“She excels at everything, fratello. I’m proud to announce that Gaby has received top grades in all her classes both here at the university and in Nevada. Like you, Luca, she thrives on learning.”
Gaby flushed. “You love to exaggerate, and I am still struggling with Italian. It’s such a beautiful language, but difficult. If I hadn’t taken Latin in high school, I’d be lost. Thankfully, Giovanni has been helping me. If my Italian were half as good as the English you all speak, I’d be overjoyed.”
“They teach Latin in Las Vegas?”
The question came from Giovanni’s mother, changing the tenor of the conversation. It was the first time since they’d sat down to dinner that she’d spoken directly to Gaby.
Giovanni chuckled. “Of course they do, Mama.”
“I can understand why you’d ask that question, Signora Provere. Most people consider Las Vegas a den of iniquity because of the legalized gambling. Many of us who live there avoid that part of town as much as possible. My parents don’t gamble. They don’t believe in it.”
“It couldn’t be a suitable place to raise children.”
Giovanni patted his mother’s hand. “That would all depend on the children, Mama. Gaby has grown up untouched by its influence.”
His mother looked less than convinced.
“There are many evil influences in the world today, Signora Provere. Is any place truly safe except inside the walls of our own homes?” Gaby tried to reason with her.
Giovanni’s uncle gave her a nod of approval. “You make a strong point, signorina.”
Luke unexpectedly pushed himself away from the table and rose to his feet. “If you will all excuse me. There are matters I’ve left unattended too long as it is. Buona notte.”
His parting salutation included everyone before he strode toward the doors with the bearing of a Medieval prince and disappeared.
Gaby had to pretend not to be affected, but his abrupt departure stunned her. He couldn’t go yet! After a whole evening in his company, she still didn’t know anything about him personally or professionally. He’d be returning to Rome in the morning. Day after tomorrow she’d be leaving Italy.
What if she never saw him again? In a short account of time he’d become so important to her, she couldn’t imagine not being in his company again.
Something had to be wrong with her to care this much about a man she’d only known a few hours. In one meeting, the kinds of feelings he engendered were tantamount to being in love… .
She’d always scoffed at the idea of love at first sight. But tonight, through some unfathomable process, she was very much afraid she’d lost her heart to one Luca Provere.
“Gaby?” Giovanni’s voice. “I know tomorrow is a big day for you, so if you are through, I’ll run you back to your pensione.”
He must have picked up on her distress. Had her feelings for Luke been so transparent he could sense her interest in his mysterious brother?
Mortified, she rose to her feet at the same time as Giovanni and turned to his mother. “Signora Provere, thank you for allowing me to be a guest in this magnificent palazzo. Of all my memories of Urbino, this evening will stand out as the highlight.”
“Prego, Signorina Holt.” She sounded less than enthusiastic, but it didn’t seem to bother Giovanni.
Attempting to hide her desolation that Luke was no longer in the room, Gaby smiled at the other members of his family, even Efresina who’d said nothing for the last fifteen minutes and refused to look at Gaby. “It was a great pleasure meeting all of you.”
For the most part they reciprocated in an affectionate fashion. Though gratified by their acceptance, Gaby could take little pleasure in anything when the man who’d brought her senses alive was nowhere to be found.
To her chagrin, she wasn’t allowed to escape the room unscathed. The last thing she saw as she went out the doors were Luke’s black eyes staring out of the massive portrait. They seemed to follow her through the maze of rooms to the front entrance of the castle.
“W-will your brother be driving us again?”
“Gaby—” He cocked his head. “You aren’t still afraid of him, are you?”
“Of course not.” She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice.
Giovanni eyed her speculatively. “Then you must be nervous about my driving. If you would feel safer with him behind the wheel, I will go to his apartments and ask him.”
“No! Please don’t!” she cried in panic. “I—I was only wondering, since he drove us here in the first place.”
Seemingly satisfied with her explanation, Giovanni led her down the steps to the waiting black sedan. Once they were both seated inside he confided, “If Luca acts pensive and forbidding, it’s because he has a great deal on his mind these days. After a year’s absence, he’s needed to come home and be surrounded by family.”
Luke has been away a whole year?
“He’s concerned for your welfare, Giovanni.” She might as well broach the subject which had been put off too long as it was.
“I know. That has always been his way. He makes everyone else’s world right, but rarely does anything to please himself.”
“Obviously you two share a very special bond.”
“I idolize him.”
She bit her lip. “In all these weeks that we’ve known each other, you’ve never talked about him. Why?”
“Because it’s painful.”
By now they’d left the castle grounds and had entered the mainstream of heavy traffic.
Gaby didn’t understand. “In what way?”
“You saw the painting in the dining room.”
“Yes.” She bowed her head. “Except for the clothes, it could have been your brother.”
“Exactly. Almost from the day he was born, my parents thought the same thing. They saw our great progenitor in his face and body. Luke is a brilliant scholar with a keen mind and a grasp of the political and economic scene given to few men. It was a foregone conclusion that one day he would consecrate his life to God and rise to power like our illustrious forebearer.”
