Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

S HE WAS LIKE a 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.”

She thought about what he had said. How he valued his space.

“Is this just you maintaining control of an entire building?”

He looked at her. “It does not make sense to continue to do it always.”

“Right.”

The doors opened, and there was a small entryway, and another door that required another code.

When they were inside, her jaw dropped. The space was expansive. And there was nothing in it beyond the necessary. The kitchen was black. The floors were black and glossy, the cabinets a glossy black as well. The countertops made of graphite-colored concrete. It was opulent in a way, but also spare. The materials themselves provided the cues of luxury. The couch that stretched across the living area was black, like everything, starkly shaped. And the view of the city below was stunning. It was beginning to get dark, and the lights glowed bright from the cars, the buildings, street signs and neon advertisements.

“It’s strange to me,” she said, “that you prize this level of spareness quite so much, and control, and yet you live in a city that is so... Loud. And cluttered.”

He laughed. “I suppose so. And yet, it allows me to keep nothing. If I want something, I go out and get it at a moment’s notice. There is no need to hoard when the world is at your fingertips.”

“Considering that you’re a billionaire I rather thought that you had the ability to do that even if you lived on a mountaintop.”

“Perhaps. Although it would be inefficient.”

“Ah. Efficiency.”

“Come,” he said. “I will show you to your room.”

Her room.

“We won’t share a room?”

She didn’t know why, but the look on his face made her laugh. Well, she did know why. The stark horror there was just too funny. If a little bit insulting. “No,” he said. “I prize my space.”

“Right.”

“We have an event tonight,” he said.

“Tonight?” she asked, shocked.

“Yes. A charity event. There is a red dress in your closet. I want for you to wear that.”

“You even get to choose what I wear.”

“Did you want to stand there and dither over which thing to choose? Did you wish to wonder what might be appropriate?”

No. Dammit. The annoying thing was, she didn’t want that. And it was helpful that he told her what she should wear.

“How long do I have to get ready?”

She would not validate him by indicating that she was grateful he had given her direction on her outfit.

“You have an hour and a half.”

He opened the door to her bedroom, and clearly indicated she was to go inside. She did, and saw that her room was much the same as all the others, Spartan and spare. One wall was a window in its entirety. She stood there, feeling tiny and remote as she looked out over the city.

She took her phone out of her pocket, and FaceTimed Melody.

“I have a strange story to tell you,” she said.

“What?” Melody asked.

She took her phone and turned it so that her friend could see the scene below.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in New York.”

“New York City?” her friend asked, emphasis on each word.

“Yes,” she said. “New York City. And... I’m engaged.”

She flipped the phone around to face her again.

Melody’s expression was wild. “Engaged? Not to that gorgeous man you brought into the coffee shop.”

“The very same.”

“No, well... You barely know him.”

“I know parts of him pretty well,” she muttered.

“You don’t have to marry a man just because you slept with him,” Melody said. “I don’t care what the church elders say.”

Noelle snorted. “That’s not why I’m marrying him.” Though, it was a little bit. Not because she thought she had a moral obligation to do it, but because she felt connected to him in a way that she couldn’t explain. She wasn’t even going to try. She couldn’t even make it make sense to herself, much less her friend.

“So he’s rich?”

“Yeah. Well, he’s sort of the billionaire that has been trying to buy my bed-and-breakfast.”

“No,” Melody said.

“Yes. But we got snowed in together...”

“Real life is not a Hallmark movie,” said Melody. “The evil developer stays an evil developer. I mean, the fact that he dragged you back there instead of moving to the small town is kind of making that point for me.”

“Oh,” Noelle said. “I know.”

She went over to the closet and pulled out a red dress. It was satin and slinky, with straps that went... She didn’t even know where.

“But you got engaged to him.”

“I have feelings for him,” she said. She sighed heavily. “I know. I know. And he hates our town. But he agreed to let me keep the bed-and-breakfast. He agreed to give my mom the payout that she wants anyway.”

“What’s he getting out of it? I mean, no offense. Not that you aren’t a prize.”

“I am definitely a prize,” she said. Then she laughed. “No. I mean... He wants a baby.”

Melody’s forehead wrinkled. “Oh, I don’t know what to do with that.”

She imagined a baby. Soft and small, with Rocco’s dark hair. “I’ve always wanted to be a mother,” she said. “And... You know my mom leaving hurt. It broke something. I get to keep my bed-and-breakfast. I get to have a family. Unconventional, maybe. He’s going to keep living in New York most of the year. But he says that I can go back home and stay at the bed-and-breakfast sometimes.”

“So it’s a marriage of convenience,” Melody said.

She wished that it was that straightforward. That there were no feelings involved on her end. But there were. There were a lot of feelings.

“Yes,” she said. “Of a kind. It’s not that we don’t have... A certain amount of passion.”

Melody blinked. “Wow.”

“I don’t want you to think of me as some sacrificial lamb going to the slaughter when I go to his bed. I certainly went the first time with no coercion whatsoever, and no offer of marriage or saving my bed-and-breakfast on the table.”

“Admittedly,” Melody said. “He is the most handsome man I have ever seen.”

“He really is,” Noelle agreed.

She looked at the dress. “I have to go. I have to get ready for this... This thing.”

“What thing?”

“A big party. Where everyone is going to be watching me and judging me next to this man, who is sophisticated and gorgeous. And deciding whether or not I’m good enough for him, I guess.”

“Well, you make it sound very fun.”

She suddenly realized what an interesting trap she had stepped into. Rocco had all the power. If he decided to, he could send her back home, demolish the bed-and-breakfast anyway. They weren’t married yet. No agreements had been signed.

She could’ve come all this way only to go right back.

And it was even more impossible to imagine going back to the way things had been before now.

She had come so far, and yet, she still had nothing to hold on to, not really.

Except for him.

This wildly difficult man that had woven himself around her existence.

“I better look great in this dress.”