Chapter Ten
Antonluca might have forgotten that it was Christmas Eve altogether if it weren’t for Dominic, who woke up squealing with glee and could not be contained all throughout his typical morning routine.
“He and Cinzia are going to track Santa Claus all day,” Hannah told Antonluca in that very solemn voice she liked to use, her green eyes sparkling with laughter, when she found Dominic particularly entertaining.
Antonluca could never decide if he was charmed by this or something more like saddened, because he knew full well that no one had ever been entertained by his antics. Nothing close.
Every day, without even trying to, Hannah taught him something new about how people were meant to operate in the world.
Most of them, he had come to understand, started something like this. With a mother who doted on them and found them fascinating, and went out of her way to find new ways to make their children happy. Or at least safe and reasonably content.
He found it more and more dizzying each time.
Even when the subject at hand was Santa Claus.
Or Babbo Natale, as Father Christmas was known in Italy.
If he had ever been likely to believe in such a being, he would have gravitated more toward La Befana, the witchlike old woman who was said to dispense gifts or coal on the Epiphany.
But Antonluca had not had that sort of childhood.
He had certainly never had cause to believe in benevolent, godlike creatures who dispensed cheer and gifts.
Yet looking at his wife’s sparkling eyes and his child’s excited face, he found himself wishing that he was a different man.
That he could be the sort of person who would react to a holiday others loved with pleasure instead of suspicion.
Instead, he had to make himself smile and hope that it looked natural. “I did not realize that Santa Claus could be tracked on his long journey,” he said.
Hannah nodded sagely. “But of course we can track Santa Claus. How else would you know if it’s time to go to bed and listen for reindeer?”
Then she showed him on her phone the so-called satellite updates of Santa’s sleigh, already hard at work in other parts of the world.
It all left Antonluca feeling something like…raw.
It made him wish he hadn’t given up his cold walks to the hotel, because he could have used a bit of head-clearing motion just then.
But it was the darkest time of the year and the ground was near frozen every day.
He didn’t like the idea of Hannah driving around, slithering up and down the ancient hills.
“You do know that I grew up in Nebraska, right?” she asked as he mentioned this again on their drive to the hotel that morning. “It’s not exactly a tropical island there in the winter. I’m not afraid of bad weather.”
“Nor is it an ancient village with slick, stone streets,” he replied, though something in him shook a bit, as if the real truth was that he liked her company and it had nothing to do with the state of the roads.
But if that was true, he did not wish to examine it.
He could not.
Because as he kept telling himself that day, he really ought to have been past any of these uncomfortable feelings that kept cropping up.
He had married Hannah. He had already started the legal proceedings to name himself Dominic’s father on all relevant paperwork.
He had also expedited Hannah’s dual-citizenship application, though now that she was married to him, he suspected that it would be little more than a formality.
All i’s were dotted and t’s crossed.
Now all that was left to do was to figure out how he could spend as much time as possible with his son while continuing to maintain his usual schedule.
Normally, by the time he spent this much time in any one place, he was more than ready to move on.
He liked to come back to Tuscany again and again because it felt like he was a different man here, one with a completely different life. But he never stayed.
Yet every time he sat down to contact his office and have his assistant begin packing out his calendar, he stopped. The idea of more boardrooms and business meetings held no appeal at all.
He told himself it had to be no more than fealty toward Paloma, who had really been such a huge part of his early success. Word of mouth was always helpful, but especially when it was a mouth like Paloma’s, with access to some of the most important ears in Europe. Antonluca owed her.
And he had told her that he would stay through Christmas. Surely, he would wake up on the other side of the holiday—which in Italy, of course, did not end until January 6—and be able at last to wash his hands of this episode.
Whatever that looked like, now that he was married and had a son.
He needed to start making decisions…but instead he found himself worrying about Hannah driving on icy roads and whether or not Dominic was appropriately dressed for the cold—things that no one had ever worried about when it was him.
