by Leslie North
Gianpierre’s arms tightened around her. “Sweet, sweet girl, I am here to stay… if you’ll let me. I love you, and I was an idiot, a foolish man chasing a dream that no longer mattered to me. I knew it even before I left, but I had to convince myself that it was true—that I no longer wanted to be the best architect for all the world to see and know. If I am the best architect for this, here—our family—that is enough for me.”
“Our family,” Luciana parroted him as her smile grew again. The words felt right.
Gianpierre nodded as he leaned in for another kiss and more kisses between each paused word. “Me… Natalia… you… and maybe another Natalia, someday, when you’re ready?”
Luciana smiled. “We only have three bedrooms. With Signora Esposito plus another child, we’d need a fourth. You’d have to build one.”
“For you, I will build fairy castles in the sky. Anything, just as long as it’s with you.”
15
Gianpierre
Hey, where do you guys keep sneaking off to?” Gianpierre called out as he followed Luciana and Natalia out into the side parking lot of the Romano del Mare. Luciana was doing a slow jog with Natalia’s hand in hers as the little girl’s legs raced to keep up, occasionally jumping up and down with barely contained excitement. Out ahead of them was the mailman with his bright yellow vest on astride his bright yellow Vespa. The two of them had been sneaking off every day around this same time, and now Gianpierre had at least part of a clue as to why.
Ahead of them, the mailman waved some large piece of mail in the air with as much excitement as little Natalia. He handed it over to Luciana as soon as she reached him, and the three of them stared at what she held in her hands.
It had been over a month since Gianpierre had made his unexpected and permanent return from Dubai, and while that wasn’t very long ago, Gianpierre marveled that Luciana could still manage to surprise him. Even though they had only been in each other’s lives for three and a half months, he felt as though he’d known her for a lifetime, and he had long since lost the ability to imagine any kind of a future that wasn’t centered around them. He was going to start an online school for structural engineering specializing in medieval architecture. The degree would require a finishing year of hands-on study with him or another approved instructor, working on the actual restoration of a medieval building. Making that shift from year round fieldsman to spending at least part of his time in the classroom would allow him to be a hands-on dad for Natalia. He would rarely miss a dinner or a breakfast with his family.
As for Luciana, she had plans of her own. She was opening an art gallery and a small medieval museum, both to be housed within the Romano del Mare. They would provide an additional draw for tourists, and Luciana would be able to continue to utilize her exceptional project management skills at a location only minutes from home. Little Natalia would always have one of her parents nearby, ready to come running at a moment’s notice. There would be no more bad dreams of loss. There would only be fond memories of all the love she’d ever been given from every parent she’d ever known.
It was a better life than Gianpierre had ever imagined he could have, and it was with two of the most beautiful girls in the world, even if they were keeping a secret from him. Breaking into a jog in order to catch up and find out what their tete-a-tete was about, he quickly dropped back down to a walk when Luciana and Natalia turned and ran at him as fast as Natalia’s legs would go as the mailman rode away.
“What’s going on?” he asked, throwing his arms wide as he slowed to a full stop. But stopping did him no good, because Luciana and Natalia continued toward him at full speed. Luciana reached him first, jumping through the air to tackle him when she was still several feet away. Falling to the side of the parking lot onto grass, they landed with a thud and then were joined by a leaping and then crawling Natalia as she climbed her way to the top of the heap. “What’s going on!” Gianpierre asked again, this time laughing uncontrollably.
“This!” Luciana squirmed until she was able to lift her hands and what she had in them above her head. Shifting so that she fell off Gianpierre and landed with her back on the ground and her head on his shoulder, she held the latest copy of Architectural Digest aloft. Natalia took up her spot laying on Gianpierre’s chest and peered up at the magazine as well. It was the magazine on which Gianpierre would have graced the cover if he had remained on the Dubai job.
Luciana flipped through the magazine’s pages until she reached the center fold, and there, in full color, from one edge of the page to the other was a picture of Gianpierre’s and Natalia’s fairy castle and both of their pictures in small circles near the bottom.
“What?” Gianpierre grabbed the magazine, not believing his eyes. “You didn’t! How did you do this? Luciana, you didn’t visit them in one of your tight dresses, did you?”
“Nooo!” Luciana laughed. “We mailed them a picture of the castle and everything else that happened from there was all them.” She turned on her side so that she could look up into Gianpierre’s face. “They’ve asked to be notified when you get done with the renovations on the Romano del Mare. I know that there are still some spots to be perfected. They’re going to do a travel edition and they want to consider the resort for the cover.”
Gianpierre was speechless as he stared down into Luciana’s lustrous green eyes. Then he stretched his neck back so that he could look behind him at the resort. All this time, all his traveling and all of his fighting against working and staying in Sicily, and it turned out that everything he’d ever wanted was right here. In fact, there was nowhere else for him. He was home, pure and simple. From the very first day that Luciana had walked into his life, everything he thought he’d known about what he wanted irrevocably changed. It had just taken him a while to understand that. It was a shift that Luciana had been able to make in the blink of an eye when her sister passed away and she went from aunt to mother. Silly him, it had taken a little longer than a blink for him to realize that his home was with the two best girls in the world, the ones laying right in his arms. They were his present and his future. Fame, accolades, and prestige couldn’t compare.
