The Romano Brothers Series

by Leslie North

  Shock registered on Stella’s face. “I didn’t know…”

  “Of course you didn’t. All you could see was what was right in front of your face and nothing past it or to the side. I don’t have that luxury.”

  Stella shook her head. “No, there has to be a way. The monastery is almost a thousand years old.”

  “Stella…” There was a warning in Leonardo’s voice. “Put it in the past and let it go or let me go. You can’t have us both.”

  Stella’s cheeks turned pink and she blinked several times as her mouth opened and closed. Finally, in a voice that Leonardo almost didn’t hear, she said, “I’ll pack my things.”

  When she walked out of the room, Leonardo wanted to grab for her and pull her into him, but he forced himself not to. They were at an impasse, and it was time for him to take his own advice.

  It was time for him to let Stella go.

  14

  Stella

  Stella pulled her favorite fluffy blanket closer around her where she sat curled up on the couch. It had been the one she’d always liked to snuggle up in when she was sick as a kid, and she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of letting it go after she got her new heart. Instead, she’d had it vacuum sealed, and she’d tucked it away with the hope that she’d never need it again. And, while life had not always been easy even after getting a new ticker to put some spring back into her step, she’d managed to get by all these years without it… until now.

  Scooping a huge spoonful of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream into her mouth, she sighed as she let it slowly melt. On the tv in front of her played Working Girl with Melanie Griffith opposite Harrison Ford, a story about a woman with vision who’d had to lie about who she was to get anyone to take her ideas seriously.

  “You tell ‘em, girl!” Stella spouted off at the screen as Melanie’s character pitted herself against her crooked boss. If she’d had a foam toy to throw at the screen, she would have.

  Next to her on the couch sat her laptop, open but untouched for hours. That was because she’d spent the last eight hours scouring through every available posting worldwide with any office even slightly resembling a preservation society.

  “How could I have been so clueless,” she lamented. She’d been wrong about the Romano del Mare. She’d thought she’d known so much, had thought that she understood everything that she’d needed to understand, but it wasn’t until she had visited the monastery and had seen its halls and how much vibrancy even just having the workers there brought to it that she’d realized the ancient place needed people. It needed to be lived in, not passively idolized by people looking at its crumbling structure in books or walking over its grounds on a day tour.

  She’d messed up, and now she had no way of making it right. On top of that, she didn’t have a job and any inquiries she’d made with other agencies had quickly soured as soon as they’d learned her name. Her ex-boss had been calling all of the agencies up and muddying the waters, making her unemployable, she was sure of it—but she didn’t know how to prove it or how to do anything about it.

  Her phone beeped with an incoming text. Checking it, she saw that it was from Luciana, Gianpierre’s girlfriend. “Have you heard from him yet?”

  Stella had told Leonardo’s family that she’d seen him and that he was fine, but she didn’t tell them any more than that until she’d finally confessed to Luciana that she and Leonardo had had a fight to end all fights. Their romance was dead. When she’d told Luciana, the lovely woman who had captured Gianpierre’s heart wouldn’t accept it. She’d said the Romano men were hard-headed but made up for it by being unfalteringly warm-hearted. But Stella knew that that only meant that Luciana didn’t know Leonardo at all. That man’s heart was as cold as a dead fish.

  Then why do you miss him so much?

  Picking up her phone, she texted Luciana back, “No. Nothing.”

  Luciana sent back “*hugs*” plus added a heart.

  Stella huffed another heart-aching sigh and then took another bite of her ice cream. She felt like a teenager devastated to find out that the boy she’d had a crush on didn’t like her back. Her chest hurt, physically hurt. She’d rubbed at her scar until her chest was pink, but it hadn’t helped at all. She fantasized about getting drunk just so that she’d have something to blame it on when she drunk-dialed Leonardo to both give him a piece of her mind and to break down in sobs at how much he’d broken her heart. Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and every romantic comedy she could find were the only things stopping her from doing just that.

  A knock sounded at her apartment door, and Stella froze mid-chew with the spoon halfway down to the ice cream container. Things could have gotten worse, she realized. She could now be having auditory hallucinations.

  The knock sounded again, this time a little bit louder and a little bit longer.

  Stella got up from the couch so fast that Ben & Jerry was knocked on the floor, forgotten, and then she tripped with her feet tangled up in her blanket. She didn’t take a moment to see if she was okay, but instead kicked it off as fast as she could and scrambled back up to her feet so that she could run headlong to the door.

  Putting her eye up to the peephole, she was stunned to see a very tired Bianca standing in her hall. Of course, the woman was as stunning as ever, tired or not.

  Sliding the door’s chain lock open and then turning two deadbolts, Stella threw her door open. “Bianca!” Without waiting for an invitation, she threw her arms around the woman and pulled her in for a tight hug. There was a slight hesitation of awkwardness from Bianca, but then she gave Stella a warm hug back.

