Bella Signorina
Set in Rome, Bella
Signorina is a sweet, romantic story of two people who meet in a trendy
caffè, and through the magic of dance and music discover they have many things
in common. Bianca comes to Caffè Rosati every week, and for many weeks she's
been watching a special man, a handsome, charming stranger who dances, flirts,
and leaves alone each week. Bianca is a woman who enjoys her freedom, and has
been hurt before, so she's not anxious to fall in love again. Something about
the enigmatic Stefano has captivated her heart, though, and she is drawn to him
in spite of herself. When she finally gathers her courage to approach him, and
ask him to dance, little does she know that her entire world is about to change.
Stefano Esposito is a
man who's past relationships have not left him much in the way of ideals about
women. Many have claimed to love him, none have understood him. Stefano is a
rare breed in today's world of fast-paced life and love. He is a gentleman, a
man who many consider a little out of step with the times. For Stefano, falling
in love is the completion of a soul, not the consummation of a sexual itch. He
wants the woman in his life to respect, understand, and adore him, as he will
her. When he meets Bianca, he wonders if he's finally found the one he's waited
a lifetime for? She understands his internal conflicts, his desires, and his
dreams, after only hours together.
When their attraction
to each other flares too quickly and too intently, Stefano pulls back. Confused
and uncertain, Bianca flees his beautiful home and business, and goes back to
her busy life. But, once the dance has begun, is there a way to go back to what
you knew before, or is it just a matter of time before the music lures you back
to your dreams and, perhaps, makes them reality?
Exclusive excerpt:
Stefano kept a close eye on the
pretty dancer even as he walked to the small caffè. She was lovely, and
he’d seen her many times, always enchanted by her presence, but never inclined
to find out if the outward beauty was all there was to her. If she was another
vain and brainless girl, he didn’t want his illusion shattered. The romanticism
of the thought made him smile. He wasn’t as jaded as he pretended to be if he
was still protecting his heart with illusions.
Less than fifteen minutes after he’d
left her, he rejoined her and handed her a steaming cup of coffee.
“It’s so different here at night,”
Bianca noted, her eyes scanning the area. In a matter of hours, thousands of
people would begin their daily movements, passing over the steps, not noticing
anything but the need to be wherever they were headed. “There’s peace here
now.”
“Is that why you dance, to find
peace?”
She sipped her coffee and considered
an answer. When it came, it surprised him.
“The music is freedom, and the
motion is passion. Sometimes the only passion that matters.”
“All passion matters, bella,”
he commented. “It’s what gives us life.”
“Or burns it out of us.”
He turned on the steps, faced her
fully. Then he touched her chin and made her look at him.
“Who abused your love so fully that
you can believe that?”
“People destroy each other for
love,” she replied after a lengthy pause.
Stefano shook his head. “Love is the
only gift there is worth having, Signorina. It’s what men live and die
for.”
“Who are you, Signor?”
He was startled again, twice in less
than five minutes.
“Would you like to walk?”
She laughed in the growing darkness,
and Stefano felt it ripple the length of his spine, as though cool, flawless
silk had glided over him.
“Where are we to go, Stefano?”
“I think you’ll like the place,” he
observed, with a hint of irony texturing the subtle undertone of his voice.
She eyed him for a few timeless
moments, then nodded and rose.
He smiled when she offered her hand,
and he curled his fingers around hers in a loose, but firm grip.
“So, is there a wife hidden
somewhere?”
He laughed. “No. What about you? A
husband who will come looking for me before dawn?”
She shook her head and sipped her
coffee. “How does a man with so much passion not have the woman of his dreams
in his arms every night?”
“I could ask you the same question,”
he pointed out. “Why are you alone?”
Her laughter washed over him again
and she stopped walking to look up at him. “No one I’ve met has inspired the
things I need to feel.” She shrugged. "I've been too honest with too many,
and it scares them away."
For a moment he said nothing,
weighing her surprising confession. “What do you need?”
