Nicolo Romano held his hand against his abdomen as he flicked a glance over his shoulder. He was surprised to find that there was no one standing behind him.

Turning to face forward, he took in the spirited woman before him. He’d been directed to her office to discuss the sale of the long-abandoned resort recently inherited by him and his brothers. Yet upon his arrival Ms. Peluso’s face flooded with color. Its hot pink blush did nothing to hide her beauty. Her petite build was slender but had all the curves of a woman. Her light brown hair was streaked with gold, and her pencil skirt showed off just enough of her supple legs to make Nicolo’s hands crave to trace over them. Even at a glance he could tell that she had a fiery soul that only the luckiest of men would get the chance to try to tame.

“I am sorry,” Nicolo said, putting a hand over his chest. “Perhaps you have me mistaken for another. I am Nicolo—”

“Oh, I know who you are. Nicolo Romano, the new owner of the Romano del Mare.”

He knew her name to be Adeline Peluso from the sign on her office door. It was a good Sicilian name, yet while she looked Sicilian to his eyes, she did not sound Sicilian to his ears.

“I am sorry. Have I done something to offend?” This was not the reception he had anticipated. He’d been assured that Ms. Peluso was the very best that the agency had to offer, and while the resort was now dilapidated, its sale would still make any agent who handled the transaction a lot of money.

“Sit,” Adeline instructed, pointing to a richly upholstered armless chair sitting before her desk.

While not used to taking orders from women, beautiful or otherwise, Nicolo was intrigued by what she’d have to say, and this was after all her office. So he sat. Unbuttoning his coat jacket with one hand, he crossed his legs and cupped his palms over his knee.

“Mr. Romano, as I’m sure you know, the Romano del Mare is in terrible disrepair,” Adeline said as she made her way around the room. She fetched a binder from an antique shelf and placed it atop the desk before continuing her search through an assortment of other items. Her scavenger hunt finally seemed to come to an end when she retrieved a small, dusty tin off the top of a curio. She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach it and stretch to her lithe body’s maximum length. Romano knew that he should offer his assistance, but he was enjoying the view so much that he kept his mouth closed and stayed seated where she’d put him.

“Ms. Peluso, you’re not telling me anything that I do not know.”

“Well, did you know that I have been sending you emails with projections and estimates for the last eight months regarding its renovation?” Adeline asked from where she stood facing him with the small tin in her hands. All her weight was on one leg with her other lovely leg extended to the side, and Nicolo’s mind flashed to an image of her delicate ankle held in his hand as he kissed his way up.

I must be overdue for a lover. I am acting like a school boy, Nicolo chided himself. At 29, his school days were long behind him and now he was an internationally respected real estate developer. He had been to the Romano del Mare, the resort that his grandfather had inherited from his grandfather’s grandfather. He knew its history, and he also knew the sad state that it was now in. Not only was it in horrible disrepair, it also required extensive modernizing in order to meet the expectations of today’s vacationer. The resort, in his very knowledgeable opinion, needed to be destroyed. There was no saving it.

“Ms. Peluso, I apologize. I never received your correspondence.”

Adeline gave Nicolo an are-you-kidding-me look.

Nicolo bravely continued. “My assistant weeds out… I mean to say, my assistant only forwards on to me correspondence that is actionable and business related.”

Adeline’s expression transformed into something much less polite than what it had been a moment ago, and Nicolo glanced out her office door to see if anyone else was around. If she happened to start throwing things at him, he hoped that there would be someone else who could intervene so that he would not be forced to restrain a woman he had only just met.

“Business…” Adeline said, visibly struggling to regulate the tone of her voice. “Mr. Romano, I assure you, this is all about business.” Picking the heavy binder up off her desk, she plopped it onto Nicolo’s lap. “That binder contains the projected estimates of what it would take to return the Romano del Mare back to how it was in its glory days.”

Nicolo kept his gaze lifted to watch Adeline and did nothing to open the binder on his lap. Her face tightened in confusion, and the most adorable pinched line appeared between her brows. He wanted to kiss it.

“Mr. Romano,” Adeline prompted with a wave of her hand at the binder in his lap.

Still, Nicolo did not open it. “I’m well aware of the financials regarding the Romano del Mare. I know that it has millions of euros worth of fines levied against it since having fallen into disuse. The property is now owned by myself and my brothers,” he said, speaking in a slow, measured tone in hopes that it would give his words more weight, “and we believe that it is in our best interest to sell the property and pay off the fines. If we attempted to renovate the property instead of selling it, we would be faced with the burden of those fines as well as the cost of the renovation. The math does not support renovating the property, Ms. Peluso.” He held the unopened binder out in invitation for her to take it back. She did not comply.

“Mr. Romano.” As Adeline said his name, her entire body softened and her once-tart voice grew silky and fluid. She moved to him and knelt before him in one easy motion.

Nicolo blinked. He had never been disarmed in a fight so easily by anyone. From where she knelt, staring up at him with her beautiful, imploring eyes, it was all that he could do not to throw the binder to the side, slide his hand behind her neck to cup her head, and pull her in for a kiss. “Yes?” he asked. The sound of his name on her lips was undoing him.

