“Well, you and Natalia,” he amended, dipping his head forward to give her another kiss.
His scratchy chin was in need of a shave, but Luciana rubbed her chin against his anyway and let her smile grow until she felt as though she could float away because of how happy she was. But then her smile faltered and gravity became firm on her feet. “How long is your visit?”
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.