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“I’m not negotiating with you.”
“But your grandfather is.”
She sucked in a breath. “He would never sell without my agreement.”
“That’s true,” Rocco nodded slowly. “He loves you enough to sacrifice anything for you. I’m just wondering why you don’t feel the same way about him.”
She gasped, reaching for the wine glass with half a mind to throw it in his face. “You don’t know anything about our relationship.”
He lifted one shoulder as if in silent acceptance of that, but she wasn’t fooled. He was not the kind of man to let an argument go. He was just pausing to regroup, working out his next plan of attack. She took a sip of the wine, wishing it didn’t taste quite so extraordinarily delicious, or that she didn’t feel as though her nerves needed it quite so badly.
“He wants to sell,” Rocco said quietly.
“He feels pressured to sell. That’s not the same thing.”
“Why are you so sure I’m wrong?”
“Because I know him,” she said crisply. “He has lived in that house since before he was married. He brought his bride across that threshold, he brought his daughter home and raised her there, he raised me there. It’s his home.”
“It’s your home,” Rocco said, with a gentleness she didn’t trust.
But what was the point in disputing that?
“We don’t all want this,” she waved around the penthouse. “For some of us, the idea of keeping something old and special in the family is all we’ve dreamed of all our lives.”
“You want to keep the home and what? Live out your days there? Is that really the sum total of your dreams?”
She clamped her lips together on a wave of impatience. “My dreams aren’t at issue.” She took another sip of her wine.
“Actually, they’re at the very heart of this,” he contradicted with quiet surety. “If your grandfather sells to me, you’ll have enough money.”
“For what?”
“Whatever you want. And he’ll have more than enough to move to a retirement community.”
“Please, he’d hate that.”
“Are you so sure?”
“Please,” she repeated, more emphatically. “Stop acting as though you know him better than I do. He’s my grandpa. We’ve spent my whole life talking about what we want, and his dream is the same as mine: to stay at Honeybee Lane.”
“Dreams change,” he said, sipping his own wine. “Have you asked him recently?”
“If he wanted to sell, he would have told me. Instead, he’s said it’s up to me.”
“Because he doesn’t want to pull the rug out from under you. That’s not the same thing as being what he wants.”
Her jaw dropped. His logic was infuriating—and impeccable. Was it possible she was wrong about her grandfather?
But…the house. The house was a grand old dame, heavy with history and memories. The record player in the lounge was the beating heart at its centre, the soundtrack to their lives. The music he and grandma had danced to after dinner, every night, lost in their own world as the crackly ancient tracks whispered into the wallpaper-lined room. Everything was just as it had been when they’d first married, with the exception of a few mobility aids Maddie had gotten installed in recent years. Her grandfather was still fit and strong, but he was a little less sure on his feet, a little more prone to slips. She had come home six months ago to find him with a gash on his forehead, and he hadn’t been sure how it had happened. A concussion had been diagnosed at the local doctor’s surgery—Maddie had made sure the handles and railings were installed the very next day, along with ensuring her grandfather wore a device that would call her at the press of a button, if he ever hurt himself again.
“Is this what you do?” She asked, turning it back on him. “Do you undermine people until they’re so confused they sell out of a misplaced sense of altruism? As if it would be the ‘best thing’ for my grandpa? He’d be bereft without that house, Rocco. Bereft.”
“Him, or you?”
“Don’t act as though you know me.”
“You’re not the first overly sentimental homeowner I’ve dealt with.”
