by Leslie North
But he had come up with a solution, and it was a brilliant one. He would be able to leave for Dubai and she would be able to continue in her role as Project Manager. He’d arranged it all. He would leave Paolo behind to lead the team with which Gianpierre had worked with for years. They knew the job. They understood the techniques. Starting on the enormous new project in Dubai without his personal team by his side to help oversee the activities of hundreds of others would be far less than ideal, but it would be doable. Meanwhile, Gianpierre would guide Paolo in how to proceed at the Romano del Mare through video calls, photographs, schematics and any other tools necessary to get the job done. He would even fly back to oversee the project in person every chance he got. In fact, he would continue to sublet the room from Luciana in his—in her, he corrected—apartment. Nothing had to change. Now all he needed to do was to find her and tell her the good news.
“Luciana!” he called as he rounded a corner to walk down yet another corridor within the body of the Romano del Mare’s main buildings. “Luciana! Where are you?” The inside restoration team had told him that she’d gone this way.
A door halfway down the hall opened and Luciana stepped out and closed the door behind her. Seeing her, Gianpierre broke into a jog, but she did not seem pleased to see him when he reached her.
“What?” she asked, keeping her voice unusually soft.
“Why are you whispering?” He took a step back and looked Luciana over from head to toe. “And why are you dressed this way?” Gone was her loose fitting clothes suitable for the dirt, grime and sometimes dangerous conditions within which they worked. Instead, she wore a snug pencil skirt with a high slit and a silky blouse with a plunging neckline. To make matters worse, she even wore a necklace that hung low on her chest to draw the eye to her flawless skin and the swell of her softer, more generous parts. “What are you doing? And why do you have on pumps? You won’t be able to walk in the courtyard in those.”
“Gianpierre,” Luciana said, firmly but calmly, “I’m busy. Can we do this later?”
Gianpierre stared at her, then noted the way that she stood protectively in front of the closed door. “Who’s in there?” he asked, his voice dropping dangerously low. She was interviewing someone for his job, he knew it. But this wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. She had to stop.
“Gianpierre—”
“Tell me,” he said, cutting her off, and then tried to reach past her to the doorknob but the shift of her hip kept him from his goal.
“Gianpierre, let’s talk a moment.” Her voice had taken on a desperate, pleading tinge that set Gianpierre’s nerves on alert all the more. His hands were on her shoulders the next moment, and he physically moved her out of his path. Throwing the door open, he stepped into the doorway and stared at the man who sat in the room before him.
“No!” Gianpierre’s voice boomed. “Not him!” It was Silas Grantzky, a man every bit as tall as him with the rugged look of a battle-worn Viking. If it could be said that Gianpierre had an arch nemesis, that person would be Grantzky. Every single elite job that Gianpierre had ever been a contender for, he’d had to fight to win it over Silas Grantzky. And half the time, he lost. He’d almost lost the Dubai job to him, and Gianpierre was sure that Dubai had the man on speed dial in the event that he didn’t show up in another two weeks. “Not him,” he said again, intoning the words with the same vehemence as Moses telling the red seas to part.
“Gianpierre,” Luciana said, grabbing his arm with a firm ownership that only a lover would use, “he’s all that’s left. If not him, then the restoration of the Romano del Mare’s courtyard gets shut down for years!”
“I’m fine with that,” he said before tearing his arm free of her hold. “And what is this? All of this?” He indicated her clothes with the wave of his finger up and down. “You think he’ll keep you on if you turn his head?”
Luciana’s eyes flew wide as she gasped. Then her eyes narrowed and her open palm shot up toward Gianpierre’s face but he caught her wrist in mid-air before her slap could connect.
Gianpierre leaned in so that he could almost feel her heat on his skin. “You’ll mean nothing to him.”
“Just like I mean nothing to you?” she shot back without hesitation.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gianpierre could see Grantzky’s amused grin. That there was more between him and Luciana than an employer-employee relationship was painfully obvious, and Gianpierre was sure that the man would love his chance to try to best him in that arena as well.
In contrast to Grantzky’s relaxed demeanor, Luciana looked ready to disembowel Gianpierre. Her teeth were bared and her eyes all but glowed with the embers of her rage, but it only made Gianpierre want her more. His head pounded as it was battered with images of Luciana and Grantzky working together as Grantzky wore her down, day after day, romancing her until finally Gianpierre became replaced in every sense of the word. The thought was more than he could bear. While it was true that he could lose her to somebody else, it wouldn’t be while she worked the job that she’d done with him. “Get out,” he growled at her. “You’re fired.”
“No!” It was her turn to rip her arm free of his hold. “I quit.”
12
Luciana
What just happened?” Luciana asked herself as she stormed out the front door of the Romano del Mare. She was shocked by the sudden turn of events. She had set up a meeting with a man who was considered among most circles within the industry as Gianpierre’s closest peer. There were very, very few who could compete with Gianpierre’s level of expertise. Yes, there were those who excelled in specific areas, such as the most accurate way to mix mud-based binders equivalent to practices used in the summer of 539 in Sussex, England. But in terms of overall knowledge base, a solid argument could be made, as it had been made by many, that Gianpierre’s expertise beat them all. As for everyone else, they argued that Grantzky was the best medieval architect. It was a very argumentative and passionately split camp.
