illegitimate daughter of a struggling French actress and an English banker, Monet had a most unusual and Bohemian upbringings. By eighteen, she had seen far more of the world than her peers, having lived in Ireland, France, Sicily, Morocco, and three different American states.
She’d spent the longest stretch in Sicily, Palermo being her home for six years from the time she was nearly twelve until she’d turned eighteen. Even after she’d left Palermo, her mother had continued to live with Sicilian aristocrat Matteo Uberto for another three years. But after leaving, Monet never returned to Sicily. She didn’t want to see any of the Uberto family, and she’d rebuffed Marcu when he tried to visit her in London three years ago, just as she’d rebuffed his father a year earlier when Matteo appeared on her doorstep with wine and flowers and a delicate negligee more appropriate for your paramour than your former lover’s daughter. It was that visit by Matteo that ensured she finally closed the door on the past, locking it securely.
She had nothing in common with this family she had lived with for six years of her life. Yes, they’d shared meals together, and yes, they’d gone to the movies, and various plays, ballets, and operas together, as well as shared holidays at the beach and Christmases at the palazzo, but in the end she was not one of them, not a member of the family, or a member of Sicilian aristocratic society.
No, she was the bastard daughter of a careless British banker, and a French actress more famous for her affairs and her wealthy lovers then her acting talent, and therefore to be treated as someone cheap and unimportant.
Monet could live with cheap. She couldn’t bear to be unimportant, though. She didn’t need to be valued by the world, but she’d craved Marcu’s love, and respect.
Instead he’d been the first to shame her, but Monet was a quick learner, and she vowed to never be dependent on anyone again, and she hadn’t been.
Determined to be different from her mother in every way, she not only rejected all things scandalous, but also pushed away her colorful, Bohemian past. She was no longer Candie’s daughter. She was no longer vulnerable, or apologetic. She was herself, her own creation and invention. Unlike her mother, Monet didn’t need men. It might not be fair, but it was easier to view them with suspicion than be open to their advances.
It didn’t stop men from pursuing her, though, and they did. They were intrigued by her very French cheekbones, pouting lips, golden-brown eyes and long thick dark hair, but they didn’t know her, and they didn’t realize that while she might look like a siren on the outside, she was British on the inside, and not about to indulge in meaningless affairs. She wasn’t interested in sex, which is why at twenty-six, she was still a virgin, and quite possibly frigid. Monet didn’t care if she was. She wasn’t interested in labels, nor did she care what men thought, aware that to most men, women were just toys—playthings—and she had no desire to be anyone’s plaything. Her mother, Matteo, and Marcu Uberto had made sure of that.
CHAPTER TWO
AN HOUR LATER Monet was outside, and the black car was where Marcu said it would be, parked in front of Bernard’s front doors. The driver appeared the moment she stepped outside, and he opened a large black umbrella to protect her from the flurries of snow. She murmured her thanks as she stepped into the car.
She glimpsed Marcu and held her breath, careful to keep a distance between them.
“So what exactly do you do here?” he asked, as the car pulled away from the curb, sliding into the stream of traffic.
She placed her purse on her lap, and rested her hands on the purse clasp. “Manage the department. Assist brides finding their dream gown. Keep mothers from overwhelming their emotional daughters.”
“An interesting choice for you, given your background.”
Her chin notched up. “Because my mother never married?” she asked, a dark elegant winged eyebrow arching higher.
Of course he’d find it ironic that she’d work as a bridal-gown consultant, but most people didn’t know her background. In fact, the only ones who knew her background were the father who’d never been part of her life and the Uberto family.
“Any problems closing?” he asked a moment later, his tone one of excessive politeness.
She nearly rolled her eyes. Surely they were beyond such superficial pleasantries. “No.”
“Were you working at Bernard’s when I reached out to you a few years ago?”
“I was. I’ve been there for four years now.”
“Why wouldn’t you see me when I reached out to you?” he asked.
Her shoulders lifted, and fell. “There was no point.” She turned her head, her gaze resting on his hard masculine profile illuminated by the streetlights. He had a perfect face—broad brow, straight, strong nose, wide firm lips, angled jaw, square chin. And yet it wasn’t the individual features that made him attractive, it was the way they came together—the quirk of his lips, the creases at the corner of his eyes, the blue gleam in his eyes. She steeled herself against the curve of his lips and the piercing blue of his eyes now. “Was there?”
“I don’t understand,” he answered simply.
“You were a married man. I was a single woman. I didn’t see what good could come of us meeting.”
“I wasn’t coming to you for sex.”
“How was I to know? Your father did.”
“What?”
She shrugged again, exhausted by the day, and his appearance. Her exhaustion made her careless. Why keep all these secrets? Why not tell the truth? “Your father approached me a year before you did. He came bearing gifts.”
“Your mother had just passed away. He was just being kind.”
“Then perhaps a casserole would have been proper. But roses? A pink satin robe? It was wildly inappropriate.”
“He gave my sisters a similar robe each for Christmas one year—pink, even. Why must you make his gift sound scandalous?”
Because he didn’t like me, Monet thought, turning her head to stare out the window, regretting her words. Why share such a thing with Marcu? Of course he wouldn’t believe her. He’d always worshipped his father. Matteo Uberto could do no wrong.
Silence stretched. They sat forever at the next stop light. The snow was heavier, wetter, and it stuck to the glass in thick clumps.
“I wasn’t interested in making you my mistress,” Marcu said roughly, breaking the tense silence. “I came to see you as my wife had just died and I needed advice. I thought you could help me. I was wrong.”
His words created a lance of pain. Her stomach knotted and her chest grew tight. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“But you did know I’d married?”
She nodded. He’d married just six months after she left Palermo. She hadn’t wanted to know but it was splashed across the tabloids as well as the internet as the Uberto family was wealthy, glamorous, aristocratic, and very much darlings of the media.
Marcu’s
