by Leslie North
A new one… “I’m sorry,” Leonardo said again, this time for a different reason. He hated that she had been through so much. She had tipped her proverbial hat to death and had told him to come back later. She was the essence of resilient.
Stella shook her head and the brightness of her smile grew so that finally it crinkled the corners of her eyes and lit her entire face. “Every day is a gift to me now, and I am not wasting one second of it being sorry about the years that I was sick. I’m well now, and I’m going to enjoy it.” She picked up her fork and speared a strawberry before popping it in her mouth.
Smiling himself, Leonardo took her lead and dug into his dish of eggplant lasagna. Then he noticed Stella watching him, an amused expression on her face. “What?”
“I’m not used to seeing a man eat so light, especially not one as tall and muscular as you. I had thought you might get a hearty steak or something.”
“Don’t you know? This is the new hearty,” he teased as he took another bite. “It keeps me hearty.” He inwardly winced at his choice of words, but Stella didn’t seem to mind. She dug into her grilled fish with the same happy enthusiasm he’d so quickly grown to expect from her.
The waiter came and topped off their glasses of wine, and behind him appeared a slightly portly man with a roundness to his belly that started somewhere up near his chest. He wasn’t very tall, but he had powerful arms and thick hands that he rubbed together before giving Leonardo a friendly pat on the shoulder. With a heavy Sicilian accent, he said in perfect English, “I am Gus, and this is my place. I want to know if you are having a nice time.” He tsked in approval as he looked from one to the other. “Such a lovely couple. Can I send you a lover’s dessert?”
Stella coughed and blushed but Leonardo couldn’t stop himself from smiling. The owner’s face fell. “Oh, scusi. I am but an old fool. I saw the two of you and knew for sure that you were lovers.”
Stella coughed again, and this time Leonardo wasn’t able to hold back his laughter. “It’s alright. In the present company, I take such a mistake as a great compliment.” He eyed Stella to catch her reaction to his words. This time she didn’t cough, but she did smile though her cheeks were as pink as the most vibrant flowers in her tattoo.
“Sir…” Stella said, finding her voice and shifting her attention to the restaurant’s owner. “Can you tell me, did you follow preservation laws when you remodeled your restaurant?”
Gus’s brows shot up halfway to his low hairline. “Yes!”
“You did an amazing job!”
Gus beamed at Stella’s compliment.
“Do you have any regrets? Did it stress your renovation budget?” Leonardo asked, determined to make a point to Stella that what was being asked was too much.
“Mmmm, regrets? No. It was a lot of hard work, and we had to be inventive in our solutions to problems sometimes, but…” He looked all around him, smiling like a proud Papa before returning his attention to them. “I am happy. This is home. With it done now, this feels good.”
Gus’s answer rankled Leonardo. He didn’t want following the preservation laws to be the way to a better outcome. He wanted to be able to fight it in court for being too burdensome and an impediment to economic stability in the area. With what he was hearing, though, that wouldn’t work. Worse yet, he was beginning to suspect that following the preservation laws might provide the best experience for his customers—if they could even get past the Preservation Society’s objections to maintaining the Romano del Mare as a fully functional resort with all the necessary amenities that people expected. For instance, the pool would have to stay.
“Would you show us around?” Stella asked with what seemed to be genuine enthusiasm.
“Se, se. It would be my pleasure.”
Leonardo wanted to hate her in that moment, but as he looked around Gus’s pride and joy, he could only like her more.
4
Stella
Snapping on her seatbelt, Stella carefully watched Leonardo as he climbed behind the wheel of his car. As beautiful as the restaurant was, she didn’t think that it or its gracious owner had succeeded in convincing Leonardo that staying true to a building’s original architecture was the best way to go. She had to get him to see that the monastery was worth preserving just as it was without covering up a level of craftsmanship that had been lost with the introduction of mass produced building supplies. She had to get him to see that new was not necessarily better than old. People had the right to experience the legacies left by their ancestors. Just because he and his brothers owned the Romano del Mare, it didn’t give them the right to deprive the rest of the world of an ancient building that was created long before the Romano family ever amassed its fortune.
Saving abused or overlooked treasures had been Stella's career since the time she’d graduated college with a double major in History Preservation and Conservation plus Environmental Psychology. She’d wanted to make the world a beautiful place, or at least try to protect those areas that were due to fall victim to corporate greed and a fast paced society that had forgotten the value of the work done by generations before them. In the hospital or sick at home, all she’d been able to do was to stare at stunning pictures of magnificent castles, English mansions, and majestic Scottish manor homes. So many times families ran out of money and the structures fell into a state of terrible disrepair. Or, even worse, they were dismantled and sold as materials.
It had been heartbreaking for her as a girl. She was doing everything she could to preserve what was good about her life while others seemed so willing to throw so much of what was good about the world away. Eventually preservation became her passion.
“Would you mind if we made a stop on the way back?” Stella asked as she absentmindedly twirled the ends of her scarf around her hands.
Without answering right away, Leonardo looked at her, and she could see some sort of calculation going on behind his eyes. “Sure,” he finally answered. “Where to?”
