The Christmas Market
Valeria
Once again, I fell asleep in Dante’s arms.
When I wake up, he’s still asleep.
Morning light slides across his features. At rest, he seems calmer. More peaceful. And yet, despite that, a tension still lingers beneath the surface, as though he’s incapable of ever fully letting his guard down.
He’s changed.
Grief transformed him.
Before, he used to be more spontaneous. More carefree.
Now he’s more serious. More intense. His movements are more measured, less instinctive. His laughter comes more rarely. And his protective side surfaces more strongly now, sometimes bordering on controlling.
That’s something I’ll have to push back against.
There’s no way he’s running my life.
I’m not the same anymore either. I’m hiding fractures he doesn’t even know exist.
It will take time for us to rediscover each other. To truly find our way back. But one thing is certain:
I want to try.
I start to sit up to make coffee when his arms tighten around me.
“Stay,” he murmurs.
I immediately curl back against him, letting his warmth and his scent wrap around me.
“Good morning,” I whisper against his neck.
I feel his smile against my hair.
“Good morning.”
Such an ordinary word.
And yet when you’ve walked through hell, even the simplest words and gestures taste different afterward.
Tears sting my eyes, and I fight to hold them back.
This embrace soothes our still-raw hearts.
It isn’t healing.
Not yet.
Just a direction.
It will take hundreds—maybe thousands—of moments like this for us to fully heal.
Good.
I’ll savor every single one.
As though he sensed my emotions, he leans back slightly and locks his gaze onto mine.
And just like yesterday, our eyes anchor to each other without filters, without defenses.
I lift a hand and brush my fingertips against his face, slightly trembling.
His cheek is warm, his beard rough against my palm.
He closes his eyes for a second before opening them again.
They’re shining a little too much.
My hand drifts up to his hair.
I forgot how soft it was.
His face blurs, and a tear rolls down my cheek.
But sadness isn’t what’s tightening my throat.
It’s hope.
My gaze drops to his mouth.
It’s been so long.
I lean closer, slowly enough to give him a choice. Slowly enough that I can still pull away.
Just as our lips are a breath apart, panic grips my chest out of nowhere.
Dante doesn’t move.
He waits.
He lets me decide.
For a second, I hang suspended between desire and fear.
Then my lips touch his. Barely. The faintest brush. And yet, something explodes inside me.
His breath catches. So does mine.
A sudden heat spreads beneath my skin, awakening everything I’ve spent the last two years trying to bury.
I close my eyes.
Then I do it again. As if I need to make sure he’s real. As if my body refuses to believe I can finally touch him.
A shaky breath escapes me.
My God.
I’d forgotten.
Forgotten how easily he could unravel every certainty I had with a single kiss.
Forgotten how my body recognized him before my mind even had a chance to think.
Then we stop thinking altogether.
His lips part and our breaths mingle.
It’s neither tender nor passionate. It’s hesitant. Awkward, sometimes.
His mouth explores mine carefully, as if he’s still afraid I’ll slip away.
And then the walls I’ve spent two years building begin to crack.
I surrender to the intoxication of the moment.
His taste consumes me. His hands on me drive me mad with desire. His warmth calls to me.
Everything becomes too much and yet not enough.
I move closer, unable to resist the overwhelming need to close the distance between us.
There is only him. Only this ache growing inside me.
I feel his hardness press against me, and that single sensation shatters the last of my resolve. My fingers claw at his t-shirt; I need him naked, I need his skin on mine.
He pulls back first, gasping for air, his forehead pressed burning-hot against mine.
“Wait. Not too fast.”
His voice is rough.
“Tell me what you want first.”
His words slowly cut through the haze clouding my thoughts.
He’s right.
I was getting carried away.
Am I ready?
I slowly release his T-shirt.
I don’t answer.
I’m not capable of it yet, but he understands.
A soft smile appears at the corner of his lips before he pulls me into a gentle embrace.
*
Eventually, we get up.
“What do you want to do this morning?” he asks, both hands wrapped around his mug.
“The Montmartre Christmas market. I want to find something for Hugo’s parents.”
He looks at me over the rim of his cup.
“Good God... I forgot about your obsession with Christmas markets.”
“Is that a flaw?”
“Who goes to a Christmas market on December twenty-fourth?”
“Please.”
“It’s going to be packed.”
I stare at him without blinking.
He sighs. But he’s smiling too.
*
He was right. It’s absolutely packed. And it doesn’t matter in the slightest.
We leave a churro stand with a paper cone each.
I bite into mine—still hot and coated in sugar—and close my eyes for a second.
