Christmas Contract For His Cinderella. Jane Porter

first weekend of January.”

      “I’ll send you home on my plane. I promise.”

      Her gaze met his. “Or sooner if you and Vittoria return sooner. I’ve no interest in being present while you integrate Vittoria into your household.”

      “Understood.”

      “And one more stipulation,” she said after a long pause. “I need to go to work in the morning. I must find a missing wedding gown—”

      “We need to return to Italy.”

      “You need to return to Italy. I don’t.” Her eyebrows lifted as her brown eyes flashed indignant fire. “I need to find Mrs. Wilkerson’s daughter’s missing gown, and then I can go with you. Give me until noon. I’ve made Mrs. Wilkerson a promise and a promise is a promise.”

      He digested her words for a moment before brusquely nodding. “Fine. My car will be at Bernard’s at noon. We will leave straight for the airport.”

      The corner of her mouth curled up. “You’re not worried that I’ll try to run away and escape you?”

      His body went hard at that saucy curl of her lips. Thank God he wasn’t going to be spending much time with Monet. Thank God he was taking her to the castello and leaving promptly. Monet had always tested his control. She still tested his control.

      “No,” he answered roughly. “Because a promise is a promise.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      MONET KEPT HER eyes closed during the flight over the jagged peaks of southeastern France lit by the setting sun. She wasn’t afraid of flying, but this afternoon her stomach thumped, queasy with anxiety and dread.

      She couldn’t quite believe this was happening.

      Christmas in the Italian Alps. Christmas with Marcu—correction, Christmas with Marcu’s children, as Marcu would be elsewhere, wooing his future wife.

      As a girl she’d dreaded the Christmas holidays. There had been years where she and her mother didn’t celebrate Christmas at all, and then there were years where they celebrated someone else’s holiday traditions, and when she was little Monet had found it confusing. So many people seemed to love Christmas but for her it was often incredibly painful.

      She didn’t really experience a proper Christmas until she and her mother moved to Palermo. Her best Christmas memories had been with the Uberto family at their palazzo. The Ubertos celebrated Christmas in a grand way, their December filled with music and food, gifts and sweets. But even in Palermo, Christmas had been about the Uberto children and their father and their aristocratic Sicilian heritage. Monet had merely been that odd French-English girl who kept to the background to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to herself. It was better for her, and better for her mother, who didn’t really want to be a mother but loved Monet just enough to keep her daughter with her, but not enough to do what was right for her.