12 Christmas Romances To Melt Your Heart (43 page)

T
om left
a message that Eleanora and Evie were to meet him and Van in the lobby at one o’clock the next afternoon. First they needed to go to the Regional Justice Center to secure a marriage license, and then they could head to the Wee Kirk o’the Heather Wedding Chapel, which Tom had reserved for a three o’clock ceremony. A busy afternoon.

And frankly, Tom would have been looking forward to seeing her again if his head wasn’t pounding like someone kept swinging at his skull with a sledgehammer. Slumped in a lobby chair, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d drunk so damn much or felt so completely awful the next day. At least Van didn’t look much better.

“I should have said no to the second bottle,” griped Van, his head resting on the back of a low, brightly colored floral chair. “But you were so pissed off, and the first bottle made you so much more . . . pleasant.”

Tom groaned, staring up at the ceiling, where a multifaceted crystal chandelier made his head ache even worse. He fished his sunglasses from the pocket of his short-sleeved white dress shirt and put them on. Better. Not much, but better.

“And why the hell I made that promise to keep you from knocking on her door, I’ll never know, but you owe me your firstborn as payment. I have bruises all over my body from keeping you off the tenth floor last night. I think I missed my calling as a linebacker.”

Tom winced, wishing it wasn’t true, but it was.

He didn’t remember much from last night, but he definitely remembered Van physically sitting on him to keep him from waking up Eleanora to “get to know her better.”

“Sorry,” he rasped. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“Have I mentioned that I think this whole thing is a risky, shitty idea?”

“Yeah,” muttered Tom. “Multiple times.”

“I’m not even sure a notarized prenup will hold up in court. It hasn’t been filed.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Tom. “I’m still doing it.”

“I hope you at least get fucked,” said Van, quickly adding, “You know, in the good way.”

“Shut up, Van.”

Van leaned back in his chair again and sighed loudly to mark his disapproval. He needn’t have bothered. Tom already knew that he was in trouble.

It was bad enough that he was marrying a complete stranger. On top of it, he was wildly attracted to his temporary child–bride, and now, in some warped, pathetic, predictable, cautionary-tale twist of fate, he’d actually started falling for her too. Somewhere between watching her tell off that asswipe at Auntie Rose’s, swapping favorite books, drinking Asti Spumante, and ending up in Vegas, thirty-one-year-old Tom English had let twenty-two-year-old Eleanora Watters get under his skin.

He scrunched his eyes shut under his sunglasses and shook his head. It was so clichéd, it made his stomach flip over with disgust, and yet . . . there it was, deep in his gut: he liked her. He liked her more than he’d ever liked, well, anyone.

Not that it mattered.

Because today was just a means to an end: get married, secure his inheritance, and get a divorce. He wasn’t interested in messing up her plan to go to college and open a business, and fuck knew she wasn’t an appropriate choice, on any level, for the wife of Tom English. Aside from the gaping decade age difference between them, they were incompatible in every possible way, right? Right.

But while such clearheaded thinking should have squelched Tom’s infatuation, it didn’t. He felt like a lovesick teenager when he remembered the way she’d looked at him when she murmured, “You’re something between a dream and a miracle.” His heart had doubled in size as he stared down at her face, stroking her soft, twenty-something skin, while his mind had fantasized about every filthy thing he’d like to do to her in bed.

Damn it.

He’d been so furious with himself, he’d grabbed Van and made his friend help him polish off a bottle of Dewar’s before ordering another.

Fuck.

“Tom?”

And fuck again.

Because he would have known her voice anywhere, and he was reminded of a line from
Romeo and Juliet
: “My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound: Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?”

Nope. She’s Eleanora. And almost an English.

He opened his eyes, and they instantly widened, his fingers moving to the stem by his ear to pull his glasses off his face. His head stopped aching as he rose slowly to his feet, never taking his eyes off her.

If he was a goner before, now he had one foot in the grave.

She was stunning. She was heartbreakingly, mind-bendingly, gorgeously, stupendously beautiful.

“You got the dress,” he murmured.