“Look,” she said, and flipped the cover of the binder open.

Doing as she’d bid, Nicolo looked down, then he blinked again. “These numbers can’t be accurate.” It was a comprehensive list of renovations needed by the Romano del Mare to make it a commercially viable property once again, plus the quotes of contractors willing to do the jobs. The quotes were way too low. No matter how beautiful Ms. Peluso was, business was business, and Nicolo was not willing to throw good money away just because someone he had never met before and who had no connection with the resort wanted to see it restored.

“They are, I swear. I’ve personally spoken with every contractor on that list. And, look,” she said again, turning several pages in the binder.

Nicolo jerked his head back in surprise at what he saw. “Is this real?”

“It is,” Adeline said, excitement growing in her voice.

Nicolo leaned in, studying the words and watching for signs that they might change of their own accord. What he was reading was simply too unbelievable. “The local council has offered a referendum forgiving some of the fines if we proceed with the restoration? How did you get this?”

“I get the opportunity to work with a large variety of people in my line of work, Mr. Romano,” Adeline said, smiling up at him.

It took a whole heartbeat for Nicolo to regain his resolve, a span of time infinitely longer than any other persuader had ever achieved. “No,” he said, slamming the folder closed, but Adeline had it open again just as fast.

“Look!” she demanded.

With a heavy sigh, he looked back down at the folder, this time to find mockup after mockup of what the resort could look like after the renovations Adeline was suggesting. Seeing it made him pause for a whole three beats of his heart. He did remember the resort in its heyday. He had spent one year there in the care and company of his grandparents, and it had been hands down the best year of his life. Nothing else had ever come close. After that year, it had been back to living off of his mother’s private plane.

His mother was a beautiful woman—very beautiful—and she had built her initial fortune by modeling around the world. She was savvy and shrewd, and she had listened more than talked when on the arm of an important businessman discussing matters with other business moguls. By the time Nicolo had entered her life, she’d had a small fleet of private planes, offering unique and private services to the rich and powerful. She became the hostess who could turn the most tenuous of business meetings into a sure success, and that talent had made her wealthy beyond measure and independent as well. While she had started out as a young Sicilian girl, she’d eventually claimed the world as her home, and she never stopped anywhere long enough for roots to take hold.

It was a lesson that Nicolo had learned well. Like his mother, he never stopped traveling. He didn’t allow the roots of his past to anchor him down, and all new roots were ripped free as soon as he took to the skies again. He needed no one, and he certainly didn’t need the tie to his past that Ms. Peluso was attempting to harness him with. The Romano del Mare was a burden he didn’t want and didn’t need. She would simply have to accept that.

“Ms. Adeline,” Nicolo said, closing the binder. This time when he closed it, he left his hand resting on its top so that Adeline could not throw it open once more. “I appreciate that you are so passionate about my family’s resort. Maybe if it had had someone like you seeing to its care instead of the horrific management company that ran it into bankruptcy, the Romano del Mare would still be the gem of Sicily that it once was. But,”—he shook his head, allowing his personal sadness to show through—“that is not where we are today. I can see it is unlikely that we will be on the same page as to how to proceed with the sale of the resort, and while I have been assured that you are the most capable of handling its sale, I think it is best that I request another agent to manage it.” Adeline’s lips pursed and her eyes narrowed, clearly unhappy.

Nicolo extended a hand to Adeline as an offer to help her stand. To his relief, she accepted by sliding her slender fingers over his palm. Giving in to the risk of offending her, Nicolo leaned forward and kissed her knuckles while he kept his eyes locked with hers. She didn’t quite smile when his lips pressed themselves against her soft flesh, but there was a twinkle in her eye that gave him hope that she might someday see him as something more than a business adversary.

Once Adeline had regained her feet, Nicolo stood as well. Instead of offering the binder to her—thereby giving her the chance to refuse it—he instead placed it upon her desk.

“You can, of course, transfer me off of your service,” Adeline said, “but you must make and follow through on one promise first. After that, if you decide that you still want to work with another agent, I won’t fight you.” Twisting at the waist, she picked up the rectangular tin from the desk. Even though it was small, she held it in both hands as she offered it to him.

There was something in the way she stood and in her expression. It was as if she were giving him the most fragile, precious gift anyone could ever give, and a part of him found it unfathomable to reject it. So, he took the small tin from her hands and held its edge pressed against his chest.

“Don’t look at it now,” Adeline said, taking a fast step away as if to get herself out of arm’s reach so that he would not be able to give the small tin back. “Look at it when you’re in a quiet place, when it’s just you and you can give some time to it.”

There was nothing left to say, and Nicolo knew it. Adeline Peluso had won this battle. He would win the war, though, and he would see the Romano del Mare sold off for eventual demolition. It was a prime location and would be an excellent property for the right developer—but not for him. There were too many memories there. There was nothing he could do with the property besides try to make it into what it once was, but those days were gone.

It was best that he walk away from the best memories of his life, just as it was best that he walk away from the beautiful Adeline Peluso.