Italian Billionaire's Unexpected Lover (The Romano Brothers 2)

Yet, the fit of her hand inside of his was perfect, and once they’d reached the bedroom that Luciana indicated was to be Natalia’s, he found that he did not want to let her go. But he did. He made himself.

Turning his back so that he would not have to torture himself by looking at her, he asked, “How tall is the bed at its highest point?” He walked toward the bedroom’s far wall as he pulled the winding measuring tape out of its casing.

“Fifteen feet.”

Gianpierre gave a low whistle. That was tall. Glancing up at the ceiling, he was sure that it was too tall, but he would measure so that Luciana could see the same.

With mixed feelings, Gianpierre pushed the end of the stiff, aluminum tape up the wall to the ceiling before extending its length down to the floor. Kneeling, he checked the tape’s reading. “Fourteen feet,” he said and then stayed in place as he looked over his shoulder at Luciana. Stepping forward, she knelt down to read the results herself.

That was when the fight seemed to leave her. She hung her head. Her shoulders drooped and her whole body slumped. “It’s all too much,” she said. “It’s not going to work. None of it’s going to work.”

Gianpierre was pretty sure that she was not talking about just the princess bed. Letting the spring-rolled measuring tape slip back i

nside its casing, Gianpierre shifted from kneeling to sitting and pulled Luciana down next to him. She didn’t fight it, and instead gave in to leaning against his side and resting her head on his shoulder.

“I can’t do it,” Luciana said. “I’m going to fail miserably as a mother. Sophia was so good at it. She was a natural. Natalia deserves so much better than me.”

Gianpierre remembered the way the little girl had looked at Luciana. Her eyes had been sad, but there had been adoration in the way she had looked at Luciana. “The little girl loves you,” he reassured her. “You’re her world now.”

“But I’m not enough,” Luciana lamented. She lifted her head from Gianpierre’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “Before losing Sophia, my biggest worry had been what I should wear out at the clubs or whether or not I should let a man take me out to dinner or brunch for a first date. If I wanted to sleep, I slept. If I wanted to stay out all night, I did. If I wanted popcorn for dinner, I had popcorn.” She shook her head. “I’m not the motherly kind.”

“If that’s true, you’re doing a great job of fooling Natalia. She loves you. It’s all over her face every time she looks at you.” It was true. Gianpierre would never have been able to guess that Natalia wasn’t Luciana’s own if he hadn’t already known. He would have only seen a beautiful mother with her beautiful daughter, and he knew that as Natalia grew and they moved through life together, that was exactly what the rest of the world would see when it looked at them. Whether she felt like it or not, Luciana was now Natalia’s mother. She was the little girl’s foundation. “You’re going to be okay,” he said and kissed the top of Luciana’s head. Her hair was silky and smelled like lilacs, and the curve of her hip beneath his hand made him want to pull her into his lap so that he could hold her tight and never let her go. You’ll ruin her, he reminded himself. A woman with a shattered life didn’t need a man to drift in and out of it, leaving her to pick up all the pieces before, during and after. He fixed buildings, not people.

Luciana lifted her face to look at him. “Would you stay with us?”

“What?” All the thoughts in Gianpierre’s head came to a screeching halt.

“Would you stay with us, here, in the apartment? I mean, just until the job is done and you leave for Dubai? Sophia’s place sold this morning and they want us out soon, which means we’ll need to move in here sooner than I thought. I’d thought we’d be able to wait until you’d moved on. I don’t feel right kicking you out of your home.”

A disorienting jolt hit Gianpierre as his eyes scanned the room. He’d had this bedroom set up for guests and used the third bedroom for his office. It finally sunk in; he was going to have to leave his home. He’d refused to think of the apartment as his home, but that’s exactly what it had been for ten years. During his travels, every time he found some antique map that he wanted to add to his collection, he’d had it mailed back here. Every time he’d envisioned where he’d put some newly found treasure, it had been here that his mind had gone.

He thought of Natalia’s bed and how it was too tall for the room. Luciana had said that there was no way that she would make Natalia give it up. Since the bed didn’t fit, maybe Luciana would change her mind and continue her search for the perfect place somewhere else. Then, he could go back to Signora Rizzo with a clear conscience and buy the place after all.

Instead, the words that came out of his mouth were, “Se, I can stay, but only if I pay rent.”

“No.” Luciana shook her head. “I couldn’t ask that.”

“I insist. It is the only way.” He waited for Luciana’s answer. She hesitated, and then nodded her head yes. Relief filled Gianpierre. He couldn’t bear the thought of being a squatter in what was now her home. He smiled and said, “And, if you want, I can make a modification to your niece’s bed. I can cut some of the height from the corner posts so that the canopy will fit the room.”

Before he could stop her, Luciana stretched up to capture his lips in a kiss as she slid a hand behind his neck, but she broke the kiss just as fast, leaving him stunned and speechless. He wanted more. He needed the sweet ambrosia of her lips on his again but the sound of her phone buzzing pulled her away. She answered it, said her greetings, and then, “Yes, yes. I’m on my way,” as she climbed to her feet.

Gianpierre watched her leave his home as easily as she’d walked into it, leaving him feeling shattered and incomplete, and he wondered how such a shift could have happened. He was the one with his life together and his path on course, and she was simply making things up as she went along, winging it.

Yet it was him who was left undone by her.

7

Gianpierre

“Yes, Sir. I understand,” Gianpierre said loudly enough for his phone to pick up his voice. It was laying on his coffee table as he sat leaning forward in a chair. The latest copy of Architectural Digest lay next to his phone, and on its cover was a French and Spanish Colonial fusion home, a design by one of the hottest new up and coming designers. Being on the cover informed the uneducated masses that the architect was exceptional at his job. Otherwise, people didn’t know enough about design to recognize what was good versus what was magnificent. Making the cover made that clear for them.

It didn’t matter, though. Gianpierre wasn’t going to make the cover of Architectural Digest if he didn’t make it to Dubai on time. He’d hoped they would give him an extension on when he’d need to report, but it wasn’t going well.

But, he wasn’t ready to give up. He had been all but guaranteed the cover of the magazine at the conclusion of the build he was slated to oversee in Dubai, and it would provide world-wide recognition of his skill as the best medieval architect there was. The magazine would do that for him. And he really was the best, better than anybody else, regardless of the contenders that were close on his heels.

“We simply cannot give you another six weeks to get here. If you cannot make it here in four, we will need to proceed with the project with another specialist. You were our first pick, Gianpierre, but we cannot put off all the others waiting for it to begin. We have other talented members of the team who will need to back out if we do not proceed soon. Can you be here within four weeks?”

Gianpierre clenched his jaw and ground his teeth together as he closed his eyes in frustration. The project was a build of a lifetime. It was designing and building an extensive theme park emphasizing authentic medieval structures to be made using the same tools and processes of the time, and the results were guaranteed a place on the cover of Architectural Digest—a long held dream of Gianpierre’s. Making matters worse, Gianpierre was not just slated to be a part of the team, he was slated to lead the build team and the design team. But how amazing the opportunity was didn’t change anything. The answer was still no. In fact, finishing up with his part of the restoration of the Romano del Mare within six weeks would have been an improbability. Four weeks was an impossibility. Even with as good as Luciana was at making sure they had everything they needed when they needed it, not even her help could make it possible.