A Billionaire for Christmas (17 page)

“Why couldn’t we have done this at Aubrey and Justin’s place?” Shelly skirted around the long table she had put up in the living room at Nonna’s direction. All the other furniture was pushed away from its normal spots, and still Shelly kept slamming her hip into a chair every time she put something on the table. Bing Crosby crooned “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” from the ancient stereo, the one that had been old when Shelly was a girl, which sat in the corner.

“The tradition is Christmas Eve at my house. Then we go to Saint Bernard’s, then we come back here and open gifts. Then everyone goes home.”

“I think the family is outgrowing the space.” Shelly counted the number of place settings and did the math in her head. Justin plus two, Nina and her dad, Leo, Devon, Nonna, her, and Anthony. “Ten. We got ten, right?”

“Eleven. That redheaded party planner is coming too.”

Shelly’s head whipped around. “Gwen? What, she doesn’t have her own family?”

“Her flight got cancelled, and she can’t get home until tomorrow. Aubrey asked me if she could come with them.” Nonna walked in from the kitchen and her voice lowered. “What am I gonna say? It’s Christmas Eve, nobody should be alone on Christmas Eve.”

“Great,” Shelly mumbled under her breath, turning toward the china cabinet. She lifted out another white Christmas plate with sprigs of holly painted around the edge.

“Besides, I like her. Only one of the Travati boys is married off, and she’d be a good match maybe, don’t you think?”

Pain lanced through her heart. She knew what Nonna was really asking when she suggested Gwen might be a match for one of the Travati brothers. What Nonna meant was,
What the hell is going on with you and Tony? I see him every day for days, you spend one night at his place, and suddenly he’s gone? Did you fight? Is it over? Are you taking a break?
All the unspoken questions that Nonna wouldn’t ask, at least not right now, because everyone was coming to the house.

Nonna’s eagle eye would be on her and Tony tonight, though. Well, she’d sort it out pretty quick. Shelly hadn’t heard from Tony since he’d dropped her off at home yesterday, and he’d made everything pretty clear about where his head was at regarding the two of them. She needed to hold herself together for what? Eight more hours, maybe? She didn’t have to see Anthony on Christmas Day—she could duck out when he came over to see Nonna, and she could even beg off from dinner at Aubrey and Justin’s tomorrow evening. The next day her plane left. Back to San Francisco she’d go.

She’d return to her new life. The life that was meant to sustain her and help her stay well. She put a fork next to Gwen’s plate, setting her place between Leo and Devon. Anthony’s seat she placed far down the table, away from her own spot.

“You aren’t sitting by Anthony?” Nonna dried her hands on her apron.

“Not tonight,” she said in a light but final tone, one she hoped conveyed
don’t ask me about it, because I don’t want to discuss it
.

“You sure you need to go home in two days?”

“Yeah, it was tough getting this much time off from work. I got real lucky, but I need to be back into work early the twenty-seventh.”

“Did you hear—guess no one is going to Switzerland after Christmas. Something about Devon not leaving the country. They’re all going to Aspen instead. Asked us to go too. Me? In Aspen? Can you imagine that?” Nonna shook her head. “What would I do in Aspen?”

“Same as you do here, except with more snow.”

Nonna paused, her eyebrows pulling together as though a sudden thought had popped into her brain. “They’re all staying in one house. I could go. I could cook and I’d have all the boys to myself. Aubrey can’t ski, so we would be at the house together.” Her eyes widened. “Maybe I could teach Aubrey to knit and we could make a blanket for the baby.”

“Maybe.” Shelly folded another red linen napkin and slipped it under a fork. She didn’t necessarily want to go to Aspen, but she longed for the closeness of family. She would like hang out with Aubrey and Nina and the three other Travati boys. But she wouldn’t. First, she had a job to get back to, and second, this thing with Tony over the past week was still too fresh. She doubted she’d ever be okay seeing him with someone else, building a life and a family and a home with another woman…but he would find someone someday.

Shelly released a resigned sigh at the thought. “I think you should go,” she said. “I think you’d have fun, and you’d love it.”

Nonna reached out and clasped Shelly’s chin. She gently turned Shelly’s face toward hers. “Hey, I see that look in your eyes. I know you don’t want to talk about it now, so I won’t, but sweetheart, I’m here. Okay? You need me, I’m here.”