  Pulling away but keeping her hands on Bianca’s arms, Stella asked in a rush of breath, “Is Leonardo okay? Are you okay? Is Leonardo okay?” She blushed, knowing she’d asked about Leonardo first and twice, but she hadn’t been able to keep the words from tumbling out of her mouth.

  Bianca’s eyes dropped away and she looked as though she was embarrassed. Finally, she said, “I’m not allowed to give you any information about him.”

  “What?” Stella’s hands fell away from Bianca. Her voice was full of hurt and rejection. There was no masking it.

  “No, I am sorry. But, I have brought you these.” Bianca motioned down the hallway and Stella stuck her head out through the door to see what she was waving at. She gaped at the sight of a large, burly man pushing a mover’s dolly in front of him. On it was piled four very heavy looking boxes. And behind that man were three more men, each one with a dolly loaded down with boxes. “They are from Leonardo’s computer along with historical papers from the Romano del Mare’s own vaults. Stella,” Bianca said, pulling Stella’s attention back to her, “there are originals in those boxes, some of them hundreds of years old. You must be very careful, and you must return these files to me. Do you understand?”

  Stella mutely nodded her head.

  “When you’re done with them, you call me. Wherever I am, I will fly here and get the papers back from you. Capisciu?”

  Stella nodded her head, letting Bianca know that she did understand. She stepped out of the way as the men filed through her door and unloaded the heavy boxes. Thinking quickly, she instructed them to set all the boxes side by side along the wall instead of putting them on top of each other. As strong as the men were, she could see their muscles bunch as they moved the boxes around and she didn’t want to run the risk of toppling them over and spilling all their contents on the floor.

  The men left just as they’d come, without uttering a word, but Stella caught Bianca’s arm before she left. Possibly there was no one who knew Leonardo better than his assistant. “Is there anything you can tell me, anything at all?” Stella hated the pleading need that was in her voice, but she was too far past caring what anyone thought of her. If she could only hear Leonardo’s voice again or feel the brush of his fingers on her cheek, she could once more feel whole.

  Bianca shook her head and started to walk away but then stopped. Pursing her lips, her eye
s moved about as if she were searching for just the right words to say. “He would whistle in his office when no one was around while you were there, and he doesn’t whistle anymore now. And,” she added with a stern, steely gaze, “I did not say that, capisciu?”

  “Capisciu,” Stella said, throwing her arms around the woman for another hug, but this time her heart was light with hope. Not only was she getting a second chance to save the Romano del Mare but Leonardo’s cold-fish heart had some life left in it after all.

  15

  Leonardo

  Fluted glasses full of pink champagne clinked as everyone in attendance celebrated Leonardo’s words as he stood before his family.

  “To my new sister,” he said with his gaze on Adeline, Nicolo’s fiancé, as he raised his glass high into the air from where he stood at the head of the table, “and the newest addition to the Romano family that she is due to bring into this world.” Her belly had grown round and full, and Leonardo smiled as Nicolo and Adeline linked fingers over her belly as he leaned in for a kiss. Adeline was beyond beautiful right now. She had the radiant pregnancy glow that came with motherhood, and Leonardo could think of only one woman more beautiful than her at that moment—Stella.

  Since the moment that Stella had walked out of his home in Colorado and had climbed into the waiting cab that would take her down the mountain, his heart had felt both achingly empty and agonizingly heavy at the same time. He’d lingered there in Colorado without her in his huge, vacant house for another week and a half after she’d left—strike that, after he’d thrown her out—determined to recapture his sense of centered happiness that he had always been able to attain within solitude, but she’d stolen that tranquility from him. He was an empty man without her.

  No, that wasn’t quite right, he thought as he looked out over his family. Instead of having lost what they’d held most precious to them before having met the loves of their lives, both of his brothers’ worlds had grown exponentially when they’d accepted the love of a woman who only wanted the best for them. Nicolo was a better man ten times over since Adeline had grounded him from his continent hopping and had made him understand the value of setting down roots. And Gianpierre’s laser-fixed passion for the restoration of medieval architecture had softened to make room for more of the joy and happiness that life had to offer. Sitting between him and Luciana was Luciana’s niece and ward, and the love that the three shared for each other made the room grow brighter just by having them there.

  I want that. It was a startling revelation. Leonardo had known that he was lonely without Stella, but now he saw that what he was mourning was not only her absence from his life but their future life together—so full of love—that had died when he’d made her choose between him and her integrity. And of course, she had chosen her integrity. It was the kind of woman she was. She was passionate, honest, sincere, gentle and kind, and he’d been the biggest moron to have ever lived when he’d pushed her away. He’d found her handwritten notes detailing the argument that she’d been crafting to free the Romano del Mare from the preservation society’s reclassification. He’d recognized how wrong he was to demand that she give up a battle that was, for her, not done. Now, he had to figure out a way to get her back.

