Farrah Rochon - Hot Christmas Nights - Tuscan Nights / Christmas Tango / Tied Up in Tinsel

She couldn’t stay hidden in Europe forever. And she didn’t want to. As much as she loved Tuscany and the life she’d built for herself, she missed the life she’d left back in the States. Maybe it was time she returned.

Now was not the time to think about this. She’d vowed to put all that stuff aside and just enjoy herself these next couple of days. It was Christmas, after all.

She pocketed her cell phone and clapped her hands together. “Ready?” she asked.

“Nyla, about what we were talking about before your phone rang.”

Yes. His new girlfriend.

If there was one thing she didn’t want to think about more than those impending decisions she had to make regarding going back home, it was Aiden’s new girlfriend.

She pointed to the digital clock on her DVD player and smiled a smile she wasn’t really feeling. “It’s already after six. We should probably get going.”

Aiden started to speak, then stopped. He stared at her for several long moments before taking her bag and heading out the door.

Chapter 3

“Can we at least both agree that it makes more sense if I took over at the wheel? You’ve been driving all day.”

“And you’ve been baking all day.”

Nyla flipped her hands in the air. Two hours into their three-hour trek down to Rome and she was still trying to convince Aiden to let her take over driving duties.

“I’ve been driving in Italy longer than you have,” she tried.

“Let’s see. There’s a road. It has lines on either side. As long as I stay between the lines, I think I’m good.”

The look she sent him was sharp enough to cut through leather. Not that it mattered; with his eyes focused on the highway he wasn’t looking at her anyway.

“Fine,” Nyla said, settling back in her seat. “If you want to continue driving, you’ll have to tell me the story behind that picture on Facebook.”

He glanced over at her and laughed. “How exactly does that work? If I don’t tell you the story, will the car magically stop moving?”

“Aiden,” she said in a warning tone.

He let out a sigh. “Were you always this bossy?”

“Come on.” Nyla pinched his arm. “I want to know how a picture of you stripped down to your skivvies ended up on Facebook.”

“I lost a bet,” he said. “I tried to get that stupid picture blocked, but no matter how many times I reported it, they never took it down. I had to threaten my friend Mike that I would post a video of him singing ‘Dancing Queen’ in drag on YouTube. He’s in his last year of law school and is clerking for the Georgia Supreme Court. He definitely doesn’t want links to that video showing up in the judges’ in-boxes.”

“Ouch. That’s cutthroat,” Nyla said with a laugh. “Knowing you, I should have guessed that the picture was the result of a bet, though I must admit I was sort of hoping you’d developed a bit of a wild side.”

He glanced at her. “I may not make a habit of swimming in the Atlantic in my underwear, but I’m not the quiet guy I used to be, either. There’s a little wild in me.”

She studied him for a moment. “How much?”

“Just enough.”

The effort it took to ignore the tingles those two words set off in her belly was exhausting. Yet she still spent the last hour of their drive contemplating what a little wild would look like in Aiden.

By the time they reached Else’s, the snow was once again falling, covering Rome in a rare blanket of pillow-soft whiteness that made it seem even more romantic and magical. Nyla declared it the first Christmas miracle of the season when they were able to find street parking across from Else’s building in the Trieste District.

Several of the balconies of the high-rise were trimmed with twinkling Christmas lights, but Else’s, which she could see from street level, was bare. The window beyond, which led to her living room, was completely dark.

She tried Else’s number again as she and Aiden crossed the street. She breathed a sigh of relief when her friend answered on the third ring.

“Thank goodness I finally got ahold of you,” Nyla said. “I’m just outside your building. I hope you don’t mind company for a couple of days.”

Her steps halted as Else spoke.

“You’re kidding me,” Nyla said.

“What’s wrong?” Aiden asked.

She held up her index finger, asking him to wait. “No, no. It’s okay,” Nyla spoke into the phone. “The trip down to Rome was very last minute. I came on the off chance that you’d be here. Enjoy Thailand.”

“Thailand?” Aiden asked when she ended the call.

“Yes.” Nyla blew out a sigh. “She was invited to spend Christmas there with a couple of fellow faculty members. She offered to call the landlord of the building, but she said there have been several break-ins in the area and they’re hesitant about letting people into the building who were not previously on a visitors’ list.”

Nyla rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to ease the headache that had suddenly formed between her eyes. She slipped her cell phone into her pocket before hunkering in her coat, pulling the hood over her head.

“As far as contingency plans go, what are your options?” Aiden asked.

She shook her head. “Finding an available hotel room this close to Christmas will be impossible, and that’s not considering how outrageous the cost will be even if I do find one.”

In a low voice, he said, “You can always stay with me.”

Nyla looked up at him from underneath the brim of her hood.

There was a time when spending a couple of nights in the same place with Aiden wouldn’t have been a big deal. She’d done so not too long after she and Cameron first started dating. After a freak rainstorm made the roads too treacherous for her to drive home, Nyla had spent the night at his parents’ house.

She and Aiden had stayed up way too late debating politics. He’d played the devil’s advocate just to get a rise out of her. Nyla had held stubbornly to her positions for the very same reason. Talk of politics had soon turned to other things they disagreed on, like his affinity for fast food. Eventually, they began to discuss things they had in common.

That was the first time she’d started to see him as more than her boyfriend’s younger brother.

She should have tried her luck with the rainstorm.

Nothing that would have happened on the slick roads that night could have been worse than what eventually resulted from the lapse in judgment she made when she allowed herself to fall for Aiden.

It was going to be hard enough being around him for the next two days . The thought of spending the next couple of nights with him made Nyla’s breath catch in her throat and her skin warm, despite the snowflakes fluttering around them.

She was being ridiculous. This was Aiden. Kind, sweet, nerdy Aiden. Quiet, unassuming Aiden.

Grown and much-sexier-than-he-had-a-right-to-be Aiden.

No, she wasn’t being ridiculous. She’d managed to fall for him back when he was quiet, nerdy and unassuming. The fact that he now had the physical qualities she attributed to her ideal man made these feelings of attraction coursing through her impossible to ignore.

“What about that eight-hundred-pound gorilla?” she asked. “European hotel rooms are notoriously small. It could get pretty cramped with the three of us in there.”

“You’re the one who has a problem with it. I’m ready to face the eight-hundred-pound gorilla head-on. Don’t you think it would make the next couple of days less awkward?”

Nyla predicted it would do just the opposite. Resurrecting those past mistakes had trouble written all over it.

She shook her head. “No. Not yet.”