As Brando darted over to Ezra, jumping into his lap so the big man could help him open the package, I went around the massive tree to collect one of the two presents I’d stashed there for my girl.
When I emerged with a massive brown paper-wrapped package that was bigger than Brando himself, Bianca looked up at me with eyes just as wide and excited as her brother’s.
I carefully placed it on the floor in front of her, waiting until she gripped the edges before I let go and moved around to her back. I pressed myself into her, moving her hair away from her neck to press a kiss there.
“You once told me that your dad called you his dove because you brought him peace,” I murmured, palming her hips. “Well, you and Brando are my peace, too. I thought this was a fitting symbol of that.”
She trembled under my fingers as she started to peel off the paper. The edge of a heavy gold frame appeared and then, with one long rip, the entire wrapping gave way to reveal the painting.
A Picasso.
One I had Henrik hunt down to a private gallery in Spain. I’d offered an exorbitant amount of money to pry the thing from the reluctant owner, but it was worth it.
Because Bianca’s breath whooshed from her lungs and she stood there blinking at her favorite artist’s painting Two Doves with Wings Spread.
“Two doves,” I whispered as I hugged her back against me. “My Bianca and Brando.”
The force of her emotions bowed Bianca’s head, her hair shimmering forward like a gold curtain to obscure her face. Still, I didn’t need to see it to know she was crying softly, her shoulders shivering with the movement.
Walcott stepped up to hold the painting so Bianca could spin in my arms and look up into my face. The painting was pretty enough, I guessed, but nothing could eclipse a single look from Bianca’s blue suede eyes.
“Tiernan,” she said, searching for words, and then, not finding any sufficient, she rocked to her tiptoes and kissed me soundly in front of our entire family.
The men whooped and hollered, clapping as if we’d just exchanged marriage vows.
I tipped her head back gently, aware of her abused scalp, and deepened the kiss, claiming her mouth with teeth and tongue. She moaned, clasping me as if I was the only thing that kept her afloat. When we broke apart, I grinned wolfishly at her while she reclaimed her equilibrium.
“I feel badly I only got a bottle of that expensive water you like and new gloves,” she muttered, blushing. “It’s just I felt like I was using your money to buy you a present and it felt a little wrong. Next year, when I get Lane’s inheritance sorted out, I’ll get you something special, too.”
“At the risk of sounding like an asshole, I really only wanted you. You and Brando and my men like this on Christmas morning.”
“Not an asshole,” she said, kissing me again. “At least, not right now.”
Everyone but Brando, who was too busy playing with his new toys, chuckled.
All the presents had been given now except one, but this I wanted to give to Bianca alone so I jerked my chin at Walcott who immediately announced it was time for brunch and started to usher everyone into the dining room. When Bianca tried to move, I locked her in the circle of my arms until we were alone in the messy room.
“There’s one more.”
“Tiernan––”
“Hush,” I ordered as I sat down on the couch and pulled her over my lap. “Or I’ll have to give you a Christmas spanking.” When a flush spilled down her chest, I chuckled. “I might have to do that, anyway.”
She squirmed in my lap. “Okay,” she agreed, slightly breathless.
My little thing was such a greedy girl.
I ignored the tightening in my groin and handed the present I’d kept in my back pocket all morning. It was a small-ish, flat velvet box wrapped in white paper.
The same one Walcott had found and given me to gift Bianca with the night of Lane Constantine’s Memorial Ball.
Bianca took the package gently, unwrapping it carefully the way one might diffuse a bomb. When she reached the velvet box, she caught her full lower lip between her teeth and opened the thing with a soft snap.
Instead, nestled in plush silk, a diamond encrusted, heart-shaped locket twinkled brighter than the star Ezra had helped Brando fix to the top of the tree.
Bianca’s hand flew to her mouth, covering the open O of it. When she raised her eyes to mine, they sparkled even brighter than the trinket.
I spoke as I gently lifted the heavy necklace from the box. “You know my maternal grandparents left this house to me. Eamon and Zelda were eccentrics, wealthy because Eamon’s father started an enormously successful shipping company in the early 1900s. They had four children, but they still managed to travel the world and seek out adventure. They died two days apart, first Eamon from heart disease and then Zelda from an undiagnosed brain tumor.” I held Bianca close as she shivered at the reminder of her own mother’s aneurism. “My Mom talks all the time about how in love they were. Even as a boy I could see it, as tangible as the sun.”
“Eamon gave Zelda this locket when he fell in love with her and she wore it every single day for the entire forty years they were married.” I opened Bianca’s hand with one of my own and gently placed the locket in her palm. “Now, I’m giving it to you.”
I didn’t know how to say I wanted her to wear it for the next forty years, fifty years, sixty years, too. I didn’t know how to tell her I planned to make every dream she’d ever have come true if it was inside my power to do so. I didn’t know how to tell her that her presence in my life had changed it irrevocably in a so many ways, I knew I’d discover new ones for decades to come.
So, I just placed that locket in her hand and muttered, “Open it.”
Bianca took in a shuddering breath and gently placed her thumbnail inside the split in the silver to pop open the mechanism.
Inside, written on a tiny piece of paper in my cramped script because I wanted to write it myself even though my dyslexia made my writing crap, one word was written.
You.
“You carry it with you,” I explained. “Now, you’ll always know.”
“Carry what?” she breathed, almost distracted by the emotions moving through her.
“My heart.”
“Tiernan,” she whispered, her eyes wide and dark as they lifted to mine, her lashes trembling and mouth a soft, heart-shaped opening of wonderful surprise. “I’m honestly speechless for the first time in my life.”
“It’s yours,” I shrugged, trying to make light of the gesture I’d spent weeks imagining. “I don’t how to take it back. I know it doesn’t make up for the loss of the necklace Lane gave you that I destroyed, but I hope you can accept it, love it even, in a different way.”
“I love it in every way,” she said, suddenly fierce, turning into me to claps my face in both hands, the locket caught between her palm and my scar. “I love you in every way. And I will for forty years or fifty years or however long life will let me have you for.”
“Thank fuck,” I cursed on a relieved exhale that filled me with giddy joy. My head fell forward until our foreheads connected. “I was planning on keeping you captive here if you said no, anyway, but this is much easier.”
She laughed against my mouth and then kissed me through it. And even if she’d only given me that single moment for Christmas, it would have been more than enough.