“I can’t believe you want to scrap about this.” He swallowed her low blow and a sip of coffee with a grimace before replying. “Shots weren’t fired, Antonia. No need to return them.”

She straightened her back and stared him down. “I’m not firing shots, Aiden. I’m trying to explain how this book and my career is none of your business.”

“You might be a little sensitive about this,” he said. “You’re still very close to the situation. It just happened.”

She nodded, not in agreement, but as if she were gearing up for a good old-fashioned public row in a coffee shop. “So I’m sensitive now?”

“I didn’t call you sensitive, I said you might be a little sensitive about this.” He punctuated his words for clarity but she was beyond listening. “I’m saying that the timing of this is part of the issue.” He finished his coffee and set his mug down on the tabletop with a loud thud.

“I think we better go home,” she said, closing her laptop. How in the hell did that just happen? Only moments ago, he’d been enjoying her company with a good book and warm scone. They’d been basking in the final rays of sunshine before the metaphorical clouds blew in. And now he had to drive her back in angry silence. Aiden stood up and dog-eared the page where he’d left off before following her out the door. He sincerely thought he was being helpful when he encouraged her more confidence in her ability. Although he didn’t want to think about her going back to America, it was unreasonable not to think about her future in general. After all, she was indeed unemployed at the moment. My god, I’m not telling her how to run her damn life.

Chapter Eighteen

Is this man telling me how to run my damn life? Antonia slammed cabinet doors as she put away her groceries. She angrily stuffed bags into the garbage and stalked through her cottage like a mad woman. Antonia was absolutely livid by his suggestion that she was being sensitive. The fucking nerve of him. “I didn’t even want to talk about it.” He was a fucking paper grader for god’s sake. Hell, she’d done that when she was in graduate school. She taught two freshman composition classes while she took a full course load and wrote her thesis.

“Oh, that’s rich,” she muttered, returning to the kitchen. She looked at the counter where a pile of baking ingredients sat, taunting her with their uselessness. “Confidence?” she scoffed. “You think confidence is baking a goddamn cake?”

She glanced at the garbage can and thought for a moment how satisfying it would be to toss all this shit in the trash. Antonia instead stomped back to the living room. The nerve, she thought as she turned the television on. How could someone be so gorgeous and such a mansplainer at the same time? How could he go from kissing her tenderly in the grocery store to telling her about her business with such...smug confidence?