“He’s such a jerk!” she fumed, covering the ground to her car with long, sure strides. All she’d wanted to do was help him get to Dubai as early as possible… and out of her and Natalia’s lives. That wasn’t so bad, was it? He’d get what he wanted, and she’d get what she wanted. Correction, she’d get what she needed. The man was insufferable. He was stubborn, obsessive, bull headed, self-confident to a fault… charming, endearing, great with Natalia, and quickly winning Luciana’s heart. She couldn’t have it. She couldn’t risk setting Natalia up for that kind of loss so soon after losing her mother. Even if it meant breaking her own heart, she couldn’t allow Gianpierre to stay in their lives one minute longer than absolutely necessary. She had to get him out as soon as possible even if that meant going home, packing their bags, and taking her and Natalia to stay with some distant cousin for the next several weeks until he was gone. That way she’d at least still have his renter’s income. She needed it now that her job was gone.
“Luciana.” Gianpierre’s voice travelled to her ears from a distance. The strength of his voice as he called for her came and went, and he seemed to be searching rather than actually pursuing her, but it didn’t take long for all of that to change as suddenly his voice rang loud and unobstructed by the walls of the resort. “Luciana!”
Throwing a glance over her shoulder, Luciana saw Gianpierre break into a run from the resort’s wide open front doors. But she was a runner too, and even in high heels she was able to sprint the distance to her car. Throwing the car’s door open, she was inside and starting the engine by the time that Gianpierre reached her. But rather than try to pull her car door back open and beg her to not drive away, he instead leapt onto the hood of her car. There, he stood with legs wide and his hands on his hips. He looked like Superman. All he needed was the big, wind-swept cape, and Luciana couldn’t help but roll her eyes in exasperation. He was behaving like an over emotional teenage boy. She’d just been conducting an interview, for pete’s sake, and now she was fired…
Quit, she quickly reminded herself. She’d quit. Her life was under her control.
Yet with her car in gear, Luciana hesitated. If she engaged the engine and started to drive, Gianpierre would most likely lose his balance and fall off. He could get hurt. His entire crew—and not just her—would be out of work. Besides that, she cared about him… more than she was willing to say. She didn’t want to see him get hurt.
Rolling down her window, Luciana stuck her head out and yelled, “Get off my car!”
“Hear me out, Luciana. Please.”
Oh God, he said please. She wanted to hit her forehead against her steering wheel rather than hear him out, but she couldn’t. If he had demanded, yelled or cajoled, she might have risked his wellbeing by putting the car in reverse and stepping on the gas. He’d have gone tumbling off her car’s hood and she and Natalia would have been packed and gone before he ever made it home.
On the hood, Gianpierre sank to his knees and looked forlornly through the glass of her windshield. But it was when he reached out a palm and pressed it to the glass, as if he were reaching out to touch her heart, that she gave in and turned the car’s engine off.
Opening her car door, she slid out, closed it, and then stepped to the side of her car’s hood. Gianpierre moved to sit on the hood’s edge with his legs dangling over the side. Reaching one long arm out, he hooked it around her hips and pulled Luciana into the space between his thighs.
“Please don’t quit,” he whispered, staring at her with eyes as blue as glacier ice. They weren’t cold, though. They were worried with crinkle lines that framed them in an expressive face that had a way of melting all of Luciana’s resolve. His hands were warm on her lower back, and she had to fight to keep herself from throwing her arms around his shoulders to be held close against his strong chest.
“I didn’t quit,” she said, recalling the sequence of events. “You fired me.” The words came out sounding more petulant than she’d intended, and much faster than she’d imagined it would, her anger slipped away. It didn’t seem to matter how hard she wanted to hold onto it. The man’s very presence made her inner-self happy with a lightness she had never known before he’d come into her life.
Gianpierre shook his head. “All of this, the work we do in there, you’ve grown your job so much and everything we do all revolves around you now. I couldn’t fire you. I could be replaced easier than you.”
Luciana stiffened and looked away for a long moment before meeting Gianpierre’s penetrating gaze again. “I wasn’t trying to replace you. I”—she hesitated—“was trying to let you go.”
“Luciana, I don’t want to be let go.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb, and it took all of her will power not to close her eyes and lean her cheek into the cup of his palm.
“Why not?” It was a hard question, but she needed to know. “You’re leaving anyway. Why not be replaced?” Then, when Gianpierre’s expression turned stony and he leaned slightly away from her, she quickly added with a soft voice, “I mean here at the resort. Not… you know.” It would probably be a long, long time before she invited another man into her bed.
“I don’t want to go.”
Luciana blinked, unsure of what she was hearing.
“I mean,” Gianpierre quickly amended, “I don’t want to leave this job undone.” His words seemed rushed and felt to Luciana as though they were not coming directly from his heart. He was covering how he really felt. There was more to it than he was saying.