A quiver trembled through Shelly’s bottom lip. Nonna pulled her into a hug. Shelly rested her head on Nonna’s shoulder.

“I love you,” Shelly said.

Nonna pulled back and looked into Shelly’s eyes. “Oh doll, I’ve loved you for a very long time.”

Shelly nodded. Tears dripped from her eyes. She’d cried more today than she had in years. “I know.”

“We’ll get through this, whatever is going on, okay?”

Shelly nodded again. She would lean on Nonna’s certainty, she would work her program, she would have faith that she could wade through all these emotions without needing drugs to numb her pain. “Okay.”

“You want to help me with the mashed potatoes? We’re going to have a houseful in about fifteen minutes and that crew doesn’t wait around to eat.”

“You got it,” Shelly said. She slid her hand into Nonna’s.

Nonna’s eyes swept over the long table that took up the entire living room. “You set a pretty table.”

Shelly smiled. The table did look festive, with the sparkle of the crystal water goblets, the white plates with green holly on the rims against the crisp linen tablecloth, red candles and napkins, plus the Yule log centerpiece Leo had delivered that day.

“I got my Christmas present right here,” Nonna said, squeezing Shelly’s hand. Her smile lit up her face, even while worry edged her eyes.

Even if tonight was tough because of her feelings for Anthony, Shelly was going to be thankful for everything she had. She was sober. She was safe. She had Nonna and a cobbled-together family to love during the holidays. Yes, she would be thankful and grateful, and save her broken heart for after Christmas Day.

*

Physically avoiding Shelly at dinner, even in the tight quarters of Mrs. Bello’s home, hadn’t been difficult. They’d taken positions at opposite ends of the table. No, physical separation wasn’t tough, but emotional distance was nearly impossible.

Anthony couldn’t tear his eyes from Shelly. Whenever she walked by the dinner table with another platter of food, his body tensed with the knowledge of her precise location in the room. His skin tingled. Even at a distance, he could feel her presence anywhere in the house, as though she were an extension of himself. Nor could he stop himself from staring. Of course, he looked away whenever she glanced over, but that still left plenty of moments in the evening to watch her. That long graceful neck, her bright blue eyes, that white-blonde hair, the laughter that tumbled from her lips when Justin and Max said something funny to her.

His heart swelled when she laughed. An involuntary smile crossed his face when he saw her joy. She’d survived. She’d made it back to the land of the living. She was conquering her addictions, building a new life one hour at a time. But as soon as he thought that, his mind went to Texas. His smile became a scowl as his imagination turned, replacing the happy moments in front of him with ideas of what her life there had actually entailed.

Leo leaned toward him and lowered his voice. “I heard there was a problem yesterday. While you were out shopping?”

“No problem.” Anthony took a bite of his pasta. “Loudmouth who needed to learn how to keep his trap shut.”

“That loudmouth is an attorney for Sergey Rashnikov.”

“The Russian mobster?”

“One and the same.” Leo took a long sip of his red wine. “Looks like we’ve got two brothers on this guy’s radar now.”

Anthony knew that should bother him; he hadn’t wanted more trouble for his family. And yet he just wished that he’d pummeled the guy even further. His gaze landed on Shelly. She’d been mixed up in some bad things. He shook his head. Many bad things.

Aubrey came over and took the empty plate from in front of Leo. She started to lift Anthony’s. “No way,” Anthony said and stood. “We’ll do the dishes.” He tapped Leo on the shoulder. “Shelly and Mrs. Bello cooked. No way we let the pregnant Travati clear and clean.”

“You are a man after my own heart,” Aubrey said. She handed Anthony the plate.

Leo grudgingly rose and lumbered toward the kitchen. “You too,” Anthony said, tapping his little brother on the back of the head.

“All right, all right.” Devon rolled his eyes, then grabbed his own plate and Gwen’s. “Why’d you have to rope us all in when you’re the one who wants to look good?” he asked with a teasing grin.

Anthony followed them into the kitchen. They donned Christmas aprons, Devon sporting a reindeer with a red nose and Leo claiming Santa on the rooftop, about to head down the chimney. Devon scraped plates and Leo rinsed and loaded them into the dishwasher. Anthony pulled open the cabinet where Mrs. Bello usually kept her Tupperware. Empty?