“Mmm... thank you.”
Dante watches me devour fried dough with a smile I haven’t seen on him in a very long time.
He says nothing. He doesn’t need to.
We wander between the stalls.
I buy little things for everyone.
We laugh a lot. About nothing. About everything. About how disturbingly easy it is for certain habits to come back.
I stop in front of one stand and pick up a pair of blinking LED glasses.
“Who’s that for?” Dante asks.
“Andrea. To complete his super-spy outfit.”
A real laugh escapes him. Open. Spontaneous.
And the sound hits me harder than I expect.
*
Fatigue eventually catches up with me and we head back to the manor without rushing.
It’s almost noon.
I open the refrigerator and quickly take inventory.
“Lasagna?”
“Gladly.”
I pull out the ingredients.
Without needing to exchange a word, he grabs the cutting board.
Me, the saucepan. Him, the vegetables. Our movements fall naturally into place, like before.
As though this kind of memory survives everything.
Even after two years apart.
It used to be one of our weekend rituals: a messy kitchen, music playing softly, and the two of us in the middle of it.
And there’s something absurd and wonderful about finding ourselves here again, him peeling tomatoes while I chop onions, on Christmas Eve.
“Doesn’t it bother you to sacrifice four hundred wedding meals just to eat lasagna with me?”
He looks up at me, amused.
“They won’t go to waste.”
I frown.
“What do you mean?”
“They’ll be distributed tonight to charities and shelters. Along with the champagne.”
I smile immediately.
“If Bianca knew...”
He shrugs slightly.
“What she thinks doesn’t matter anymore.”
Despite his words, a shadow briefly crosses his face.
Even without truly loving Bianca, he believed she was his friend. And her betrayal is still hard to accept.
For me too, it took time to grieve the friendship we once had.
Once the tomatoes are cut, he starts on the carrots with that quiet precision he puts into everything he does.
“Stop stealing them,” I protest when I catch him snacking on carrot cubes. “There won’t be enough left for the sauce!”
He bursts out laughing.
Asshole.
I brown the minced meat with the onions before adding the vegetables and seasonings.
Little by little, the kitchen fills with warm, familiar smells.
And with them comes an avalanche of memories.
Bursts of laughter. Tender gestures. Passionate embraces.
The kind of moments you never realize the value of until you’ve lost them.
Moments I’m dying to live again.
I scoop up a little sauce with a spoon, blow on it, then hold it out to him.
“Taste.”
He obeys.
Then, taking advantage of how close I am, he gently catches me by the waist.
“Perfect.”
But he isn’t looking at the sauce. All his attention is on me.
The air between us tightens with tension. His Adam’s apple rises and falls, and I follow the movement, mesmerized. When my eyes lift back to his, I find him staring at my lips with unsettling intensity.
And yet, he doesn’t move.
My heart is beating too fast.
And maybe that’s what finally breaks down my last defenses: having control. Knowing I can stop at any moment. Knowing he won’t force anything. That he’ll respect my choice.
I close the distance between us and softly capture his lips. I don’t know whether it’s tenderness—or because part of me is still hesitating.
Then sensation overwhelms me: the strength of his arms around me, the warmth radiating from his chest, his scent, the intoxicating taste of his mouth.
I stop fighting and surrender to the dizzying pull of his embrace.
So what if it’s too soon.
So what if nothing between us is truly fixed yet.
I want him.
Here.
Now.
His hand reaches out to turn off the burner. Lunch can wait.
He lifts me into his arms with a gentleness that contrasts with the strength radiating off him. His muscles flex under the effort, his focus entirely on me.
There’s something intoxicating about watching this powerful man make me his only concern. His pull wraps around me, makes me restless. He carries me to my room and stops in front of the door so I can turn the handle.
Desire pulses between us.
I feel an ache low inside me, familiar and painful all at once.
He lays me down on the bed and settles gently over me, picking up where we left off. He covers my face in kisses, traces fire along the curve of my ear down to the hollow of my throat, then comes back to claim my mouth.
He takes his time, deliberately, as if he wants to memorize every detail.
When his hand finally finds the hem of my sweater, my heart flutters like a trapped bird. The gesture is both so familiar and so new, because this time, we know nothing is guaranteed, that we have to make the most of every minute, because everything can be taken from us.
He helps me out of my sweater and tosses it aside, then his lips worship every inch of newly exposed skin.
He kisses my breasts through the thin lace of my bra.
I arch into his mouth.
With practiced ease, he unclasps it and pulls it away, leaving me bare beneath his gaze.
His cheek brushes against the soft curve of them.