“Why didn’t she give me more time?” Gianpierre said to himself as he hurried through the apartment picking up discarded clothes and tidied stacks of paper. He’d gotten a call from Luciana only minutes ago that she was nearby and on her way over. He didn’t know why he should care what his place looked like when Luciana arrived—after all it was still his place—but he did care. Despite his best efforts to the contrary, the woman mattered to him, and he wanted to make the best impression on her that he could. That she was no one and nothing to him didn’t seem to matter.

As things stood, four days had passed since their kiss and he feared that he’d taken things too far. He needed to know that she didn’t feel taken advantage of. As her employer, he’d had no business kissing Luciana. On top of that, she was still grieving, and her entire financial wellbeing was dependent on him. Too much power over her life was in his hands, and that made for an unfair advantage. He’d seen it more than once, how a man would make a woman dependent on him in order to then bend her to his will through the motivation of desperation. He wanted no part of that way of life or that type of relationship.

“Relationship.” He snorted, amused with himself as he stuffed a large bundle of dirty clothes into the clothes basket. He had no relationship with Luciana. Not now and not ever. Then why did you kiss her?

It wasn’t a question that he got the chance to contemplate before a knock sounded at his door.

“Come!” he called out, not bothering to make the trip to the door. It was unlocked anyway, and besides, this was Luciana’s new home. She simply had not moved in yet—and he had not moved out.

“Is there something I can do for you?” he asked, making his way toward the entryway only to stop in his tracks. Luciana was wearing a simple burgundy tunic dress with a wide, wraparound black belt and had her hair pulled into a messy up-do. The dress reached only halfway down her very long, gorgeous thighs, and the belt gave shape to curves that all her other clothes seemed to try to hide.

It wasn’t fair. She wasn’t supposed to look this good. She was more beautiful than any runway model he’d ever seen, and he’d dated his share. How was he supposed to stop wanting her when she looked like that?

“I can’t date you,” he blurted.

It was Luciana’s turn to stop in her tracks. She opened her mouth only to close it again without actually saying anything.

Gianpierre walked forward slowly, closing half the distance between them. “I can’t want you. It’s not right.”

Luciana nodded agreement but then asked, “Why would it be wrong?” She licked her lips as if remembering the way his mouth had felt on hers.

“Because I’m leaving for Dubai and you are staying here to raise your niece. Our lives, they’re taking different paths. I don’t know when I’ll be coming back. It won’t be soon. After Dubai, there will always be somewhere else.”

Luciana stepped forward, shortening the distance between them even more. “I don’t want you.”

“That’s not what your lips said when you were kissing me in the tunnels,” Gianpierre countered, taking another step forward. They were within arm’s reach of each other now.

Luciana shrugged. “It was an adrenaline kiss. Fight or flight.”

Gianpierre smiled. “Fight or flight… or kiss?”

It was Luciana’s turn to smile, and she took her time at it. First it was only the corners of her mouth that curled up, but then as they got higher, her entire face transformed when her smile reached her eyes. “Fight or flight… or kiss,” she agreed before shifting her attention to her over-the-shoulder spaghetti strap purse. Opening its flap, she pulled out a measuring tape. “I need to measure Natalia’s bedroom. Her mom… Sophia, she got Natalia a full-sized princess bed about a month before… before she died.” Saying the words seemed to hurt her, but she pressed on. “I’m not sure that the ceiling in her room will be high enough. It’s a four-poster bed that arches up into a dome. It’s very high.” Her brows were pinched and she fiddled with the tape measure as she spoke, clearly worried at the outcome. “There’s no way I can ask her to part with it.”

Gianpierre felt like the most selfish man in the world as he stood before Luciana and the ongoing pain of having lost her sister. Not only was she having to deal with the loss of someone dear to her, she was having to deal with the stress of having to rebuild her life and learn how to be a parent. He could not fathom how strong she must be to choose to raise Natalia here in Sicily, in the place the child knew best, rather than take her back to America where life would surely be easier for Luciana.

“Let us find out,” Gianpierre said, gently taking the measuring tape from her grasp and then carefully taking her by the hand. He knew that he was yet again stepping across boundaries that were better not crossed. He was playing with the heart of a woman with a shattered life. Making her think that there could ever be room for her in his life would not be right, and he needed to add some distance to their growing attraction soon. He could feel her loneliness, and he knew he wanted her. His body craved her with a need so powerful that it hurt. But to give in to his want would cause unforgivable damage. He didn’t want a friend or a partner, and she needed both. She was a woman in a strange land with no support system, and anything he offered her would only get in the way of her building the life she needed. It would be like putting a dissolving bandage on a limb that needed a cast. He would cause her more harm than good.

Yet, the fit of her hand inside of his was perfect, and once they’d reached the bedroom that Luciana indicated was to be Natalia’s, he found that he did not want to let her go. But he did. He made himself.

Turning his back so that he would not have to torture himself by looking at her, he asked, “How tall is the bed at its highest point?” He walked toward the bedroom’s far wall as he pulled the winding measuring tape out of its casing.

