The Last Di Sione Claims His Prize (The Billionaire's Legacy 8)

“The inscription on the pieces I gave to Lucia… Bartolo Agosti, Lucia D’Oro. When I came to America I reinvented more than simply my fortune. I did not just recreate my wealth, I recreated my legend. I was born on Isolo D’Oro. The son of a wealthy family. My brother and I often played with a little girl in the gardens of the palace. It was a simple time on the island. The royal family was in no danger and they moved about freely, mixing with those who were beneath them, playing in the sunshine. I was one such child who was far beneath the princess, though I was titled. I still wasn’t a prince—never destined to be a king.

“My friendship with that little girl became much more. As we grew, so did our feelings. But sadly for Lucia and myself, while spending a few amusing hours in the garden together was acceptable, it would not make for an acceptable marriage. I knew that things between the two of us had to come to an end. I knew that she had to take up the mantle of her destiny, not take up a life with a man such as myself. But before we parted, I wanted to paint her. I wanted to paint her with the gifts that I had given to her—tokens of our affection. I wanted to show her that no matter what I said, no matter how things ended, I wanted her to be able to look at this painting and see how I loved her.

“But in the end, when I told her we could not be, when I told her she had to marry the man her parents had selected for her, she was angry. She gave everything back. All of the gifts. Including the painting. I kept them, the only pieces of my Lucia that I retained. I kept them until I was forced to part with them. Part with them or starve. But the painting…I sent it back to her. I never knew what she did with it. I never heard from her. Never found out if her husband intercepted it, if her family kept it from her. But I wanted her to look at it again. With distance between us, with years between that heartbreak, I wanted her to look at it and understand that what I did was not because I cared so little for her. But because I cared so very much.”

He turned his focus to Gabriella.

“Tell me, my dear. Did your grandmother have the painting?”

Gabriella’s expression was so soft, so caring, her dark eyes nearly liquid. “She did. When the family was banished from Isolo D’Oro she had to leave it. But she hid it. She held on to it. She knew just where it was, and when she saw it…”

“She saw it again?”

“Yes. Before we came here to New York. We returned to Aceena and showed it to her. It was her one request. She wanted you to have it back, but she wanted to see it first. She cares, Bartolo,” Gabriella said, using Alex’s grandfather’s real name, a name he had doubtless not heard for years. “She cares so very much.”

“And that, right there, is a gift that supersedes all of this.”

“That’s nice, Grandfather. So you send us on a field trip around the world to find your trinkets and all you needed was emotional reassurance the whole time,” Dario said, his tone dry. “If I had known that, I might have simply purchased you a nice card.”

“God knows you needed a diversion, Dario. I also reunited you with the mother of your child and the love of your life.” His grandfather snorted. “You could perhaps say thank you.”

“I could.” But he didn’t.

He did, however, step back and take hold of Anais’s hand, stroking his thumb over her knuckles.

That was, for Dario, as much of a sincere gesture as would likely be demonstrated.

“It’s strange,” Giovanni said, “but I expected a greater sense of completion. Upon seeing everything together I thought perhaps I would feel a sense of resolution. But they are simply things.”

“Perhaps you were waiting for a person. Not an object.”

Everyone turned toward the sound of the thin, elderly voice coming from the doorway of the sitting area. It was Gabriella’s grandmother, Lucia. The older woman was slightly stooped, but still, her bearing was regal. She was dressed in a deep purple that complemented her olive skin and dark eyes. And though her hair was white, though her skin was aged, it was undeniable that she was the woman in the picture. Not so much because of the resemblance she bore, but because the love that shone from Giovanni’s eyes matched the passion in the artist’s brushstrokes.

Giovanni stood, the move slow, labored. It was clear that he stood on unsteady legs, but in spite of the difficulty, he began to cross the room, closing the distance between himself and his long-lost love.

“I have a feeling we could have saved ourselves a lot of work if we had simply gone and fetched her in the first place,” Dario said.

But they regarded each other cautiously, and then Lucia stretched out her hand and curled her fingers around Giovanni’s, squeezing them gently. “Bartolo,” she said, her voice thick with tears.

“It has been too long.”

To everyone’s surprise, Lucia laughed. “I would say an excess of fifty years is most definitely too long to be parted from the love of your life.”

“I hope very much that there was love in your last fifty years regardless,” Giovanni said.

Lucia nodded slowly. “There was. There is. But that doesn’t mean yours wasn’t greatly missed.” She looked around the room, at all of Giovanni’s grandchildren. “And I see there has been a great deal in yours.”

“Yes, there has been. But I never released the love I have for you. I simply made room for more.”

“I think we have a great deal to discuss, Bartolo,” Lucia said. “Don’t you?”

“Yes. I think we do.”

He looped his arm around hers, and the two of them made their way slowly out of the room. The siblings looked at one another and, for once, no one seemed to know what to say.

But it was a strange thing, the realization that they were all in the same room. Nate included. They were all here together, united by their grandfather’s quest to bring closure to the long-ago love affair.

If Alex were a sentimental man at all, he might even say that love had brought them together.