Christmas Contract For His Cinderella. Jane Porter

business. She wasn’t going to get involved. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry, but I’ve already paid you back the cost of the airline ticket, and the cash you lent me, with interest. Our debt should be settled.”

      “The debt is settled, the favor is not.”

      “They are one and the same.”

      “No, they are not one and the same. You do not owe me financially, but you owe me for the position you put me in when you left the palazzo, and the speculation you created by abruptly departing without saying goodbye to your mother, my father, my brother and sisters. You put me in a most difficult position, and that is the score that is to be settled now as once again I am in a difficult position and this time you can help me.”

      It crossed her mind that she could argue this point forever with him, but he would never change his stance. Marcu was fixed. He was absolutely immovable. Even at twenty-five he’d been mentally strong, physically strong, a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps that had been his appeal. Monet had been raised by a woman who couldn’t put down permanent roots, and didn’t know how to make a home, or even make responsible decisions. Monet’s mother, Candie, was impulsive and irrational. Marcu was the opposite. He was analytical, cautious, risk-averse. He was reason personified.

      The only time he’d ever surprised her was the night he’d kissed her, and made love to her, only stopping short of taking her virginity. And then his regret, and his scorn, had scarred her. In mere minutes he’d gone from passionate and sensual, to callous and cold.

      Monet had left less than fourteen hours later, flying out of Palermo with nothing but the smallest knapsack of clothing. She owned very little. She and her mother had lived off the generosity of Marcu’s father and Monet was not about to take any of the gifts he’d bestowed on her.

      It proved easy to leave Palermo, and yet once she’d arrived in London, far too hard to forget Palermo. Not because she missed her mother, but Monet missed everything else—the busy life at the historic sprawling palazzo, Marcu’s younger brother and sisters, and then there was Marcu himself...

      In that first year in London Monet spent far too many nights sleepless, agonizing over the evening in Marcu’s arms. It hurt to remember his kisses and his touch, and yet they were the most potent, powerful emotions and sensations she had ever felt. She had felt like a flame—flickering, hot, radiant. He had woken something inside of her that she hadn’t known existed. And his harsh rejection of her had been confusing...shattering.

      She’d worked to forget Sicily. She’d tried to put the entire Uberto family from her mind, and yet she missed the children. They had become the only family she’d ever really known.

      She had also been in desperate need of a job, and her father, a man she’d only seen a handful of times in her life, had introduced her to a family in need of a nanny while the children were out of school for the summer holiday. She’d performed the job so well that the family had kept her on for the coming school year. She helped with the children, and their schoolwork, and ferrying them from one after-school activity to another. She’d stayed with that family until the parents divorced and could no longer keep her on, but she’d found another job right away, and then another until she’d realized that she couldn’t continue in child care—all the goodbyes were too hard on her heart—and she went to work in retail.

      She’d started downstairs at the register in hats and gloves, and then when they were short-staffed in bridal, went to the fifth floor to fill in, and had never left the bridal department. If others thought she was too young to be the manager of the department at twenty-six, no one said so, because despite her age, she had style and flair and an eye for quality. Monet wasn’t entirely surprised. She was her mother’s daughter after all.

      “I know this is a lot to take in so I propose we postpone further conversation until you’ve finished here, and we can go to dinner and relax and have a civilized discussion.” Marcu gave her an encouraging smile. “It will give you an opportunity to ask the questions that I’m sure will come to you—”

      “But I have no questions,” she interrupted, refusing to fall for his charm, painfully aware that in the past she’d found Marcu nearly irresistible—and he knew it, too. He knew exactly how to play her, just as he’d successfully played her eight years ago. She had no wish to fall in with his plans again and rose, indicating she was finished with the conversation.

      “Marcu, I have no interest in this position. It’s pointless to continue as I have no wish to waste your time, nor do I wish to waste my own. I’m to return here early tomorrow morning and I still need to find a missing gown before Mrs. Wilkerson descends on us again.” She drew another short, tight breath. “I wish I could say it was good to see you, but that would be a lie, and after all these years there is no point in either of us lying to the other.”

      “I never imagined you to be vindictive.”

      “Vindictive? Not at all. Just because I can’t fall in line with your plans doesn’t mean I harbor you ill will. You were important to me once. But that was years and years ago.”

      He rose as well, and he towered over her now. “You made me a promise, Monet. I’m afraid you can’t say no...at least not yet, not until you have heard me out, and you haven’t. You don’t know the details. You don’t know the time frame. You don’t know the salary, or the benefits.”

      She threw up her hands. “There are no benefits to working for you!”

      “You once loved us. You used to say that we were the family you never had.”

      “I was young and naive. I know better now.”

      “Did something happen after you left Palermo? Did something occur that I do not know about?”

      “No. You know everything.”

      “Then why so much scorn and hatred for my family? How did they hurt you?”

      She couldn’t immediately answer, not when her emotions bubbled up, her chest too hot and tender. She had once loved them all. She had once dreamed of being part of them, a cherished member of the family. But that wasn’t to be. She wasn’t one of them. She hadn’t any hope of being one of them. Her eyes stung, and her throat ached. Monet fought to speak. “It was good of your family to tolerate me for so many years, especially in light of who I was. So no, I do not hate your entire family. I do not speak of your brother and sisters with scorn.”

      “So your anger is with me, and my father, then?”

      This is precisely what she didn’t want to do. Dredge up the past. Relive the old pain. She dug her nails into her palms, fighting for control. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t wish to discuss it. I don’t live in the past, and neither should you.”

      “Unfortunately, it does matter to me, and unfortunately you are in my debt, so we will discuss it later, over dinner. I shall leave you now to finish up here. My car will be downstairs waiting for you. I look forward to continuing our discussion then.” He nodded at her and walked away, heading for the gleaming elevators against the distant wall.

      She stood there watching him until the elevators opened and he stepped in. He never once turned around until he was inside the elevator and then, and only then, did he turn and look back to find her still standing where he’d left her. Their gazes met and held, a fierce silent challenge that was only broken by the closing of the doors.

      He crossed his arms over his chest and exhaled in the privacy of the elevator. Marcu hadn’t missed the challenge in Monet’s eyes, or her defiant expression as she’d stared him down until the elevator doors closed, blocking the view. He’d expected some resistance from her but this was ridiculous. Monet Wilde needed to remember that she owed him, and not the other way around.

      Further, she hadn’t been his first pick for child care.

      He hadn’t even thought of her until after he’d exhausted every resource, trying to find someone