THE DECEMBER DAYS rolled along and it was as if Lillie had somehow found herself married to two husbands instead of one.
It would have been panic-inducing, if she let it.
Every night was a mad, intense exploration of each other. Just like Spain had been. Only this wasn’t one night in Spain followed by five months of longing. This was better, because it was deeper.
Because they knew each other now. They knew each other better every day. And every night their bodies sang out in recognition of that ongoing intimacy. What had struck them both like lightning at that resort became hotter because it was deeper now. Because of the things they shared. The baby they were expecting. The house they lived in. The interactions they had that brought them inexorably closer, like it or not, and then set them alight in the dark.
Every night was better than the night before. Every night seemed longer, more shattering. They turned to each other in that bed again and again, but no matter how endless and devastatingly good it all was, one thing held true.
Every morning Tiago would wake up and act as if none of that had ever happened.
As if he had actually kept his promise that he would never touch her again.
He became that stranger, and Lillie had to fight to keep her panic to herself, because she wanted the man she knew. The man she had clapped eyes on back in Spain and had longed for ever since.
Not this ice sculpture who made her worry that she was slowly freezing over herself.
Daytime Tiago was all business and frigid straight through, and while he did not look at her as if she was a stranger necessarily, he maintained a certain chilly distance.
“I cannot countenance boredom,” he told her that first morning, when she’d gone to find him in her bare feet and had found him as shut down as she’d ever seen him. “So I’ve taken the liberty of making sure that tedium does not overtake you while, at the same time, directing your considerable energy in a more appropriate direction.”
“That sounds a bit boring, actually,” she replied, mostly to see him glower, but also to cover up the panicked catapulting of her pulse at the sight of him like this. “Who fancies being directed anywhere, much less somewhere appropriate?”
But the Tiago she was married to by day did not react the way she knew he would at night. He did not even sigh, though his expression suggested that he might. Internally. And what Lillie learned that day was that when Tiago took the liberty, as he put it, what he was actually doing was laying down the law. Arranging his world in the manner he saw fit. Whether it was providing her with a wardrobe that matched his sensibilities or filling her days with lessons.
Lillie was tempted to complain, but the truth was, she’d always loved school. Private tutoring was even better, as it allowed her to go at her own pace without having to slow down for anyone else. Tiago started her off with Portuguese and Spanish lessons in language and history, because, he told her, the child would certainly speak both fluently.
“You can be sure the bairn will speak English as well as Scots, then, too,” Lillie replied when he made one of his decrees about their child’s future fluency, as if he was handing down stone tablets from on high. “Shall I get you a tutor? Chan eil aon chànan gu leòr.”
But it was daytime Tiago she was telling that one language was not enough, so all he did was gaze at her in that way of his. It suggested the imminent possibility of disappointment and more forbearance than ought to be required.
Tiago by day was a frustration in male form, Lillie often thought in the weeks that followed. Panic lurked in their every interaction, because how could she stay married to a man so cold? How could she let him raise her child?
She couldn’t answer that to her satisfaction. But she wasn’t the slightest bit bored.
In addition to her language and history classes, she received lessons in comportment so that her sometimes-elegant appearance could be matched by a host of elegant actions. Or in any case, that was what the tiny woman dressed in an ever-changing array of chic scarves worn with notable aplomb informed her.
With enough hauteur that made it clear that her elegance was innate, not taught.
“I don’t quite see the point polishing up this particular sow’s ear into any kind of silk purse,” Lillie said chattily at one of the stiff dinners Tiago insisted upon, this one after a day of lessons on cutlery. “What does it matter?”
“It only matters if you plan to go out in polite company at some point,” Tiago said in that I am the Villela heir voice of his, all steel and certainty. “I assumed you would not wish to embarrass your own child, who, make no mistake, will be raised with all the manners incumbent upon his or her station.”
Lillie poked at the salted cod before her. It appeared in some form or another at every meal, because it was the national dish of Portugal, according to Leonor. And Lillie was a proper Scottish woman who might prefer haddock from her local chippy, but she had never met a piece of fish she didn’t like. The infinite variations of bacalhau pleased her immensely.
But tonight what she liked most was stabbing at it. “This is a very special talent you have, Tiago. To already be using our child as a bargaining chip when it hasn’t even been born yet.”
“I will never use our child,” he replied in a low voice, with an intensity that made her sit a little straighter, so much did it remind her of the man she met only in their bed when the moon was high, almost like he wished he was still nothing more than a dream she had. “What I will do is protect that child, just as I will protect you, even if what I must protect you both from is you.”
He delivered that last bit in faintly ringing tones. Lillie stopped abusing the poor meal before her. She sat back in her seat and eyed him for a moment. “And who will protect you?” she asked.
She didn’t add, from yourself.
But he didn’t answer anyway.
