the fire which was burning brightly in the grate. His gaze moved to the window where outside dusk was falling on the pristine snowy scene, and the contrast with the illuminated interior of the ancient room made the place look almost...magical.
‘What have you done?’ he husked.
She shrugged. ‘I played around with what we had. The candles I found in the scullery. The shiny things hanging from the ceiling are cardboard, covered with silver foil which I discovered in a drawer in the kitchen—and the cotton comes from a sewing kit in my handbag. The napkins were in those hampers you ordered, as were the ribbons—and I found the rest of the stuff in the garden.’ She chewed on her lip, anxiety suddenly creasing her brow. ‘You do like it?’
‘It’s...it’s a surprise,’ he admitted at last. ‘It’s...well, it’s remarkable.’
She looked at him a little uncertainly, as if unsure whether or not that was a compliment. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ she suggested. ‘And I’ll bring the food in.’
‘I’ll help.’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘You won’t. Humour me, Maximo. You waited on me at dinner last night and now it’s my turn. I’m perfectly capable of carrying a dish or two. You can open the wine if you like and pour yourself a glass. I’m just having water—obviously. So let me go and fetch the food.’
Maximo uncorked the bottle and walked across to the fire to hurl an applewood log onto the already crackling blaze, more to distract himself from the spiky carousel of his thoughts than for any other reason.Thiswas the reason he always turned down every damn Christmas invitation which ever came his way, because this kind of homely festivity mocked him. Every single time. It reminded him of the lives of others and all the things he’d never had. It made him think of families who cooked and ate together, laughing and talking as they sat around the table. And his discomfort was amplified by Hollie’s presence, by her newly discovered sexuality coupled with the fact that she was pregnant with his child.
She returned to the room, carrying a large tray which he took from her, waving away her protests, and he watched while she left for a final journey to the kitchen. Her hips were swaying in unconscious invitation, and she looked almost unbearably sexy in a borrowed sweater of his, which came down to mid-thigh. When he had finally released her from his bed that morning she had bemoaned aloud the fact that she didn’t have a change of knickers.
‘Then don’t wear any.’
‘I can’t do that!’
‘Why not?’ His query had been casual, but his heart had been racing like a schoolboy’s. And she had looked at him, and he at her, and somehow their getting up had been delayed even further. She had straddled him with abandon and afterwards they had shared a bath and stayed there until their fingertips were wrinkled, and she had squealed with delight when he’d wrapped her in a bathrobe and carried her back into the bedroom.
He couldn’t remember ever feeling quite so turned on by a woman and if she hadn’t gone to so much trouble with the meal, he might have suggested they postpone it in favour of a far more sensual feast.
But Maximo couldn’t shake off a lingering sense of disconnect as he sat down at the table. Because for some reason it felt as if ghosts were joining them and sitting at those empty chairs. The ghost of his mother, so recently dead. His father, too—though he’d only discovered his demise by reading about it in one of the national Spanish newspapers last year. He thought of Christmases past. He stared at Hollie’s belly. Of Christmases future.
‘There’s some of your Cantabrian mountain stew, which I’ve reheated,’ she was saying, shattering his troubled thoughts with her soft English chatter. ‘And lots of lovely cheeses and meats from those fancy hampers. Shall I cut you a slice of this Iberico ham, Maximo?’
His tongue felt as if it wouldn’t work, as if it were too big for his mouth. He shook his head, taking a sip of wine. Rich, red wine which warmed the blood like soup. He always drank this particular vintage during his preferred solitary Christmases, but tonight, he might as well have been drinking vinegar. Why was he so beset with the past tonight? he wondered with irritation—as if it were a heavy mantle around his shoulders which he couldn’t shake off?
‘Is something wrong?’ she said as he put the barely touched glass down.
He shook his head. ‘No, nothing’s wrong.’
‘Forgive me for contradicting you, Maximo, but something clearlyis.’
‘Let’s eat,’ he growled. Remembering that they’d missed breakfast, he forced himself to work his way through some of the food, though he noticed that Hollie was tucking into her own meal with a healthy appetite and, on some level, that pleased him. Eventually, she looked up from her plate of cheese and crackers, putting her knife down with a thoughtful expression on her face.
‘You know, something has been puzzling me,’ she observed slowly.
‘Really?’ he questioned, injecting a deliberate note of boredom into his voice because her analytical tone suggested she was intending to take the conversation somewhere he didn’t want it to go.
‘Any ideas?’ she ventured.
‘I have many attributes, Hollie,’ he drawled, ‘but mind-reading has never been one of them.’
But his sarcasm didn’t deter her. She simply dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin.
‘When you told me about how you started in business, about breaking up big rocks in the road, there was something you failed to mention.’
‘There were probably plenty of things I didn’t mention.’
‘Your parents, for one,’ she said.
‘Maybe that was a deliberate omission.’
