Page 31 of Stolen Christmas
“Yes, that would have sent her running.” Angel blushes, and I’m already thinking about how the color spreads down to her breasts and how full they’ll look when she’s swollen with my child. I have to adjust myself carefully without catching their attention, so I move behind her and fix myself.
“Andrea, will you take their coats?” my mother addresses their butler. Angel gives him a strange look, and I make a mental note to ask her about it later. She slips off the new coat she selected, and I can’t help but admire how amazing she looks.
“Yes, Mrs. D’Antonio,” he answers politely. I hold my hands out for Angel’s and then hand it over to him. For some reason, I don’t care for others to touch her. It’s silly, especially because Andrea is married and old enough to be her father or even grandfather.
After our outerwear is taken, my parents walk us into the parlor room to relax before dinner is called. It will be just us for the holidays, which will upset my mother when she learns of my rapid marriage plans, but I hope the sudden change in my future will override her annoyance.
“Please take a seat,” my father says. My mother takes her usual seat while I lead Angel to a small loveseat where I can stand behind her.
Angel looks around the room nervously. “You have a stunningly beautiful home,” Angel says, her voice giving way to her true amazement. Ashamedly, I hadn’t prepared her for my parents because I’d been so caught up in the wedding preparations.
“Thank you. It’s just like Lucas’s home.”
“Oh.”
My mother’s sweet, but she’s no longer the naïve girl my father married thirty plus years ago. With a raised brow, she says, “Not the condo.”
She turns to me with that motherly look that means I’m in trouble and my father is about to back her up. “You’re engaged and you’ve never taken her to your estate?” she asks with her finger wagging in my face.
“We’ve been busy,” I say, smirking and hoping that they get the implication, even if it embarrasses them.
“Busy? I just saw you…”
“Would you care for a drink?” my father asks, hoping to defuse the tension. I need my head as clear as possible right now. Angel already has me fucked up, and I can’t think straight.
I wave off one for myself, but Angel says, “Just um…water, please.”
My father walks over to the serving station, pulls a water from the mini-fridge, and then hands my woman a bottle of water. I quickly snag it and open it before taking a seat beside her. I rub her back after she takes a drink, hoping to relax her, and it seems to do the trick.
A sense of dawning crosses my mother’s face, and she blurts out, “Wait. Oh my goodness. You’re pregnant.” The assumption is wrong, temporarily of course, but wrong nonetheless.
Angel gasps, shaking her head in dismay. “Goodness, no.” I forgot how terrible that might look on her part. Most parents would flip out and frankly, my parents might even be concerned a bit if I did show up with an already pregnant woman claiming to be carrying my child.
“No. Not yet. At least not until I can get her knocked up,” I answer, gently squeezing Angel’s hand.
“Oh.” My mother’s one syllable holds so much weight it’s like a lead balloon, sinking the celebration I had planned for this evening.
I take Angel by the hand and tuck her arm under mine as I lock our fingers together.
I brush a kiss against her temple. Leaning in, I whisper, “Relax. You’re doing well, Amore.”
“Luca, may I have a word with you?” I look down toward Angel and then at my mother. Something about leaving them alone doesn’t make me feel good. “They’ll be fine. Come with me. I must speak with you on a matter.”
I bend in and say, “Behave. I’ll be right back.”
Heading into my father’s study, I close the door behind myself. “What is it, Father?”
“What is it? You bring the sister of the boy you’ve fucking got locked up in a cell and you’re trying to pass her off as your fiancée to your mother. Do you know what that’s going to do to her when she finds out it’s bullshit? You know damn well I won’t let anyone hurt your mother.”
“I’m not hurting my mother. Angel’s my fiancée. Right now, my son is probably growing in her womb, or maybe it will be soon.”
“What?”
“I’m marrying her. She’s fucking mine, and that’s it.”
“Son, have you lost your fucking mind? You’re holding her brother prisoner.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t say she wanted to marry me. Some things need time and coaxing, but the bastard broke Mom’s Christmas present, so I thought this would be a good replacement.”