Because he insisted that they spend the whole of the evening meal in the very stiff and formal manner he felt was appropriate. That was how his parents had raised him, and he made it clear each night that he thought they’d had the right of it.
And she wanted to flip the table when the panic got into her bones, but she didn’t. She went along with it, because she knew that after dinner there were drinks. Because that was also what civilized people did, apparently. They very theatrically rose from the table and moved to a drawing room or study—likely because they had houses with so many rooms and needed to use them all. Once in the chosen second location, they sat and had further conversations, though more casually, and it was only then that the Tiago she preferred emerged.
Every evening, when he came back to her, the relief just about bowled her over.
Lillie would have been happy if the nights went on forever. It was the endless days that made her wonder if she was going mad. Or if she’d stumbled into one of her favorite torrid novels where a woman found herself married off to a grim man in some castle somewhere, only to discover the passionate lover he only became in the dark was his disgraced twin. Or a vampire, she wasn’t picky.
She wasn’t picky about Tiago by night, either. She tried to enjoy him as fully as she could, and warm herself in all that fire of his, because she knew it would be chilly again come morning.
But there was less time to puzzle over the mysteries of the two sides of Tiago when he added to her lessons halfway through December. This time, it wasn’t more attempts to make up for her lack of a debutante ball, it was classes on finance. Business. Wealth management and estate planning.
“Dare I hope that it’s your intention to add me to your company roster?” she asked one afternoon as they were coming up fast on the bleak midwinter. Not, of course, that there was anything particularly bleak about the Algarve at this time of year, though the locals complained about the cooler weather and the clouds. Facetiously, to her mind. All Lillie saw was the light.
Nighttime Tiago might laugh a little when she said things like that, and scrape his teeth along the line of her neck as punctuation, en route to driving them both wild. The daytime version only gazed at her, making a bit of a show of that faint frown between his eyes.
“I was unaware that you wish to interview for a position in my company,” he replied, with that coolness that she believed was meant to make her wither where she stood. Which was only one of the reasons she did not. “Competition is fierce and the process is considered grueling.”
“I assumed that was why you added all those new classes,” she said, fighting the panic within at the slap of chilliness from him. She tried her best to meet it with a certain...languid unconcern, whether she felt it or not. She’d taken to invading his office for a cup of tea in the afternoon, as that was what she considered behavior appropriate to her people. And tried to act as she meant to go on. As if he was the husband she wanted, not the one he played by day. As if she could make him see, somehow, that it was better when he was. As if this might all work out, somehow, instead of stranding her and her baby on this relentless glacier he liked so much. It was more of an effort every day. “I’m becoming quite an expert on financial matters and the business affairs of the landed gentry. I thought perhaps you were planning to make me your new chief financial officer or the like.”
Lillie thought nothing of the kind, but it was amusing to claim otherwise. Because he would draw himself up in all his offended dignity and try to invoke a blizzard or two with his freezing tones, and she would smile innocently back at him and wait for sundown, when he usually readdressed the outrageous things she’d done in the light. Deliciously.
That part of this game she liked.
It was better than driving herself mad with the increasing fear that she was going to be stuck here, and not with the man she wanted. And how would she keep her child from withering in this terrible, endless winter?
Lillie tried her best not to think of it, and, therefore, thought of very little else.
“In a manner of speaking,” Tiago said. And when he looked at her then, he was expressionless, but there was something about that dark gleam in his gaze that made her sit straighter in the chair. Usually she preferred to lounge about in complete defiance of everything her tiny dictator demanded she do in her comportment classes. “You are my wife now.”
“In more ways than one,” she agreed, and then beamed at him when his gaze narrowed. Because he did not like to be reminded that he was not maintaining the boundaries he’d set down long since.
Tiago had been perfectly clear about that in those first few days, when it became clear that he could not stay away from her at night and more, that he hated himself for it in the morning. At first Lillie felt almost complimented. She had never been the sort of woman who inspired such strong reactions in anyone. Certainly not in men.
But she felt significantly less complimented as time went on. And had got a bit salty about it in turn.
Because the salt covered up what she knew—that this couldn’t last. That at least one of them would break, and she was horribly worried it was going to be her.
If I could control myself, benzinho, I would, he had growled at her, backing her across the length of the small study that second evening, after such a long, cold day. Because it was dark outside, and as she was about to discover, he was his very own kind of werewolf. If I could keep my hands off you, I would. And believe me, the day will come when I will make certain that we behave appropriately. The way we should have been doing all along.
What does appropriate even mean between us? she had dared ask him. Everything that happened has been anything but.
But we are both Villelas now, he had growled, coming to a stop there before the bookcase once he had backed her as far as she could go. He had placed a hand on either side of her and leaned in so she could see the blaze of fire in him. The intoxicating heat, just there, shimmering in all that blue and green. And Villelas have standards.