  Whatever he did, he knew that he had to go big. He could rent a yacht with plans for them to tour the Mediterranean coastline. Or, he could appeal to her adventurous side by arranging a small brigade of air balloons. He could avow his eternal love to her while they floated through the sky over the most beautiful country in the world, Sicily. Or, possibly, he should simply show up on her doorstep, on his knee, holding up a ring with the question he should have already asked: would she be his wife?

  Sitting back down in his chair and looking out over his expanding family, Leonardo knew that he had messed up. Now he had to figure out how to make it right. Just as Stella was willing to continue to fight for the Romano del Mare—no matter what the cost—he would continue to fight for her, and this time there was no price tag. There was no amount too steep. He would not measure the risk against the benefit. Not anymore. For her, he would lose everything… because without her, he had nothing.

  16

  Stella

  Stella stood before four men and one woman, the counsel of the Sicilian Historic Society. It felt odd to be standing on Sicilian soil again since this was where she’d lost her heart to the only man she’d ever truly loved. His rejection of her was a conscious part of her being during every moment of every day. Not a breath or a second passed that her skin didn’t ache for his touch or her ears didn’t reach for the sound of his voice, but neither ever came. Acceptance that she’d lost him had come slowly and painfully, but it had come. Despite that, a flicker of hope still danced in her heart like a little flame, but it was tiny and the beliefs that fueled it were being burned off one by one so that soon even it would die.

  It had taken her three weeks to comb through the boxes and boxes of materials sent by Leonardo to her home, and it had taken her another week to craft her final argument, one that presented a solid body of evidence that the Romano del Mare’s continued classification as the landmark resort that had become known the world over should be upheld and supported by the Sicilian Historic Society. Their ruling had the power to overturn the court order pushed through by the International Preservation Society to reclassify the old monastery as a historic monument. She’d shown in her argument how many historic buildings had fallen into decline through years of disuse, and she’d contrasted the rare and fantastic condition that the nearly 1000 year-old building was in still today, and it was because of the careful upkeep and maintenance that had been performed on the building by generations of the Romano family. In addition to that, the monastery’s continuing function as a resort provided a much needed and long term economic boost to the region. She’d demonstrated how the region had suffered in the two decades since it had closed its doors as an international hub of commerce and travel, and she’d demonstrated the cultural loss that had occurred when the Romano del Mare closed its doors as a resort as well. Generations of families had vacationed there year after year, not to mention wedding festivities and the hosting of many local government celebrations and gatherings.

  Despite all of that, Stella would be lying if she said she wasn’t nervous now. Only three days had passed since she’d presented her argument, and the counsel that sat before her on their raised dais behind a long table looked upon her now with long, stern faces. She searched their eyes but saw no hint of their decision. The cost of pursuing the reinstatement of the monastery for commercial use had been the loss of her happiness and possibly the loss of an entire life with a magnificent man to stand by her side. She’d bartered it all away for this. She’d spared nothing. Now, she needed to know that her efforts were not in vain. Though, to be honest with herself, it didn’t fully matter if they were in vain. She’d done what she’d had to do. She had chosen to live her life hands-on and to face its hardship head on rather than to live a life of careful passivity, and she’d do it all again in the blink of an eye. She had to. She’d been given this new heart as a second chance, and there was no way that she was going to squander that chance by living a life dictated by fear.

  The single elegant woman on the counsel sitting in the middle of the dais between the stately and aged men cleared her voice, and when she spoke, she thankfully did so in English out of an apparent kindness to allow Stella the chance to keep up with what she had to say. “We are indebted to you.”

  Stella’s heart pounded in a staccato double time as her mind connected with the councilwoman’s words, and she fought against the smile that wanted to light her face. Nothing definitive had been said yet, and she did not want to appear presumptuous by assuming that her argument had succeeded in saving the Romano del Mare’s life as a resort to be enjoyed by all.

  “We did not want to uphold the cease and desist presented to us by the International Preservation Society. We find them… heavy handed in thinking tha
t they know what is best with regard to preserving the heritage of other countries.” She glanced down at her notes before lifting her gaze to look at Stella again. “When the original argument came through, we found it compelling even though it did not match our desires. Regardless, we could not turn our backs on the logic it made. I understand that it is you who wrote both the first argument to strip away the Romano del Mare’s classification as a commercial property and it is you who penned the argument to overturn the first request?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Stella said, feeling tiny beads of sweat break out on her brow as her chest got tighter and tighter, but as the woman before her smiled, transforming her entire visage from an authoritarian into a person with a passion for life, Stella’s breath returned and a glow of happiness took root inside of her.