“I don’t remember the name, but I do remember where it’s located. It’s just off the town square, down one of the little side streets.” Trying to navigate the little Sicilian towns was like getting lost in a magnificent maze, but she thought she could recall the way.
Leonardo roared the engine to life before letting it settle into a purr. “You guide, I’ll drive,” he said, giving her a wink.
To her own amazement, Stella was able to guide them through the narrow, winding streets, directing him to turn left here and right over there, until finally they found themselves sitting outside the shop she wanted to show him. It was a used bookstore and, in the few moments since they had arrived, a steady stream of patrons had trundled in and out through the store’s front. People walked in empty handed and walked out laden with a prized new treasure under their arm or even an entire treasure trove’s worth of newfound discoveries.
“This is it!” Stella said excitedly, opening her car door without waiting for Leonardo to open it for her.
“Here?” Leonardo said, his voice full of hesitation. Getting out of the car, he stood with its door open and looked at Stella. “No, no.” He shook his head adamantly, and Stella was sure that she heard his usually very soft Sicilian accent get stronger. “This is used books. What would you want with used books? Come, I’ll take you to another store. I’ll get you whatever you want, on me.”
“But that’s just it,” Stella said, pouncing on Leonardo’s argument. “Bookstores that focus on selling new books don’t have what this bookstore has. Not even close! Inside, they have volume after volume of books that are no longer being produced. They aren’t available electronically either. They’re only available here and places like here.” Stepping away from the car and moving slowly toward the door, she hoped that Leonardo would follow her rather than sit in his car or, worse yet, drive away, and her heart fluttered with excitement when with a stony face he closed his car door and began walking around the car toward her and the bookstore.
“You
won’t regret it,” Stella said, barely containing her exuberance. She slipped her arm into his, just as they had done when walking into the restaurant, and it surprised her how natural they moved together, anticipating and understanding each other’s intentions.
A small bell chimed when Leonardo reached forward and opened the door. He held it as Stella stepped through first and then he followed close behind.
“Mr. Romano!” was the exclamation of a round faced man with a large nose from behind the checkout counter. He threw his arms into the air in welcome, and then waved him over.
Stella looked up at Leonardo, and she wasn’t unable to contain her gleeful smile. It was clear that Leonardo was a regular patron of the store that he had advocated so hard against entering, and she could best describe the grimace he wore as pained yet good-natured embarrassment.
“Dominic,” Leonardo said with warm familiarity. Stella stayed right at his side as they approached the counter, eager to not miss a moment of their exchange.
“I have those books you were looking for,” Dominic said in a loud, conspiratorial whisper that could have probably been heard throughout the whole bottom floor of the store.
“You do?” The sudden, genuine excitement in Leonardo’s voice had Stella doing a double take as she stared up at him. He not only frequented this store, he was an enthusiastic patron! Her world view as it pertained to Leonardo Romano shifted just a little.
There might be a chance after all, she thought to herself as she watched him lean over the counter to examine the old, oversized hardcover books that Dominic pulled out from beneath. That Leonardo held the old books in high regard was clear, and glancing at the price tags, they weren’t cheap. This was not a money-saving maneuver—of course, she reminded herself, the billionaire who she stood side by side with didn’t need to save any money. He could buy the entire bookstore they were standing in a hundred times over and never break a sweat or feel the financial impact. She was standing next to a man who could buy anything he wanted, as long as it was for sale. Yet, here they were standing in a dusty, used bookstore and Leonardo had the look of a little boy in a candy shop.
“This one covers old homesteading tips for surviving in the American old west,” Dominic said, opening the faded and well-read tome up.
“The old west?” Stella whispered out loud without having meant to, but it was too late. The spell of boyish excitement that had overtaken Leonardo was gone.
“Dominic,” Leonardo said, returning back to the subdued style of interacting with people that Stella had begun to anticipate from him. “Please hold these for me here, and I’ll pick them up on the way out. I’d like to show your wonderful store off to this young lady.”
“Of course, anything for you, Mr. Romano.” He slipped the large books back underneath the counter, and Stella followed Leonardo’s lead as they moved away, deeper into the narrowly spaced bookcases that reached all the way from the floor to the ceiling.
“What did you want to pick up here?” Leonardo asked, but his eyes didn’t meet hers as he asked it. They instead scanned over the faded spines of the hundreds of books that surrounded them.
“Uh…” Stella’s brain crashed to a halt as her examination and appreciation of the unexpectedly interesting Leonardo Romano shifted back to herself. In truth, she hadn’t been looking for anything other than what she’d already found: Leonardo’s appreciation of something old instead of its modern and flawless counterpart.
Leonardo’s attention shifted fully to her, and he tucked his chin to his chest in order to glare down at her as he crossed long, strong arms over his solid chest. “You didn’t want anything from here, did you?”
Stella smiled weakly up at him and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “busted.”
“Then why did you want to come here?” His accent was barely discernible.
Stella turned her attention to the books that were eye level with her and stroked her fingertips across them. The selection was eclectic fiction and jumped from old gothic romances to what could have been first editions of science fiction odysseys considered to be the precursors of the genre itself. “I wanted you to see that sometimes new isn’t better.” She shifted her gaze to meet his. “But apparently you already knew that.”
