Page 21 of Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

“Oh. Do you?”

“I have business to attend to, I don’t have time to be ill.”

Of course, of course he had been working the whole time he was here.

“You know, sometimes getting sick is your body’s way of telling you to rest.”

“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” He was thunderous, and he was ridiculous, and still handsome and she had no idea what she was supposed to do with this—the feeling inside her—or him.

Though one thing she was sure of was that no matter how handsome he was, he was annoying.

“Sorry. I’ll try to talk to myself next time. I’m sure that I can come up with something even better.”

“Why are you so relentless?”

“Am I relentless?” He looked infuriated. He looked ill.

“Go sit in the library. I’ll start a fire, and then I’ll bring you something to eat.”

He felt terrible. He was quite certain that he felt much worse than she had, his whole body beginning to shake as hot and cold flashes racked him.

This was absurd. He couldn’t remember the last time he was sick. Well. He could. But he deliberately pushed the memory aside.

Because he didn’t want to think about being alone in his bedroom. He didn’t want to think about going into the kitchen to try and find someone to get him some food. He didn’t want to think about climbing over endless stacks of garbage and expired products...

So he didn’t.

Except his head was swimming, and whenever he closed his eyes he saw his childhood bedroom. And then the rest of the house.

He stood, enraged when the floor dared tilt beneath his feet.

“What are you doing?” Noelle asked, sticking her head into the room.

“I’m going to lie down for a moment.”

“You seem... You seem feverish.”

She crossed the room, and before he could pivot away from her, she pressed her hand to his forehead. “You’re burning up. You need to go lie down.”

“I just said that I was on my way to go lie down,” he growled. He could still feel where her hand had touched his face, cool and comforting. Softer than he would’ve expected.

Earlier, when he had grabbed her arm to steady her when she had lost her balance, he had felt a bolt of sensation, one that he was intent on denying now.

He did not engage in indiscriminate physical affairs. He certainly wasn’t going to engage in one in this house. In this state. But this creature. He tried to picture her with the antlers, but he was unsuccessful. All he could see was her freshly scrubbed face, her sweet smile, her freckles.

“I’ll help you,” she said.

“I don’t need help,” he said.

“I think you do,” she said, beginning to propel him from the room and up the stairs.

“You’re tiny,” he said as she grabbed hold of his arm and tried to move him.

“I’m not that tiny,” she said, sniffing angrily.

And right then, he felt like he had been hit in the side of the head. Not from illness, from something else entirely.

This chaos, and she was chaos. This tornado of desire that was wholly and entirely connected to her.

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