“I love it,” she answered, grinning up at him, her face a mix of pleasure and shyness.

She’d curled her long blonde hair into soft waves that fell past her shoulders, pinned over one ear and secured with a white blossom. Her skin was luminous, and her eyelashes were dark and long, framing the loveliest blue eyes he’d ever seen. Dropping his gaze to her lips, he felt his body tighten in response to the glossy pink pillows he found there. He stared at her as they formed his name.

“Tom?” she prompted.

He cleared his throat and jerked his eyes to hers. “Yeah, uh, the dress looks . . . I mean, I’m glad it fits. You look . . .” He may as well be honest with her. His voice dropped lower and sounded gravelly in his ears. “. . .
stunning
.”

“Told you, Ellie,” said Eve Marie from behind her, nudging her cousin’s arm with a simple bouquet of calla lilies and looking up at Tom. “We charged the flowers to you.”

“That’s fine.”

Van finally stood up, huffing loudly to draw Tom’s attention.

“Last chance,” he mouthed over the cousins’ heads.

Tom looked back down at Eleanora’s expectant face.

Too late.

T
he chapel Tom
had reserved wasn’t at all what Eleanora had expected for her impromptu Vegas wedding. Honestly, she had cringed inside at the thought of an Elvis impersonator officiating—but then, Tom was surprising her at every turn. The Wee Kirk o’the Heather Wedding Chapel, though situated beside a gas station on the Strip, was surprisingly traditional inside.

Once they arrived via limo, Eleanora was quickly whisked away by a wedding coordinator, while Tom, Eve Marie, and Van were shown into the chapel. She waited in the vestibule just outside the sanctuary, her hands sweating around the bouquet of flowers Evie had ordered, her breathing quick and choppy.

Even though he barely knew her, Tom had done everything possible to make today special for her, and Eleanora couldn’t help but be deeply touched by his kindness.

Unlike other little girls who dreamed about the man they’d eventually marry at their perfect fairy-tale wedding, Eleanora Watters hadn’t indulged in such fantasies. All three of her older siblings had children, but none was married, and while Eleanora had attended the wedding of Evie’s mother to her second and third husbands, she didn’t have any fond memories of the events.

Most of Eleanora’s ideas about love and weddings came from the books she’d read and the movies she’d watched, though she was enough of a realist to separate fact from fiction and recognize that such fanciful notions would probably never apply to her and her life.

And yet . . .

Here was Tom English, the very epitome of a rich, handsome, fairy-tale prince, treating her with kindness, looking at her with those hot, dark eyes, and touching her face like she was, somehow, already precious to him.

“Are we ready, dear?”

Eleanora nodded at the wedding coordinator, and the older woman knocked twice on the closed double doors in front of them. Instantly, the wedding march sounded from inside the chapel, the doors magically opened, and Eleanora walked down the aisle toward Tom.

I
f he’d thought
her beautiful in the lobby of the Imperial Palace, here, in a tiny Vegas chapel, walking toward him in white with a sweet smile, she looked almost angelic.

She handed her bouquet to Eve Marie, and Tom raised his hands so she could take them, her small fingers threading effortlessly through his.

“You sure you want to do this?” he whispered once the music ended.

Her smile grew a little bigger, and she nodded at him, giving him the same words she’d said when she accepted his proposal. “Why not?”

“Okay,” he said, grinning back at her before turning to the officiant. “I guess we’re ready.”

He’d paid for the basic wedding package. No Elvis. No silliness. No cheesy tomfoolery. Just the vows necessary to pronounce them husband and wife, and a dozen posed photos after the service. Why he’d sprung for the photos, he wasn’t sure—he’d checked the box before giving it a lot of thought. She could throw them away later if she didn’t want them.

“Then let’s begin.”

Tom nodded, then looked back at Eleanora, whose fingers tightened around his as the older gentleman started speaking.

“Friends, we are gathered here today to join Thomas English and Eleanora Watters in marriage. At Tom’s request, I will begin this ceremony with some words by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.”