He was surprised he knew how. Because, looking back, he couldn’t say that he’d worried about his siblings. He’d just…known it was up to him to save them, and so he had.
Christmas Eve was the last night of the Christmas Market, which Antonluca already knew was a vast success.
There was no doubt that they would do it again, making it an annual part of the holiday celebrations in the region.
People had come from all over and many had enjoyed the drive to and from Florence, the better to experience two versions of Tuscany’s finest. The ancient city version versus the ancient village version.
The guests who remained at the hotel, meanwhile, kept pausing in the midst of their holiday to tell staff members how pleased they were. With everything.
“Sir Montgomery Bancroft and his family have said repeatedly that it feels like home,” Hannah told him as they conferred outside her office later that day.
Antonluca was distracted, because he was always distracted in her presence. It was another factor in all of this. It was making him feel as if he was outside his own skin. Or possibly it was that he would much prefer to be deep inside her body, at all times.
In any case, they were not in private, so he merely frowned. “Montgomery Bancroft has a vast portfolio of homes in every country on the planet,” he said. Perhaps too repressively. “I’m not sure what he means when he says such things.”
He expected Hannah to argue with him, but she only looked at him, her eyes too green, for too long.
“Yes, you do,” she replied quietly. “You know exactly what it means. We all know what it means.”
“Do we, indeed.” It came out a bit more dry than he’d intended. “And where is home for you, dare I ask?”
“Here.” Hannah shook her head at him. “Where else?” But before he could read too much into that, or ask himself why he wanted to read too much into it, she smiled. “Wherever Dominic is, that’s home. I guess that includes Cinzia, too. I’m a lucky woman.”
But Léontine came up to talk to her then, so Antonluca couldn’t ask the next question.
Namely, where he ranked in that tally.
He strode off, telling himself that he was delighted that he had been prevented from making such an abject fool of himself. Because that was what this was, clearly. Sheer foolishness.
They were not dating. He had married her to give Dominic the family he’d always wanted when he was small. The family he’d wished so fervently that he could have had. That was the beginning and the end of it.
Still, as the day wore on, something about Christmas Eve was winding its way into him, like it or not.
There was the mulled wine, bubbling away in the various stations that had been put up around the hotel.
It made everything smell of spices and a rich-bodied cheer, and Antonluca had no idea why the scent should affect him so much, given that there had certainly been no mulled spices on hand in any of his childhood recollections.
Only his mother’s vices and their consequences.
The hotel also offered children’s programs, and so it was that some of the richest children on the planet sat about sticking cloves into oranges, like Victorian children from long ago, and then made them into garlands that they hung in the halls.
That, too, filled the hotel with its own complicated, citrusy scent.
The fireplaces were lit. The trees were gleaming.
And at eight o’clock that night, while the three restaurants served Christmas Eve delicacies, the staff went into each suite to create a Christmas turndown experience for the guests.
There were stockings stuffed with sugar plums, candy canes, Amedei Porcelana chocolates, and Murano glass ornaments, all waiting when the guests returned that evening.
Before they did, there was one more party.
This one was an evening cocktail affair, filled with Christmas music, artisan drinks, and dancing.
The main ballroom was open, with a vast Christmas dessert buffet, which ranged from tronchetto di Natale to zuccotto to panforte, all traditional Italian sweets, to more international fare, including a chocolate fountain.
The party went until midnight, when the band played “Joy to the World” because it was Christmas Day at last.
Antonluca waited for Hannah in the lobby afterward.
It was quiet now, as the guests had all danced their way back to their suites to find real visions of sugar plums awaiting them.
All of the trees were lit and sparkling and then Hannah came out from her office, shrugging into her coat, her green eyes brighter than all the evergreens.
He felt something inside of him that he couldn’t have explained if his life depended on it. It was too big, too unwieldy. And it seemed to crowd its way through him, taking up all the space, and not caring much if it made him…hurt.