The Romano Brothers Series

by Leslie North

  This is better, he thought to himself, aware of a sadness that the view he knew so well would soon be lost to be replaced by another. While the history preservation society had a lot of pull, he also knew that Thomas’s company had enough money to grease the right palms in order to turn arguments toward their cause rather than against it.

  “Look here,” Nicolo said, returning to the task at hand. He dragged a finger down a thin line in the plaster that looked as if it was nothing but a crack that a little paint could fix. “This crack extends all the way down this wall, all the way down the wall of the floor below us and into the foundation of the building. It doesn’t get much bigger than what you see here, but the foundation has been compromised.”

  Thomas clapped his hands together. “You see, with issues like this, there can be no reasonable objection to this old place being torn down.”

  Adeline traced her finger down the crack all the way to the floor. “I hadn’t noticed this before,” she said, then lifted her face to look at Nicolo. “Are you sure that it extends all the way down to the foundation?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “Hmph,” Adeline said, standing up and crossing her arms over her chest. She did not look impressed by the severity of the crack or by its inferred meaning.

  “‘Hmph?’” Thomas prompted, his curiosity piqued.

  “If buildings with issues like these were destroyed, I imagine that half of the buildings on the island would have been torn down by now. While you could use it to make an argument for the building’s destruction, Sicily’s legal system is very thorough. They would need to review the building’s longevity potential before making any final decisions.”

  Thomas looked at Nicolo before turning his attention back to Adeline. “And how long do those reviews take?”

  “Oh! Never more than eight years,” Adeline answered brightly for him.

  Nicolo threw his arms down at his side in exasperation. “Only in the rarest of cases does it take eight years,” he quickly reassured Thomas.

  “And in cases that are not rare,” asked Thomas, “how long do they take? A couple of months?” He leaned into the question a little and sounded hopeful.

  “Oh no!” Adeline exclaimed, “a couple of months’ deliberation would be as rare as eight years. On average,”—she pursed her lips and bobbed her head from side to side as if calculating—“I’d say a two to three year review in cases such as this would be most common.”

  Thomas looked instantly crestfallen.

  “Sicily is the gem of the Ionian Sea,” Nicolo said, quickly shifting back into seller mode. “People from all over Europe and the rest of the world come here to see the beauty and wonder that this island and the Sicilian people have to offer.”

  “Yes! They do!” Adeline chimed in enthusiastically. “They want to immerse themselves in the old-world charm of the island, the traditions passed down from one generation to the next. They come in order to experience new adventures… or reconnect with the heritage of their roots.”

  Nicolo knew that Thomas’s vision for the land on which the Romano del Mare currently stood did not fit in with the tourist pitch that Adeline was selling. The doubt in Thomas’s eyes told him that Thomas had recognized the disparity, too.

  “Thomas,” Nicolo said, putting a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “Your company is known the world over within business circles for its accurate projection of earnings.”

  Thomas nodded.

  “And what did that projection say about building your resort, your way, right here?”

  Thomas’s slow-growing smile soon filled his features with an arrogant satisfaction that came from having been right more times than wrong. “That projection said we would be turning a profit within three years.”

  “Three years?” It was Nicolo’s turn to be stunned. “That fast?”

  Thomas nodded, his smile growing ever bigger. “You are right, Nicolo. Sicily is the gem of the Ionian Sea, and it’s a gem we are eager to make our own.” Then he turned to Adeline. “That is, of course, if we can navigate the waters of the local government to get the approvals we’ll need. Money that is tied up in a non-functioning resort isn’t earning for us. We don’t want that.”

  It was another half an hour before Nicolo stood once more on the crumbling dock with Adeline at his side. Together, they watched Thomas’s little red Porche disappear from view.

  “I think he’s going to put in an offer,” Adeline said, concern in her voice.