Eleanora’s eyes widened for a just a moment before she tilted her head to the side, smiling up at him with wonder.

The officiant read in a clear voice: “An excerpt from a letter to Robert Browning, from his wife, Elizabeth:
You cannot guess what you are to me—you cannot—it is not possible:—and though I have said
that
before, I must say it again . . . for it comes again to be said. It is something to me between dream and miracle, all of it—as if some dream of my earliest brightest dreaming-time had been lying through these dark years to steep in the sunshine, returning to me in a double light.
Can
it be, I say to myself, that
you
feel for me
so
? can it be meant for me? . . . Could it be that heart and life were devastated to make room for you?”

“
They leave the ground fallow before the wheat
,” she murmured, her intelligent eyes glistening and yet somehow severe as she stared up at him. “How in the world did you—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he whispered, his heart throbbing with tenderness for her.

It had taken the hotel concierge hours and hours—and a couple hundred dollars—working with a lady at the Spring Valley Library this morning, to track down the source of the words Eleanora had whispered to Tom last night. But it was worth it. Looking into her eyes now, he decided that every second he’d waited, every cent he’d spent on the search, had been worth it to ensure that she was married to him with a few words that actually meant something to her.

“It matters,” she answered softly, her voice breaking a little even as she managed a smile for him.

“Thomas English,” intoned the officiant, “repeat after me.”

Tom stared into Eleanora’s eyes as he repeated the vows, promising to love, honor, and cherish her. And he’d be lying if he said his own eyes didn’t burn a little as she returned the words, her expression bright and confident as her lips moved softly to form the words that bound her life to his.

“And now, by the authority vested in me by the state of Nevada, I pronounce you man and wife. Mr. English, you may kiss your bride.”

It hadn’t occurred to Tom that he’d be given permission to kiss Eleanora, that it would be expected. After last night, he’d sort of made a deal with himself that he wouldn’t touch her, knowing that if he did, his feelings for her would tumble into an emotional abyss, and he strongly doubted he’d ever be in possession or control of them again.

She must have seen the fear cross his face, because her expression cooled as she straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “You don’t have to.”

Did she think he didn’t
want
to? Could she possibly believe—even for a second—there was a universe in which he
didn’t
want to feel the softness of her lips beneath his? It wasn’t okay with him for her to believe that . . . because it simply wasn’t true.

“I
want
to.”

Releasing her hands, he palmed her cheeks, gently urging her closer. Eleanora took a step toward him, closing the distance between them, the fitted lace of her bodice flush against the crisp white cotton of his shirt.

Tom bent his neck, closing his eyes as he leaned toward her, feeling her fingers wrap around his forearm and tighten as his lips alighted on hers. She gasped softly as they made contact, stealing his breath as surely as she was stealing his heart. Her breasts pushed against his chest as she surged forward, arching into him, and he flicked his tongue along the seam of her lips to see if she would open to him. When she did, he tilted his head to the side, lowering his hands to her waist so he could gather her into his arms.

His toes curled in his shoes. His blood sluiced to his groin, where it pooled, hot and demanding, making him hard and needy for her—for this woman who could now legally call herself Mrs. Thomas English.

Eleanora English. His wife.

His brain stuttered over the words, and he drew back from her, breathless and panting, as he looked into her eyes. They were almost black, lazy and drugged as they opened, her body straining into his with every ragged breath she took. Her hands had wrapped around his neck at some point, her fingers braided together on the back of his throat.

And it all felt like heaven.

But it’s an arrangement,
his head insisted.
It’s only an arrangement, and it’s temporary.

The stab of pain he felt in the vicinity of his heart made him wince, and he dropped his arms slowly, waiting for her to untangle her fingers before he took a step away from her.

“Tom,” she murmured, her eyes soft and searching.

“Thank you for marrying me,” he said, taking her hand and leading her out of the chapel.

I
t was almost
four o’clock by the time they’d signed the marriage certificate and taken their photos, but all Eleanora really wanted, especially after that kiss, was to spend some time alone with her new husband.

