Page 50 of Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

And when they went over the edge, it was together. Her nails digging into his skin as he poured himself deep inside of her.

She collapsed against him, and he lay back on the couch, still buried inside of her, his hands moving through her hair.

“Stay on the pill for a while,” he said.

The comment jarred her back to reality.

“What?”

“There’s no need for you to fall pregnant immediately. And... I think it would be better for you to become accustomed to this life.”

Confusion twisted inside of her. “I thought that it was important...”

“This is important,” he said.

The granite in his voice rebuilt something within her that had cracked only a moment ago. He didn’t want to have a baby because he didn’t want to be distracted from the attraction between them. She was actually happy with that. Happy to put it off for a little while.

“It would be better,” he said. “Anyway. The optics. If you waited at least a year to get pregnant, there would be no question as to why I married you.”

She nodded. Except of course, if people asked questions about why they got married, and came to the conclusion it was not for love, then they would be right.

But something had certainly shifted within her.

This thing that moved her further and further away from who she was. Further and further from home.

She clung to his shoulders then, desperate. Because he was the only thing keeping her here.

On his whim, the bed-and-breakfast could go away. On his whim this relationship could end. And she would be the one left picking up the pieces. It felt hideously imbalanced. Except he wanted her.

He had said it.

This was her power.

What a strange thing, for a woman who had never wielded power in any way, but least of all this way.

“Yes. We can wait.”

“Good. I think that you should spend tonight in my bed.”

So she did.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

WHENROCCOSHOWEDup to the board meeting the next day, he knew that he was going to be met with sterling opposition.

“This is how you tell us that you are engaged?” Jeremiah Ulster, one of the oldest members of the board, tossed his phone into the center of the table, pictures of him and Noelle plastered into a tell-all article. Of course, he and Noelle had told nothing. But everyone knew at this point he had been snowed in on the mountain, and they knew that she was the person he had been snowed in with. People wanted to believe in romance so desperately, that they fashioned one out of it. And that suited him just fine.

“It is not my fault that the press decided to fill in their version of the truth without my speaking to you. But, as you know, I was indisposed for a while, and could not communicate, and when Noelle and I arrived in the city last night we had an event to attend.”

“You were making a show of it,” Jeremiah said.

“Yes,” he said. “Perhaps I was. And perhaps that will serve as a reminder that I am not a child to be scolded, whether or not my mother put you in your position or not. This is my company, and I make decisions based on what I feel is best. The expansion ends. I am to be married.”

“Surely we have to approve that,” Jeremiah said, and he searched around as if he was hunting for a stack of bylaws.

“You don’t,” Rocco said. “I simply must wed within three months of informing you. Which I shall do. And then within a year of the marriage, my wife must be pregnant, or we must be in the process of pursuing surrogacy or adoption.”

“You are quite well versed,” Jeremiah said.

---