“I can’t have you in Natalia’s life anymore,” she said. While Gianpierre’s words had not been a true reflection of what was going on inside of him, Luciana held nothing back as she let the blunt truth spill from her lips.
“What?” Gianpierre’s body went still.
“She adores you. She might even like you better than me, you and that damn fairy castle that you guys have been obsessing over. It’s all you do every second that you’re home and she’s awake, but you are going to leave and all that she’ll be left with is a pile of carved styrofoam and other mix-matched supplies. She’ll have a thing to remember you by, but she won’t have you. She’s already been through that, Gianpierre. All she has to remind herself of her mom are some short videos on her mom’s old cell phone. She needs more than that.”
“I can come back, maybe a weekend out of every month,” Gianpierre said. “I can video chat with her… and you. We can still…” His words trailed off.
“Still what?” She swallowed, feeling unsure of how far she wanted to sink the proverbial knife in. “Still be a family?” It was what they had begun to feel like. A beautiful, amazing, wonderful, happy family. The best she had ever known.
“Is that so awful?” he challenged.
“No.” She shook her head. “But I have to protect her better than that.”
“We can talk to her, explain that I’ll be leaving soon. Don’t end things yet.” He wrapped her in his arms, and Luciana melted against him. He was so strong, so steady, she couldn’t believe that they were talking about everything they had ending. “And I can come back and see you both every chance I get.”
“No,” Luciana said with a firm voice as she pushed herself away. “I don’t want you waltzing in and out of her life whenever it suits you. I won’t have her looking forward to your visits just to have you show up less and less.”
Gianpierre looked pained by her words, but he didn’t fight her by offering up a counterargument. Finally, he nodded. “Okay, once I go, I’ll be gone. But let me stay in Natalia’s life… and your life until then.”
“You’re not going to finish the job in time. We are going to have to tape everything off and abandon it as unfinished and unsafe. We need to bring in someone else to finish the job.”
“No.” It was Gianpierre’s turn for his back to stiffen and for him to declare an impasse. “I will get the job done. We will get the job done—me, you and the rest of the crew. I’ll hire on additional hands, and we’ll work round the clock. We’ll get it done on time, Luciana, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll run the crew from Dubai over video calls. This resort, it’s my family’s legacy. I can’t hand this over to someone else, especially not Grantzky. I can’t have his stamp on my family’s mark for centuries to come. I can’t do it.”
“You’ll finish it from Dubai?”
Gianpierre nodded. “Which means that I need your help more than ever. You would be my eyes, ears and compass. I’d leave Paolo behind to lead the crew and you would be the production manager, making sure all needs are met before anyone even realizes they need anything. I know it’s what you’re brilliant at. You jumped into this job, found your footing and then made the job your own. It’s what I was coming to talk to you about today when I found you with Grantzky.” He said the man’s name like it left a bad taste in his mouth.
Luciana laughed. “You know,” she said, dragging the tip of her finger down his chest between the valley of his incredible pecs, “Grantzky’s just as jealous of you. He sees you as the one to beat.”
“That arrogant blowhard?”
Luciana laughed harder. “Mmhmm, and that’s exactly how he feels about you, too.” She turned somber. “But we’ll do it without him. Me, you and that insane crew of yours. We’ll make this work. If anyone can do it, I know it’s you.” She said the words despite the heaviness in her heart. Never in her life had she been willing to work so hard to get rid of someone she cared so much about. It was tearing her in two, but in the center of it all sat a little girl who was worth any pain Luciana had to face in order to make things right.
13
Gianpierre
What is this?” Gianpierre roared as he stormed his way into the courtyard with a pink notification from the local inspections office. “Luciana!”
Fat raindrops started to fall from a sky that was already dark with night. Floodlights wired with weatherproof extension cords lit the entire center courtyard of the Romano del Mare with the brilliance of day, and instead of his usual crew of eight, no less than thirt
y people were hard at work. Just as Gianpierre had promised, he and Luciana had put together a round-the-clock crew operating with the sole purpose of finishing the Romano del Mare’s inner courtyard before he left for Dubai. It was why he was here. It was what was most important.
Another five days had ticked past, and now all that he had left was nine days before he was scheduled to board the plane that would take him away from everything that meant the most to him. He didn’t know how he had found himself in this predicament, but he had. He’d woken up one morning to discover that what he’d thought he wanted most—being unequivocally recognized as the best of the best—was no longer that important to him and that it had not been important to him for some unknown amount of time. It was as if he didn’t even need to grieve the letting go of a lifelong dream. It was simply gone, and he was happy.
Despite that, nothing had actually changed. He was still leaving, and he was working like a maniac to make it so that he never had to come back. It was why the paper that he held aloft in his clenched fist seemed to burn his skin. “Luciana!” he bellowed for the fifth time. Finally, he saw her trotting toward him as she weaved in and out of equipment and pockets of people. He’d been working her harder than anyone, and if it had not been for the presence of Signora Esposito to make sure all of Natalia’s needs were cared for, he was sure that Luciana would have already quit in order to restore her home and family life to a healthy balance.