Oh, she knew that their marriage was temporary. She knew that tomorrow they’d fly to Philadelphia, she’d meet his grandfather on Tuesday, and regardless of the outcome of that meeting, they’d say farewell soon after.

But for one brief, shiny, sparkling moment in her dull, gray life, she was Eleanora Watters English, and she intended to enjoy it.

Waiting for the limo outside the chapel after the ceremony and photos, Evie snuggled against Van and grinned at her cousin. “Well, you did it. You’re, like,
married
, Ellie!”

Glancing down at her thin gold wedding band, Eleanora looked over her shoulder at Tom, who stood behind her. “I guess I am.”

Van stuck out his hand, adding solemnly—his words clearly meant more for Tom than for her—“I hope you don’t regret it.”

Eleanora took Van’s hand and shook it. “You don’t need to worry. We have an agreement. I intend to honor it.”

Van nodded, but Eleanora was surprised to feel Tom’s hands land on her hips, pulling her back against his body. During the pictures, he’d followed the directions of the photographer, putting his arm around her shoulders or pressing his lips to her cheek, but this was the first time he’d reached for her since they’d kissed in the chapel.

“Let’s not worry about that right now,” he murmured near her ear, his hot breath making shivers skate down her back as he wrapped his arms around her, resting them under her breasts. “Let’s just enjoy Vegas.”

“What did you have in mind?” asked Evie, smiling at Tom over Eleanora’s shoulder.

Tom spoke close to Eleanora’s ear again. “Any chance you like Donny and Marie?”

Evie gasped so loud, her cousin couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, even if I don’t, I know someone who does.”

“Did he say
Donny and Marie
? As in . . .
Osmond
?” Evie squealed.

Tom laughed, holding on to Eleanora a little tighter.

“Aw, honey,” griped Van, “I wanted to
show you
my room
.”

“And I would love to
see your room
,” said Evie, “but the man just mentioned Donny Osmond!”

Tom spun Eleanora in his arms, and suddenly she found herself looking up into his deep blue eyes, which were crinkled and merry, to match his smile.

“So? Want to go to their show tonight?”

“Did you really get tickets?”
He nodded, grinning at her like the cat who got the cream. “It’s their Christmas special. It’s going to be televised.”
“Ellie! Ellie! Ellie!
Say yes
!” yelled Evie from behind her.

Eleanora beamed at Tom. “I’d love to go.”

“You’re wrecking my plans,” muttered Van, giving Tom a dirty look as the limo pulled up.

Tom pressed a kiss to Eleanora’s forehead, and her stomach filled with butterflies, making her feel weak and strong at the same time as she basked in the way she felt special and precious to someone for the first time in her life. “I’ve read about this. This is
spoiling
, isn’t it? You’re spoiling me.”

“So let me. It’s only temporary, right?”

“Right.” Her cheeks flushed hot, and she dropped his eyes, wishing she could ignore the sting that accompanied his words. Plastering a smile on her face, she looked up at him again. “Thank you. Donny and Marie it is.”

Leading her into the back of the limo, he held her hand as they were driven the two miles back to the Imperial Palace, and the whole way Van grumbled about the best-laid plans going to hell, with Evie assuring him that he’d have plenty of time to get the best lay after
she
got a chance to see Donny Osmond.

T
om had barely seen
the show.

As much as possible, he’d watched his bride, still radiant in white, as she experienced her first live production of . . . anything.

At dinner before the show, Eleanora had shared a little bit about her background: she’d grown up in a tiny town called Romero, three hours south of Vail, where her father worked as a mechanic. He could tell from her reluctance to talk about her childhood that it probably hadn’t been very easy or very happy, unlike his, which had been steeped in unfathomable wealth and endless opportunity. She spoke with some guarded affection about her high school English teacher—whom Evie had simultaneously labeled “heinous” and “a spaz”—and mentioned the library, where she’d worked after school and on weekend mornings until she left Romero at nineteen. Neither woman spoke freely about why they’d left their hometown, but Tom sensed that the reason was sound and serious and that the cousins were bound by its necessity. He couldn’t help but notice the way Evie looked at her older cousin, with an adoration on the edge of worship, which left little doubt that Eleanora had extricated Evie from something potentially toxic . . . or worse.

