Her Billionaire Toy Boy

He didn’t want it to feel like he was stalking her. He knew that his behavior could easily veer in that direction, or at least be perceived as being that way. So he just decided to do some sort of a parallel journey. He didn’t want to know precisely where she was—he just went overseas, reasoning that wherever he was in Europe, he was closer to where she was than if he stayed in America.

He and Damien had been planning on researching opening a satellite winery in Greece, so he scheduled his vacation there. He booked a ticket on the next plane landing in Greece and was overseas before the sun went down the next day. Once in Greece he completed his business agenda, he made his contacts and he researched venues for his winery. He tasted Grecian grapes, he tested various soils and he spoke to those who had other breweries and wineries in the area to do market research on how his product would do once they made it overseas.

Sam also had ample time to figure out what he would do about selecting a new business partner. Whether Damien and he would figure out a way to make their relationship survive the rift it had gone through was one thing. If he was to have a business partner for his operation going forward, it had to be someone he knew he could trust completely going forward. That person was not Damien. He supposed that the past few weeks had taught him that if nothing else.

Sam did his business and he waited for news, any news, at all, from Mira. He wanted to see her gorgeous dark eyes again—hold her in his arms—but he didn’t want to rush things. He was content to wait.

*****

Mira was less content. She missed Sam. She was enjoying her time away, but she couldn’t help but think about her life back at home—and the fact that sooner or later, but certainly sooner, she would have to go back to it.

Mira wandered around the Colosseum, and the Vatican, and the museums which made up Rome. She tried cold pizza in Assisi off the recommendation of a stranger and very much regretted it, as the cold pizza was one of the most disgusting things she had ever eaten. She made up for it by going to a hole in the wall pizza joint later that same day and buying an entire Italian Margherita pizza—the crispiest and crackliest of thin crusts, a tiny amount of tomato sauce so fresh it felt like her tongue came to life when she was eating it, and cheese so savory and stretchy that she was sure she would never have anything like it again. Mira ate the entire thing outside the bistro where she bought it and then she went to her tiny apartment and slept for fourteen hours. She woke up famished.

Mira felt herself relaxing in a way which she hadn’t since she was much younger. She could feel her brain mellowing out and rebounding; she was coming up with creative ideas and making herself laugh with much more frequency. She spent an entire day sitting outside an Italian cafe ordering lemon water and various cheese and olive plates while finishing off two of the books she had brought—an anthology of Shakespeare’s plays for her highbrow option, and an old copy of The Da Vinci Code for something which was both easy to read and pleasurable to rip apart, one of her favorite activities when given adequate leisure time.

After much time thinking about it and even more time not thinking about it, Mira thought that she had come to a conclusion regarding Sam.

She missed him and she wanted him to be in her life. However, she didn’t have time for people who were just playing around. She needed to know that she could trust Sam, and she needed to know that he was serious. Not necessarily about her—she didn’t need a marriage proposal or anything to stay with him; but she needed to know that she was in a relationship where she was valued because she was Mira, not for any strange attributes about her; particularly external, surface-level attributes which would surely change. Mira had never thought Sam to be the kind of person who would do that.

Because of all this, she had decided that she would give Sam the opportunity to defend himself—she would allow him the chance to win her back. Mira fancied herself a good judge of human nature, which was one of the reasons Sam’s apparent betrayal had hurt her so badly. In retrospect, there were clues—which she wanted to hear Sam piece together—which led her to believe that Sam was just as upset about the ridiculous point system that Damien had mentioned that she was a part of.

But she wasn’t going to get ahead of herself. She was going to let him explain it. And she would listen to him. And if she liked what she heard and, more than that, felt that Sam was telling the truth and genuinely wanted to be with her, well, then she would be with him. She wasn’t going to let his mistakes stand in the way of their happiness, if being together was what they both wanted.

This decision made, she dawdled a bit in taking any action. As good as it would be to see Sam again, texting him would mean going back to a life of responsibility. Once she texted him, she’d want to go back home so they could talk and be together. And she had another fifteen days in Europe—at least. She wanted to stay here, slowly detoxing from the stress of her everyday life, for as long as she possibly could.

But, finally, one day—the next day—Mira was not a particularly patient woman, by any stretch of the imagination—Mira broke down. She was sitting at a cafe on the street in Paris, having traveled there on a whim from Italy for a few days, and she felt as if she were simply surrounded by lovers. Mira, though a wise and experienced woman, was not immune to the power of environmental suggestion; and so, in that atmosphere, she found herself missing Sam and the closeness they shared more than she had expected.