Page 19 of Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

“Sorry,” she said. “That’s a little bit intense.”

“I’m a little bit intense.”

She laughed. “What are you going to eat?”

“I made myself a bowl of soup. I ate it before I delivered yours.”

“Well, when I noticed the mess you really should have given yourself that credit. You made two bowls of soup. That’s why it was such a disaster.”

He didn’t even seem on the verge of cracking a smile. What a tough customer. He was gorgeous. Truly, the most incredible man she had ever seen in person, but he would be impossible to try to deal with on a daily basis. Or at all. Ever. She didn’t know how anyone dealt with him. Maybe nobody really did. Maybe that was the perk of being a billionaire. Nobody really ever contended with you. They just sort of let you exist around them.

“I’m attached to this place,” she said. “I love it.”

“I consider that adjacent to mental illness,” he said.

She gaped at him. “I’m sorry, what? People love their familial homes. You yourself were just talking about the fact that you descended from a long line of important people, you had a familial home, and a business. How is what I feel for this bed-and-breakfast different than that?”

“It simply is,” he said.

“But that doesn’t make any sense.”

“It can cross a line, into foolishness. When you are so attached to a place that you begin to hurt yourself in the pursuit of hanging onto it, when you love things so much that you would choose them over the people in your life, then yes, I do believe it is adjacent to mental illness. And I will not apologize for that.”

“You should. It’s offensive.”

“I don’t care if I’m offensive.”

She felt heat beneath his words, he was personally upset about this. Personally inflamed by it.

“You think that me refusing to sell this place because my mother wants the money is me choosing a place over my family.”

“Yes,” he said.

“It isn’t. I would pay her for it. I would buy it from her. But I either have to be able to get financing, or I have to be able to make payments to her. I need time. Also, I can’t give her the exorbitant sum that you are. But isn’t there a point where wanting more money is simply greed?”

“Isn’t there a point where wanting stuff is simply accumulation?”

“I don’t understand the difference in the two things.”

“Money can afford you the opportunity to live somewhere with a view that you like. You can live in a sleek, clean surrounding, and money allows you to do that comfortably. With good food. Without the worry of scarcity.”

“My mother is hardly living in scarcity. If that’s what she told you, then it is a gross exaggeration. What she wants is to be done living what I consider to be a modest life. But I’m not done with it. I love it.”

“Things are not inherently valuable. They have only the sentiment that you attached to them. You can simply carry a memory in your heart.”

“Haven’t you ever heard that home is where your heart is?”

“I have never had that experience.”

There was something there that he wasn’t sharing. And she wasn’t sure that she needed him to. Nor was she sure she even wanted to hear about it. There was no point getting to know this man. Who was in opposition to her in every way. Who was insulting. Who was a threat to her way of life.

“Thank you for the soup,” she said. “And the crackers. But I’m tired and I’m going to go to bed.”

“All right then,” he said.

She stood up, and brushed past him, and as she did, she stumbled slightly, he grabbed her arm, and steadied her, and she found herself looking up, way up, into the fathomless depths of his black eyes.

Her throat froze, going tight. Her heart slammed itself against her breastbone like it was attempting a jailbreak. He smelled... Well, she could hardly smell, but from what she could tell he smelled of wood smoke and skin. She had never been close enough to smell someone else’s skin.

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