“To be respected for who I am, what
makes me unique.” She tilted her head to one side and held his level gaze. “I
need to be given all the things I’m expected to provide, and that seems to be
something quite beyond many men. Real men, who understand the value of a smart
woman, also see that her beauty is in her wisdom, and her spirit.”
“And her ability to be all things
without effort, because she is all things naturally,” he concluded, genuinely
pleased at the startled flicker of surprise his words lit in her eyes. “We’re
here,” he announced, indicating the building they’d reached.
She looked up, and her smile was
radiant in the soft glow of the nearby streetlight. “La Galleria d'arte di Idillio,” she
murmured. “I love this place.”
“It’s mine,” he
told her as he dug out the key that would unlock the doors to the small
gallery.
“Yours?”
There was enough
real shock in her voice to make him stop as he held the door for her to go
inside. “Why does that surprise you so much?”
“I’ve come here a
number of times, and I’ve never seen you,” she replied, once he’d locked the
doors and turned on the lights.
“I’ve never seen
you,” he noted. “Except at the
caffè.”
“I’ve always felt
this place was a tribute to love, and romance.”
“It is. My father
began the collection for my mother.”
“Your father was a romantic?”
“My father was a gentleman, in the
truest sense of that word,” Stefano said with a familiar sense of loneliness
and pride combined. “He lived la dolce vita,” he smiled, “with the
passion of a man who loved all life had to offer him, good and bad.”
“He’s gone?”
A curt nod was all he could offer
without revealing how deeply the loss still affected him. He set his coffee on
the reception desk, hung his jacket on a rack then did the same with Bianca’s
things. Then he took her arm and led her to a small area that had been his work
for the past year.
“This is my latest addition to the
collection.”
Bianca wandered the area, studying
the beautiful collection of photographs. Each one was in a different area of Italy , and the
women smiling and lovely, but each one as unique as her surroundings.
“What do you see?”
“Beauty. Romance.” Bianca stared at
the photographs for a few moments longer, considering them with serious
thought, then turned to face him. “In every photograph, they are not looking at
you, but at the camera. They’re seeing the opportunity, but not your reason for
wanting them.”
Something fluttered against
Stefano’s chest from the inside, an excitement he hadn’t felt in a very long
time. He let his gaze drift, cataloguing the woman in front of him. Standing
next to him the top her head was at his chin. She had long, waving hair, dark
brown with a distinct tint that caught the glow from the lights and turned her
thick mane into a mass of warm, burnished auburn. She had eyes that resembled
Chinese jade, and a wide, full mouth that curved upward, as though a secret hid
behind her smile. She was curvaceous and feminine, effortlessly graceful, and
with minimal makeup, appeared very much without artifice of any kind.
“What is my reason for wanting
them?” He forced his tone to calm and curious, sincerely interested in her
reply, but also caught in the spell she was exerting. Part of his mind was
still watching her, measuring the emotion and internal workings of her mind as
she analyzed his photographs with real interest. Her teal-colored dress was
simple in design, flared skirt unevenly cut at the hem, swirling around her
shapely legs as she walked, pausing often to peer intently at the images on the
walls. The upper half of the dress clung to luscious contours, and the silver
crucifix, her only jewelry, drew his eyes to the shadow between her breasts. He
wanted very much to touch her, and instead stuffed his hands into his pockets
and went to join her as she stopped at one of the last photos, then looked at
him over her shoulder.
“She loved you.”
“So she said.”
“You didn’t love her?”
“Not the way she thought I should.”
“You wanted love from every woman
here, yet not one of them saw who you really are,” she observed softly, sadness
evident in her tone.
His eyebrow rose. “Who do you think
I am, bella?”
“How honest do you think I should
be?”
“I admire honesty, Signorina,”
he told her. “I respect the courage it takes to offer it to anyone.”
“But do you respect it if the object
of discussion is you?”
“Now you’re beginning to worry me,”
he teased with a smile. He was fascinated by her intelligence and her insight.
She looked past his appearance and his presence to probe his secrets, and
whatever she was seeing made her even more alluring to him.
Want to know more? The dance is only beginning for Bianca
and Stefano, drop by Eirelander Publishing and indulge the fantasy more…
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