“We moved it so she doesn’t have to use a stepstool.” Shelly moved beside him and bent down to pull open a cabinet under the counter. “Don’t want to worry about her falling, you know?”

Anthony nodded.

His throat tightened. He wanted to reach out and pull Shelly into his arms. Kiss her lips. Tell her he was a fool, that he still loved her, and that of course they could be together.

But he couldn’t.

Instead, “good call” was all he said.

Shelly put a selection of various-sized containers on the counter and took a spatula from a drawer.

“We’ve got this,” Anthony said, gently liberating the spatula from her hands.

At their touch, the room, the people, the sounds, the holiday, the world, everything drifted away from where they stood in the kitchen, facing each other. He saw only Shelly and she saw only him. Love flowed between them, a need, a heat, a desire, a knowledge that he would never feel this way about another person ever again.

“Could you two stop making lovesick googly eyes at each other? Anthony, get back to work.” Devon called from his post at the sink.

His little brother’s words ripped Anthony from the moment. He turned and shot Devon a nasty big-brother look. When he turned back, Shelly was gone.

*

Shelly slipped out of midnight mass at Saint Bernard’s right before the final song. The Travati brothers had done a good job cleaning up Nonna’s kitchen before the entire crew headed to church, but Nonna wanted the coffee and hot chocolate ready when everyone returned. Shelly had volunteered for that job.

The cold Christmas Eve air snapped at her face and cleared her head. Vinnie had never enjoyed church much in general, but he’d always loved midnight mass. Even in his overstarched dressy clothes and painful new shoes, he’d always been happy as a kid to attend. Maybe it was the songs, or that the entire neighborhood was there, or just knowing that after they were both tucked away in bed that night Santa would come, but for whatever reason, Vinnie had always been the first one ready and out the door to church on Christmas Eve.

Shelly looked up at the cloudless sky. Stars sparkled their light onto the earth. “I miss you,” she whispered. The giant hole that Vinnie’s death had caused, a giant rip in her soul, would never be repaired. She was finally learning how to live around the pain, learning how to cope with the loss of him every damn day, and doing it in a much better way than she had the first five years after his death. But she’d surrendered to the fact that this pain would never be fully healed.

“You would’ve loved tonight,” Shelly said. She walked the final steps to Nonna’s and pulled open the front gate. “Justin still sounds like a dying goat in a bucket when he sings, but hell, he sure has gusto.” She smiled up at the sky and climbed the steps to Nonna’s house.

Once inside, she shook the cold from her body. The living room looked a lot bigger now. In preparation for opening gifts after church, the Travati brothers had broken down the table and put all the furniture back in place. The mountain of gifts under the tree trailed all the way toward the staircase. Aubrey had brought enough presents for a small army. Shelly had seen a ton of gifts with Nonna’s name on the tags, and she couldn’t help but be thankful that Aubrey was so loving to Nonna. It was almost as if Nonna truly was the Travatis’ grandmother.

Shelly took a deep breath. Coffee? Hot chocolate? The scents already hung in the air of Nonna’s house. She rounded the corner to the kitchen.

Anthony. His back was toward her as he filled a Christmas platter with cake and cookies. They’d sat in different pews at church, and with the crush of people, she hadn’t noticed he’d left before her.

Panic raced through her. She could leave. Wait outside until the rest of the crew arrived. That moment in the kitchen earlier had been almost too much for her to stand. God, she loved him. And she knew that he loved her, but she understood, really she did. If the situation had been reversed, she wasn’t certain what she could forgive, what she could live with, what she’d be willing to accept. She wouldn’t judge Anthony for having trouble accepting her past. But she would have to deal with the broken heart she’d brought on herself by running from her pain.

Anthony turned around.

His face said a million things without him uttering a word. His eyes, his mouth, the way his hands dropped to his sides.

“I have something to say.” He took a deep breath and walked toward Shelly. He stopped close to her, so close the heat of his body warmed her. He stood inches away from her. His chin tilted down. His gaze took in her features. “I can’t live without you.”

Shelly’s breath stalled in her lungs. She felt the same way. But even if she thought, believed, knew she couldn’t live without Anthony in her life, that didn’t mean he could live with her in his.