Leonardo rubbed his tired eyes as he rested his elbows on the desk at his office. It had been two days since his surprise meeting from Stella Brown, and he’d barely managed to get four hours of sleep during that time. Last night had been another long night of international phone calls with half a dozen lawyers. The first question—had they broken any preservation laws—had been answered after hours of his lawyers arguing with three different preservation specialists, and the answer was a resounding “Yes!” so loud that it could have reverberated off the walls.

“Dammit!” he swore under his breath. He had to figure out a way through the mire he’d found himself and his brothers in. If a workaround couldn’t be identified and exploited, they would be out several million euros. Not only would they be out of pocket for the renovation costs to date, but they would have no way to recoup the loss or even sell the property. No one would be willing to buy it.

Furthermore, the iconic property which had once been a favorite vacationing spot known the world over would never again open her doors to tourists as a resort, not under Stella’s vision. There was absolutely no way that he would move forward with a plan that involved opening only small portions of the monastery for use as a resort. It was all or nothing. The expense of the remodeling was too cost prohibitive otherwise. No matter how he looked at it, the preservation society had them trapped in a lose-lose situation, and he had to figure a way out.

Leonardo opened his eyes and reached for the rolled papers that sat at the edge of his desk. Opening them up and smoothing them out, he stared at them with a practiced eye. They were Stella’s plans for the Romano del Mare’s final restoration, and to his great annoyance… they were good. Very good. But, they would be costly to implement on multiple levels. He had already signed with Gallant Industries to handle the final design work of readying the Romano del Mare to receive customers, and he was obligated to honor that contract. Their design plans that had been months in the making would have to be scrapped altogether, but Leonardo was already legally required to follow through with them. The contract had been agreed upon and he might as well have signed it in blood, but honoring the contract would mean breaking thirty-three different preservation laws. They were laws that had not even existed when his great grandfather had begun the process of converting the old monastery into a resort with the aid of his son, Leonardo’s grandfather. The preservation laws that Leonardo and his brothers were being strangled with had come into existence in the years since, and if the Romano del Mare had never shut its doors as an operational resort it would not have been held subject to those laws now. They would have been exempt and able to continue operating and maintaining the property as they’d seen fit. But, as soon as the resort had closed its doors, the old monastery’s classification had reverted to heritage property and had fallen under the purview of the International Preservation Society, an organization that before two days ago, Leonardo had not even known existed.

No steps had been taken to halt the construction that was nearing its completion, and Leonardo noticed when the pounding of hammers and the whir of drills silenced in the halls outside his office. Voices drifted by his door as a dozen or more workmen trundled past on their way to lunch.

Leonardo’s stomach growled. He’d been sitting in his office all morning getting nothing done. For the first time in his life, he had no clue as to what action to take next. The uncertainty that filled him was not a feeling he was accustomed to, and he didn’t like it. But there was one thing he could do. He could maintain. He could take care of the basics that needed taking care of.

His stomach growled again. All he’d had for breakfast was a cappuccino, and that had been over four hours ago.

Standing up, he headed for his office door with a long, calm stride that did nothing to betray the anxiety that buzzed through his body like an electric current. Most of the renovation crew brought their own lunches, and for those who didn’t, a catering truck from a local restaurant came around to offer them hearty, aromatic soups plus grilled sandwiches. Most days that’s what Leonardo himself ate, but today he needed distance. He had to put the Romano del Mare out of his sight in order to regain some perspective, and there was a new restaurant in town that he’d been hearing good things about.

He opened his office door and took in a breath, ready to call out to his assistant to see if she’d like to join him, but the words stalled in his throat. Blinking, he stared at empty space at the end of the hallway where he was sure that he’d seen Stella standing a second before.

“Stella?” He waited for an answer but none came. “Stella!” he said again, this time using the same authoritative tone as would be used by a proctor in an unruly classroom. The Romano del Mare was private property, and she had no business being there without invitation. She most certainly was not on any guest list.

Leonardo’s tone worked, and Stella’s head stuck back around the corner. “Hi.” She smiled brightly, and Leonardo was reminded of the moment when he’d first seen her up near the cliffs. Everything about her made him want to shove her aside and pretend that she didn’t exist. She embodied in the flesh all of the new problems that had been dumped in his lap, yet he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of her.