“Fifteen feet.”

Gianpierre gave a low whistle. That was tall. Glancing up at the ceiling, he was sure that it was too tall, but he would measure so that Luciana could see the same.

With mixed feelings, Gianpierre pushed the end of the stiff, aluminum tape up the wall to the ceiling before extending its length down to the floor. Kneeling, he checked the tape’s reading. “Fourteen feet,” he said and then stayed in place as he looked over his shoulder at Luciana. Stepping forward, she knelt down to read the results herself.

That was when the fight seemed to leave her. She hung her head. Her shoulders drooped and her whole body slumped. “It’s all too much,” she said. “It’s not going to work. None of it’s going to work.”

Gianpierre was pretty sure that she was not talking about just the princess bed. Letting the spring-rolled measuring tape slip back inside its casing, Gianpierre shifted from kneeling to sitting and pulled Luciana down next to him. She didn’t fight it, and instead gave in to leaning against his side and resting her head on his shoulder.

“I can’t do it,” Luciana said. “I’m going to fail miserably as a mother. Sophia was so good at it. She was a natural. Natalia deserves so much better than me.”

Gianpierre remembered the way the little girl had looked at Luciana. Her eyes had been sad, but there had been adoration in the way she had looked at Luciana. “The little girl loves you,” he reassured her. “You’re her world now.”

“But I’m not enough,” Luciana lamented. She lifted her head from Gianpierre’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “Before losing Sophia, my biggest worry had been what I should wear out at the clubs or whether or not I should let a man take me out to dinner or brunch for a first date. If I wanted to sleep, I slept. If I wanted to stay out all night, I did. If I wanted popcorn for dinner, I had popcorn.” She shook her head. “I’m not the motherly kind.”

“If that’s true, you’re doing a great job of fooling Natalia. She loves you. It’s all over her face every time she looks at you.” It was true. Gianpierre would never have been able to guess that Natalia wasn’t Luciana’s own if he hadn’t already known. He would have only seen a beautiful mother with her beautiful daughter, and he knew that as Natalia grew and they moved through life together, that was exactly what the rest of the world would see when it looked at them. Whether she felt like it or not, Luciana was now Natalia’s mother. She was the little girl’s foundation. “You’re going to be okay,” he said and kissed the top of Luciana’s head. Her hair was silky and smelled like lilacs, and the curve of her hip beneath his hand made him want to pull her into his lap so that he could hold her tight and never let her go. You’ll ruin her, he reminded himself. A woman with a shattered life didn’t need a man to drift in and out of it, leaving her to pick up all the pieces before, during and after. He fixed buildings, not people.

Luciana lifted her face to look at him. “Would you stay with us?”

“What?” All the thoughts in Gianpierre’s head came to a screeching halt.

“Would you stay with us, here, in the apartment? I mean, just until the job is done and you leave for Dubai? Sophia’s place sold this morning and they want us out soon, which means we’ll need to move in here sooner than I thought. I’d thought we’d be able to wait until you’d moved on. I don’t feel right kicking you out of your home.”

A disorienting jolt hit Gianpierre as his eyes scanned the room. He’d had this bedroom set up for guests and used the third bedroom for his office. It finally sunk in; he was going to have to leave his home. He’d refused to think of the apartment as his home, but that’s exactly what it had been for ten years. During his travels, every time he found some antique map that he wanted to add to his collection, he’d had it mailed back here. Every time he’d envisioned where he’d put some newly found treasure, it had been here that his mind had gone.

He thought of Natalia’s bed and how it was too tall for the room. Luciana had said that there was no way that she would make Natalia give it up. Since the bed didn’t fit, maybe Luciana would change her mind and continue her search for the perfect place somewhere else. Then, he could go back to Signora Rizzo with a clear conscience and buy the place after all.

Instead, the words that came out of his mouth were, “Se, I can stay, but only if I pay rent.”

“No.” Luciana shook her head. “I couldn’t ask that.”

“I insist. It is the only way.” He waited for Luciana’s answer. She hesitated, and then nodded her head yes. Relief filled Gianpierre. He couldn’t bear the thought of being a squatter in what was now her home. He smiled and said, “And, if you want, I can make a modification to your niece’s bed. I can cut some of the height from the corner posts so that the canopy will fit the room.”

Before he could stop her, Luciana stretched up to capture his lips in a kiss as she slid a hand behind his neck, but she broke the kiss just as fast, leaving him stunned and speechless. He wanted more. He needed the sweet ambrosia of her lips on his again but the sound of her phone buzzing pulled her away. She answered it, said her greetings, and then, “Yes, yes. I’m on my way,” as she climbed to her feet.

Gianpierre watched her leave his home as easily as she’d walked into it, leaving him feeling shattered and incomplete, and he wondered how such a shift could have happened. He was the one with his life together and his path on course, and she was simply making things up as she went along, winging it.

Yet it was him who was left undone by her.