A Winter Symphony: A Christmas Novella

  Shortly after the harrowing events of the Original Sinners novel The Mistress, Kingsley realizes that to protect Juliette and their baby on the way, they need to leave New York and put their pasts behind them for good.

  Yet he’s waited all his life to have Søren back. How will he tell the only man he’s ever loved he’s leaving him...again? And will Søren be able to let him go?

  Praise for the Works of Tiffany Reisz

  “Daring, sophisticated, and literary…. Exactly what good erotica should be.” — Kitty Thomas on The Siren

  “Kinky, well-written, hot as hell.” — Little Red Reading Hood on The Red: An Erotic Fantasy

  “Impossible to stop reading.” — Heroes & Heartbreakers on The Bourbon Thief

  “Stunning…. Transcends genres and will leave readers absolutely breathless.” — RT Book Reviews on the Original Sinners series

  “I worship at the altar of Tiffany Reisz!” — New York Times bestselling author Lorelei James

  Contents

  A Winter Symphony

  First Movement

  November Allegro

  Second Movement

  December Adagio

  Third Movement

  January Minuet

  Fourth Movement

  February Sonata

  Fifth Movement

  March Coda

  Bonus Short Story

  A Beautiful Thing

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  More Books by Tiffany Reisz

  A Winter Symphony

  Author’s Note

  Readers who have read the Original Sinners series through The Mistress (book 4) can read A Winter Symphony without fear of spoilers.*

  Between The Mistress and book 5, The Saint, the Unholy Trinity decamp from New York to New Orleans. Here is the story of how and why that move came about…and no, it was not because of the beignets. Although that was a factor.

  * * *

  *Readers new to the Original Sinners series should start with the first book, The Siren. A complete reading order can be found at TiffanyReisz.com.

  DEDICATED TO BETHANY HENSEL, MERCI, MON AMI

  First Movement

  November Allegro

  Allegro:

  At a brisk, lively, or cheerful tempo.

  Chapter One

  Kingsley was happy.

  Very, very happy.

  This came as a surprise to him. It would have come as a surprise to anyone who knew him, too.

  On the list of adjectives frequently used to describe him, one might find the following:

  dangerous (of course)

  sexy (he had his fans)

  sleazy (he also had his detractors)

  ruthless (fact)

  insane (not quite, though he had his moments)

  brooding (fair point—he was French, after all, and contemplating the ultimate meaninglessness of his own existence was in his DNA)

  But one would not include “happy” on any list describing Kingsley.

  Apparently, he needed a new list, because now he was a very happy man. True happiness, that is—joie de vivre, joy in living.

  Had he ever felt this depth of joy before? Maybe once? Maybe on the last warm autumn night in Maine, when he was sixteen and Søren seventeen? Maybe that moment, after the beating and after the sex, when he lay across Søren’s lap under the wild stars? Maybe that moment when Søren’s fingers stroked Kingsley’s naked back, tender from welts, and softly said three words…

  You did well.

  Yes, that was the last time he’d felt this much happiness. Once, he might have thought it would be the only time he’d ever feel it, until the night Juliette said three even more beautiful words to him.

  Je suis enceinte.

  The reality of this newly-discovered joie occurred to him on the night of his forty-seventh birthday. November 2nd in a year when winter came early, rudely shoving autumn out of the spotlight. Outside it was cold enough to chip teeth from chattering. Inside Kingsley’s small private sitting room in his Riverside Drive townhouse, it was warm, however. The fire burned cheerfully behind the grate. He’d forgone his usual after-dinner wine for a milky cup of coffee—decaf—and he held Juliette lightly against his chest as they lay on the large antique fainting sofa. Out of nowhere, Juliette gasped as if in pain. A gasp followed by a laugh. She grabbed Kingsley’s hand and put it on the swell of her pregnant belly.

  “Someone is rehearsing for the Rockettes tonight,” Juliette said, laughing again as she was kicked from within.

  “Or there’s a football practice going on in there,” Kingsley said, feeling another tiny foot or hand press against his palm. The wave of joy rushed over him, leaving his head swimming and his throat almost too tight to speak.

  “Back to sleep, Coco,” Kingsley said softly to Juliette’s stomach. “It’s past your bedtime.”

  Coco wasn’t the baby’s name. They’d already decided on Céleste for a girl, Hugo for a boy (after author Victor Hugo). In French, coco was a child’s slang term for an egg. At one of Juliette’s early obstetrician appointments, her doctor had said their growing fetus was now about the size of an egg.

  “I think Coco’s trying to tell you ‘happy birthday,’” Juliette said as she eased onto a pile of silk cushions. She wore a silk turquoise bathrobe, the tie of which kept sliding over her belly and under her breasts now that her narrow waist was long gone.

  Kingsley put his mouth to her stomach. “Is a card in the mail too much to ask?”

  Juliette smiled tiredly and adjusted the pillows underneath her as Kingsley drew her long and lovely dark legs across his lap.

  “Did you ever think at this time last year, this is how we’d be spending your birthday?” she asked. “Alone together. No party. No wine, even. Just the two of us sitting here, being boring and reading?”

