Page 75 of How Not to Mess with a Millionaire

“Your time starts—” She glanced at the clock again. “Now.”

“I suppose I should begin at the beginning.”

“You know what Julie Andrews says.” Did he? Rodgers and Hammerstein weren’t Puccini. “It’s a very good place to start.”

“Are you going to keep interrupting me?”

He arched an aristocratic brow at her, and her pulse hammered. She’d forgotten how exhilarating it was sparring with him. Almost as much as sleeping with him.

Down, girl. Don’t think about that. Focus on how you felt when you threw his stupid coins back in his stupid face.

“Sorry.” Not. “Continue.”

“You used up some of my valuable time. I should get minutes put back on the clock.”

“Thirty seconds.”

He started to pull out a chair then stopped. “Can I sit?”

“It’s your presentation.”

He hesitated, then sat. A few more precious seconds ticked by before he spoke, and when he did, his words were soft but powerful, with more than a hint of something like sadness. Or regret. “The couple we met at the fountain after the opera—”

“Aldo and Flavia?”

“There you go, interrupting me again.” He tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yes, Aldo and Flavia. Nicole’s parents.”

“Oh my God.” Her breath caught and her eyes started to tear up. It explained so much. Their uncomfortable conversation. The awkward non-introduction.

“That’s not all.” His brow furrowed. “That month was the first anniversary of her death. That’s why I was in Positano. She loved Bella Vista. I proposed to her in the perennial garden.”

Suddenly, the table between them felt like a gulf as wide as the ocean. Zoe fought the urge to comfort him and stayed seated, needing some distance between them in order to think straight. “I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

There was that word again. So small. So inadequate.

“No,carina.I’m the one who’s sorry. I behaved badly.”

He stood abruptly and rounded the table to sit next to her, brushing her knee with his as he lowered himself into the chair. So much for that much-needed distance.

“Seeing them like that, without any warning, it was—difficult. I was worried about their reaction to seeing me with someone new, especially so close to the anniversary of their daughter’s death. And afraid of the strength of my feelings for you. But that’s no excuse for how I acted.”

He reached into his pocket, pulled out three coins, and set them down on the table in a neat stack.

“Are those—?”

“Yes.” He smiled, his expression truly lightening for the first time since he’d appeared in the door of the conference room. “The coins you threw at me.”

“I didn’t exactly throw them at you,” she lied.

“One hit me in the chest. And another in the face.”

“A lucky accident.”

He pushed the coins toward her. “Take them.”

Her lips curled into a small smile that matched his. “So I can throw them again?”

“That’s up to you. I had something different in mind.”