Luciana and Natalia—they were his forever.
End of Italian Billionaire’s Unexpected Lover
The Romano Brothers Series Book Two
Blurb
Leonardo Romano has made an independent fortune as a boutique hotel magnate. He has the golden touch when it comes to creating luxurious accommodations, but the one thing Leonardo has avoided is following in his Grandfather’s footsteps. Running the family’s original hotel, the Romano Resort, on the island of Sicily, is a job he’s never felt fated to revive. However, now that his brothers have done their parts in securing and remodeling the hotel, it’s up to Leonardo to do what he does best: entice visitors to revel in the lap of luxury.
Stella Brown is on her last strike. As a historical preservationist she’s just committed the mortal sin of losing a historical property to modern renovations, therefore losing a piece of history. Forever. Now Stella is tasked with proving she can still do her job by halting the Romano Resort’s extravagant renovations and getting them to conform to international preservation laws. Stella isn’t a pushy person, but she’s ready to go to war to save this little piece of Sicily.
But Stella finds it’s not just the island that’s stunning: the man who owns the resort is gorgeous too. Beautiful and bold, Leonardo is no stranger to bending laws and women to his will, but in Stella he’ll find a sunny beauty with a spine of steel -- one that’s ready to shut down the hotel rather than see its historical significance erased in swaths of cashmere and gold plated toilets. As the two connect over their desire to see the Hotel Romano refinished properly, they’ll find their views of each other building to passionate proportions. As time runs out and luxury continues to battle with laws, they’ll have to decide if compromise is possible or if everything will turn to dust.
1
Leonardo
T
he sound of hammers, saws and occasional drills echoed down the hall and into the suite of rooms that Leonardo Romano had taken over as his temporary office within the Romano del Mare. Structural repairs on the 870 year-old monastery-turned-resort were nearing completion. Now, it was Leonardo’s turn to apply his personal mastery to prepare the old place to once more accept vacationers. They would walk through its halls and find luxurious sanctuary within private suites, and everything that they ate, touched, smelled and much of what they saw would be due to Leonardo’s vision of what an amazing resort experience should be. At least that’s how Leonardo had intended it, but matters were being pulled out of his control.
“Just sign right here,” Mr. Panucchi said, sparking a depth of annoyance within Leonardo that he rarely felt about anyone. Leonardo knew that the situation that he’d found himself in wasn’t Mr. Panucchi’s fault. Regardless, having to allow a design firm other than his own to oversee the sculpting of the resort’s very personality didn’t sit well with Leonardo, and he rankled when Mr. Panucchi’s voice invaded his ears once more. “I know that you are going to love the design plan that we’ve come up with.”
Leonardo fought down his contempt for the man, but the truth was it didn’t matter who was standing in front of him with pen in hand and a host of ideas in his or her head. They weren’t Leonardo’s ideas, and he didn’t like not being in control. Ever. “All major decisions will continue to go through me for final approval?” Leonardo asked unnecessarily. The stipulation had already been stressed repeatedly.
“Yes sir, of course,” Mr. Panucchi quickly assured, smiling.
“Show me where it says it in the contract.” Leonardo had already read the contract and knew what it said. His lawyers had read the contract and knew what it said. Regardless, he needed to see that he had final approval in black and white within the document he was about to sign before he put ink to paper.
Mr. Panucchi’s smile fell as his gaze dropped to the fifteen page contract sitting on the heavy, ornate antique table that Leonardo was using as a desk. He stuttered on the words as he said, “Y-yes, sir,” yet he went to work searching for the section, bending low over the desk as he flipped through the document’s pages.
A familiar tension crept into Leonardo’s muscles, and he took a deep, calming breath as he shifted his attention out the six foot tall window that provided natural light to the room. It overlooked an area of the resort’s property that sloped upward toward cliffs that overlooked the Ionian Sea. There was a path of in-ground stepping stones leading up toward the cliff’s edge, and near the top was a newly constructed pool to provide the resort’s someday patrons the opportunity to swim in a controlled environment rather than the sea. His brother Gianpierre had fought him on the addition of a modern pool amid the trappings of the ancient monastery, saying that the pool’s build was too out of sync with the rest of the architecture, but Leonardo had moved forward with it anyway. The architectural authenticity of the resort came second to the potential enjoyment of the resort’s guests.
Leonardo swiveled his chair away from the desk and squinted as he leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees. Walking along the farthest edge of the pool was a woman wearing a light colored, wispy dress that covered her entire frame from her neck to her ankles. The wind had the dress contoured to her slender frame, yet despite the quick breeze only a few loose strands of her hair moved. The rest was woven into a braid that travelled down the side of her head to end in a messy bun at the nape of her neck. Draped around her neck and stretching behind her, a sheer scarf fluttered in the wind.
She was beyond beautiful. She was haunting, and Leonardo did his best to emblazon the image of her on his mind.
