And I would have Gia by my side. She would be mine.
I had to watch my step on this visit, though. Leo would be watching me like a hawk to make sure Gia married a man who would be worthy of her and who would shepherd Don Alonzo’s empire into the future. Leo wouldn’t let me near Gia unless he knew I could do the job.
The chauffeur started unloading my luggage from the limo. I jumped when the house door opened. Leo strode down the steps.
He held out his hand to me, and his face lit up with a big grin. “Cesare—welcome! It’s such a pleasure. Come inside, and I’ll introduce you to…”
Gia pushed past him and shoved between me and Leo. “You don’t have to be so formal, Leo. Cesare and I don’t need to be introduced. We already know each other.” She looked up at me, and her eyes blazed with incredible light. “Hi.”
My cheeks flushed with heat. “Hi.”
She slipped her hand through my arm and pulled me toward the house. “So, how long are you staying? You’re staying on the third floor. You’ve been there before, so you don’t really need the grand tour, do you?”
I couldn’t stop grinning at her. She looked amazing—so much better than at the funeral. A cloud still hung over her there. Now, she radiated light and happiness and… something else. “You could give me the grand tour. I’d love that.”
She exploded into an even more magnificent smile, but before we could go anywhere, Leo dodged in front of us. “Hold it, Princess. This is official family business. We need to go through the proper protocols to make sure Cesare doesn’t slip through the cracks.”
“Cesare isn’t going to slip through any cracks.” She rolled her eyes at me.
“Not unless you want me to,” I added, and she laughed. That laugh gave me the thrill of my life. I could still make her laugh.
“You have to forgive Leo,” she told me. “He likes to dot his I’s and cross his T’s.”
“Who doesn’t?” I asked, and she laughed again.
I couldn’t help grinning back at her. She made me so damn happy. Could I really be looking at the next fifty years of my life right here in front of me? She was a thousand times the woman I thought she was.
“Excuse me for interrupting this reunion, Princess,” Leo interrupted, “but there is a certain amount of formality we have to observe. For a start, we need to contact his father and let him know Cesare’s here.”
“You can do that,” Gia told him. “Cesare just drove across town. It isn’t like he took a transatlantic flight and might have crashed on a desert island.”
I laughed and immediately stopped when Leo scowled at me, but Gia barely noticed. “We can skip the formalities, at least until later. Come on, Cesare. Let’s go for a walk, just you and me. Your man can take your luggage up to your room. Leo will show him where it is.”
She drew me away into the grounds and left Leo behind. I got so consumed with looking at her that I didn’t see whether he was mad at me or not. I didn’t want to know.
Gia kept grinning at me with that intoxicating wickedness. Were those mischievous looks suggesting something?
She towed me by the arm to the path through the rose garden, and a second later, the driveway vanished behind the hedges. We were alone. We might as well be on the moon.
Her hand on my arm sent electric thrills through me. The glint in her eye whispered so many suggestive hints that I felt myself starting to spiral off the deep end. She couldn’t really be trying to imply anything, could she?
She turned into the trees beyond the hedges. The leafy canopy shaded the grounds in this part of the estate. The stone wall separated the Leones’ domain from the rest of New York.
She let her hand slip off my arm. She kept smiling up at me in such obvious delight that I took her hand in mine without even thinking about it first.
Her eyes widened in surprise, but she didn’t pull away. She squeezed my hand tighter. She liked it. My heart turned over again. This first meeting was going so much better than I hoped.
“So…” she began. “How was your flight?”
I laughed. “It was exhausting.”
She laughed back. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah… The delays at the airport were hell, and the plane from Paris had mechanical trouble so we sat on the runway for hours while they repaired it. I was really worried we wouldn’t make it to JFK at all.”
She beamed at me. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
“Yeah.” I pulled her to a halt under the trees. “Me too.”