Taken by the Highest Bidder

“So he’s not going to take me home?”

Sam lifted Gabby’s mitten hand, pressed a kiss to her fuzzy palm. “Not without me, he isn’t.”

Cristiano stood at the kitchen window watching Samantha and Gabriela make their way back to the cottage. They made a picture, he thought, teeth scraping as he bit back the hot emotion rushing through him.

Fair, pink-cheeked Samantha, her long loose spiral curls dusted with snow, bent down to hear whatever it was Gabriela was saying, and Sam looked exactly the way he imagined a snow angel would look. And Gabriela, with her long dark hair escaping her cap in wisps, black tendrils clinging to her cheeks that were rosy from the cold, looked so vibrantly alive that it made Cristiano’s heart hurt.

Gabby should always look so healthy and happy.

He’d do everything in his power to ensure her health and happiness.

As he watched, Sam impulsively wrapped her arm around Gabby’s shoulders, giving her an affectionate squeeze and he smiled reluctantly. Sam and Gabby looked nothing alike and yet they suited each other perfectly. And Sam, even though she’d been employed as Gabby’s nanny, was more mother than any mother he’d ever seen.

He left the doorway, went to the fireplace in the living room, held his hands over the heat.

It was difficult being here with them when they were together. They had such a long history together and even though he was Gabby’s family, he felt like the outsider.

He was the outsider. And that hurt.

The front door opened and voices and light filled the cottage. Cristiano blinked at the brightness of the light and yet welcomed the warmth they brought to the cottage. Sam and Gabriela literally lit up a room.

“Cristiano,” Gabby called from the doorway, still wheezing from laughing and running in the snow. “Come play with us.”

Play in the snow? Cristiano grimaced. Maybe as a child he’d loved to ski, but since his accident, he avoided snow and ice. “How about a card game instead?” he suggested.

Gabby appeared in the living room, cheeks red, light hazel eyes fringed by long black lashes. She clapped her gloved hands sending little snow flurries across the room. “But it’s beautiful outside!”

“And cold.”

“Pssh,” she said dismissively, waving one gloved hand in his direction. “You’re not that old. Come out and play. It’ll be fun. It’s snow.”

He wasn’t that old.

Bene, grazie, he thought. Great, thanks. And yet he was amused. Women chased him. He was never short of female company, most adored his wealth, his looks, his celebrity status, and yet here he was, sequestered with two who seemed impervious to his charms.

And then as Cristiano looked down into Gabby’s little face, her dark eyes so much like his, his heart ached. “I don’t play in snow very well,” he said gruffly.

“That’s okay. All you have to do is try your best.”

What a minx. She was certainly her father’s daughter. “Is that all?” he drawled, mocking her.

“Yes.” She reached for his hand, tugged on it, leading him toward the door. “Do you need your coat? It’s chilly out.”

It was as if she’d taken his heart in her small fingers, instead of his big calloused hand. He bit down on the inside of his cheek to hide the intense emotions filling him. He’d spent his life wanting family, craving a traditional family, but it had never been his to have. His father wasn’t the sort to settle down. His father wasn’t the sort to want anything but speed. Risk. Danger. Cristiano had it in his blood, too, but not to the extent his father did.

And Gabriela…

Cristiano shook his head, amazed by her bright eyes, quick mind, unflinching nature. He knew he’d never actually send her to boarding school, especially not after the miserable experiences he’d had. But Samantha didn’t have to know that. Let Sam think he was a brute. Let her think the worst. He didn’t need her approval, and he didn’t need her to like him. He just needed Gabriela to come home.

Sam blew on her fingers as Gabby led Cristiano out of the house by the hand. He, like Sam, didn’t have warm winter clothes, and she supposed she could have dug through the closets and bureau drawers at the Rookery to find heavier coats and caps and gloves, but it seemed wrong. The Rookery had been shut up so long, closed after Charles died, it felt more like a shrine to Charles than a place orphan children had once lived.