Page 136 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

Perhaps if it looked like heenjoyedit. If he smiled, if he seemed comfortable or at ease. But the only thing he reminded Amelia of was a throbbing, raw, open wound, prowling around a cage.

Her father would be appalled. And that was enough to push her into action.

“Well. This has gone on long enough. Far too long, in fact. If you have anything of import, I suggest you pack it. We need to get back down the mountain before the weather turns.”

“I do not know how much clearer I can be. I will not be leaving. I will never step foot in the castello again. These are simple, clear-cut terms. If you cannot take them on board, perhaps you should start looking for a new position.”

A trickle of fear moved down her spine, but she firmed herself against it. She didn’t want a new position. That’s why she’d ensured she was indispensable at this one. So he could not get rid of her. So she would be cut off and alone, just as she’d been when each of her parents died.

Diego and the castello were her last connections to her father, and she had lost all connections to her mother, so she would not lose these.

But ensuring she was indispensable over the past two years meant she hadsomesecurity, because this was a man who prized his privacy above all else, and while she might be invading it right now, anyone who took her place would have to be trained all over again—without the intimate knowledge of the Folliero family.

If he fired her, he would have to find someone to take her place. Something he clearly did not have the capability of doing way up here.

So, one way or another, he’d have to leave this place.

She met his hard, dark gaze. Empty and intimidating. She wouldnotbe intimidated. Not by a man her father thought was good.

“You think you can replace me?” she asked in the blandest, most casual tone she could muster.

His gaze moved over her, a slow, dark tour that made her want to fidget, that caused a strange warmth to creep over her skin.

He said nothing, but she held on to the fact that he did not immediately jump toyesas a good sign.

“You could try to replace me, of course,” she continued when he didn’t speak. “But considering the sheer amount of work I’ve taken on, you wouldn’t be able to train anyone to do what I do, because I’m not sure youknowall that I do. Sacking me would not be the efficient choice.”

“I’m not going down there,” he ground out.

Stubborn. Her father had written at length about the Folliero stubbornness. And the way Bartolo had dealt with it was simply to be immovable in return. So that’s what she’d be.

“Very well.” She aimed a pleasant smile at him. Just because they hadn’t dealt with each other much in person didn’t mean she didn’t know he was stubborn to a fault. Didn’t mean she didn’t deal with all the arrogant, unbending men of his companies.

She knew how to handle thar particular brand of rigidity. With her own pleasant refusal to break.

She lowered herself onto the lone chair, hard and uncomfortable. “I’ll stay.”

Diego did not like the feeling of being speechless. He did not like the feeling of being maneuvered. He did not likefeeling, and she was causing many of those to rumble around inside him like unwieldly ghosts.

She was beautiful. Her blond hair was pulled back in a little twist suitable for an office. She had an angular face that might have been too sharp if her coloring wasn’t so warm. Her eyes were a fascinating shade of blue that leaned into gray. Like a changeable winter sky. She wore trim pants and a sweater the color of plums underneath a fashionably and suitably long coat.

She had the kind of beauty that stirred old impulses he’d long since thought he’d beaten out of himself.

He’d enjoyed women once, and women had quite enjoyed him. Those memories felt like they belonged to someone else. Or had, until Amelia had met his gaze with that unfazed determination. For a moment, the reaction was visceral enough that he almost recognized the man he’d once been.

Almost.

“I do not know what happened for you to think that you are somehow in charge of me, Ms.…” He trailed off. Calling her Baresi reminded him of her father, another death that sat on his shoulders…perhaps even heavier than the rest.

Bartolo Baresi was the best man Diego had ever known. Diego had loved his parents, but they had been children of privilege and acted as such. They had believed, and led him and his sister to believe, they could have anything and everything they wanted the moment they wanted it. They had loved their family, but he did not know that they’d had much selflessness in them. Much…care. If he or Aurora had not behaved the way his parents expected, they had been…difficult. So difficult, Diego had learned that the best course of action was to stay away.

But Bartolo had always been a link back to them, back to the Folliero legacy, back to some potential better version of himself. Bartolo Baresi had embodied both careandselflessness.

And it was the lack of everything in Diego that had caused a good man to die. Diego’s family to die. They had all waited for him on that increasingly icy tarmac. They had believed he would come. He hadtoldthem he could come.

He’d been drunk and careless in Madrid.

They’d taken off too late.