  They were being very boring. Kingsley was almost finished reading The Immoralist by André Gide. Juliette was reading a book on her iPad, and he occasionally saw her smile at something in it.

  Yes, this was certainly a very different scene from last year’s birthday, which he’d celebrated in high and mad style. His townhouse had been bursting at the seams with guests dressed for the French Revolution, inspired by Kingsley’s heritage and the upcoming release of the film Les Misérables, though the theme had not been Liberté, égalité, fraternité but Liberté, égalité, sodomie…

  “This is better,” Kingsley said.

  “Are you certain?” she asked. Fear flashed across her dark eyes. They were lovers and they were in love, and this had been the case for several years. But they weren’t married. Kingsley didn’t practice monogamy, or even really believe in it. As for Juliette, she suffered from a marriage phobia, though he couldn’t blame her. A rich, powerful man had once practically owned her, using her mother as leverage to keep her in his home and his bed. Men all over the city—especially Brad Wolfe, that asshole—showered her with gifts and attention and declarations of devotion. She played with them and took their presents, of course, and enjoyed every minute of it.

  But now she and Kingsley were having a child together, and this easy open love affair of theirs was changing. A welcome change, she admitted, but Kingsley knew she worried that it wasn’t so welcome for him.

  After a long pause, he answered, “You know I’ve wanted children for as long as I can remember.”

  “I have wanted to dance on the moon since I was a little girl, but if NASA came to our front door and told me it was time to go, I would be terrified.”

  “I’m happy,” he said. “This is what I want.”

  “I know it’s what you want. But is it all you want?”

/>   A good and fair question from the woman who was having their child. A question that had to be answered, if not that night then soon. Very soon. Little Coco wasn’t going to wait forever for him to decide.

  “Are you asking about Søren?” Kingsley said. He ran his hands up and down her smooth bare calves. She took long baths these days, enjoying the buoyancy of the warm water, and Kingsley would shave her legs for her now that she had trouble reaching her ankles. “Do you want me to give him up?”

  “No,” she said. “That’s the last thing I want. Someone has to beat you, and it’s not going to be me. All I want to know is…is it enough for you? Finally, do you have enough?”

  Kingsley started to answer, to say yes, of course it was finally enough, that she had nothing to fear, that nothing and no one was going to come between them.

  There was a knocking at the front door—loud, insistent. Juliette sat up and put her hands protectively over her stomach.

  Kingsley jumped to his feet. More pounding on the door. Shouting now. It sounded like someone was trying to beat their way into the house. Kingsley looked at Juliette. “Stay here,” he said.

  He left the sitting room and strode down the hall to the grand front doors, wishing he still had his dogs. As he neared the doors, he heard his name and drunken laughter. The tension eased. He unlocked the door.

  A half dozen men and women stood on his front porch wearing outré party clothes under their coats.

  “Long live the King!” one woman shouted, hefting a bottle of champagne in the air. “About time! I’m freezing my tits off.”

  She and the other intruders started to press toward the door. Kingsley held up his hand. “What the hell are you all doing here?”

  “It’s your birthday, right?” the woman with the champagne bottle said. “We’re here for the party.”

  He recognized her. Her name was…something that started with an R? Manhattan socialite—she’d tried on kink like a new outfit and decided she liked the way it looked on her. He recognized a few other faces, men and women who’d frequented his clubs in the past. Kat, the daughter of the ex-governor. Tate, her high-functioning alcoholic boyfriend. Another girl wearing only a red, white, and blue bikini under her coat. In the old days, he might have saluted her flag. Tonight he just wanted to tell her to wrap up before she contracted hypothermia.

  “Mon roi?” Against orders, Juliette had come out of the sitting room and now stood by him. “Who is it?”

  “Oh,” Roxy said, eying Juliette’s round belly. Kingsley instinctively moved in front of Juliette. “No party this year, I guess?”

  “No,” Kingsley said to Roxy, to Kitty, to Tate, to the city itself. “The party’s over.”

  Chapter Two

  After the revelers had left, Juliette laughed at how scared they’d been of a few drunks at their door. She kissed him on the lips and went up to bed. Kingsley promised to be up soon. First, he had to check all the locks.

  He wandered from room to room, not only checking that the front, back, and side doors were locked, but the windows, too. Never before had he locked the doors of the townhouse, believing it a sign of fear and weakness. His old arrogance shamed him. The woman he loved was pregnant with his first child.

  He was almost tempted to hire bouncers to guard the door. After checking the locks, he returned to the sitting room to make certain the fire was out completely. How could he live with himself if he let the townhouse catch on fire with Juliette inside? Was this paranoia? He wished. But no, just weeks ago, secrets from his past had finally caught up with him. Søren and Nora had nearly paid with their lives. At night, as soon as he closed his eyes, he was back in that room, ears ringing from the loud claps of gunshots, and there was every chance in the world he would not survive to hold his newborn baby.

  Everything changed in that room. And everyone came out of that room a different person from the one who’d walked into it. Especially him. The man who went in never locked his doors. The man who came out checked the seals on the windows to make sure not even an ant could crawl inside his home.

