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.

He glanced over at her and smiled even though she wasn’t looking at him. She had yet another scarf with her, this one as unique as all the others with its pattern of splashed watercolors. With it tied around her head as a make-shift bonnet, she had her face lifted to the sun and the wind as they drove in his convertible along the zigzagging country roads to a spot two towns away. Beyond telling him where they were going, she’d refused to tell him what they were going to do, so for all he knew she’d found another used bookstore to explore.

Her eyes opened the tiniest bit and he could see her look at him out of the corner of her eye. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching the road?” she asked in a teasing, sing-song voice that managed to lift itself above the wind.

“Not when I have someone as pretty as you with me.” He was smiling, but he was serious.

“If you can’t watch the road every time you get a pretty girl in the car with you, it’s a wonder you’re still alive!” she said, laughing.

“Or… maybe I don’t make a habit of driving around with pretty girls.”

She turned to give him the full of her attention, her eyes narrowing as she assessed him. “Thirty-three, more handsome than—well, you know how handsome you are—and rich enough to take every person in Sicily out to dinner for the finest dining the island has to offer and not be bothered by the bill, but doesn’t drive around with a pretty girl in his car every day of the week?”

Leonardo shook his head while giving her as much attention as he could spare from the road. “Last time I had a pretty girl in this car was two weeks ago.”

Stella fell silent but a pleased looking smile pulled at the corners of her sweet mouth. It was another thirty minutes before they reached their destination, and they’d held hands during those stretches of uninterrupted driving when Leonardo hadn’t needed his hand for shifting gears.

“Oh, oh! That was it!” Stella exclaimed as she twisted around in her seat to look behind them.

Leonardo found a spot to make a tight U-turn and returned them to the store that had Stella fidgeting with excitement to reach.

“Antiques?” While he was glad for the distraction and happy to escape the tensions of the design staff, he had no idea what Stella thought she would achieve by bringing him here. People did not spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to go on vacation just so that they could stare at other people’s discarded and unwanted items. “I know you mean well—”

“Just give it a chance,” Stella said, interrupting him. “I know that you’ve spent well over a million euro on your restoration costs, but it doesn’t have to be like that with your decoration costs. Places like this, there are so many amazing things to find.”

“Enough amazing things to find that can provide a uniformly good experience to every customer who walks through our doors?” he said as he unbuckled himself, got out and headed around to her side of the car. Opening the door, he offered her his hand to assist her in getting out. As always, he was startled by the cold of her fingers, and this time when she got out of the car, instead of offering her his elbow, he kept hold of her hand, wanting to give her his warmth.

“It doesn’t have to be a uniform experience,” she argued, and he could hear the passion in her voice. She believed the words she was saying.

“Building a brand is about providing a consistent experience,” Leonardo countered as they walked to the store’s door. He opened it and held it open as Stella passed through, releasing her hand as she did so, but as soon as he stepped through the threshold to return to his spot by her side, he captured her hand in his once more. She was different from anyone he’d ever spent time with or had had romantic feelings for. She seemed fragile and delicate to him, yet just like watching a butterfly, he delighted in seeing her spread her wings and dance on the air without any regard for the challenges life might throw her way. She was spectacular, and if he had his way, she would have already been sharing his bed. But that fact did nothing to change how he felt about her ideas for the Romano del Mare. He was a business man, and the results of the restoration needed to support a business model and a branded advertising campaign that had people traveling the world over to stay at their resort.

“But, consistent doesn’t necessarily mean same,” she insisted. She tightened her grip on his hand and marched forward ahead of him, pulling him through the sorted collections of knickknacks and antiques. In truth, the items the store had for sale were of good quality. Leonardo knew about more than just the modern styles that he advocated at the myriad of Romano resorts found ‘round the world. He had a practiced eye which allowed him to pick out an antique reproduction from the genuine article, and whoever was the curator for the store appeared to have the same ability. He hadn’t spotted a fake antique yet.

Stella slowed down, and when she released his hand so that she could pick up a white platter with a delicate light blue pattern depicting a countryside surrounded by intricately detailed filigree, he missed the feel of her touch immediately.

“Ceramic Staffordshire,” Leonardo offered, recognizing the piece.

“It’s beautiful.” Stella’s voice was full of awe, and she handled the platter with the same reverence as if she were holding a priceless Stradivarius violin.

“I agree, but would the Preservation Society approve of a dish from the 1830’s meshed with a structure that predates it by over 500 years?”

“No, but it’s nice to look at all the same,” she said wistfully, putting the platter back on the wire cradle that allowed it to sit upright.

“I’ll buy it for you.” Leonardo swiveled his head in search of a salesperson.

“No, no,” Stella said emphatically but with good humor.

