In Love With Mr. Billionaire

CHAPTER 26- PRIORITIES CHANGE

****Aaron's POV****

I stood on the balcony of my suite looking out at the Duomo. The warm, yellow lights illuminated the Cathedral, making it glow against the darkness of the night. But the beauty of the architectural wonders of Italy was not the center of my thoughts. It was the woman who had started to take over every aspect of my life.

This was going to be a business trip to set up a new restaurant in the city. There were surveys to be done, locations to be finalized, instructions to be passed to the branch for a smoother escalation of events, and deals to be signed. Yet I had decided to spend my whole day with her. The worst part of it was I had zero regrets about it. Instead if given a chance, I would like to spend the whole week the same way I had spent the day. This was what she was doing to me.

I took a deep breath and shook my head, realizing that I was smiling like an idiot.

After dinner, Caroline had gone to rummage through all the shopping bags. Back in the shop, she had not seen the number of bags, but the moment they were brought to the suite by the hotel staff, she had freaked out. She was sure she had not bought that many things. She was right, she had not. I had accepted my crime of adding some of the stuff.

"This is a lot, Aaron. I'm never going shopping with you ever again," she had given me a hard glare that I found ridiculously cute.

The striking difference between her and her family baffles me sometimes. James had gone so far only to get a hand over my wealth. It was astonishing to think that I would shower Caroline with all my money if she asked me for it, without a second thought, and yet that was the last thing she wanted from me. How had she managed to keep her heart when surrounded by goblins of greed, I had no idea.

The ringing of my cellphone broke my chain of thoughts. I had ordered Carter to take care of all the work calls for the day and forward them to me only under emergencies, so even before I pulled the phone out of my pockets, I knew it was going to be some trouble calling for me. But the instant I saw the caller ID, I realized it was going to be catastrophic.

"Bark," I said arrogantly as soon as I put the phone to my ear. I was greeted by silence on the other end. I shook my head in defeat and sighed, "fine. Speak."

"Just to make you realize I'm not a dog," Brian declared.

"Of course. Dogs are better than you," I retorted.

The noises in the background of the phone being snatched away from Brian and him cursing at someone alerted me until a different voice spoke.

"They definitely fight like dogs."

"Nate? What are you doing with Brian?" I asked, confused. They live in different countries.

There was once again a series of cursing and pushing noises. "No, he is still in Australia. I'm with Brian," Kevin spoke.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at the screen strangely. Nate, Brian and Kevin were my school buddies. It had been months since I last talked to either one of them. Since we lived in different countries, had different jobs, and had goals in life, we hardly meet as often as we used to. I still miss the old days with them, but times change. They have their own careers and I had my company to take care of. Sacrificing some things to achieve others was a part of life. And somewhere along the line, priorities change.

Though the different paths we had taken in life had failed to lessen the bond we shared as kids. We always visited each other whenever either one of us was in the same town and called occasionally, often to mess with the other, but it was nearly impossible that the four of us were ever together at the same time. The last had been the reunion, years ago.