She cried harder, and she didn’t know why she was crying, only that it felt so good to be in his arms. She’d missed him so much. Too much. It had been awful these past few weeks and she’d wanted to go to him so many times. “How did you manage this?” she said, cheek pressed to his chest.
“Not easily. Hit a few roadblocks until I reached out to the English National Opera.”
She laughed and blinked back tears. “It’s incredible, but also not private.”
“Not at all private. Some might say it’s a spectacle.”
“Indeed. You’ve put on quite a show, signor.”
“I’m not finished, either,” he said, taking a ring box from his pocket and kneeling in front of her. “I want the world to know I love you, and have only ever loved you, and I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you—”
She reached down and clasped his hands. “You don’t have to do this here, and you don’t have to say these things—”
“But I do, because I love you, and I’m once again asking you to marry me, not because I need a wife, but because I need you, and only you, and if you’re not ready to accept me now, then I’ll wait, and I’ll ask you again in six months, and then again in another six months.”
Monet straightened and clasped her hands together, pulse pounding.
He looked up at her, his expression serious, his light blue eyes intently holding her gaze. “If you say you need six years, I’ll give you that, too, but there will never be anyone else for me. It is you, and only you.” He opened the ring box to reveal a stunning emerald cut diamond—that was huge, easily three or four carats in size—with smaller baguette diamonds on either side. “I will wait for you, because I love you, and life isn’t complete without you. In fact, life isn’t even life without you.”
She glanced from the ring to his face. “I do love you,” she whispered. “Very, very much. But I’m scared—”
“I know.”
“I’ve been alone for so much of my life.”
“I know that, too.”
“I don’t trust easily.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Yes.”
“But I can’t imagine life without you. I don’t want to do this without you anymore.” She flexed her left hand, where she still wore her sixteenth-birthday ring. “I haven’t taken this off, because it’s been my last connection to you.”
“Ring, or no ring, I’m not going anywhere.”
“We can wait on setting a wedding date?”
“As long as you want.”
She smiled. “Then, yes. I accept your proposal. Yes.”
He stood and slipped her birthday ring off, and put it on her right hand, before sliding the engagement ring onto her finger, and then he kissed her, a long searing kiss filled with heat and love, as the crowd applauded, and someone whistled, the sound echoing off the domed ceiling with its incredible acoustics.
EPILOGUE
SHE DIDN’T NEED six years or even six months to know she wanted to marry him. They decided to continue working and then spend weekends together, and after just a month of Marcu bringing the children to London to see her, followed by her traveling to Sicily to see them, she knew the sooner they came together as a family, the better. The children did need her and so did Marcu, who worried more and slept less when she was in London on her own.
The wedding took place the first weekend in June at the great cathedral in Palermo, the one the family had always attended. The weather was perfect for a wedding, too, the sky a stunning azure-blue with just a few wispy clouds overhead. It was warm but not too warm and the cathedral’s bells rang joyfully as Monet and Marcu stepped from the cool interior into the glorious sunshine, her hand tucked in the crook of Marcu’s arm.
Man and wife.
Married.
She looked up at him, and he smiled his dazzling heart-stopping smile, before his head dropped and he kissed her thoroughly, making her tingle from head to toe. “La mia adorabile moglie,” he said huskily. My lovely wife.
She couldn’t hide her blush, or her smile, as he lifted his head. Wife. She was his wife.
The children came running toward them then, Matteo, Rocca, and Antonio, all throwing themselves at the bridal couple, and there were hugs all around.
“I love you,” Monet said, kissing each of the children, one by one. “You are mine now, forever and ever.”
“And you four are all mine,” Marcu said, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I have everything now, love and family. I am, without a doubt, the luckiest of men.”
* * *
If you enjoyed Christmas Contract for His Cinderella you’re sure to enjoy these other stories by Jane Porter!
His Merciless Marriage Bargain
Kidnapped for His Royal Duty
The Prince’s Scandalous Wedding Vow
His Shock Marriage in Greece
Available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from Snowbound with His Forbidden Innocent by Susan Stephens.
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Snowbound with His Forbidden Innocent
by Susan Stephens
CHAPTER ONE
PARTIES BORED HIM. He didn’t want to go to tonight’s jamboree, but his guests expected it. Ambassadors, celebrities, and royalty who craved the Da Silva glitter expected to see the head of the company and to feast at his table.
He took the short route to the ballroom via his private elevator. Senses firing on full alert, he was on his way to check every single element organised by the company he’d hired to run the event, and woe betide Party Planners if anything fell short of his expectations.
Why should it? Party Planners was reputed to be the best in the business or he wouldn’t have signed off on his people hiring them. There was just one fly in that very expensive ointment. Having assumed responsibility for the event last minute when the principal of the company, Lady Sarah, had been taken ill, his best friend Niahl’s kid sister, Stacey, had taken over responsibility for running his banquet in Barcelona. And, in the biggest surprise of all, his people had assured him that Stacey was now considered to be the best party planner in the business.
It was five years since he’d last seen Niahl’s sister at another Party Planners event, where she hadn’t exactly filled him with confidence. In fairness, she’d just started work for the company and a lot could happen in five years. On that particular occasion she’d been rushing around trying to help, spilling drinks left right and centre, in what to him, back then, had been typical Stacey. But of course his memories were of a young teenager whom he’d first met when Niahl had invited him home from university to visit their family stud farm. Niahl, Stacey and he had lived and breathed horses, and when he’d seen the qual
ity of the animals their father was breeding, he’d determined to have his own string one day. Today he was lucky enough to be one of the foremost owners of racehorses and polo ponies in the world.
His thoughts soon strayed back to Stacey. He was curious about her, and how the change in her had occurred. She’d always tried to help, and had been slapped down for it at home, so it wasn’t a surprise to him when he heard she’d gravitated towards the hospitality industry. He hoped she’d found happiness and guessed she had. She’d found none at home, where her father and his new wife had treated her like an indentured servant. No matter how hard she’d tried to please, Stacey had always been blamed, and in anyone’s hearing, for the death of her mother in childbirth when she was born. No child should suffer that.
Niahl had told him that as soon as she’d been old enough and the opportunity had presented itself, Stacey had left home. All she’d ever wanted, Niahl added, was to care for people and make them happy, no doubt in the hope that one day someone might appreciate her, as her father never had.
He shrugged as the elevator descended from the penthouse floor and his thoughts continued to run over the past five years. Stacey had obviously gone quite a way in her career, but he wondered about her personal life. He didn’t want to ponder it too deeply. She’d been so fresh and innocent and he couldn’t bring himself to think about her with men. He smiled, remembering her teenage crush on him. He’d never let on that he knew, but it was hard to forget that kiss in the stable when she’d lunged at him, wrapping her arms around his neck like a vice. Touching his lips where stubble was already springing sharp and black, he found the memory was as strong now as it ever had been. The yielding softness of her breasts pressing against the hard planes of his chest had never left his mind. Thinking back on it made him hard. Which was wrong. Stacey Winner was forbidden fruit. Too young, too gauche, too close to home, and a royal argumentative pain in the ass.