The Billionaire Who Never Forgot Her

1

GAbrIELA DUARTE

The Palazzo delle Rose looked too beautiful to be dying.

From the back seat, I watched the palazzo come into view between the cypresses, its honey-colored facade set against the metallic blue of Lake Como.

At that distance, no one would notice the roof tiles that had slipped out of place, the cracks beneath the plaster, or the damp eating into the third-floor frescoes.

All they would see were three rows of tall windows, balconies with delicate ironwork, and a stairway descending to the water in a series of landings.

Tourists sighed over places like this. Restorers lost sleep over them. I’d been losing mine for weeks.

“Signorina Duarte?” the driver said, gesturing toward the open gate. “We’re here.”

I closed the folder on my lap before he could spot the photograph tucked among the reports.

My father was smiling in front of this very palazzo, eighteen years younger, a measuring tape around his neck and one arm across Luca Bellandi’s shoulders.

To Augusto, it had been the project that changed everything.

For me, it might be the one that saved what little remained.

I tucked the photograph away, smoothed my linen pants, and got out. The air smelled of rain, wet stone, and crushed leaves. Men carried scaffolding across the courtyard. Near the east wing, a forklift was unloading crates. So much for the formal welcome the Milan office had promised.

I’d been here with my father once, when I was eight. I remembered it in fragments: a lake that seemed bigger than the sea, my footsteps echoing down a cold hallway, his hand around mine as he explained that an old wall was a kind of witness.

“A witness to what?” I’d asked.

“To everything people try to forget.”

I’d thought he meant kings and wars and balls. It wasn’t until he died that I understood the smaller, crueler stories buildings kept: unpaid bills on a desk, medicine hidden in a drawer, the silence of a man too proud to tell his daughter that the family business was failing as surely as his body.

The Duarte firm owed more than it was worth.

Two major clients had left while my father was ill.

A partner he’d trusted had walked away with contracts and employees.

I’d sold my father’s apartment in Lisbon and cut back my staff, yet some nights I still woke before dawn, counting the months until I would have to close the doors.

The Palazzo could do more than make my name.

It was my last chance to keep someone from taking the Duarte name off the door.

I preferred construction sites to conference rooms. Give me a crack, and at least I knew where to start.

A woman with her hair in a tight bun came toward me, consulting a tablet.

“Gabriela Duarte?”

“Yes.”

“Paola Ricci. I coordinate operations here. We were expecting the architect in charge.”

She paused. Only briefly, but I caught it. Then she glanced past me, as though a distinguished man with gray hair might still emerge from the car.

I knew that look. I’d learned to recognize it before I even finished my master’s degree: too young, too female, too Brazilian to lead an eighty-million-euro restoration.

“You’ve found her,” I said, offering my hand.

Paola gave my hand a brisk shake, apparently still deciding whether I was joking.

“Mr. Bellandi has asked the core team to meet in the north gallery. The schedule’s changed.”

My heart gave one hard thud.

“Lorenzo Bellandi?”

“Luca Bellandi.”

For a moment, the courtyard seemed to go quiet.

I’d known Luca could turn up. His palazzo, his group, his millions transforming a neglected family property into the most exclusive hotel in Europe.

But for two months, I’d dealt only with executives, lawyers, and his brother.

His office had assured me that the president would be following the project from London.

I’d been ready to face the Bellandi name. Not Luca himself.

“Is there a problem?” Paola asked.

“No.”

At least my voice didn’t falter on the lie.

I handed my suitcase to a member of staff and followed Paola inside.

The entrance hall was draped in protective sheeting, but the marble floor still caught the light like water.

Two rose-colored columns held up a dome painted with angels and rosebushes. I slowed down despite myself.

Near the base of one column, a worker was scraping away a strip of newer paint. He was pressing too hard. I was already walking over when it occurred to me that I hadn’t even been introduced to the crew.

“Excuse me,” I said in Italian. “Hold the blade a little flatter. There’s a marbled finish underneath.”

He looked skeptical, but he adjusted the scraper. A pink vein appeared beneath the thin gray layer.

“How did you know?”

“My father found the same finish on the opposite column.”

I moved on before the memory could hurt any more. Even with Augusto gone, the palazzo was still speaking to him. Now I had to show that I’d learned to listen.

As a child, I’d seen my father’s drawings of that ceiling. He’d told me about the Bellandis trying to cover the angels during the war with a mixture that nearly destroyed the painting. Years later, he and a stubborn Italian businessman had spent four nights taking it off, one centimeter at a time.

That businessman had been twenty-six. Handsome, impatient, ambitious enough to turn his family’s small hotel into an empire.

Luca visited our house often after that, first as Augusto’s business partner, then as his friend.

My scattered memories of him were all dark suits, phone calls in Italian, and gifts from cities I knew only from maps.

At seventeen, I made the mistake of falling in love with him.

At twenty-six, I should have been over it.

A dozen people stood around a table covered in plans in the north gallery. I recognized engineers, heritage officials, executives I’d met on video calls. Not one of them noticed me come in. They were all watching the man with his back to the door.

Luca looked taller than I remembered. Impossible, of course.

His gray jacket fit closely across his broad shoulders; there was silver in the dark hair at his temples.

With one hand on the table, he questioned the structural engineer in low, cutting Italian.

He didn’t have to raise his voice. People leaned closer to hear him.