Learning more about her added dimension and strength to a woman he admired more by the minute. Despite her young age, she was smart and ambitious, protective and brave, all wrapped up in the body of a goddess, with the face of an angel. And she was his wife. The words circled in his mind as he watched her:
This goddess–angel is my wife. In the eyes of the law, she belongs to me, and I belong to her.

After dinner, they walked over to the Flamingo, where they took their third-row VIP seats for the televised show. Eleanora suddenly grasped Tom’s hand, her cheeks pink and lips glossy as she faced him.

“Thank you for this,” she said, her smile dazzling. “For everything. For the best Christmas ever.”

“It’s not even Christmas yet,” he responded, feeling shaky and adolescent, his feelings for her taking his head, his heart, his very soul, by storm.

“See what I mean?” she joked, facing the stage and entwining her fingers with his before shifting their bound hands to her lap.

He didn’t want to freak her out by staring at her, but at every possible opportunity—when there was a gag they could laugh at, after every song as he held her hand and didn’t clap, and sometimes during an especially poignant Christmas carol—he’d glance over at her. She sat up straight, her posture perfect, her chin high. Her strong cheekbones made apples of her cheeks when she smiled or giggled, which made her look younger and softer than twenty-two, and he wondered what it would be like to always see her smiling, to never again see the lines of worried caution that crossed her face with too much regularity. Her hand was warm and small in his, her fingers elegant and soft threaded between his, and when he wasn’t looking at her, he was concentrating on the feeling of her skin pressed against his, and wondering what he wouldn’t give for the privilege to hold her hand like this forever.

What was happening to him? And why now? And why so fast? And why, for heaven’s sake, with her?

He’d had his pick of girls at the country club, at Princeton, in Philadelphia society. What was it about
this
girl—down-on-her-luck Eleanora Watters—that so pulled at his heartstrings? She was beautiful, yes, but it was so much more than that. It was the heart of a lion inside the body of a lamb. It was a poet’s soul in a waitress’s dress. It was a girl who deserved so much more than getting a shitty hand in life. And it was her sitting beside him now, watching the whole world with wonder at Christmastime, when the show was just some forgettable Vegas tripe. She was unspoiled and honest, unentitled and hardworking, hopeful when she had every right to be bitter. She was magnificent. How in the hell could he
not
fall for her?

Once the curtain was down and the lights up, Evie and Van hurried back to the hotel, but Tom and Eleanora strolled hand in hand, walking leisurely under the bright neon lights of the Strip.

“Did you like it?” he asked her after a while.

“I loved it.”

“It’s different being there in person, isn’t it? Did you think it would be the same as watching it on TV?”

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I don’t know how to explain this, but I don’t have thoughts like that at all. If you’d asked me yesterday my thoughts on seeing Donny and Marie on TV versus seeing them live, I wouldn’t have been able to answer you. I wouldn’t have had an inkling of what it was like to see TV stars singing and dancing ten feet away from my eyes. I would have wondered if you were making fun of me.”

“And maybe dressed me down with your numbers routine?”

She whipped her head to his, a slow smile spreading across her face. “You caught that yesterday morning, huh?”

“I don’t think anyone at the restaurant missed it.” He squeezed her hand. “You were brilliant.”

She sighed. “I get sick of it, you know?”

“Getting hit on?”

“Getting hit on, being objectified . . . the assumption that I’m so desperate, I’m a sure thing.”

“I don’t see you like that, you know.”

She stopped walking, looking up at him, the red, yellow, and green lights above them sparkling in her eyes. “I know.”

“What if I kissed you again?” he whispered.

“What if you did?”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“Maybe I’d mind if you didn’t.”
He dipped his head and caught her bottom lip between his, winding his arms around her slim form and pulling her against his body. She was lithe and small next to him, and she tasted like pineapple juice and rum, and Tom knew that he’d never drink a piña colada for as long as he lived without thinking about Eleanora English.

