Page 21 of How To Tempt The Off-Limits Billionaire

Stop it, Roisin!

“I’ll buy it, at your asking price, right now.”

Ro slammed on the brakes, her head whipping around to stare at him. “What?”

“You heard me,” Muzi stated. “What price did the lawyers put on it? I’ll even give you 10 percent more.”

Ro felt her head swim, partly because of the heat, but mostly because Muzi was offering to pay her stupid money for this property. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.

“Why do you look so surprised? I told you that I wanted to buy it.” Muzi placed his hand on her back and urged her forward.

She pointed to the house, just visible through the oak trees in the distance. “You’re mad, Muzi! The house is a mess. I’m quite sure it’s falling down.”

“It’s structurally sound, it just needs some work,” Muzi said. “Besides, you know I want the land, not the house.”

Ro slapped her hands on her hips. “Is that rare cultivar worth so much money?”

Muzi’s expression hardened. “To me it is.”

Ro watched as he picked a vine leaf and rubbed it between his fingers. He looked at her, his expression intense. And unyielding.

“So, what do you say? Do you want to save yourself the hassle of fixing up and clearing up the house and sell it to me?”

It would be an immediate and easy solution and an offer she should take. Although it had been in Zia’s family for generations, she had no emotional connection to the place and she could save herself a lot of sweat and tears.

“Um...no.”

Muzi looked as surprised as she felt. “You’re refusing my very generous offer? Do you want more money?”

Really? That was where his mind went? “No, I don’t want more money, you idiot. I’m just not sure I want to sell. Not yet, anyway.”

“Why not?” Muzi asked her. “The place is overgrown, the house is a wreck, and I don’t see you becoming a wine farmer anytime soon.”

Well spotted.

Ro took a minute to hunt down the correct words. Muzi, thankfully, didn’t hurry her along. “For the past few months, I’ve felt like I’m floating, that nothing seems quite real. I helped Digby and Bay by looking after Livvie but I haven’t achieved anything this year. All I’ve done is meet with lawyers and read reports and go along with Siya’s suggestions about how to go ahead with the dispersal of my birth parents’ assets. It’s all a bit, well...” She hesitated, looking for the right word.

“Unreal?”

Perfect. “Yeah, unreal. But also emotionally taxing. I feel like I need to throw myself into a project, something with a beginning and an end. I need to get my hands dirty and my muscles working. I need to work on something tangible.”

St. Urban was that something.

She looked around at the overgrown vineyards, so different from the picture-perfect rows of vines she’d seen on other properties, including Muzi’s. Maybe they both could have what they wanted. “What if I leased you the land? And, as we discussed, I give you the first option to purchase it when I am ready to sell?”

In his eyes surprise mingled with relief. “Yeah, that could work.”

Ro dragged her trainer through a tuft of grass. “Would a year be long enough for you to work out whether the cultivar is here?”

“More than,” Muzi quickly replied.

Ro jammed her hands in the back pockets of her shorts. She could feel her nose burning and hoped she didn’t peel. She needed to get out of the sun. “If you do discover the cultivar, we can include an option for you to extend the lease when the year term is up.”

“That’s incredibly generous of you, Ro. I do appreciate it,” Muzi said, his voice deeper than usual. “But you should know that having a lease in place might be problematic if you want to sell the property.”

“Not really,” Ro replied, smiling. “If you find the cultivar, you’d want to buy the property, right?”

“Right.”

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