  “I’m not so sure he will,” Nicolo said with equal concern. Then, turning to face her, his voice deepened and his eyes narrowed. In all likelihood she had just cost his family millions. “Adeline Peluso, you are a worthy adversary.” His mouth quirked up at one corner as he took her hand, lifted and kissed it. His lips lingered against her soft flesh, and his intense gaze never wavered from her eyes. “I look forward to the day when we can fight on the same side.”

  6

  Adeline

  Are you sure that we’re going to need all of this?” Adeline asked as she staggered under the weight of a whole host of items picked out by her best friend, Elana.

  “You want the rooms to turn out perfect, don’t you?” Elana goaded. Elana let her own armfuls fall into a heap on the floor. “Oh, Adeline. The pictures didn’t do this place justice. This is gorgeous!” She turned an assessing eye on Adeline and then smiled mischievously. “Tell me again why you chose this suite to do a design mockup. This is the honeymoon suite, right? It didn’t have anything to do with that hot Sicilian you were telling me about, did it?” she teased.

  Adeline tried to ignore the heat that she knew flushed her cheeks pink. It wasn’t because of the march up the stairs under her heavy load—it was because of the insinuation that she might have an ulterior motive besides trying to save the Romano del Mare. Which, if she were being honest with herself, was true. She did have an ulterior motive. Her heart quickened and her mind raced every time Nicolo was near. Being around him made her feel alive, more alive than she had in years. One moment he’d make her so mad that she wanted to cuss at him and the next she’d want to throw herself into his arms. She hadn’t been so excited about anyone in years. But, there was no way she was going to admit any of that to Elana, not yet anyway. Her attraction to Nicolo was just fun… and temporary. Nothing more. He’d be gone next month or next week or she would be in Spain. They had no future, and that was for the best. They didn’t want the same things. He wanted to always be leaving wherever he was, and she wanted to have a home to come back to after her adventures. He wanted to throw away his heritage, and she wanted to preserve hers. They were too opposite.

  “Elana, you are the best designer I know, and these are among the most beautiful rooms in the hotel. That they are also the honeymoon suite has no bearing at all.” She said the words, yet she couldn’t quite convince herself. She glanced over her shoulder to see if Elana was believing them, but Elana’s attention had become overwhelmed by the space itself.

  “Adeline, this is going to look so good when we’re done. These ceilings,”—she traced the line of the cathedral ceiling by extending an arm and moving her finger through the air—“are twenty feet high!” She shook her head. “They can’t tear this place down. It’s too magnificent!”

  “So, where do we start? Put me to work.” Adeline watched as Elana walked a circle around the room, opened a door that led to a veranda, and then moved through to examine a sitting room and the bathroom. Running water reached Adeline’s ears next. When Elana reappeared, she was nodding her head approvingly. “This I can work with.” She slapped her hands together. “First, we clean!”

  The next hour was spent sweeping, wiping down walls, cleaning the bathroom and pruning the vining flowers on the veranda.

  “We are going to need more things,” Elana declared and pulled out her cell phone. “Felice,” she spoke into it, “I need a favor.” She then proceeded to give him a list which included fresh flowers, an assortment of foods, a small round table,
a tall ladder, fresh towels, and a variety of other items. She pulled the phone away from her face and covered the bottom half with her hand. “When do you plan to show your man the space?”

  “He’s not my man. I wouldn’t have him,” she said with a wink before answering Elana’s question. “Tonight.”

  “Twinkle lights,” Elana said, speaking into the phone again. “Bring,”—she paused as her eyes scanned the room—“eight strands. No, make that twelve.” Her attention shifted to the open door leading out to the veranda. She ended the call just as decisively as she’d started it, tapping the call’s end button.

  “Thank you for doing this for me,” Adeline said as she gathered debris into a trash bag.

  “Pfft!” Elana said, flipping the back of her hand through the air to dismiss Adeline’s thanks as she walked over to the bed. “This is what we do. We take care of each other.” She sat down on the mattress and then bounced up and down. Her long black hair was woven into a braid that fell over her shoulder, and it bounced up and down with her. “The mattress is good. The bed is stable.”