“Have lunch with me.” His invitation surprised even himself, and it was clear that it surprised Stella as well because she stepped out from her hiding spot around the corner and came into full view. The sight of her hurt Leonardo’s heart. She was graceful, ephemeral, and… happy. It was as if she glowed with an internal joy that left him mesmerized from looking at her.

Wearing a smile that lit her face, Stella said in her distinctly American accent, “I’d love to!”

Leonardo had to force himself not to laugh. She’d gone from shy and hiding to excited in under a second, and her enthusiasm was contagious. That he found her beautiful was undeniable, but he liked her, too. She was completely guileless in a calculated world, and he found that adorable and refreshing.

“I have the perfect place in mind.”

The drive to the restaurant was quiet, but it was a surprisingly comfortable quiet. He kept Stella in his field of vision as he drove his antique Aston Martin DB5 through the countryside to the nearby town. On instinct he’d put the canopy top of the convertible down, and he watched out of the corner of his eye as Stella drank in her surroundings. There was something unfiltered about her, a willingness to experience everything with a sense of wonder, and he felt drawn to her because of it.

“Here we are,” he said, pulling up outside a narrow, two-story restaurant named Isola di Amici.

“Oh!” Stella exclaimed with both hands on the top rim of her door as she stared at the unremarkable grey stone building. But her reaction made Leonardo look again through fresh eyes and what he saw surprised him. The building was old, possibly two hundred years old, yet it housed a modern, thriving restaurant.

Walking around to the passenger side door, Leonardo opened it and offered her his hand to assist her in getting out. Startled by her chill touch, he asked, “Are you cold?” But when embarrassment pinked her cheeks in response to his answer, he regretted having asked. It was the first moment since he’d met her that he’d seen her wilt from him and his attentions. Always before she’d been unabashedly who she was without any seeming need to fit in.

Needing to feel her connection to him, Leonardo smoothly offered her his elbow and was pleased beyond the measure of the simple act when she slid her hand over his jacketed arm. Together, they crossed the street and entered the restaurant. Inside, the design allowed for a casual intimacy as the conversations of the patrons were captured by the surrounding plants and stone buttresses. Natural light filled the space with a soft glow that lifted Leonardo’s spirits rather than muted his sorrows.

Almost immediately, the pair were seated at a table that both allowed for privacy and a sweeping view of the rest of the restaurant.

“This place is amazing,” Stella marveled.

Leonardo looked around, wanting to see what it was that she was seeing, though he was certain that he wasn’t. “How do you mean?”

Surprise registered on Stella’s face as her eyes went round and her brows went up. “It’s been renovated, but look.” She pointed a finger at a nearby pillar and followed it up to the exposed beam ceiling. “They’ve left most of the original architecture in place.”

Leonardo scanned the room, seeing it with fresh eyes. The restaurant emphasized live plants, modern, colorfully vivid paintings, and elegant furniture, tables and chairs, but behind that was a building that could have fit in seamlessly with the architecture of the building’s time of origin.

Leonardo looked around at the patrons next, their relaxed faces and easy smiles. They were comfortable here, and they were not in a rush to go on with their day. They were willing to stay, their wallets no further away than an arm’s reach. They were willing to spend their money here. This restaurant was doing well.

The waitress came and went, choosing to memorize their orders rather than write them down. Drinks and hors d’oeuvres were brought next and then a comfortable time after that, their main dishes. Stella ordered a light fruit salad plus grilled fish with an artichoke caponata. She leaned over her plate, closed her eyes and breathed its aroma deep into her lungs, and Leonardo simply watched, once more mesmerized by the peaceful joy that filled her.

Opening her eyes, she twirled the long ends of her flowing scarf around each other. That’s when Leonardo saw it, just a flash, just enough that he realized it was there. A scar traced its way down her chest to disappear behind the V of her blouse. A soft, barely-there green vine curled its way around the scar and blossomed with pale pink, cherry blossom-like flowers.

Something about his expression must have changed, he realized, because Stella’s expression changed. Her inner light didn’t exactly dim, it’s more that it changed from radiant sunlight to the light of a brilliant moon. There was still joy there, but it was a self-aware joy. A conscious joy.

“What happened?” The words tumbled out of his mouth before his measure of what it meant to be a gentleman kicked into place. “I’m sorry,” he quickly amended. “It is none of my business.”

Her eyes didn’t drift from his face as so many people’s would have done. Her fingertips delicately traced the long, pale scar. “Heart surgery.” She said it with a smile, and the smile did reach her eyes but only just. “I needed a new one.”

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.