Gaby blinked. What was he saying?
The Luke she’d met tonight was a sensual man, the ultimate male, the antithesis of someone celibate. He had a way of bringing out her most primitive feelings.
Yet snatches of conversation came back to haunt her. Luke lived in Rome. He had his work there. Giovanni kept referring to him as fratello, that he trusted him with his life.
Dear God. The shock of his words immobilized her. She dreaded asking the next question, but her curiosity had reached its zenith.
“Are you telling me he’s a priest?”
Giovanni nodded slowly. “He’s been training for the priesthood all his life, but father’s death required that he put his church studies aside temporarily to run the estate.
“A year ago, when he felt I could handle things, he went to Rome to live and prepare himself. He’ll be professed at the end of September on his twenty-ninth birthday.”
It was too late for Gaby to stifle her gasp. This man she’d been fantasizing about was on the verge of becoming an ordained priest!
He’d be known as Father Luca. She’d never see him again. He’d be lost to her forever…
Gaby wanted to run somewhere and hide her feelings from Giovanni, but she couldn’t. The car was stuck in traffic. More people than ever were out on the streets celebrating. This should have been her happiest night abroad, but Giovanni’s news had robbed her of her joie de vivre.
“It’s a miracle my brother was allowed to come to Urbino for twenty-four hours.”
Not a miracle, she mused brokenheartedly. Luke left his life’s work to check on the unsuitable American woman whom he believed would cast his brother aside when she’d gotten what she wanted out of him.
Now that Luke had met Gaby, he knew differently, and could return to Rome content that she wouldn’t destroy Giovanni’s life.
Had she made any impression at all on his older brother? Or was she reading someth
ing into those few precious moments when his smoldering looks melted her bones? Was it possible she would haunt his dreams as surely as he was going to haunt hers?
Gaby didn’t think she could stand any more of this, especially when there was a vital issue that needed to be discussed with Giovanni.
Turning to him, she murmured, “Your brother loved you enough to make the effort to come home.”
“Yes,” came the solemn reply. “I should be grateful. One day Luca will wear scarlet robes. On rare occasions, I’ll be lucky to be granted an audience to see him.” There was deep pain in Giovanni’s voice.
“You’ve missed him terribly, haven’t you?”
He nodded.
Gaby could understand that. She already ached over Luke’s absence. It was easy enough to picture him dressed in a cardinal’s robes. He was a beautiful male specimen. Any clothes he wore would transform them.
But her heart couldn’t imagine him living the life of a priest, let alone a cardinal or any other holy office. Since the first moment she’d laid eyes on him, she’d thought of him as a man who lived life to the fullest, who would crave the intimacy with his wife and rejoice in his children.
All this time she’d been afraid another woman had possession of his heart. Now to learn that long ago the church had laid claim to his body and soul—
“I feel the same way about my brother, Wayne. I adore him. But he works on a ranch in the Sierra Nevadas. I hardly ever see him.”
“Is your brother happy working on a ranch?”
Gaby didn’t have to think. “It’s his life!”
“Then even if you miss him, it is easy for you to be happy for him.”
“Yes, of course.”
She pushed some stray tendrils off her forehead with a shaky hand. “What are you getting at? Are you saying that your brother isn’t happy?” she asked with a heavy heart.
“I don’t know. He isn’t one to share anything that personal.”
Her throat swelled with emotion. “He says you’re a very private person, too.” She looked at him, gearing up her courage. “Giovanni—I have to ask you a question. Please don’t take it wrong. When you called him to come home, did you tell him you were going to marry me?” She had to know the truth.
“No.”
The relief of hearing his admission was exquisite.
“But he and your mother are under that impression.”
“That’s because I love you. If I were to marry, I would ask you to be my wife, not Efresina, the woman my mother has picked out for me. Luca could sense this without my having to say anything. He’s intuitive that way.”
- Gaby’s nails bit into her palms. Luke had been right all along about his brother’s feelings for her!
“Do not worry, Gaby. I know you don’t care about me that way, but it was still important to me that my family meet you.”
“I love you, too, Giovanni—as a dear friend.” Her voice caught. How cruel that she couldn’t have reciprocated by wanting to stay in Italy and marry him.
“I’m aware of that, and I’m hoping that when you get back to Las Vegas, you will remember the good times we had together. Perhaps by next summer, you will miss me enough to return to Urbino. Who knows what could happen by then.”
There can’t be anything between us but friendship, she mused. His brother had created a fever in her. Priest or no priest, while Gaby was feeling this way about Luke, she could never marry anyone.
“Giovanni—”
“Do not feel obliged to say anything,” he broke in. “It was enough to have you in my home tonight. You were gracious and kind to my mother. She, on the other hand, behaved poorly. She’s lost one son and is holding on to me for dear life. Please forgive her.”
“I do. She wants the best for you.”
Gaby’s heart swelled with compassion for his mother, for him. Without Luke, she imagined a lot of joy had gone out of their lives.
“Your maturity and generosity are some of the many traits I find so appealing about you. Luke must have approved or he wouldn’t have excused himself for the night without talking privately to me first. It makes me very happy to know that my two favorite people got along. You did like him, didn’t you?”
