The Italian's Christmas Housekeeper

Sergei cleared his throat. “If you just need a little more time...”

“That’s not it.” She looked down at the marble ballroom floor. She never should have agreed to a date, she thought. She’d been swayed by her neighbor, a widow who occasionally babysat her son, who’d told Lola she ‘needed to get out and live.’ That, plus the weddings of Lola’s two best friends in rapid succession, had made her feel her own loneliness. When Sergei Morozov had invited her out, she’d convinced herself it might be a healthy step forward, after a hard, lonely year.

Now she wished she’d just stayed at home.

“Some man broke your heart,” he growled. “He abandoned you and your son.”

Lola looked up in astonishment. She’d never spoken about Rodrigo to anyone, not even her best friends. “I never said he abandoned me—”

“You had pregnancy alone. Had birth alone. No man.” His big hands tightened against her back. “Forget the idea of a date. Maybe I just marry you, eh?”

She sucked in her breath. “Marry?”

The burly man looked down at her. “I have wanted you for a long time, Lola,” he said softly. “If marriage is your price, I am willing to pay.”

Lola stared up at him in shock.

Marry him?

Her stomach looped like a roller-coaster.

Sergei Morozov wasn’t a bad man. She’d worked as his secretary throughout her pregnancy. He was rich, arrogant, but not cruel. When she was eighteen, she would have jumped at the chance to marry a man like that.

Too bad for him that Lola was now twenty-five, with a pocketful of money and a scarred, bitter heart.

“I’m flattered, truly,” she said awkwardly, “but—”

“Marry me, zvezda moya. I will cover you with jewels. I will—”

“I’d like to cut in.”

Lola’s heart dropped as she heard another man’s voice, low and dangerous behind her. A voice she knew, though she hadn’t heard it in over a year. A voice she’d never forget.

Slowly, she turned.

Rodrigo Cabrera stood beside her on the dance floor, wearing a sleek tuxedo over his muscular, powerful body.

Dark-haired, dark-eyed, with chiseled cheekbones and a five o’clock shadow along the hard, sharp edge of his jaw, he was even more handsome than she remembered. Power, dark and dangerous and sexy, echoed off him like shock waves.

“Rodrigo?” she breathed.

“Lola.” His cruel, sensual lips curved as he looked down at her. “It’s been a long time.”

Unwilling images went through her of the days and nights of their brief affair. The pleasure. The joy. The laughter. The certainty in Lola that for the first time since she could remember, she was no longer alone...

Now, pain twisted through her, pain she was careful not to reveal on her face. “What are you doing here?”

“Cutting in.” He moved between her and Sergei with almost feline grace. He glanced at the Russian tycoon with casual amusement. “If you don’t mind.”

Sergei scowled. “Of course I mind—”

“It’s all right, Sergei.” Lola put her hand unsteadily on his arm. “I’ll see you shortly.”

Sergei set his jaw. “Once the dance is done, I’ll be back.”

Rodrigo’s eyes flicked to her. “As the lady pleases.”

After Sergei’s grudging departure, the two of them looked at each other.