Page 132 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

Unwrapping His Forbidden Assistant

Lorraine Hall

For all my Christmas angels

CHAPTER ONE

AmeliaBaresiwasn’tafraid of a good cry. In fact, she rather welcomed it. Especially when it pertained to her late father. Crying was an expression of grief, grief an expression of love and time lost. She held these things close to her heart.

Discovering her father’s old journals from before she had come to live with him had caused a lot of tears, a lot of grief, but also a wonderful sort of connection to the father she’d lost in a terrible plane crash two years ago.

His journals began when he started his work with the Follieros as a young man, and she’d been following his journey, from scrabbling his way out of poverty with a mix of luck, timing and tenacity to revered personal assistant to the Folliero heir, Diego.

Every night, she curled up in bed and read a few entries about her father’s life, carefully doling out pages so each night felt like some part of Bartolo Baresi was still with her.

She liked the symmetry of it, even if it was based on tragedy. Every day, she worked as Diego Folliero’s assistant, living in the Folliero Castello di Natale, and every night she read about her father having done the same.

Amelia was not a stranger to tragedy. She had been raised by her mother in London for eleven years, before her mother became sick and finally admitted to Amelia that her father did not know she existed. In the final months of her mother’s life, Alice had made strides and amends to track down her father.

Bartolo had been shocked, and no doubt there had been anger and bitterness there toward her mother for keeping Amelia a secret, but he had accepted his daughter with open arms. When her mother died, he’d brought Amelia to the Italian Alps and Castello di Natale, and raised a twelve-year-old girl as best he could. He’d even made his home base the castello, doing his work for the world-gallivanting Diego in one place as often as he could.

Then, ten years after her mother passed, he too had died, leaving Amelia an adult orphan, with absolutely no idea how she would move through the world on her own.

She had had her first real conversation with Diego at the funeral, since he almost never spent any time at the castello, no matter how often his parents tried to get him to.

Even at twenty-two, and mired in her grief and aloneness, Amelia had known he didn’t want to be there.

But he’d come, expressed his regrets and offered her a job.

She’d taken it, a lifeline. She didn’t need the job, per se. Her father had been frugal with his money and—with the Follieros’ advisement no doubt—made sure the money was in places that passed directly to her without much interference.

But the job offer had been a chance to hold on to her father a little longer. It was the only thing she knew for sure she could do in that moment. Step into his shoes. Do what he would want her to do.

Two years later, she thought she’d done an excellent job, even if she knew Diego mainly kept employing her because of guilt…or whatever it was he felt. Still, she’d been able to stay at the castello—since closed to all and sundry except staff—and build herself into Diego’s formidable public face, since he’d become a recluse high on his mountain.

It was her curiosity about that, she supposed, that kept her reading her father’s journals through Bartolo finding out about her existence, then trying to raise a teenage girl while doing his job, because he also often wrote about Diego.

Father had been Diego’s assistant, but Amelia could tell from his writings that he’d viewed Diego as something like a ward, though he’d only been about ten years older than Diego himself.

Amelia liked to believe that Diego offering her the assistant position meant he’d viewed her father in a similarly positive light.

That was the kind of man her father was. A caretaker. And that was the kind of woman he had wanted her to be—thoughtful and caring. He’d raised her to be aware of all the ways she was fortunate and help those who were less so. And he’d never just meant monetarily.

Though she’d never dreamed of being someone’s personal assistant, she’d found she enjoyed the role, knowing each day she was doing something that would make her father proud.

But she’d enjoy it more if she could understand her hermit boss. She’d given Diego his space at first because he’d been mired in grief as well—he’d lost both parents and his sister in one fell, unfair swoop in the same plane crash. But it had been two years now, and still he lived in his horrible little cabin far away from civilization, only communicating via email and very occasionally a phone call, expecting Amelia to handle whatever needed to be done face-to-face.

She wondered what her father would have done in her position. She tried to consider that in all things, but this one especially. She searched for answers in his journals. Then, one cold late-November night, curled in bed in the castello, fire crackling in her bedroom’s fireplace, Amelia finally read the entry that gave her an idea.

Diego is a troubled soul, but there is a good man under there. If only he’d find the humility to develop it. In some ways, he reminds me of myself. In some ways, it has healed me to watch his parents misunderstand him as mine understood me, spoil him as mine did not.

He will be a good man someday. I wish I could convince him of that.

A good man. She dealt with a stern, taciturn, grumpy man—via email and texts mostly. She had never considered Diego good or evil. Honestly, he was more of a robot overlord to her than anything else.

But her father had thought he would be a good man someday. Her father had wished this.

And suddenly, Amelia knew what she would accomplish this holiday season. Another way to keep her father right here with her.