She whimpered into his mouth, and he swallowed the sound, slipping his tongue between her lips, feeling the ridges of her teeth before her tongue met his. The wet velvet lit his blood on fire, and he gripped her harder, pushing against her lower back to make sure she could feel the ridge of his erection pressed against her stomach, and wondering if it was possible for her to want him half as much as he wanted her.

T
heir second kiss
, in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip with a thousand anonymous witnesses, was far more intimate than the one they’d shared in the tiny chapel in front of an old man and their two closest friends. She could feel the outline of Tom’s whole body against hers, and Eleanora arched her back, pressing her breasts against his chest and sighing when he growled her name near her ear. His lips grazed her throat, and she leaned her head back to give him complete access, his arms tightening around her as he pressed hot little kisses to her skin, at her pulse, in the tiny cove at the base of her throat.

A couple of kids snickered as they walked by, one of them saying, “Fuck her, man!” while the other advised them to “Get a room!” and Eleanora remembered herself, placing her palms flat against Tom’s chest and pushing gently. He straightened, looking down at her, his eyes dark blue and fierce.

“You’re like a drug. The more I touch you, the more of you I want.”

I know the feeling
, she thought.

But this is only temporary
, whispered her heart.

“Tom,” she said, pushing against his chest with a little more force as she caught her breath. “We shouldn’t.”

He loosened his arms and took a step away from her, searching her face, his expression intense, almost furious. “I didn’t see you coming. I didn’t expect you.”

“I didn’t expect you either.”

“What now?” he asked.

Was he hoping she’d invite him to her room or accept an invitation to his? If she slept with him, she’d know how it felt to have his body slide into hers, claim hers, love hers. She’d know the wonder of tender, loving sex with this man, with her husband. She’d know how it felt to be treasured for a brief unforgettable moment. But . . .

How, then, could she bear to return to her world? For the rest of her life, she would measure every man against Tom, and none would measure up to her beautiful, thoughtful husband of three days. She’d be ruined for happiness, and though she’d never expected much, now that she’d had a taste, she couldn’t deny she wanted more. Wanting it from Tom, however, was not only unrealistic, but unfair. He’d been clear with her. She was a solution to a problem that, once resolved, would conclude their business. And her payment for services rendered was more than fair.

“I haven’t seen the pool yet,” she said, glancing up at the sky and blinking back the useless tears she wished away. “I bet it’s lovely at night.”

When she met his eyes, he quickly concealed a grimace with a quick, disingenuous smile. He was disappointed in her suggestion.

“Tom,” she said gently, “it’s not that I don’t want to.”

“Then . . .?”

“We’re temporary, and I know that, but you’re already in my head. I can’t afford to have you in my heart too. And if I gave you my body—even for one night—I know that’s where you’d end up: in my heart. And when we shake hands and walk away from each other, you’d take my heart with you. And I’d be left alone without it. I can’t live without my heart, Tom.” She paused, swallowing over the lump in her throat. “I can’t . . . I can’t let myself fall for you.”

His eyes had grown progressively more stricken as she spoke, as if he understood her words so perfectly, they could have come out of his mouth just as easily.

“I understand,” he said, offering her his elbow and a genuine, if sad, smile. “The pool it is.”

She placed her hand on his bare arm, and the springy hairs tickled her fingers for a moment until she tightened her grip, letting him lead her around the back of the hotel through well-lit, landscaped pathways.

“Why
The Swiss Family Robinson
?” she asked in an effort to make conversation that would steer them to safer waters.

He chuckled softly, the noise welcome on the warm winter breeze. “I was wondering when you’d ask me about that.”

“It’s not an obvious choice.”

He shrugged. “But it’s my favorite. I think it’s the main character, the oldest brother, Fritz. He’s intelligent and strong, but impetuous. I always liked him.”

“No wonder.”

“What does that mean?”

“It sounds like you,” she said, pushing a long lock of blonde hair behind her ear.