“I thought you liked it.” Leonardo studied her face, determined to learn her every expression.

“I love it! But I don’t want it. It’s enough to know that such pieces exist. I’d rather it be somewhere it can be appreciated. I don’t want it stuck away in my cupboard or on some out-of-the-way spot on my wall. I don’t need it. Who would ever see it?”

“Who would ever see it?” Leonardo suddenly wanted to know. They were both adults. They both had their pasts, but to his surprise, Stella blushed and her gaze fell this way and that, and he knew that she didn’t have anyone special in her life, no casual lover to fill a need now and again. His next thought wasn’t one that had occurred to him before, but now, looking at her, he was sure—she was alone, more alone than she wanted to be or would admit to being. He had not considered that to be true about himself prior to meeting her, but he was starting to reevaluate. Looking at her was like looking at what his life could be. It was like staring into a mirror that revealed all the possibilities, only to remind you of the emptiness caught in the reflection of what stood behind you. “Come on,” he said, reclaiming her hand with what was quickly becoming a lover’s touch.

This time it was he who guided them as they moved from table to table, from one roughly sorted collection to the next. It wasn’t long before something caught Stella’s eye though, and she once more tightened her grip on his hand and pulled him along with her. He knew that she could have just as easily released him to run ahead, but it warmed his heart that she had wanted to share the journey with him by keeping him near instead.

“Look!” They were standing in a back corner of the shop that was out of sight from most of the rest of the store.

Leonardo’s brows lifted when he saw what it was that she had found. “Knockers.” He picked up one of the heavy, carved pieces of brass to study it. Unlike the platter, the knocker was from a time period similar to the monastery. It was meant to be affixed to a heavy wooden door, and the knocker’s sturdy ring was meant to pound out the announcement of a person’s arrival by banging against the ornate metal plate beneath. His brows went up again when he took in the price. Reasonable didn’t begin to describe it. Either the shop owner didn’t know what they had or not very many people were in the market for such a collectible. He suspected the latter.

“There’s more down here.” Stella squatted and tried to pull a cardboard box from beneath the open-face counter. The box moved an inch and then tore at the spot where Stella pulled on it because its contents were so heavy. Leonardo squatted down next to her to take a closer look at what she had found. It was more knockers, each one different from the last, but each one within 100 years in age to the monastery. “What if these were installed on the outer door of each suite of rooms at the resort?”

Leonardo studied the box. There weren’t enough knockers to give every suite’s door one of them, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t find more. “The design team would not be happy about this. It doesn’t fit in with their plans.” He looked at Stella. She seemed to be holding her breath. “But”—he felt himself caving in to her desires as words came out of his mouth—“that doesn’t mean that they can’t adjust their plans. I mean, I am the boss.”

Stella squealed and threw her arms around his neck, but when she leaned in to kiss him, Leonardo pulled back. With their first kiss, she had kissed him. Sure, he’d had to complete the link by leaning into the kiss, but it had been her doing. This time he wanted it to be his doing. He wanted her to know that he wasn’t simply going along with the flow. He wanted her, needed her.

Cradling the back of her head, he captured the gaze of her wide eyes with his own. He didn’t say anything, yet as he stared into her eyes he was aware of how her cheeks turned pink and her lips parted to let her breath come a little faster, a little deeper. She blinked once, she blinked twice, and then her lids softened, closing halfway. She was surrendering to his want, he could see it in her and feel it in the easing of the tension she held in her body.

Finally, he leaned into her, guiding her lips in a dance that soon had his heart hammering as his own breath quickened. He pulled her against him and slid his hand up the nape of her neck to cradle her head, and when she moaned into his mouth without seeming to hold anything back, it was nearly his undoing. His body jerked with the overwhelming desire to lay her down on the floor and take her right then and there.

“Ahem…” It was the pointed clearing of a woman’s throat, and the sound came from a place only a few feet away from where Leonardo encapsulated Stella in his arms. He glanced worriedly at Stella. She was so new to him. He didn’t know the boundaries of her sensibilities yet, and he didn’t want their interruption to be the end of their kiss. He could live with it being a pause with a continuation to come, but if he had to wait another two weeks before having her in his arms again, he’d have half his staff fired out of the sheer frustration.

Stella gasped and looked over her shoulder at the stern shopkeeper, but then buried her face in Leonardo’s shoulder in a fit of giggles that soon erupted into full blown laughter. Going off balance, she pulled them to the floor in a tangle of limbs and Leonardo was helpless to do anything but watch the very annoyed shopkeeper stomp away. Gazing down at Stella beneath him, though, he knew that any slight was worth it. And when he leaned down over Stella, giving her his weight and taking her in another kiss, all of her giggles were gone.