Million Dollar Christmas Proposal

A happy yowl sounded, before two balls of fur streaked across the path only to collide into one mass of rolling, spotted fur.

Audrey yelped, but Vincenzo merely laughed. “Finally they decide to show themselves.”

“What in the world are they?” she asked, her heart still lodged somewhere in her throat.

Vincenzo grinned, his expression more open and relaxed than she’d ever seen it. “They are ocicats—a feline similar in coloring to the ocelot, but smaller and fully domesticated.”

“You have pets?” she asked in absolute shock.

“They were both damaged when their breeder’s facility was broken into.”

“Damaged? In what way?”

“I will show you.” Vincenzo whistled like he would to a dog.

Strangely enough the cats stopped their play and came trotting over. One had only three legs; the other had an ear that had been torn and had healed with ragged edges.

Audrey dropped to her knees and put her hands out for the animals. “You poor lovelies. What are your names, hmm?”

“Spot lost his leg to a glass shard. It was either amputate or lose the cat. Rover’s ear was either the result of his brethren’s stress at the breakin or more glass. The breeders didn’t know which.”

“How awful. Dog’s names, though?” she asked with teasing disbelief.

“Devon insisted.” Vincenzo’s lips twitched. “The ocicat is known for acting more canine than feline.”

“Your majordomo found them?”

“He learned the breeders planned to euthanize them. Spot and Rover cannot be shown competitively and therefore could not be sold for the usual exorbitant rate. They had already been spayed in preparation for transferring ownership, so there was no hope of using them to breed.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Devon agreed.”

“You must have, too, to take on pets.”

Vincenzo shrugged.

“They live down here?” she asked.

“They will not leave, though they have been given many opportunities to roam the rest of the house. They suffer a version of agoraphobia. The animal psychologist believes it is the result of their trauma during the breakin.”

“You took them to an animal psychologist?” she asked, giving up the fight against loving this complicated man to bits.

If there had ever been a question that he would own her heart completely, there wasn’t one any longer. She was head over heels.

“Devon had the psychologist come here.”

Audrey laughed as she straightened, having made friends with the two ocicats. “Of course he did.”

No wonder Vincenzo didn’t keep any birds down here. Even a contained aviary wouldn’t be safe against these two. “Are the cats the reason you don’t allow your family down here?”

“It is not my entire family. Only my parents.”

“Why keep this place from them?” Vincenzo gave so much to his family, even if he didn’t recognize that fact. “That just seems so out of character for you.”

The look he gave her was hooded. “Do not begin to think you know all that I am. At the most basic, I am ruthless and determined to have my own way.”

“What does that have to do with your parents coming down here?”

“My mother would insist the temperature, which is perfectly modulated for the plant life, be changed, that the air be dehumidified. My father would use this place as a way to impress his playthings.”

“He would bring his other women here? To your home?” Never mind just to the jungle paradise. That was sick—and not in the good way.

“His opportunistic gene is highly developed.”

“You make me happier and happier that we opted out of dinner with your father.”

Vincenzo nodded, but then sighed. “If you become a permanent part of mine and the children’s lives you will have to learn to deal with my parents.”

That tiny little if hurt in ways she didn’t have the emotional stamina to examine right then. “Are the cats safe with the children?” Audrey asked, needing to focus on something other than that two-letter word.

“Spot and Rover are as affectionate as puppies. Devon informs me that both children adore them, though Angilu cannot chase them down like Franca.”

“Devon informs you? You have never brought the children down here?”

Burnished color streaked Vincenzo’s sharp cheekbones. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I did not know how.” Vincenzo’s jaw locked, his tall body going rigid with tension.

The admission had not come easily.

“Enzu, even brilliant billionaire tycoons are not born with an instant manual on how to be a parent.”

“I had practice.”

“How?”

“Pinu. He was ten years younger than me. Frances and Giovannu had no interest in parenting. His nanny was not a warm person. I held him when he cried, fed him, played with him, taught him what I knew of family and life.”

“You were a good brother.” No wonder Vincenzo was so determined to offer Franca and Angilu something more.

Again with the shrug. “But the world looks very different from the eyes of a thirty-six-year-old man than that of a ten-year-old boy. What I felt qualified to do as a child is more daunting than any business venture as an adult.”

She reached up to brush a hand along his jaw and brought her other hand up to his cheek. The familiar touch drew their surroundings in until it was just the two of them. “You are doing fine, Enzu. Franca and Angilu are thriving.”

“Now they are.”

“You cannot change what their life was like with their parents.”

“No, I cannot.” Pain laced his tone and guilt she did not understand dulled his gorgeous blue eyes.

“Enzu, give yourself a break. Do you have any idea how incredible it is that

you turned out so responsible and caring, considering the way you were raised?” Considering just how badly he’d done in the parent gene pool.

He jerked his head away from her, moving back, the openness and relaxation from just moments ago completely gone. “Do not be fooled, Audrey. I do not deserve either accolade.”

“How can you say that?”

“I knew. I knew and I did nothing about it.”

“What did you know?”

“How like our parents Pinu had become, and still I left Franca in his care.”

“She was his child.”

“But at the very least I could have been a more involved part of her life.”

Audrey could not argue that reality, but it wasn’t right for Vincenzo to take it all on himself, either. “You trusted your brother to follow your example, not that of your parents.”

“Why should I have been so blind? He followed their example in every other way.” Vincenzo shook his head, self-disgust lacing every word. “Franca barely knew me when she became my child six months ago. I had only seen Angilu once, right after his birth.”

She could have argued that Vincenzo had been busy earning a living for his entire family, his brother included, but Audrey thought it was more than that. “Maybe you stayed away because you couldn’t stand to see the truth of how your brother had turned out.”

“I am not a child, to hide from the truth.”

“You’re also not perfect, Enzu. No one is.”

“I have no excuse.”

“But you do have reasons and you’re doing your best to make it right.”

“Now that you are here I am making headway.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have gotten to know the children more since you have come into their lives than I did in the first six months they lived in my home.”

Well, that was because they hadn’t actually lived with him. But she didn’t say so. She had a feeling Vincenzo would just make that another guilt implement to flog himself with.

“Come. We cannot change the past and talking it to death is of benefit to no one.”

“Enzu—”

“Your brother will be here soon,” Vincenzo interrupted her. “Do you wish to meet him in your robe, with your hair a tangled mess on your head?”