  “Elana,” Adeline objected in a laughing, sing-song voice.

  “We want the rooms to be as functional as possible, yes? Now we know the bed works.” Those were Elana’s words, but she gave Adeline a big slow wink as if to say something else.

  Adeline laughed. “You’re terrible.”

  “You’re the one making up your bedroom to impress a boy,” Elana teased as she ran her hand over the bed’s cream colored coverlet. “Tell me more about him.”

  “You know that I’m doing this for the hotel and not for Nicolo,” Adeline insisted, but then she relented. She made her way across the room and sat down next to Elana, then as one they both flopped backward so that they could stare up at the arching ceiling. “He’s so handsome,” Adeline began. “He makes my toes tingle when he kisses my hand.”

  Elana rolled onto her side so that she faced Adeline. “That is a good sign. If he can make you tingle just by kissing your hand, think of where else he can make you tingle.”

  Adeline remained on her back but turned her head so that she could see Elana. Then she, too, twisted so that she laid on her side. “He’s a good man, I can see it, but he also seems to be a little lost. It’s like he’s a man and a little boy all at the same time. He makes me think of a child who’s lost his way from home so long ago that he’s stopped trying to find it. It makes me sad.”

  “Mmmm,” Elana murmured, “but does he make your heart happy?”

  Adeline’s smile was small and tentative, the same as her feelings for Nicolo. “I think so. I mean, we haven’t spent very much time together, but everything about him feels… right. When he’s near, I feel like anything is possible. I feel like I’m on the best adventure of my life!”

  “Could it be,” Elana asked, reaching out a finger to tickle Adeline’s middle, “could you have found love?”

  Adeline snorted. “No! No.” She paused as she reflected. “Lust maybe, but love.” She shrugged. “It’s too soon… Besides, I’m leaving for Spain.”

  “I don’t believe it! You wouldn’t leave me. I know you wouldn’t.”

  Adeline sighed heavily. “It’s true, I don’t want to. I’d rather stay. But if they tear this place down, it’ll break my heart. I can’t be here and watch that happen.”

  Elana nodded sagely. “Then I’ll visit you in Spain.”

  “You’ll come live with me in Spain!” Adeline corrected.

  “And run away from Sicily! Ha! Never. My Nanna would come after me and drag me home by my ear.” She laughed. “No, no… Sicily is my home. It’s where I’ll live, and it’s where I will someday die. I don’t want to grow old anywhere else.”

  A clamor of noise and swearing reached their ears from outside the room. A moment later, Felice appeared, loaded down with goods. Strands of twinkle lights adorned his arm all the way up to his shoulder on one side and an enormous ladder was tucked under his other. A bag of fresh flowers hung from a belt looped around his neck, an enormous and tightly stuffed backpack sat on his back, and he was pushing a small, round table forward with his foot. “I’m here!” he announced unnecessarily, looking more than a little proud with himself.

  Elana sat up and then smiled brightly at Adeline. “Maybe you aren’t in love with him, but after he sees these rooms tonight, he’s going to fall madly in love with you. He’ll be helpless to do otherwise.”

  “Oh, hush,” Adeline said but couldn’t stop her grin. The thought of Nicolo falling head over heels in love with her was exciting, even if it was ridiculous. But, it was also a complication she didn’t need or want.

  “It has already happened. He is in love with you, and all that is left is for him to realize it.” Turning to Felice, she clapped her hands. “Bring those things over here. We have so much work to do.” Then, to Adeline she barked, “You! Go! Get cleaned up and rest. You have a man’s heart to tame tonight. You’ll need your strength.” And with that, she gave Adeline another big, slow wink.