He honked at a group of students blocking the street. They finally realized he wanted to get through and moved to the side.
“Yes, of course,” she said in a tremulous voice.
“Luca has always been protective. Because I’m short, he championed me when I got into trouble with my friends, then took the blame from our parents even though I should have been the one to be punished.”
Everything he said made her heartache deepen. She smiled sadly. “Somehow I can’t picture you a troublemaker.”
“My father would tell you I had my moments, but a fatal stroke took him in my early teens. If it hadn’t been for Luca, I would never have passed chemistry or understood philosophy. He had this wonderful mind, Gaby. He could do anything, be anything he wants.”
There it was again. A big question mark in Giovanni’s voice. As they turned into the alley at the back of the pensione, Gaby eyed her friend soberly.
“What is it you’re saying, Giovanni? Don’t you want him to serve the church?”
He pulled the car to a stop and turned off the motor. Still staring ahead he said, “More than anything on earth. But only if it’s what he wants.”
She was listening with her mind as well as her heart. That vital organ had given her no rest with its relentless pounding. “You don’t think it’s what he wants?”
“I don’t know. Luca is a noble human being.”
A long silence stretched between them. Gaby thought back on their conversation about his parents’ lofty dreams for their firstborn son. No doubt Giovanni was thinking of them, too.
Taking a steadying breath, she said, “Your brother strikes me as a man who makes his own fires, who walks to the beat of his own drum, no one else’s.”
He turned his head in her direction and smiled. “You understand a great deal for having known him such a short time. And you’re right about him. He’s his own man and always will be. I don’t know what got into me. I guess he and I are both in the habit of worrying too much about each other.”
“My brothers and I do the same thing. You should have heard the lecture I got from Wayne before I left home.”
Giovanni’s eyes gleamed. “About Italian men?”
“About men, period. My brother, Scott, has already told the family that I’m just like our great-grandmother. That the Italian in my blood is going to make me fall for some foreign, godlike, down-and-out Lothario and I’ll never come home again. Robbie phones me every week to make sure I’m still here.”
“I’m glad they care so much, Gaby.”
She nodded. “I am, too.”
Giovanni was in a mood to talk. Normally she would have loved nothing better. But that was before Luke’s advent into her life. Right now she needed to be by herself. The revelations about him had turned her world inside out. She felt like she’d just lived through an earthquake and was still experiencing aftershocks.
“Giovanni—thank you for a magical night. I’ll never forget it.”
“That’s good. Now, before I let you go, I have something to give you. I want you to wear it when we go to the masked ball at the university tomorrow night.”
He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out what looked like an antique porcelain jewelry box. When he opened it, her eyes widened in disbelief.
“That’s the Renaissance hair piece! The one out of the collection at the museum!”
“The exact one.”
“I couldn’t, Giovanni. It’s a family treasure.”
His hands moved apart expressively. “What are treasures for if they can’t be worn once in a while? Your hair is perfect for it. Please do this for me? I’ve never asked a favor of you before.”
The night had brought many shocks which had left her drained and in pain. At such a low ebb, the hi
nt of pleading in his tone was móre than she could handle. Giovanni was determined to turn tomorrow night into another unforgettable highlight of her trip to Italy.
But she couldn’t imagine finding any happiness knowing that Luke would be back in Rome. Though only two hours away by car, he might as well be on another planet as live at the Vatican. Not even his own family would have the right to visit him unless it was a-matter of life and death.
Yet his leaving Urbino in the morning was creating a life and death situation for her. How would she ever get over him? She’d never met a man like him. She never would again. Tonight he’d left the table before she was prepared to let him go. If she could see him one more time, talk to him a little more…
“Giovanni,” she murmured, “I’d be honored to wear this hair jewelry, but I don’t have the faintest idea how to put it on. I’d need help, and don’t trust anyone here.”
“Bene. One of the maids, Luciana, often does my mother’s hair when her own stylist isn’t available. She will be delighted to assist you.”
“It would have to be early in the morning because the rest of my day will be taken up with packing and getting ready to go home. The thing is, I realize y-your brother,” she stammered, “is going back to Rome tomorrow and I would hate to intrude on your private family time.”
Even as she said it, Gaby prayed to be forgiven-for mentioning Luke, for still wanting him. He was on the brink of taking solemn vows which prohibited him from having a relationship with a woman. She was going to have to forget him, put him out of her mind. But how? her heart repeated the question over and over again.
“You couldn’t intrude if you wanted to. I’ll come for you at six-thirty. We’ll go back to the palace and have breakfast together. Luca wants to be away by eight. Then Luciana can see to your hair.”
Breakfast with Luke? A sudden rush of adrenaline made her want to jump out of her skin.
“I’ll be ready,” she said in a breathless voice. “Please keep the jewelry with you. It’s far too valuable. I’d die if anything happened to it.” She left the box on the seat.
He eyed her with a pensive expression. “No earthly treasure is worth dying for, Gaby. Now a sacred love, that’s something else again.”
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