As it happens, she’d whispered, lifting her chin, I haven’t decided whether or not I’m taking your name.
Though she had certainly called it out a lot that night, both there in the study and upstairs in his bed, until the dawn turned him to ice again.
But she did not think that was what he was thinking about as he stared at her now, forbiddingly, across the expanse of his very important desk.
“You are my wife,” he said the way he often did, making sure she could see how he had to call upon his patience. “And it is entirely possible that I might die before you. I would hate to imagine you adrift after I’m gone, a target for disreputable people. It would be far better if you were capable of stepping in and controlling my estate yourself. It’s only rational.”
But there was something about the way he tacked that last part on, she thought. As if it had only occurred to him just then that he could use that as an excuse.
And as she stared back at him, that gaze of his changed. It became...less cool.
Lillie did not pretend that she didn’t know that no matter what he said, or how he dressed it up and tried to make it matter-of-fact, he was giving her a compliment. More than that.
Because his responsibilities, his duties, were the most important thing in the world to him. And if it was her opinion that he clung to them like a drowning man, desperately reaching out for any bits of floating debris to call a life preserver, she wisely kept that to herself.
At least by day.
“If it’s up to me,” she said, aware that her voice was hushed, then, “I’d prefer it if you lived.”
And she knew she wasn’t wrong about the way he looked back at her, hushed himself, as if all of this was a sacred moment. And more, that he might not have intended it that way. That he might have convinced himself that it was, indeed, only a purely rational move that had to do with the estate, not her.
But their eyes locked in that way that had always been almost too honest to bear. And Lillie knew, the way she always knew, that they both knew the truth.
She also knew he didn’t like it.
“Time is not granted to us,” he gritted out after a long moment. “If it was, my parents would have lived forever. They might not have loved each other, not in the way you insist your parents do. But they loved what they built. They loved the history of their great families and the legacies that made them who they were. If it was up to them, they never would have left those things behind.”
“And what of you, Tiago?” she dared ask, though her ribs seemed to clamp down hard against her heart. “Surely they loved you?”
He looked almost stricken for a moment. Then he looked down and she saw his mouth curve, though it was no smile.
“As I said,” and it took him a moment to raise his gaze to hers again, she thought, and a moment more to keep his gaze so clear, so fiercely steady, “they were both deeply enamored of their legacies.”
She slid a hand over her belly and pressed her fingers in to meet tiny kicks that greeted her. And silently she vowed, I will never be enamored of you, my wee sweet bairn. I will love you madly all the days of my life.
But Tiago continued to look at her in that almost-stricken manner from behind his desk, and she felt a sharp stab of pain—for him. For the man who had been left to stand here behind an uncaring desk, talking of legacies when what he patently needed was love.
And she knew he would never ask for something he wanted. She doubted he knew how. So she held his gaze, and kept hers solemn. Befitting the solemnity of this occasion, even though she knew he would deny it was happening even now. Even though he would argue to the death that it made sense, that was all.
“Thank you,” she said. Very carefully. Very deliberately. “It will be an honor, though I hope I’m never called upon to do it.”
And that night, he was like a man unleashed and untamed, raw and wild.
As if both of them were more naked than ever before, more connected and more real. Yet come the morning, he reverted right back to form.
Later that same day, when her lessons were done, Lillie found herself out of sorts. She took herself off for a wander out in the tidy rows of the wintering vines, letting the relative warmth of the Algarve sun fall all over her though she felt as dark as if she was back in Aberdeen, with a gloomy sun that started sinking near enough to three in the afternoon this time of year.
When she was not normally given to brooding.
“We need to decorate the house for Christmas,” she announced when she returned, tracking dirt into his office and slouching down as far she could go in that chair.
She chose not to notice that he was obviously trying to ignore her.
“If you don’t mind,” he said in glacial tones, and oh, wasn’t he at his most cutting today. That was how she would have known that last night was something different. Something that had stripped them both bare down to the bones, even if she hadn’t already felt that way herself. “Much as I enjoy your interruptions, I do have a significant amount of work to get done.”
“This can’t work, you know,” she said. She hadn’t meant to. But the words came out anyway and she was glad of it when he didn’t even do her the scan courtesy of glancing up.
“I’m not in the mood for histrionics today,” he replied with that same frigid disinterest. “And in any case, as I have told you more than once already, there are no divorces in my family. It is not who we are.”
“I’d like to know exactly who you think we are, actually,” she threw back at him, a different kind of lightning firing up her blood. “I hear a lot about us. But you only ever seem to be speaking about yourself.”
Tiago did look up then, though he took his time with it. Lillie thought he had a lot of nerve to bring up histrionics when he made such a meal out of a mere glance. “There will be no divorce, Lillie.”