I hated that my body recognized him before my mind could catch up. The tightness in my stomach. The heat creeping up my neck. That ridiculous memory of a birthday when he’d kissed my forehead and called me little Gabi.

Then Luca turned. His gray eyes passed over me, returned, and narrowed.

For a second, his composure slipped. Surprise, certainly. Perhaps recognition. I wasn’t foolish enough to call it desire when it was probably just shock.

“Gabriela?”

Everyone turned to look at me.

“Mr. Bellandi.”

Luca walked around the table. At forty-four, he was as imposing as ever. His face had grown sterner, which only made it more interesting: a firm jaw, a straight nose, fine lines around the eyes of a man who rarely smiled and missed very little. He stopped in front of me.

“What are you doing here?”

Not the greeting I’d hoped for. Perhaps I should have known better.

“I’m here to work.”

“On the palazzo?”

“I was hired to restore it. I’d hate to think I had the wrong address.”

Paola coughed behind me. One of the engineers pretended to study the plans. Luca didn’t smile.

“I was told the Duarte firm was sending its lead architect.”

“I’m the lead architect.”

He studied my face as if trying to find the teenager he remembered.

“You’re an architect.”

“Have been for almost four years.”

“And your specialty is conservation?”

“Master’s in Lisbon. Additional training in Florence. Twenty-two completed projects. It’s all in the proposal your team approved.”

“How big?”

He knew exactly where to hit. None of my projects had been this big. None with eighty million euros at stake, international investors, or an opening announced for the end of summer. I held his gaze.

“Big enough to know when a reckless schedule is damaging a building.”

The silence went from uncomfortable to dangerous. Luca tilted his head a fraction.

“You just got here.”

“I’ve been studying this building for two months.”

“In photographs.”

“Scans, assessments, samples, reports. And yes, photographs. The cracks in the west wing have changed. You can see it in the pictures, but the latest measurements don’t show it.”

The structural engineer looked up. I opened my folder and laid three sheets on the table. I’d planned to inspect the site before presenting my findings. But Luca had chosen to challenge my qualifications in front of everyone. If he wanted answers, he was going to get them.

“These were taken eight weeks apart,” I said. “The crack has spread past the reference mark. The latest report gives the same measurements as the first one, with no explanation for the change. We need to check those points ourselves before we add any load.”

Luca examined the pages without touching them.

“Carlo?”

The engineer came closer.

“Photographs can be deceptive, depending on the angle,” Carlo said.

“Yes. That’s why I asked for it to be checked. But the damp patch beside the main beam’s bearing point has grown too. Put the stone tubs in before we’ve assessed that beam, and we could make an existing structural problem worse.”

Carlo flushed.

“You haven’t inspected the beam.”

“Not yet. I’m asking to inspect it before the tubs go in.”

Luca looked up at me again. This time there was more than recognition in his eyes. Irritation, certainly. But he was watching me so intently I could almost feel it.

“Stop the installation in the west wing,” he ordered.

“Mr. Bellandi,” Carlo protested, “the schedule—”

“We’ll revise it after the inspection. If Ms. Duarte is wrong, we’ve lost a morning. If she’s right, she’s just saved us from losing an entire wing.”

I should have felt victorious. Instead, I found myself wanting his approval all over again—and furious that I still wanted it. Luca picked up the sheets.

“We’re done here. Carlo, make sure we can get into every part of the west wing. Paola, I need to speak to Ms. Duarte alone.”

They left far too quickly. Once the door shut, the gallery felt smaller. Luca went to a window and looked out at the lake.

“Did you and your father ever discuss you taking on a job this size?”

The question hit me in the chest.

“My father died three years ago, Luca. I can’t keep waiting for him to tell me what to do.”

“I know. I also know what this place meant to him.”

“That’s why I took the job.”

“You took it because you’re in debt.”

I stiffened.

He turned. Here was the man who’d missed my father’s funeral because he was tied up in a deal in Dubai. And here was the president of a conglomerate that checked out every supplier before signing a contract.

“Needing the work doesn’t mean I can’t do it.”

“I’m not questioning your talent.”

“You just did. In front of the entire team.”

“I’m questioning whether you have the experience for a job this big.”

“Because I’m young, or because I’m your friend’s daughter?”

His jaw tightened.

“Both.”

I would have preferred an excuse. The truth hurt worse.

“Since my father died, I’ve been making my own decisions. You don’t get a say in them.”

“I’m not trying to make them for you.”

“Then stop looking at me as if I’m still seventeen.”

Something flickered across Luca’s face, so quickly I might have imagined it. He glanced at my mouth, then met my eyes again. The air between us seemed to thicken.

“Believe me,” he said, his voice lower, “that isn’t the problem.”

I held my breath. Before I could work out what he meant, Luca moved away and gathered the documents, taking far too much care to line up the edges.

“The contract allows the group to replace the lead architect within the first thirty days.”

“I know the contract.”

“Good. Then you know I don’t have to justify the decision.”

It took me a moment to understand.

“What decision?”

He held my gaze. I couldn’t find a trace of the man who’d kissed my forehead or brought me books on my birthdays, the man standing beside Augusto in the photograph in my folder. This was a billionaire used to getting obstacles out of his way.

“You’re not leading this restoration, Gabriela. I’ll find someone with the experience to replace you.”