Page 40 of Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

“My staff sign ironclad NDAs,” he said. “You have no need to put on a show in front of Elise.”

“Well, I feel uncomfortable,” she said. “Lying.”

“It isn’t a lie. I came to your bed-and-breakfast, we were snowed in. We were overcome by our attraction to one another.”

“Were you?”

She was staring at him, with the intense copper eyes that he found so attractive, generally speaking, but a bit off-putting now.

“Yes,” he said.

He felt pinned to the spot, but he also didn’t see the use in denying it. “What is it you need to hear, Noelle? That I was attracted to you in a way that felt uncommon? In a way that tested me, and I failed that test?”

“What test?”

“It felt entirely ungentlemanly of me to claim you like I did when we were trapped in the way that we were. And yet I did, because I could not resist you. Because you were... Everything that I wanted and more. Because you are the most beautiful woman that I have ever seen. It doesn’t even matter if that is strictly true in a measurable sense. You are the only one that I can remember. And I could not imagine not taking this opportunity to secure a wife when I found one who would suit me so well. You see how it is?”

“I... I suppose so.”

“Is that what you wanted to hear? That you are special?”

“Not if you’re only telling me that so that I’ll shut up.”

“I am not,” he said.

He realized that this was the longest he had ever spoken to another person about something other than business in a very long time. But then, that was true of this whole lost weekend with her. She wanted to understand the way in which she was different? He couldn’t begin to list a single way that she was the same.

“You have experiences that I don’t have,” she said. “It makes me feel... I wonder what you see in me, I guess. Is this obligation because you were my first or...”

“No. What I see in you is the ability to be a warm and caring mother. But also... I want you.” He met her gaze. “I have never cared much about a specific woman. I have cared for my own pleasure. I seek out women who are the same. So that I do not have to think about them. They think of themselves. I think of myself. I have never been... Warm. You make me feel warm.”

He didn’t know if what he had said made any sense at all; he wasn’t even certain why he’d said it.

“My whole childhood felt magical,” she said. “Holiday House is the most wonderful place to grow up. I loved it so much. I always have. I imagined growing up there. Growing old there. Raising children there. I don’t know where I thought I was going to meet a man. The boys that I knew in town never impressed me. Not because I’m a snob just because... Well. Maybe I am a snob. I never wanted them. I could never quite explain why. But I didn’t. Still, I imagined a warm and happy life there. When my father died, and my mother left, I suddenly realized that the life that I thought was happening around me wasn’t. My mother didn’t love the bed-and-breakfast. She felt trapped there. Their relationship wasn’t everything that I had believed it to be, and it made me realize for the first time that a fantasy, a dream that you have when you’re a child, doesn’t mean anything. It isn’t guaranteed to come true. So I’ve been up there, clinging to that place, feeling more and more lonely. Wishing for a life I didn’t have anymore. Wishing for the confidence that I used to have that my life was going to turn out okay. You disrupted everything.”

“You do not find me warm?”

“I find you terrifying. The prospect of something that I never once imagined, but it seems like I would be a fool to say no. Not because you’re a billionaire. Because it saves Holiday House. And because... I want you. That has to matter for something.”

“Certainly.”

“You said some things... When you were feverish. About your childhood.”

“What things?”

“They probably didn’t mean anything. You were probably completely out of your mind.” She frowned. “Except you did remember kissing me. And I thought you might not.”

“Tell me.”

“You talked about traveling through a secret passageway. And always being in your room.”

“That is true,” he said. His chest felt icy, and he didn’t like it. Because what he wanted was to forget his childhood had ever happened. That was what he wanted.

And yet... She had shared something of herself. And he had already shared something of himself, even if he had done so when he hadn’t meant to. Eventually, they would have to speak of it, because they were going to have to share a house and he was going to have to explain some of his eccentricities.

He had never considered that. What it actually meant to have to share space with another person.

Even while they had packed up all the things that she possessed to come to his penthouse in New York City, he hadn’t fully thought all that through. He had imagined tucking her up in a space in the house, rather than integrating her. But then... Wasn’t he simply treating her like his mother, only in the reverse?

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