“I wasn’t asking for one, though I’ll be sure to keep in mind that you’ve decreed it can’t occur when the time comes.” She shook her head at him, as if she despaired of him. When he was like this, it was possible she did. “I mean this can’t work. You acting distant and remote by the light of day and then, at night, behaving as if we are lovers in the midst of a mad, passionate affair.”
“This is not the time or place for this discussion.”
“Isn’t it? I’m so sorry. What would be the correct time and place?” He wasn’t the only one who could throw a little pageant while doing an ordinary task. Lillie quite theatrically pulled out her mobile, swiped it over to the calendar, and then waited there, poised to type in the appointment time of his choice.
She had never seen the man grind his teeth, but she thought he was close just then. “I told you. There are certain boundaries that need to be observed and it is a point of deep self-recrimination that I cannot seem to hold myself to these standards with you.”
Lillie dropped her mobile to her lap. “I have an alternate idea. You could stop trying to live your life, and certainly stop trying to run your marriage, according to the whims of people who aren’t even here, and didn’t like each other when they were.”
Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. But she couldn’t bring herself to take it back.
“They liked each other fine,” he replied, and she wondered if it cost him to sound so emotionless. So cold, straight through. “One of the reasons they held each other in the utmost respect for all of their days is because they adhered to very simple rules. They did not attempt intimacy. It was not expected or desired. Not once I was born.”
And she had already opened her mouth to argue about that. To point out to him that, fair enough, it seemed that his parents had made the best of the kind of dynastic marriage that was likely never entered into with any hope of love or true intimacy or even friendship. Liking each other, respecting each other, must seem like a triumph. A victory for the ages. She could concede that much, even if she and Tiago were something else entirely—
But instead, she stopped dead at that last thing he said.
“Is that how you’re getting around it?” she asked softly. “You can excuse all these nights away because the baby isn’t born yet? You can beat yourself up, but not too hard, because you haven’t broken all the rules. Not really. But once the baby is born, that’s it, I’m cut off. Is that what you’re doing, Tiago?”
And she watched, fascinated, as a muscle clenched in his marvelously chiseled jaw. On another man, it would have been the same as a fist through a wall. A table overturned.
She had to repress a shudder, as if he’d done both.
“You came here to ask me about Christmas,” he said, the coldest she’d ever seen him. But she knew better. She could feel the emotions he did not wish to show her, too big and too raw, crowding out the breath inside her body. “Portugal is not like your northern countries. We celebrate on Christmas Eve, but not in the manner you might be expecting. It is quiet. Restrained. Traditional. We prefer to err on the side of quiet sophistication rather than too much gaudy noise and decoration.”
Every word an icicle, designed to stab her straight through the heart.
“Tiago...” she began. She tried to keep going, but her throat felt tight. Almost too tight to bear.
“If you will excuse me,” he said, in that same way, whole winters in his voice, “there are calls I must make.”
He did not look up again, dismissing her that easily. That completely. And Lillie staggered a bit as she left his office, from the weight of all that raw pain of his.
It was inside her now, whether she liked it or not.
And it sat heavy on all the fear and panic she’d been fighting off for too long now. Because she could see the future now, and it was the one she’d been afraid of all the while.
She kept going until she was in that central courtyard, where flowers still bloomed even now. Birds sang as if no one had told them it was December. If she closed her eyes it might as well have been the height of summer, green and lush.
“Almost as if your grandmother never agreed to forgo of all the gaudy light and color you think is so beneath you,” she muttered under her breath, but out loud the same. Scowling down fiercely at bright purple and pink and orange flowers, but seeing only Tiago’s frozen expression. Hearing only his frigid words.
Feeling those icicles like knives, cutting deep.
Leaving her reeling. Bleeding. Carved into chilly little pieces.
She sat down heavily on one of the stone benches near a small fountain that burbled and sang. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine it was her very own Christmas carol.
And Lillie always had loved a good Christmas carol.
When she opened her eyes again, the sun was on her face, and it couldn’t have been less Christmassy if it tried.
And Lillie thought, at last, that it was high time she fought.
That she harnessed all those passions she’d been looking for all her life, and dived straight into them, for a change.
Because nothing good had come to her from waiting. Or wondering.
Or hoping he might see the light all around him.
It was high time she showed him.
As Tiago kept informing her, and not only when he was being fierce and cold from behind a desk, she was a Villela.
And if she was tracking all of her lessons, one thing was clear in all the stories they told her. All the history on both sides of his family. Not to mention her own proud Scottish heritage.
When in doubt, they all did exactly as they pleased and sorted out reactions later. It might as well be the family motto. She reckoned she might have it sewn up and put on a fancy bit of tartan while she was at it.
Lillie took a deep breath, then blew it out, hoping any leftover icicles went with it.
But then she got up and marched back into the house to find Leonor.
Because she intended to fight with everything she had to the future she imagined, not the one he was threatening her with.
And she was going to start by having the Christmas she wanted, whether Tiago liked it or not.