Alison Roberts - Christmas Kisses - The Spanish Billionaire's Christmas Bride / Christmas Bride-To-Be / Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses

‘Cry all you want, querida,’ the man who held her murmured in his compelling velvet-lined voice, his big hand cupping her head and stroking her hair as though tenderly giving consolation to a child. ‘Expressing our sorrows is sometimes necessary rather then holding them inside. You should not see giving in to grief as something undesirable, or feel that you have to put on a brave face when you are feeling sad. That would not be good for you or the little one!’

For disturbing moments Cristiano felt as if his feelings were under siege as he held Dominique’s slender quivering body close to his own. The scent of her honey-laced shampoo was inexplicably alluring as it drifted beneath his nose, and he had never touched hair of such fine silk as hers before. The sensation was incredible. He was aware too of the soft fullness of her breasts as they pressed intimately into his chest, and was shocked by the entirely inappropriate sensations that swept violently through his body as a result of that close contact.

It had been too long since he had held a woman in his arms, and no doubt that was why his body was reacting so strongly. All he had wanted to do was offer Dominique some comfort and reassurance, but now her body was awakening feelings in him that he’d thought long petrified. If the sensations were purely sexual he could handle them well enough—women had always been interested in Cristiano, and there had been no lack of opportunity for that kind of consolation since the tragedy that had stopped his world. But other, much more dangerous emotions were assailing him too, and Cristiano realised he would have to be on his guard against getting this close to the beguiling Dominique again. The risks were simply too terrifying to be contemplated …

AS HER tears and sorrow started to abate, Dominique became disturbingly aware that she was actively enjoying being held in Cristiano’s arms. Not just because he was giving her the comfort she sorely needed, but because his body was hard and warm and strong, and the contact made her feel alive and human again, after being shut off from those vital sensations for too long.

Now she knew why babies failed to thrive when they were denied the most basic necessity of all … that of being touched and held. Surely something similar must happen to adults? And it was with genuine reluctance that she uncurled her fingers from the soft weave of Cristiano’s sweater and started to step out of the protective circle of his arms.

Just before Dominique disengaged herself completely, he took her hands in his and stroked the pads of his thumbs back and forth across her fine, delicately boned fingers. His dark gaze was almost brooding.

‘It will get better, you know? You will find a way to manage it. I know it is hard to believe that right now, feeling the way you do, but you will. Every day the hurt will ease a little more. You are fortunate that you have little Matilde to draw comfort from.’

He sounded as if he knew intimately what it was to lose someone you cared for. Staring back into the black velvet night of his arresting glance, Dominique felt her hands alive with electricity from their contact with his. Her grief and despondency had been stunningly transformed into a fascination that perplexed and frightened her.

‘I think I’ll give that walk a miss, if you don’t mind? I really ought to be getting back to Matilde,’ she heard herself announce, her voice sounding remarkably even and calm in spite of her turbulent feelings.

Cristiano shrugged, his expression not easing in its disturbing intensity one iota. ‘When can I see you again?’ he asked.

Her heart momentarily stalled at the question— for a second there he had sounded like an ardent lover, counting the minutes until he saw his paramour again —and Dominique sensed heat rush into her face.

‘Why don’t you come and join me for dinner this evening? You can bring the baby … I will see about a private room for us,’ he suggested when she did not reply straight away.

‘I can’t. I’m working tonight.’

‘Ring them and say that you are taking the night off.’

‘Are solutions always so black and white to you?’

Dominique bet when this man dealt with clients he didn’t suffer fools gladly, or grant any quarter to anyone who dared disagree with him. The world must seem a very different place when you saw the answers to problems with such enviable clarity!

‘I’m already going to have to let them down when I tell them I can’t work over Christmas as it is. It would hardly be fair for me to phone in at the last minute and say I’m taking tonight off as well!’

‘I can see that you have a very admirable sense of duty, Dominique, and although I am disappointed you won’t be joining me tonight I cannot fault it. So … We will meet tomorrow for lunch instead, yes? We can go for a walk in the park first, then have something to eat afterwards. Does that plan appeal more to your sense of fairness?’

His lips twitched teasingly upwards at one corner, and Dominique was transfixed by the blaze of light that humour brought to his otherwise smouldering dark gaze.

‘It does.’

‘So … if you insist you have to leave now I will ring down to Reception and organise a car to take you back home. I will send it again for you tomorrow at around midday.’

‘Okay … thank you.’

‘You are feeling a little better now?’

As he brought his hand lightly down onto her shoulder, Cristiano’s touch almost made Dominique jump out of her skin.

‘I’m sorry I lost it like that.’ She grimaced, hardly daring to look at him and suddenly needing vital fresh air to help her breathe.

‘There is no need for an apology,’ he said quietly, devastatingly holding her gaze, even though everything inside her was clamouring to be set free from it.

When she could hardly stand the tension any longer, he gave a barely perceptible nod of his head and moved towards the telephone on the bureau just inside the door. Seconds later she heard him ring down to Reception to order the car to take her home …

Having spoken to his family and given them the news that they’d been waiting on tenterhooks to hear, Cristiano strode restlessly through the hotel and made his way to the park. As he slid his ungloved hands into the pockets of his camel-coloured cashmere coat and made his way down paths strewn with the untended debris of faded and dead autumn leaves his thoughts turned like a magnet to Dominique and the baby.

Both females were stirring things in him that he had rigidly striven to keep contained—an action that stemmed from his great desire to make himself impenetrable to hurt from another human being again. Up until Ramón’s shocking death he had more than succeeded. But now the big blue guileless eyes of the woman his cousin had abandoned, along with her fierce pride and that gorgeous baby girl, were making inroads into the previously impervious wall he’d built around his emotions. He knew he would have to fortify it if he was to stay immune.

He didn’t doubt for a moment that he was doing the right thing in taking them home with him to Spain—his sense of duty and familial loyalty confirmed it, if nothing else—nevertheless Cristiano knew that their unexpected presence in his life was going to test his resolve as nothing had before.

As he sighed into the frigid air, his warm breath made a curling plume of steam. A well-dressed couple strolling past from the opposite direction wished him good afternoon, and Cristiano politely inclined his head in acknowledgement. As he walked on, he was blindsided as his mind’s eye caught and held the vision of another woman’s beautiful face. The pain it wrought inside him almost made him stagger.