  A mirror hung over the fireplace, gilt-framed, antique, and he caught a glimpse of the King that looked back at him—dark olive skin inherited from his Italian grandfather, dark eyes. Not a single gray hair, not a single wrinkle despite this being his forty-seventh birthday. Thanks to his good genes he didn’t remotely look his age.

  Ah, but he felt it. Here he was, creeping toward fifty and yet still kicking drunks off his stoop at midnight.

  Roxy had looked at him like he’d grown a second head when he’d opened the door. It was his attire—no suit, no boots. Instead, he had on dark brown trousers, a black pullover, and the glasses he wore when reading. He looked, in a word, vanilla.

  A year ago, he might have cared. Maybe even a few months ago. But the moment Juliette began to show, the moment when her pregnancy became real and not hypothetical, was the moment he stopped giving a single fuck about anyone and anything but her, the baby, and the few people in his life he considered family.

  Nora. Søren. Griffin…

  The list was short and getting shorter all the time. The dogs were gone. Sadie had been killed, and Dom died not long after. Old age. Brutus and Max were living with Calliope in the Hamptons. He’d lied to Juliette, saying since the dogs were so old, he wanted their last months to be spent somewhere they could run and play by the water, not cooped up in the townhouse. But the truth was, the first time he’d seen one of his enormous Rottweilers jump up on Juliette, nearly knocking her over, he couldn’t get them out of the house fast enough.

  God, he needed a drink. Except since Juliette wasn’t drinking, he’d also cut back.

  The dogs living with Calliope? Staying home on his birthday to snuggle up with Jules and read? No wine? He knew becoming a parent entailed making sacrifices. So far, they’d all been surprisingly easy. He couldn’t help but wonder what harder, more painful sacrifices were to come?

  He placed his glasses on top of his book on the side table. Juliette had left her iPad behind, and he picked it up to take to her upstairs. He tapped the power button, curious to see what she’d been reading. The screen came to life and displayed a photograph of one of the most beautiful houses he’d ever seen. A red-brick mansion with white columns and a grand portico. Elaborate, almost tropical landscaping. He read the caption: “One of many mansions on St. Charles Avenue, seen from a New Orleans streetcar.”

  It was a page from a travel guide to New Orleans. No surprise, as he was taking her there the day after Christmas for a two-week “babymoon,” which was like a honeymoon. Supposedly. He had never heard of such a thing until Griffin had told him it was de rigeur now to take one’s pregnant wife or girlfriend on a last big vacation before the first baby came along. Sounded painfully bourgeois to him, but when he mentioned it to Juliette, her eyes had widened. She’d said at once, “Could we go to New Orleans?”

  As he flipped through the pages of the book on her iPad, he saw massive ancient trees dripping with Spanish moss, old mansions, brightly-painted houses, Christmas lights hanging in palm trees, and French words everywhere—Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), banquette (sidewalk), Vieux Carré (Old Square, the French Quarter), and bien sûr—laissez les bons temps rouler (let the good times roll).

  He wished they were leaving right now.

  As he started up the stairs, his phone began buzzing in his back pocket. He pulled it out and saw he had a text message from Leo, one of the bouncers at The 8th Circle.

  Guy ODed outside on the sidewalk. Ambulance on the way. Orders?

  One of ours? Kingsley replied. If the man were a member of the club, he would head over there right away.

  Never seen him before.

  Kingsley told Leo to keep watch over the man, to keep him warm until the authorities arrived. And he should try to keep everyone inside the club until the police and EMTs were gone.

  These calls were coming more and more often—poor souls overdosing in the bathrooms of his clubs, in the all
eys behind them. Opioids were almost always the culprit. It seemed like a lifetime ago he’d found Griffin Fiske passed out drunk on the floor of one of his clubs. A more innocent time. Booze and coke were child’s play compared to the au courant drugs people were on these days.

  Kingsley knew these calls would keep coming. And people would keep showing up at his door, expecting an invitation into the non-stop orgy that had been his life for so many years.

  When he said the party was over, he’d meant it.

  But how did you un-invite an entire city to a party they’d thought would never end?

  Second Movement

  December Adagio

  Adagio:

  At a slow tempo.

  Chapter Three

  When Søren called, Kingsley answered. Even when the call was nothing more than an invitation to dinner.

  In the late afternoon of a bright mid-December day, Kingsley drove himself to Wakefield. He parked the black BMW he used for private trips in the church’s parking lot. As he walked to the sanctuary, he gazed up at the church. Bathed in the watery light of a winter sun, it looked like a Currier & Ives calendar. Perfectly picturesque. Pure New England. Before going inside to find Søren, Kingsley glanced around, taking in the scene, committing it to memory.

  Usually, Kingsley looked forward to his nights with Søren with a sense of anticipation bordering on feverishness. Not today. It wasn’t going to be easy being with his lover and not telling him the momentous decision he’d made. Six weeks ago, he’d asked himself how he could un-invite the whole city from the party that had been his life. Now he knew the answer.