As he watched, the woman went to the banister that separated the pool area from the cliff’s edge and hoisted herself up on it with straight arms, leaving the tips of her toes dangling several inches above the ground. There, she craned her neck and leaned forward slightly as if trying to get a better view past the cliff’s edge. Leonardo’s palms itched to reach out to her, to pull her back from the teetering edge, but another part of him wanted to join her, to embrace the same sense of freedom she appeared to feel. As it was, he felt trapped under a million decisions, and no matter where he was, there was no escaping them.
“It’s right here, sir,” Mr. Panucchi said, taking the document from the table to put it beneath Leonardo’s nose.
“So it is,” Leonardo said with more than a little bit of resignation as he studied the part that the design firm’s liaison pointed out. Glancing back up, Leonardo searched for the woman he’d been watching, but she was gone. It was just as well. The Romano del Mare was still under renovation, and visitors wandering around the property wouldn’t do. The woman had no business being where she’d been, and he would have had to send someone to tell her to leave if she hadn’t left on her own.
Swiveling his chair to face the table again, Leonardo pushed away the unease he felt in his stomach. It was an indistinct worry that he hadn’t been able to put a name to, but it didn’t matter now. There was a plan. Everything between Romano International and Gallant Industries, the design firm Mr. Panucchi represented, had been worked out. All that was left was for him to sign the contract.
Picking up his Bentley fountain pen, Leonardo pushed aside his growing unease and scratched his name on the contract’s last page with a decisive flourish that was more show than an indicator of how he was feeling. He was signing away too much of his control over the design directions that would be taken with the Romano del Mare as she was readied to receive the first customers she’d seen in decades. He’d personally overseen the launch and relaunch of hundreds of spas and resorts and had built a chain of Romano hotels that spanned the globe. All of the Romano hotels were decorated with four and five star rankings, and it did not sit well with him that the design launch of the Romano del Mare—the iconic flagship resort of the Romano fortune—was being put into someone else’s hands. But Leonardo didn’t have a choice. He was contractually obligated to work with Gallant Industries on this project because of an ongoing business agreement that he’d been pressured into when overseeing the launch of another international hotel chain.
The truth was, though, that going with Gallant Industry’s design and PR firm would provide for the most lucrative launch in this situation, and that was what mattered most. Just because the Romano del Mare was the most unique, oldest and longest owned property of the Romano family didn’t mean that it shouldn’t be handled with the same eye toward operation costs versus potential earnings. At the end of the day, it was no different than any other Romano property, and if it couldn’t pay for itself then it had no business being among the Romano family holdings.
“Mr. Romano!” Mr. Panucchi gushed as Leonardo put down the pen and slowly stood. “This is an exciting day for both your company and Gallant Industries.” The man grabbed Leonardo’s hand with both of his and pumped it in a vigorous handshake.
“It is,” Leonardo responded graciously, extracting his hand from Mr. Panucchi’s grip and patting him on the shoulder. It was a lie, of course. It wasn’t an exciting day. It was an uncomfortable day within which he’d given someone more power over an outcome that actually mattered to him. It was in fact a terrible day that made him want to seek out something to take for the acid that ate at his stomach.
Movement near the door caught his attention from the corner of his eye and he turned away from Mr. Panucchi’s over-eager smile to find the woman who had been standing near the cliffs. She now stood in the doorway of his office, and she was no less a vision up close than she had been on the windswept cliff tops.
She smiled, and Leonardo’s heart all but stopped. Mr. Panucchi’s voice faded away, and Leonardo released his hold on the man’s shoulder to walk halfway across the room. A part of him thought she might disappear again like an ethereal being whose time on earth was only momentary, and another part of him knew she was only a woman who was someplace she wasn’t supposed to be.
Pulling in a breath, Leonardo prepared to tell her that she had to go, but his words were forgotten when she spoke instead.
“Mr. Romano… I’m Stella Brown. I’ve been sent by the International Preservation Society to enforce preservation laws and to direct you on how to rewrite your renovation plans.”
2
Stella
Mr. Romano?” The handsome man’s slack face was a sure sign of his incomprehension at what Stella had said. He was tall with shoulders so wide that she wouldn’t have been able to wrap her arms around him and touch her hands behind his back. His black hair was thick with a natural curl that made her fingers tingle with the desire to play in it, but most of all she wanted to trace the little widow’s peak on his forehead.
She bit her inner lip. She was sure that she’d seen him on the cover of some fashion magazine. Men who looked like he did were like unicorns; they didn’t actually exist in nature. She blinked, half expecting him to morph into someone a foot shorter, fifty pounds heavier and twenty years older, but when she opened her eyes again, he was every bit as devastatingly handsome as he had been before.
It wasn’t fair. Men weren’t supposed to look like him in real life. It made it hard to think, and Stella’s job was on the line. She had to stay focused. She had to get this right. If she failed to make the owners of the Romano del Mare toe the line with regard to maintaining the integrity of such an important example of medieval architecture as the Romano del Mare, she would be out of a job. It was as simple as that. And her job was important to her.