Page 42 of Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

CHAPTER NINE

SHEWASLIKEa different person. Polished from head to toe. She had spent far too long of the flight on her makeup and hair. The clothes that had been provided for her were beautiful, she couldn’t deny that.

But she felt a strange distance between herself and Rocco, because he had decided to put it there with his cold words about their arrangement. He had done that to them. And he had done it on purpose, she knew that. It was tempting to try and make it so he didn’t win. But perhaps he was going to win just for a little bit. When she emerged from the bedroom, there was a strange light in his eyes, and she couldn’t read it. She decided she wasn’t going to bother.

The ring felt heavy on her hand, and the plane began to descend, which unnerved her, so she sat down and buckled her seatbelt.

Then, she took a look out the window. She could see the city off in the distance. A skyline that she had seen in movies countless times over, but had never imagined that she would see in person. She wasn’t sure she had even wanted to. It was such a strange, surreal feeling. Before she knew it, the plane’s wheels connected to the ground, and they taxied for a brief moment before they came to a stop.

“A car will drive up to the door to meet us.”

She looked up at him. “I imagine this is quite a different experience to typical plane travel. I only vaguely remember.”

“Yes, normally you must fight through the crowd like you’re in a herd of cattle.”

“So you’ve been told?”

“Yes. I’ve heard.”

Her heart gave a little jump start. Because maybe they were back to being them. Such as they were. Maybe there was a little bit of a connection there still. Even though he was being difficult.

The door to the plane opened smoothly, and he took her hand. She couldn’t keep any physical distance between them, he was making sure of that, and when the physical distance was erased, she found that it was harder and harder to maintain emotional distance. That was the danger of him. The physical connection was just so intense.

She was startled by the first flash of the camera when they got off the plane, by the crush of people who surrounded their car. He did not seem bothered by it at all. The click and pop of each picture felt like getting hit with a tiny boulder, and she started each time. But they made their way quickly to the car, the door shutting behind them. The windows tinted, hopefully enough to conceal them from view. She didn’t know if she had done what he needed her to do.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I forgot to gaze adoringly at you.”

“That’s quite all right. It’s all right if you look surprised, because you are definitely being positioned as my sweet small-town fiancée.”

She frowned. “Shouldn’t there have been security keeping them away from us?”

“Yes. If I wanted that. But what I wanted was photographs. I will not be making grand explanations about where I have been spending my time these past days. Nor will I be making an announcement or telling a story about how the two of us got together. The media will fill it all in as long as we make ourselves available. They will create the narrative. If we tried to make the narrative, then it would be questioned. The public likes to make a story for themselves.”

“Oh,” she said.

She didn’t know how she felt that her naivety was being used against her. That he liked that she had been surprised by all of that because it would make her... Well, look like what she was, she supposed. Maybe it was a manipulation so much as a calculated lack of preparation.

He was so irritating.

But then, she was captivated by the cityscape, and forgot to be irritated with him as she gazed up at the impossibly tall buildings as they wound their way slowly through the manic streets. She had never seen anything like it. The sidewalks were filled with people, the road gridlocked with cars. The sky was nearly blotted out by those buildings. So tall that when she looked up out the window she couldn’t see past the end of them.

They pulled up to a building that was all black glass and steel, and the car stopped. The door was opened for them, and Rocco got out, reaching inside and taking her hand, guiding her up out of the car and onto the sidewalk, where they were met by more photographers. He wrapped his arm around her waist, and instinctively, she raised her left hand to cover her face as they walked by the photographers. Once they were inside the building he looked at her and smiled. “You showed them your ring.”

She looked down at her hand. “Not intentionally. I was just... Shielding myself instinctively.”

“Well, your instincts are very good.”

There was no one in the black foyer of the building, and she found herself confused by that.

“It is my building,” he said. “For now, everything is empty. It requires security clearance to get in, of course.”

They walked through the empty space, to the elevators, where he entered a passcode, and the doors slid open.

They got inside.

“You live in this whole empty building.”

“It will be turned into luxury apartments for others to rent. But I have been enjoying the solitude. The top floor is mine.”

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