  What have I gotten myself into? Adeline wondered as Elana shooed her to the door. She gave one last glance at the room behind her, and guilt niggled at her conscience. What she'd done—and planned to do—with the fake buyer wasn't nice, but tonight, she would try to make Nicolo see what it was that she saw when she looked at the Romano del Mare. Elana was right, she was trying to get Nicolo to fall in love—but not with her. She wanted him to fall in love with what this place could be again.

  She wanted the Romano del Mare to be the sparkle on the Ionian Sea’s gem.

  7

  Nicolo

  Adeline! Where are you?” Nicolo called as he made his way up the long, curving stairs to the Romano del Mare’s second floor. Adeline had sent him a text saying to meet her there, but she had refused to tell him why. He didn't know what she had planned, but the beautiful woman threatening to steer his desires to her whims needed to learn how to let things go. Soon enough the Romano del Mare would be nothing more than piles of rubble. He would make her see that… and accept it.

  Outside, the sky had already turned dark and had given way to stars. Nicolo didn’t like the thought of Adeline being in the abandoned resort alone at night. While the building’s power had been turned back on to accommodate the inspectors various buyers would undoubtedly hire, many of the light fixtures had burned out or had simply stopped working due to issues that had developed in the wiring over time. So, as he made his way through the building, the rooms and corridors were more full of shadows than they were of light.

  Reaching the stair’s top landing, he turned to make his way down a long hallway. She had said to meet her on the top floor but hadn’t said where. Then he spotted a glow emanating from the open door of one of the rooms, covering that portion of the hallway in a soft glow.

  “Adeline?” he called, starting to wonder if he was about to meet a ghost from his past. Possibly his Nanna or Nanno had come to tell him how disappointed they were in his eager willingness to sell his birthright.

  Nicolo’s steps paused and he took a deep breath. His grandparents had worked all their lives to make the Romano del Mare a place that instilled joy in all those who visited. To this day, generations of family spoke of the resort—and his grandparents—with great affection. As long as his grandparents had been at the helm, the resort had thrived. It wasn’t until they stepped aside that it started going downhill. That had been when Nicolo was around fourteen years old. He hadn’t known about the mismanagement that had followed his grandparent’s retirement, but even if he had, he wouldn’t have been equipped with the tools he'd have needed to save the resort.

  Within a year of his grandparents stepping aside, the Romano del Mare stopped resembling the charming resort everyone wanted to visit. In four more years, the resort had closed its doors. It was not until their grandparents had passed away last year that Nicolo and his brothers realized the incredible fines that had been lodged against the property. In just over a decade, those fines had doubled and
quadrupled until they equaled nearly eighteen million euro. It was a weight under which the building itself seemed to be crumbling. The cracks in the plaster walls and concrete foundation were a testament to its tired existence. Nicolo didn’t want to see the Romano del Mare demolished, but it needed to be demolished.

  A shadow moved through the cascading light pooling into the corridor as someone in the room shifted. Nicolo quickened his step. He still had not heard Adeline’s voice, and worry gripped him now. He didn’t know of any connections that the mafia had to the Romano del Mare, but with the hefty fines laid against it, anything was possible. Who knew whose pockets the payment of those fines would fill.

  If someone has put hands on Adeline… If someone has hurt her… Nicolo couldn’t finish the thought, and it was with a startling realization that he recognized that she meant more to him than he had known. Focused on reaching her as fast as he could, he broke into a run only to freeze when he rounded the corner into the room where the soft light glowed. “Adeline,” he whispered.

  Standing before him in a gently flowing, baby blue handkerchief dress with spaghetti straps and black, high-heeled mary jane shoes was Adeline. An angelic choir’s worth of candles lit the room in a light that coalesced around her. She glowed.

  “Adeline,” Nicolo whispered again, stepping deeper into the room—a room that was magnificent. The bed was covered with a crushed red velvet cover and topped with shiny, white satin pillows. The soft scent of honeysuckle and ginger reached him next. It was the distinct smell of the plumeria flowers that grew wild around the resort. No other plumeria on the island had that same scent. “Adeline, what have you done?”