Leonardo’s stony expression softened, and then a miracle happened. He smiled. “Come with me,” he said, grabbing her hand. He led them through the tight stacks to a spiral staircase that twirled its way up to the second floor. There, the entire space was filled with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, one after another. The old books gave the air a dusty feeling and the soft overhead light cast as much shadow as it did illumination, yet Stella couldn’t think of anywhere else that she would rather be. It was amazing.
With her hand still in his, she followed Leonardo as he weaved a path amongst the books. It was clear that he knew exactly where he was going. Turning to walk between two massive bookcases placed just far enough apart that Leonardo’s broad shoulders fit between them, Stella found herself standing on the wall-side of the passage’s dead end. Leonardo didn’t seem to notice, though.
“Here, look at these.” He knelt to see the books on the lower shelves, and Stella followed suit, sitting on the backs of her heels. The spines of the books that Leonardo was pointing at seemed to be of a similar nature to the ones being held for him by Dominic. In some way or other, they were all about the lore of the American old west.
Stella eyed Leonardo’s pristine suit, no doubt tailor made and costing more than most people’s cars. “I would have never guessed that someone like you would be fascinated by cowboys, ranchers and moving big herds of cattle.” Her words were not a chastisement, though. That Leonardo was more than he had appeared to be at first glance warmed her heart in a way that had once not been possible. For years she’d been too sick to do more than appreciate the lives of others in all their intricacies, and even that she’d done as a spectator only. Always, when her energy became too drained, she would pull her emotions back into herself and focus on conserving her strength to make it through another day. At the time it was the best she could do, but now the heart that had been gifted to her by another was hers to give away as well, and she felt it yearn for Leonardo to look at her the way he did all the surrounding books.
“A lifestyle lived without the burden of… things has been a fascination for me for a long, long time.” His voice had gained an easy depth that made her want to wrap the sound around herself.
“But things are what you do, and you’re good at it. You create these pristine, perfect experiences for people and make them crave to take part of that perfect experience home with them. Pictures, souvenirs. I bet there are families who save all year long in order to take their vacation at one of your resorts in order to be surrounded by all the perfect things you’ve laid out for them.”
There was a thoughtful melancholy in his eyes when he answered. “Sometimes what you do—what you’re good at—isn’t who you are.”
Stella couldn’t help it. She fell in love with him a little bit right there and then. Not much, just enough to flood her senses with the warm glow that comes with those types of feelings.
Sitting up so as to stand on her knees, Stella inched forward to close the space between them, held Leonardo’s face in her hands, and stretched her neck with her face tilted up to his. It was an invitation and an invitation only. If he wanted her, Leonardo would have to do the rest, which he did.
Sliding his warm hand onto the small of her back, Leonardo pulled Stella closer to him before leaning down to take her in a kiss that curled her toes. It was soft and sweet, and the man who always seemed to have the world on his shoulders was unhurried as he dragged his lips over hers. She tasted him, the wine they’d had at lunch, but his scent was the musk of a man and it was not unlike the books that surrounded them, earthy yet slightly sweet with a teasing hint of almond and vanilla.
She melted against him and his strong arms closed around her so that her chest and stomach lay flat again
st his, and she no longer tried to hold back the moan that needed to escape her. She gave it to him, letting her sound fill him, and was rewarded by his answering growl.
Stella let the kiss linger a moment longer, then rocked back and looked at him from under her eyelashes. She had no idea what this would change between them, whether it might make her job harder—but still, she wouldn’t have taken it back for the world.
5
Leonardo
Two weeks had passed since his kiss with Stella, and Leonardo was feeling very ready for an encore. He hadn’t been able to get out of his mind the soft press of her lips against his or the wanting sounds she’d made as he’d held her against him, her body crushed to his. He’d wanted that touch again, had needed it, but life always seemed to conspire to keep them apart. Emergencies, bickering between the hired design firm, the budget manager and his lawyers regarding the preservation laws, and simple bad luck had consumed his attention without mercy or respite, so when she’d come into his office that morning in a rare moment of quiet and asked him to drive her somewhere, he’d told his assistant, Bianca, to cancel his afternoon meetings and had left with her right then and there.
Come what may, the restoration of the Romano del Mare would finish, and it would be done with plans to open the entire property for use as a resort and not just parts of it. Despite Stella’s appearance turning the design plans upside down, the fact that they were in the final stages of the resort’s restoration hadn’t changed. And whether they would have to pay the steep penalties that would go with ignoring preservation laws or adapt their plans to fall in line with Stella’s vision for the place, the truth remained unchanged. The restoration of Romano del Mare would finish, and Stella would go away. While the finish line was once a goal that Leonardo had been racing for, he now didn’t want to see it come. He wanted the time to get to know Stella; he wanted the time to spend with her. He thought about her anytime she wasn’t near, and when she was near… her inner light eclipsed all the rest of the world. He was smitten. He knew it, but couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He’d never been one to involve himself in a summer fling, always before preferring to go the route of a long-term affair, but for her he was willing to make an exception.
